Painted Bride Quarterly’s Slush Pile: Recent Episodes
Painted Bride Quarterly
Take a seat at Painted Bride Quarterly’s editorial table as we discuss submissions, editorial issues, writing, deadlines, and cuckoo clocks.
Hello, Slushies! We hope you’re keeping cool out there. In this encore episode, KVM rhapsodizes about the joy of a sandwich made with a perfect summer tomato. And Jason shares his astute thoughts on the nature of motherhood. Join in while the panel takes on three poems from poet Sarah Elkins. And thanks, as always for listening.
Are you ready to get primal, Slushies? We look at poems of birth and mothering that call on the senses as they shift between what’s animal and what’s human in us. Kathy celebrates the pure, messy pleasure of a classic tomato sandwich and Jason reminds us why an irregular opening line can be the hook a poem needs, while we all marvel at a poem’s ability to dazzle us with changing perspectives, locations, and personas. Oh, and strong titles get some much deserved love too.
This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, and Dagne Forrest
Sarah Elkins is a poet, teacher, and reader. Sarah earned a BA with majors in English & Philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and an MFA in Poetry from Pacific University. Sarah is the director of the West Virginia Interscholastic Cycling League where she works to get more kids on bikes. She and her husband, Max, own & operate Hammer Cycles bike shop in Lewisburg, WV.
Author website: https://www.sarahelkins.com/
BirthingThe summer before my son was born, I ate tomato sandwiches
with mayonnaise, salt and pepper.
The rain was so heavy in June, the fruit
swelled on the vines and their skins ripped.
I took big bites holding thick bread with two hands,
pink rainwater running down both forearms
to my elbows—everything reduced, then,
to hunger. At night, curled on my side
in the un-airconditioned dark
I dreamt of big cats’ razor tongues
dragging the length of my back,
saber teeth at my throat, not tearing
the skin but feeling for pulse,
their muscled hips coaxing me
into the sweaty delirium of my final weeks.
The cats returned every night until
twenty-six hours before I howled him into being,
I opened. All the rain of June, and July
leaving me for the hardwood floor
where I crouched on all fours looking
for flecks of vernix, tasting my wet fingers,
sniffing the sweet water for signs it was time.
The cats slunk away until now, eating
this tomato sandwich, my first in twelve years—
I recall I was a panther once.
From the Tall GrassI floss at night after steak and butter.
My house: unguarded range, bison huffing,
ice-faced, hooves stamping an echo stutter.
I do nothing in this boundless nothing.
No thought, no synapse firing. Still hands still
stained—berry juice of an empty morning.
This room-less space, a translucent thin will
through which I, good sow, whiff my boy’s homing.
His trek complete, except for the recount—
bighorn sheep, bull moose, near miss, eagle plume.
I toss one sleek mink to the catamount.
The grass lies down; walls rise around my room.
Ursa fades. A house cat lurks in willow.
I sip gin, smooth the pelt of my pillows.
Greetings, Slushies! We’re here with an encore episode today, one we chose for its excellent exploration of craft, including a discussion about the golden shovel and the definition of ambiguity. Listen in for that and for two poems from poet Marko Capoferri. Enjoy. Thanks, as always, for listening.
How do you pronounce “San Gorgonio,” Slushies? How do you say “Schuylkill?” We talk regional accents, local knowledge, and artistic craft-- from the risks of the pathetic fallacy to the unknowability of metaphor, the art of ambiguity, and, of course, the golden shovel. Join us for an episode devoted to poems by Marko Capoferri where we discuss poetic craft, resonant symbols, and the peculiar power of telephone poles.
What can’t you pronounce where you live?
Links to things we discuss that you may dig:
Eula Biss’s “Time and Distance Overcome”
Jennifer L. Knox’s “Irwin Allen Vs. The Lion Tamer”
At the table: Katheleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, Larissa Morgano & Kate Wagner
This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
Marko Capoferri is a poet, musician, and former conservation worker. He has lived and worked in eight US states, including Montana, where he has lived since 2015. He received an MFA in poetry from the University of Montana in Missoula. His work has appeared in The Shore, Painted Bride Quarterly, Porter House Review, and elsewhere.
Instagram: Instagram.com/markocapoferri
Two more recent publications:
https://www.stoneboatwi.com/issue-14-2/capoferri
https://sequestrum.org/contributor-spotlight-marko-capoferri
San Gorgonio
White paper coffee cups collect in drifts
by the freeway exit ramp—the hearts of ghosts
once held tight then tossed out the window
of a car speeding across the desert at four a.m.
trying to stay awake to see, when the light
came back, what the battered face of the land
could tell us about ourselves: how the mountains
were stark and risen; how we were sunk dumb
in between, a scathing plain of wind turbines
resonating unearthly as Amelia Earhart's flooded engines
chugging their final gasp on the ocean floor;
how the sea was here once and swallowed heights,
long since yawned and pulled away paving
this desert with a tired yellow dirt now blown
through our teeth, through our beating pistons,
and a few black rounded stones as souvenirs
from lost time; how thistle-studded towns
were hardly refuge; how the many stones
we had gathered were bright and jagged,
too young by design to tell any real story;
how lust and lost became an exchange in glances
through a motel’s cracked facade; how these roads
kept on dressing down like lightning on a postcard
running fingers in the hot mouth of experience.
Self-portrait with Elegy
Just like we were on the Great Plains
in 1949, my father and I would gather
summer nights with neighbors
lining our country road to watch
constellations disbanding. Whether tragedy
or a tragic lack of imagination, it’s hard
to say—he and I simply could not see
any threads or their severing. Then,
as now, telephone wires also lined the road
linking the night one lighted island
at a time, though the wires are now dead
gestures, props to a faded empire
of distant voices made close but never
close enough to turn that light
into warmth. What’s left—sinking
into my own humidity, my own
expanse of darkness, and he
to his own. As you read this
it is surely a summer night some place
the land extends forever
until it gives up where the visible
begins to visibly waver, either
from the heat or from the failure
of the possibilities of sight.
Greetings, Slushies! Today’s encore edition features special guest editor, the Pulitzer Prize winning poet Gregory Pardlo. His most recent collection is called “Spectral Evidence.” Listen along to the discussion of two poems from Daniel Biegelson which were ultimately included in his book “Of Being Neighbors” from Ricochet Editions. Thanks, as always, for listening!
On this week’s episode of the Slush Pile, we review two prose poems by the author Daniel Biegelson labeled “Neighbors III” and “Neighbors IV”. Kathleen and the gang welcome Pulitzer Prize winner Gregory Pardlo to the editorial table for this very exciting iteration of the podcast. Everyone was intrigued to delve into the works Daniel Biegelson provided for us and were quite pleased to find that they offered interesting conversation.
Daniel Biegelson is the author of the chapbook Only the Borrowed Light (VERSE) and Director of the Visiting Writers Series at Northwest Missouri State University. An Associate Editor for The Laurel Review, his poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from Cream City Review, Denver Quarterly, DIAGRAM, FIELD, Meridian, Salt Hill Journal, & Third Coast, among other places. He hails from New Jersey—a fact that means more to him than it probably should.
Did these poets survive the gauntlet? Listen on to find out!
Let us know what you think about these three poems and this episode on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook with #HelloNeighbor
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Tim Fitts
Samantha Neugebauer
Jason Schneiderman
Engineering Producer:
Joe Zang
Derek Grebis
Daniel Biegelson
Neighbors (II)
Replace Glass Heart with Scalpel. Call for rain. Glisten. Close up. Magnify a leaf until the drop brims with color. Replace leaf with wind. Every June we lose limbs to straight line winds—elm, maple, oak, ash, etc., etc. They come knocking at night. Redact redundancy. Extinguish the list. Insert space. Remove the catalog. Remove, stack, and mulch the dead wood. Map my internal geography. I am a bowl of cold plums. I am a body of words in uproar and otherwise. Replace words with birds. Fill a tree. Take your pick. Redact free will. Replace map with mine. Relieve the workers. Every day we leave labor(s) behind. Exchange labor(s) with neighbor(s).The dark soil laced with slim roots swells and subsides beneath us. As the tide. Breathing. Who are you. Extinguish the implicit. We are the answer. Some of us are no longer breathing. I am used to defending the singularity of our experiences, but grow concerned about reducing the dead to their individuality. Redact redeem. We linger longer in blue light. We are not what we say or do.
Neighbors (III)
Replace dog with brother. Take walks on burnt grass and return under treeless sky. Exchange directives for best practices. Practice your run along the fence line. Monarchs carry on along the highways lined with causal wildflowers. Extinguish your sense of silence. You let your dog shit in my yard. The ocean levels rise. Mortgage rates rise. Don’t pretend to love one another. Turn your predatory beak. Redact the brackish ocean. Turn it black and red. Exchange ocean for consumption. Predatory lending of labor. Be still. We are the colony of bees in collapse and also the tractor trailer stocked with hives and the long driver on the CB radio and the farmers waiting for pollinators. See the red dust clouds rolling. See the black clouds closing. A tongue over a top lip. Bite hard and rain. Extinguish the dog barking. Redact the self. Exchange dog for children. Barking for howling. There is a wall beyond which our labor persists without us and we don’t dare to look. Replace words with words. Yours or mine. We don’t act upon what we see. Redact the sea. We are the murmurations leafing out over the highway. Pouring over the sky. We suffer decentered as we imagine stone. Human again. We don’t know each other at all.
For this Slush Pile encore, we’re going WAY back to our first season where we revisit an episode featuring poems by Laura McCullough. McCullough has a collection forthcoming from Cornerstone Press called “The Collection Jar.” This episode also features the poet Jennifer L. Knox as a guest editor. Her most recent book is “Crushing It” from Copper Canyon Press. We hope you enjoy this look back into the archive.
In this podcast, we discuss three of Laura McCullough’s poems. The box score above is the spoiler alert: though today’s podcast crew spanned from the east coast to Iowa, included an undergrad and people who’ve done this work of editing for more than two decades, we were unanimously enamored of all three poems.
Welcome to Episode 11 of PBQ’s Slush Pile! In this podcast, we discuss three of Laura McCullough’s poems. The box score above is the spoiler alert: though today’s podcast crew spanned from the east coast to Iowa, included an undergrad and people who’ve done this work of editing for more than two decades, we were unanimously enamored of all three poems.
“Leafless” moved us and took us on a journey that also spanned decades. “Reclaimed Wood” told a tale we only want even more of, and “Maggot Therapy” simply left us thunderstruck. Read along and listen in—these poems are even more breathtaking aloud.
She hates the word feminist and she’s no stranger to PBQ! Laura McCullough is an award-winning poet with six (!) poetry collections which include her most recent, Jersey Mercy, which narrates the lives of two people affected by Hurricane Sandy. Watch a brief interview after her first book or watch part of a reading from this past spring. Check out more of her work on her website.
The fact that we were going to discuss Laura’s work and we’ve known her for years, spurred us to invite Jennifer L. Knox to join us for this episode, as Jennifer fits a similar profile: she’s a poet whose work we admire and the added bonus—we can call her a friend.
We discussed the conundrum many of us find ourselves in—how difficult is it to be a poet who wants to send work to journals she loves and respects, but whose editors she knows well. No one wants to be published out of obligation or to put her friend in an awkward position. The flip side is just as bad: no editor takes pleasure out of rejecting anyone, let alone a friend. Our discussion focused on social ties and aesthetic taste—or, as Jennifer put it, discerning the “heart-to-brains-to-balls ratio” of any given magazine or press in order to find the right home for your work. Listen in as we explore our practices, then chime in on our FB event page and share your own.
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Read on!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Jason Schneiderman
Alexa Josaphouitch
Tim Fitts
Jennifer Knox
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
PBQ Box Score: 3:0
Laura McCulloughLeafless
In the end, my mother’s shoulders, barely covered and quivering, were like birds. Once, I made a dress for her, the fabric creamy white, the print a single brown tree spanning the width, with stark branches. It was 1974. I was fourteen. Each night, I taught myself to sew, feedingthe fabric through the foot, thinking how surprised she would be. I remember seeing her in it, how we’d both loved the gesture, the achievement, and though it fit poorly, the print was enough for us. She wore it once and never again, let me see her walk out the door in it. Maybelove’s architecture is exposed when we try and fail at what we mean. Outside the hospital, winter had flayed everything, the trees charcoaled against the sky, their shadows thumb smudges on the institutional snow hid lawn, and inside the air was redolent of shit, flowers, and chlorine. The first time I changed her clothes, peeling back from her shoulders the blue flecked cotton gown, then sliding a clean pink one up her arms, we held each other in the oily light, spent.Reclaimed WoodI confess now I have begun to henna my red hair gone dull in parts and penny bright in others. And I always tried to subdue its wildness. But when the hull of our marriage busted rock and began to leak, we both thought it was a good idea to renovate the kitchen, together, by ourselves. We closed up the hall to the back rooms to create more privacy and took down a load- bearing wall in hoped of opening the “flow.” My husband looked like Christ hauling the salvaged timbers from a warehouse deep in the Piney woods one by one up the front stoop, laying them in our suburban living room, posing as a Brooklyn loft. We framed the new wide space: one as header, two as column braces, then sat on the floor cross-legged looking at our work in progress, the way the wood had aged, the colors and striations, notches and hammered pegs. We felt our fifties ranch had a new story now, something with weight, and we held hands a little while before getting up, heading to the shower, falling back into our routine. Maggot Therapy Near death, sometimes the hands curve into themselves like claws. I held my mother’s open, smoothing the fingers, trimming the wild nails. Once, years before, my husband and I awoke to a fawn caught in the family compost, a hole on its back end festering with worms, and he pinched each one out swiping his little finger in the bowl of the wound, then coating it with antibiotic salve. I loved him, and how he saved this small thing. It’s a story I have told over and over. Today though, I’m thinking of the medical uses for maggots: biodebridement and extracorporeal digestion, their enzymes liquefying dead tissue in wounds, and wonder, do I feed off the dead who live inside me? When my mother was dying, she had a vision of her non-corporeal father, brothers, sisters. Her last words, Why have you left me alone? She never opened her eyes again, her chest a drowning well. The bodily signs of death: the skin mottling as blood flow slows; breathing, open mouthed; jaw, unhinged. I won’t recount the signs of a dying marriage, but he left two days after her funeral. Physically, he returned but told me he’d fallen in love with someone else, that his love for me had passed. Above my mother’s body, orange mist had exhaled and dispersed, a light bulb busted open, its luminescent gas escaping. The word fluorescent is so similar to the word florescence, meaning flowering, and somewhere between these two, there is a splendor I can barely stand. Inflorescence refers to flowers clustering on one branch, each a separate floret, but if they are tightly clustered as in the dandelion seed head, they look incomplete alone, though the whole is an illusion. The word for this—pseudanthium—means “false flower.” Infrutescence, its fruiting stage, gives us grapes, ears of corn, stalks of wheat, so many of the berries we love. This morning my hands ache as though in the night I’d been trying to claw my way out of a hole I am down in, having lost the body I came into this world through, and my husband’s as well. It’s almost as if my body had come to believe his was a part of its own, a connection he would have to break or die. Medical experts say it takes two moltings for maggots to do the job well, to feed enough to clean a wound. I do not feel clean at all, though in our shower, my husband and I still huddle some days, hunched into the spray. We call it watering. When we do, we scrub each other, grateful for the living, dying flesh, but trying to get clean of each other. That fawn he saved way back when we were new in love was released into the wild. Surely, it had a scar identifying it, evidence of what flesh my husband was willing to enter in order to keep something alive. Lately, he seems more clear-eyed, and it is as if a cicatrix husk is cracking. Neither of us know who will emerge, but he seems luminescent, a kind of light created by the excitation of the smallest elements, and not giving off warmth, but a cold glow that at least illuminates.
We're bringing back favorite episodes over the summer as encore editions. Since this episode first aired, poet Jen Siraganian won the 2026 Perugia Press Prize for her debut collection "Everything Has Been Moved, Even the Dead," which is forthcoming in September 2026. Congratulations, Jen!
Slushies, we invoke the retelling of a ghostly experience shared by Kathy and Marion at the Hotel Figueroa in California earlier this year partway into this episode. Two poems by Jen Siraganian are at the heart of our discussion, and it’s the first of these that puts ghosts into our heads. This poem also causes us to consider at some length the physical form chosen by or for a poem, and how this can utterly enhance the experience of the poem when it’s just right. It’s also an opportunity for Jason to raise the spectre of the virgule (or slash) once again, and we even pause briefly to recall when WYSIWYG was a useful acronym. We end the episode with an ekphrastic that prompts an on-the-spot tie breaker (thanks to our sound engineer Lillie for saving the day!).
https://whitney.org/collection/works/2171
https://www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/gorky-the-artist-and-his-mother.html
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Lisa Zerkle, Jason Schneiderman, Dagne Forrest, Jodi Gahn, Derek Grebis (sound engineer)
Jen Siraganian is an Armenian-American writer, educator, and former Poet Laureate of Los Gatos, California. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in AGNI, Barrow Street, Best New Poets, Cortland Review, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, Smartish Pace, and other journals. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and won the 2024 New Ohio Review Poetry Prize. A former managing director of Litquake: San Francisco’s Literary Festival, she is a current Lucas Artist Fellow. jensiraganian.com
Social media handles:
Facebook @jen.siraganian, Instagram @jsiraganian, Bluesky @jsiraganian.bsky.social, Website
Walking into St. James Cathedral as If We Were Already Ghosts
My Father and I View Two Versions of Arshile Gorky’s The Artist and his Mother
Lip corners sink, an upturned bowl
dripping its contents onto the white
of her dress. Her eyes, Armenian saucers
of round, outline hollows of darkness.
Sharing color only, no overlap of limbs
or space, shades of pink echo his coat,
her lap, a paleness descends. My father
nudges my elbow. He seldom mentions
his mothers, the one who raised him,
the other who gave him away. I want him
to discuss the lack of daisies in the boy’s hands,
the mother’s face swaddled in a cocoon of scarf.
Instead, he stands, cloud-drifts across the gallery.
We bench in front of The Liver is the Cock’s Comb.
He points to the ferns feuding with triangles,
the thorned stems breathing blossom.
This last episode before summer has us dreaming of the beach, Slushies—watching moonlight on the waves, reading novels in the sand. But not before we share this packed episode with you. Today we welcome special guest, Daniel Kuriakose, to hear about “The Common Well,” the literary journal he’s relaunching alongside K Hank Jost. Daniel sticks around for our discussion of two poems by Mara Lee Grayson.
We admire the duality on display in the first poem’s back and forth-ness which has us pondering the undulation of its syntax. The late reveal of whom the lyric speaker addresses is satisfying surprise. A clever turn of phrase sends the more seasoned members of the team straight to this 90’s Divinyls’ song. The way enjambment revises meaning after a line break in both of these poems reminds Jason of Heather McHugh’s poetry. And ultimately Kathy bring us back to the two questions we ask of every submission: do you want to stay with the poem and do you want to share it? Join us in sharing our deep thanks for two members of our staff who are with us for the final time: Reese, our co-op, and Lillie, our sound engineer. Best of luck to your both in the future. Thank you, Reese! Thank you, Lillie! Over the summer, keep tuning in for a retrospective with deep cuts from our archive. Thanks, as always, for listening!
At the table: Dagne Forrest, Tobi Kassim, Daniel Kuriakose (special guest from “A Common Well”), Reese Pfunder, Jason Schneiderman, Kathleen Volk Miller, Lisa Zerkle, Lillie Volpe (sound engineer), Derek Grebis (sound engineer)
Author Bio: Mara Lee Grayson’s poetry has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Tampa Review, and Nimrod, among other literary journals, and has been nominated multiple times for the Best of the Net and Pushcart Prizes. Grayson is the author or editor of five books of nonfiction. She holds an MFA from The City College of New York and a PhD from Columbia University and was previously a tenured professor in the California State University system. Originally from Brooklyn, New York, she currently resides in New Jersey.
Social media: @maraleegrayson
Website: maragrayson.com
She Winds Her Stems through Fire for Burning Leaves Fend Off the Grief of Being Mowed
On the trampoline, young boys next door
bounce while inside, their mothers
debate wine or coffee. Another weekend
when the county’s on emergency alert.
For now, bees land on dogwood flowers,
robins nest in tall trees
planted by the prior owners,
and my husband’s on his knees out back
for hours, pulling branches from hydrangeas
I have neither time nor thumb
to nurture back to life. He’s learned a lot
in efforts to identify the colony of ants
that sent a scout across our deck, through
the side door to a cat food bowl,
like what distinguishes Bumblebee
from Carpenter (they look the same,
the bumble fuzzier). A million years
of evolution, the male bee
still hovers in one place, waiting
for a female to fly by. I fold laundry
then look up which buds bloomed
in 17th Century Versailles. (You’d guess
invasive species but, unironically,
it’s narcissus and orange blossoms.)
For years, I worshipped palms
on the other side of the Continental Divide,
like I was replanted, like new soil
could change the nature of the seed.
I looked for lightning and caught language
in my mouth. I dreamed of blooms,
then woke up in the desert,
staring at a mountain, believed to be
an imprint of ancient gods whose voices
echoed off the surface of the earth.
The nervous system replicates in utero,
its fight or flight part predetermined,
part piano keys the brain may tap. Healing,
says the therapist, happens in the pendulation.
Insects bounce along the glass as children,
mothers sip merlot in coffee mugs,
and the man I married after you
tans wrist to elbow, scratching up his forearms
rending dead wood stems. It’s sticky business,
caught between my lush, infertile soil and flirting
with the bees, he knows that when I think about you,
I touch my self-concept on the page.
What the Fortune Teller Tells Me on the Night I Leave California
The Channel Islands will one day rise up
in the distance like a resurrected poet
high on mescaline and memories
of pretty women. You will or won’t
learn how to tunnel through a prison
of the mind. When the wind picks up, she says
she was awoken by the rumble of a saw
told so many times it must be true.
You might as well
drive six years backward, park beside a pool
in west New Jersey.
I think she means
beginnings are like endings: eyelid work,
a neuron matter, not ontology or god.
To transit is to navigate the synapses,
trade one water for another,
every body’s chemistry the same
except for how the furniture’s arranged,
which pieces we keep secret from ourselves.
She eschews the label hypocrite,
calls herself a hippopotamus instead.
Oh, she’s drinking like a river now,
but can you honestly say you’ve never felt
a kinship for a living being who could crush you
and the glass of bourbon in your hand?
Maybe when you were a child, your father
chalked equations on a dusty blackboard.
Your height in centimeters
is your adolescent telephone number
divided by the times your mother screamed
bringing you into this world.
Our slushies who use Apple for podcasts missed out on Episode #155 and no one can tell us why—including Apple! So here she is again! Have fun and go to pbqmag.org for notes!
Kathy puts the kibosh on our introductory weather ramblings, Slushies. Instead we’re sharing what makes us grateful. Seems like, with our combined love of coffee, we’re keeping the baristas in business. Aside from java, Tobi’s thankful for poetry podcasts (not just ours), including Poem Talk from Penn Sound. Lisa’s grateful for the public library that gives her free access to novels like The Copywriter by Daniel Poppick. Eric appreciates his students. And we reveal the secret behind why we’re not on YouTube. Of course we’re thankful to YOU for listening, Slushies, and to the writers who allow us to discuss their work, like today’s featured poet, Sarah Brockhaus.
In the first poem, “Still Here,” Eric notes the honest intertwining of the writing and teaching life. And Tobi remarks how the flexible nature of the English language, with its ability to shift nouns into verbs, is on display in the poem. The poem’s nimble leaps reminds Jason of Richard Siken’s valuable advice to “focus less on the lyric leap and more on the lyric landing.” The second poem challenges us with its frequent use of enjambment and caesura, but the ratio of challenge to pleasure is high. We end with Jason’s sage advice on how to structure a submission. Thanks, as always, for listening, Slushies!
At the table: Eric Baker, Tobi Kassim, Jason Schneiderman, Kathleen Volk Miller, Lisa Zerkle, Lillie Volpe (Sound Engineer)
Author Bio:
Sarah Brockhaus is an MFA student at Louisiana State University. She is a co-editor of The Shore Poetry. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize and her poems are published or forthcoming in Guernica, The National Poetry Review, American Literary Review, The Greensboro Review and elsewhere.
Website: sarahbrockhaus.com
Social Media:
Instagram: @sarahb._23
Blue Sky: scbrock.bsky.social
Still Here
I try to teach
my students to exist outside
themselves and they email about double
spacing and panic apologize for 12:01 submissions
and I want to see them and say we’re real
people, all of us, we’re real. Do you see? But I stare
at my wall for hours and it means nothing. I’ve been losing
things in dreams, each shape afterimages on my lids
and I can’t see the space around enough
to place them. Perhaps there never was
a hairbrush, a magnet in the shape
of Louisiana, a letter written springs ago. Fingers trace
the handwriting by heart like revision,
same stories and script but the wrong
heart. I’m translating farther and farther
from the origin. My nails grow too long. I imagine
myself bodiless, avoid reflections. I hold still
and myself.
There are eight taxidermied ducklings
at the craft fair. So like life and so
still. I want to break
them from the cage, find a way
for their bodies
to hold again.
Phonagnosia
A wasp taps again against
the window. I imagine the hollow
clunk communicating other causes: an acorn
slouching from a branch into a pool. A man’s
head, drunk, hitting the wall lullabically, my hand
slid into the space between skin and cinder
-block, how one might protect a baby’s soft
skull from a corner. I try to tell the wasp I am not
home and everything from my body sounds
human. To sleep I make lists on the uselessness
of language: the phrase how are you? and how your
doing well is a wall I trace my own name
on like tally marks, how the sea swallows
song and estranges it, how without air I am voice
-less, how I haven’t trained my ear to echo locate,
and can’t even vibrate some signal through a pane
of glass, can’t replay what you said years ago in any voice
but the one inside me, that won’t go, won’t sound
like anyone I know.
Episode 143: Do They Still Have Bulletin Boards?
Our discussion of Alyx Chandler’s poems has us considering the liminal space between girlhood and womanhood, summer and fall, print and digital cultures, good bug and bad, Slushies. With these poems, we’re swooning over summer’s lushness, marveling over kudzu’s inexorable march, and thinking back to steamy afternoons running through sprinklers with skinned knees. Set at the end of girlhood, these poems makes us think of the Melissa Febos book of the same name. Jason is charmed by the poet’s hypotactic syntax and her control of the line. Be sure to take a look at the poems’ format at PBQmag.org.
As our own summers wrap up, Lisa saves monarch caterpillars while Sam smushes lantern flies. Kathy shares her new secret for a solid eight hours of sleep. Looking to the future, we’re celebrating forthcoming chapbooks and books. Dagne’s chapbook “Falldown Lane” from Whittle, Jason’s book “Teaching Writing Through Poetry,” and Kathy’s “Teaching Writing Through Journaling,” both from a new series Kathy is editing at Bloomsbury. As always, thanks for listening.
At the table: Dagne Forrest, Samantha Neugebauer, Jason Schneiderman, Kathleen Volk Miller, Lisa Zerkle
Author bio: Alyx Chandler (she/her) is a poet from the South who now teaches in Chicago. She received her MFA in poetry at the University of Montana, where she was a Richard Hugo Fellow and taught poetry. In 2025, she won the Three Sisters Award in Poetry with Nelle Literary Journal, received a Creative Catalyst grant from the Illinois Arts Council, and was awarded for residencies at Ragdale and Taleamor Park. She is a poet in residence at the Chicago Poetry Center and facilitates workshops for incarcerated youth with Free Verse Writing Project. Her poetry can be found in the Southern Poetry Anthology, EPOCH, Greensboro Review, and elsewhere.
Author website: alyxchandler.com
Instagram @alyxabc
Love Affair with a Sprinkler
I’ve only got
so many days
left to wet this face
to rouse enough
growl to go back
where I came from
to build a backbone
hard as sheet metal
from the engine of
dad’s favorite truck
the one I can
never remember
though it carried me
everywhere I needed to go
and of course
where I didn’t
short-shorts trespassing
abandoned kudzu homes
scraped legs inching
up water towers
creeping down stone
church rooftops
girlhood a fresh-cut lawn
where secrets coiled
like a water hose
stuck in kinks
spouting knots
writhing in grass
begging to spit at
every pepperplant
sate all thirst
I want to drown
to be snake-hearted
again my stride full
of spunk and gall
half-naked in an
embrace with the
spray of irrigation jets
their cold drenching
my kid-body good
and sopping-wet
in hose-water rivulets
under its pressure
I shed regret
molt sunburn
squeal hallelujah
in a hot spell—
such a sweet relief
I’d somehow
after so many years
forgotten.
Once I Lived in a Town
where grocery stores dispensed
ammunition from automated machines,
all you needed was an ID and license,
the sign advertised, but there are ways
around that, a cashier told me, snuff a bulge
half-cocked in his cheek. But my target?
The choose-your-own-adventure
bulletin board. If you were brave,
you’d let someguy named John shoot
you withtheir dad’s old Nikon film
camera. Girls only. No tattoos, the ink of
the red-letteredflyer bled. Those days
I craved someone—anyone—to lock
and load my rough-hewn beauty like
a cold weapon. Ripen the fruit of
my teenage face. Save me. Instead I
washed the ad in my too-tight jeans,
let it dye my pocket grapefruit pink.
Once I lived in a town where daily I
wore a necklace with a dragonfly wing
cured in resin, gifted from a lover,
a lifelong bug hater. Love can live in
the crevice of disgust, I found, but
lost it within the swaths of poison oak
where I shot my first bullet into wide-
open sky and felt death echo its curious
desire, automatic as the gun’s kickback.
My legs mottled in pocked rash. Then a
hole I didn’t know existed. A souring.
Bitter and salt the only taste craved,
a rotten smell in the fried fatback I ate.
Once I lived in a town where the first
boy I kissed in the wreathed doorway
of my childhood home left Earth too
soon from a single shot. I can’t ask: is
this what the military taught him? I only
know the cruel way high school relationships
end, 5-word text then never again. His fine-
line dragon doodles and i-love-you notes
still in my Converse shoe box in an attic,
twelve years untouched. I once lived in
a town where obits never contained
the word “suicide”—everyone is a child
of Christ, and I mean everyone, our pastor
used to say, a joke staining his sincerity.
God, how I undercompensate, use safety
pins for my grief when I need weapons-grade
resistance, a cast-iron heart. Once I lived
in a town where I found a primed handgun
under the bed of a boy I cheated with.
Delirious, I buried it in a dumpster until
he cried that it was his great-grandfather’s,
an heirloom he couldn’t forget or forgive
and after that I never saw him again. I didn’t
have the language to ask him what I needed
to know, Prozac newly wired in my brain,
a secret I could barely contain. Once I
crushed my trigger finger between the
door of who I wanted to be and who
I actually was; I let that town press me
like a camellia between a book, inadequate
as a cartoon-decorated band aid trying to
stop the blood flow from a near-miss bullet.
The Brooder
beneath nest boxes a squawk sinks out
so docile it turns me over both startles and
settles me this sudden birdbrain
how domestication is a brawl
inside me: the cockatrice
papering my chicken heart with pockets of wire
I peel back its cuticle remove the bloom
to clean the coop
and find a little yolkless moon
an eyeball I push open and memorize
then chuck over my roof
until a hen digs a crack with her beak
breaks speckled curtains
of turquoise consumes her newest creation
without pity or
pause
While our team is on a brief recording hiatus, we’re sharing another encore episode from the Slush Pile archive. This one is from late 2017 and found Jason still in his bathrobe. Nick Lantz published a new collection of poetry in 2024 “The End of Everything and Everything That Comes after That”, and we love an opportunity to celebrate our past authors. Sidle up to our virtual editorial table and take a listen to an episode that considers three poems by Nick Lantz.
In this episode, the editors review three poems by Nick Lantz: “An Urn for Ashes,” “Starvation Ranch,” and “Ghost as Naked Man.” As a child, Nick Lantz was obsessed with paranormal phenomenon and the unexplained, from cryptids to aliens to ghosts…
Present at the Editorial Table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Tim Fitts, Sharee DeVose, Jason Schneiderman, Marion Wrenn, Samantha Neugebauer, Joe Zang (Production Engineer)
For the first and possibly only time, we were in a recording studio within Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business, which made us feel like we were on an episode of The View. This week, the editors review three poems by Nick Lantz: “An Urn for Ashes,” “Starvation Ranch,” and “Ghost as Naked Man.”
As a child, Nick Lantz was obsessed with paranormal phenomenon and the unexplained, from cryptids to aliens to ghosts. These days, he tells people he’s writing a book of poems about ghosts, though that’s only sort of true. His fourth book, You, Beast, won the Brittingham Prize and was published by University of Wisconsin Press in 2017. He was also the recipient of a 2017 NEA fellowship for his poetry. He lives in Huntsville, Texas, where he teaches at Sam Houston State University and edits the Texas Review.
“An Urn for Ashes” gets us started off on our a conversation on past lives and reincarnation. Lantz’s impressive use of language and imagery draws up ideas of present beings possessing remnants of those far in the past. Moving on to “Starvation Ranch,” the editors reflect on what memory and recollection look like in the modern era. The poem layers alluring images that are beautifully constructed and give us a front seat in recounting many summers past. The final poem, “Ghost as Naked Man” offers a reimagined commentary on gender as a social construct. Seemingly in conversation with other works on the topic, the poem conveys frustration and destruction, then pride, as expressions of manhood. It also brings to mind Ada Limón’s “After the Storm,” published in Issue 66 of Painted Bride Quarterly. Listen in for our takes on these poems and the verdicts!
An Urn for AshesThe atoms that made up
Julius Caesar’s body,
burned on a pyre,
spread by wind and time,
have since dispersed
far and wide,
and statistically speaking
you have in you
some infinitesimal bit
of carbon or hydrogen
from his hand or tongue,
or maybe some piece
of the foot that, crossing
a river, turned a republic
into an empire.
But that means you
carry with you also
the unnamed dead,
the serfs and farmers,
foot soldiers and clerks,
and their sandals
and the axles of chariots
and incense burned
at an altar and garbage
smoking in a pit outside
a great city at the center
of an empire, that you
are a vessel carrying
the ashes of many empires
and the ashes of people
burned away by empires,
their sweet, unheard melodies.
And look how finely wrought
you are, how precise
your features, your very form
a kind of ceremony
for transporting the dead
through the living world.
Starvation RanchFrank Hite, my mother’s father’s mother’s father, named his farm Starvation Ranch, and one July, I balanced high on a ladder to repaint those white letters on the same red barnwhere they’ve been for a hundred years.But that summer is a sketch, a notewritten in the margin of a book I gave away. I shot rabbits and learnedto drive and listened to the same Lou Reed tape on loopin the upper bedroom of my family’s farmhouse. In a closet I found my grandmother’s high school yearbookin which she had crossed out the name of each classmatewho had died. I learned there are three kindsof garbage— the kind that goes in the compost heap to feed the garden that grows the peppers and the corn, the kind that goes in the ditch to feed the coyotes who howl at night, the kind that goes in an old oil drum to burnI learned to love the indentation my grandmother’s pencilleft in the paper over a name, like the tally marksI carved into a tree for each rabbit I shot.I learned that a stone arrowhead, takenfrom a newly plowed field that has held itfor hundreds of years is still sharp enough to cut my palm. I learned to love the hiss of silence on the tape after a song ended, the sound of timelike the susurrus of insects at dusk, like a broomwhisking cleanthe floor of some upper room. I learned how to walk the perimeter of the house and feel in the grassthe edges of the old foundation, a version of house that burned, that disappeared, that was rewritten,and I learned how to walk farther outinto the pastures, to spot the earthen moundsleft behind by people who remain onlyin names of rivers and country roads.That was one summer. Decadeslater, I learned that the barn I painted was noteven the original, which had been replaced, board by beam,years before.And I learned that barns are red because red paintis cheap because ironis abundant because dying stars sighed iron atoms into spaceand those atoms gathered hereon earth, became the earth,became blood and arrowheadsand steel girders holding up towers and the red paint of barns. Ghost as Naked Man “Gender is a kind of imitation of which there is no original.”—Judith ButlerTake away his beard, his hairy flanks.Lick your thumb and smear offhis Adam’s apple. Lift away his penislike a live bomb, and bury itunder a mountain. Hide the testiclesbehind a broad leaf. But look, he still goes around townpointing at things he wantsand moaning, rattling his imaginarychains. Every time he sees his reflectionin a shop window, he cuts a thumband with the blood paints over gapsin his shimmering reflection.Then he takes a brick and breaksthe glass. There, he says,look what I made.
Summer scrambled us, Slushies, from UAE to North Carolina, from D.C. to Scotland and back, from North Carolina to New York City, and to Philly, of course. Phew! Sam has just returned after a month-long residency through the Hawthornden Foundation in Scotland in an actual castle where she worked on her novel. The crew came together on Zoom to discuss two poems by Elvira Basevich, “Beautiful Girls” and “Pallas Athena”. The first poem transports Kathy and Marion to their teenage days on the Jersey shore. For Marion, the ending of the poem with its Beauty in the bathroom mirror, recalls the energy of Ada Limón’s “How to Triumph like a Girl”.
The discussion of “Pallas Athena” notes the poem’s foresight to mark a memory as it’s made, which sends Marion to Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey and has Lisa mis-marking that poem as the one with daffodils. Imagining the future while in the past also reminds Marion of André Aciman’s discussion of arbitrage and Tintern Abbey in the New Yorker. We talk about endings, Slushies, and how hard it is to nail the dismount. Last but not least, we celebrate the release of Marion’s new book of poems, Gladiola Girls, with a group photo. Be sure to check out the picture to peep how Kathy’s chrome manicure matches the book’s color scheme.
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Samantha Neugebauer, Lisa Zerkle, and Sebastian Rametta (sound engineer)
Elvira Basevich is assistant professor of philosophy at University of California, Davis. Her first poetry collection, How to Love the World (Pank 2020), was shortlisted for the National Jewish Book Award. Her poems have recently appeared in Pleiades, On the Seawall, Diode, & The Laurel Review. Lately, she’s been writing a lot about her father who returned to Russia years ago without saying goodbye.
Website: www.elvirabasevich.com
Instagram: @elvirabasevich
BEAUTIFUL GIRLS
I used to line up with teenage girls on the boardwalk
like oysters on the half shell. We kissed each other
for practice. We guessed how much nakedness we
could fit inside our mouths, swallow whole or spit out.
These are some of my best memories. Sitting on
lifeguard chairs till dusk talking about life.
Dates, gulls, the milky surf came to us, but they
had to climb a ladder to our perch. Bring an offering
of beer and cigarettes. Even then, we admitted few.
Our bodies were a salvation then, a cause for celebration,
something new to smell and taste and touch every
morning, the threshold of a pagan’s afterlife:
an all-you-can-eat buffet of physical pleasures. All these
years later, even without the hours of applying makeup
in the bathroom mirror, matching mesh crop tops
to low risers, taking selfies, I feel so beautiful.
I don’t mean that metaphorically, as in Plato’s description
of a beautiful soul as a chariot pulled by two winged
horses, but the real, pulsating thing: the Beauty
who looks back from the bathroom mirror and smiles.
PALLAS ATHENA
We tracked deer in the snow, studied philosophy
and mathematics. Like you, I inherited
my father’s passions: the love of war, physical beauty,
America’s Funniest Home Videos. I can still hear
his laughter in a hotel in upstate New York
on our only family trip. Soviet émigrés
with blue hair and adult grandchildren
preferred to speak in English and eat hot dogs
and hamburgers rather than piroshki
and cold cuts with slivers of wobbly jellied fat.
We ice skated among pine trees and rooks.
Napped in cots before waiting in a buffet line
in a wood-paneled cafeteria. Pallas, that weekend
you took care of me like a big sister.
You showed me a bloom of wildflowers by
the frozen river, a dusk replete with angels,
reminders that this too won’t last, but
it will become my favorite memory of my father.
That was your greatest strength: to have
the foresight to remember a moment as it faded.
You didn’t judge me when I left all my doors
and windows open and called out to my father,
Come in. That sometimes we don’t choose
the angels that we believe in, as a house
does not choose the ghosts who wander its halls.
What’s a person to do when they love visual art, but don’t share the gift of creating it themselves? Poet Janée Baugher, whose work we discuss in this episode, displays her love of art through ekphrastic poetry. She’s even written a book on the form, The Ekphrastic Writer: Creating Art-Influenced Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction (McFarland, 2020). Slushies, you’ll definitely want to take a look at these poems and their unique formatting before you listen to the podcast. The poems we discuss center around Andrew Wyeth’s paintings and come from Baugher’s forthcoming 2026 collection The Andrew Wyeth Chronicles, selected by Shane McCrae to win the 2023 Tupelo Press Dorset Prize.
Along the way, Jason shares his travel mishaps and coins a memorable new moniker for Greenville-Spartanburg. Our South Carolina diversion leads Lisa to Hub City Writers Project and Kathy to The Swamp Trail. We talk about poetry-as-footnote, which we also chatted about in Episode 110. Dagne, in thinking about artist’s models, recommends a Decoder Ring podcast episode about Andrew Wyeth’s muse, Helga. And Jason reveals his own secret past in front of the sketchpad!
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Dagne Forrest, Lisa Zerkle, Jodi Gahn, Sebastian Rametta (sound engineer)
Author bio: Janée J. Baugher is the author of the only craft book of its kind, The Ekphrastic Writer: Creating Art-Influenced Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction (McFarland, 2020) and an assistant editor at Boulevard magazine. She won Tupelo Press’s Dorset Prize for her third poetry collection, The Andrew Wyeth Chronicles (2026).
Website: www.JaneeBaugher.com
Instagram: @ekphrastic_writer
Like the movie of the same name, the poems we discuss here, Slushies, take on the cares of the world in an unrelenting torrent. In this episode, we discuss three poems by Harriet Levin which reference the Haitian writer and artist Frankétienne, Barcelona’s as-yet unfinished Sagrada Familia cathedral, and the constellation of Orion, (for starters). We think about how poems featuring babies can avoid the sentimental (as we ultimately decide these do). We end considering the picture book chaos found in Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are as a counterpoint to real-world displacement.
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer,
Lisa Zerkle, Jodi Gahn, Lillie Volpe (sound engineer)
With thanks to one of our sponsors,Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Lorraine” opens our show.
Harriet Levin is the author of three poetry books, The Christmas Show (Beacon Press, 1997), Girl in Cap and Gown (Mammoth Books, 2010), and My Oceanography (CavanKerry 2018). Her honors include the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America, The Barnard New Women Poets Prize, Nimrod's Pablo Neruda/Hardiman Award, The Ellen LaForge Memorial Poetry Prize, and a PEW Fellowship in the Arts discipline award. Her debut novel, How Fast Can you Run, a novel based on the life of Lost Boy of Sudan Michael Majok Kuch, was excerpted in The Kenyon Review and chosen as a 2017 Charter for Compassion Global Read. A 2022-23 Stein Family Foundation Fellow, she holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and teaches writing at Drexel University.
Website: harrietlevinmillan.org
Slushies, we invoke the retelling of a ghostly experience shared by Kathy and Marion at the Hotel Figueroa in California earlier this year partway into this episode. Two poems by Jen Siraganian are at the heart of our discussion, and it’s the first of these that puts ghosts into our heads. This poem also causes us to consider at some length the physical form chosen by or for a poem, and how this can utterly enhance the experience of the poem when it’s just right. It’s also an opportunity for Jason to raise the spectre of the virgule (or slash) once again, and we even pause briefly to recall when WYSIWYG was a useful acronym. We end the episode with an ekphrastic that prompts an on-the-spot tie breaker (thanks to our sound engineer Lillie for saving the day!).
https://whitney.org/collection/works/2171
https://www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/gorky-the-artist-and-his-mother.html
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Lisa Zerkle, Jason Schneiderman, Dagne Forrest, Jodi Gahn, Lillie Volpe (sound engineer)
Jen Siraganian is an Armenian-American writer, educator, and former Poet Laureate of Los Gatos, California. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in AGNI, Barrow Street, Best New Poets, Cortland Review, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, Smartish Pace, and other journals. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and won the 2024 New Ohio Review Poetry Prize. A former managing director of Litquake: San Francisco’s Literary Festival, she is a current Lucas Artist Fellow. jensiraganian.com
Social media handles:
Facebook @jen.siraganian, Instagram @jsiraganian, Bluesky @jsiraganian.bsky.social, Website
Episode 137: Collective Effervescence
Don’t be jelly, but we’re having a blast with three poems from the poet Han VanderHart in this episode! You can join in on the fizzing of our collective effervescence by just tuning in. We find the conversation naturally turning towards John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, taking in the pipe as a fairly recent newcomer as a punctuation mark in poetry, and the concept of absolute zero, alongside much, much more. Poetic themes of truth, love, and the power of “No” sit at the center of our conversation. Oh, and Marion deftly keeps Kathy in the conversation when technology unexpectedly steals her voice! (Be sure to check out the painting Truth Coming Out of Her Well, the inspiration for the first poem, an ekphrastic, that we discuss. It’s a painting that has inspired some cool tattoo art!)
At the table: Marion Wrenn, Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Divina Boko, Lisa Zerkle, Dagne Forrest, Lillie Volpe (sound engineer)
Han VanderHart grew up on a small-scale farm in Virginia, and now lives in North Carolina, under the pines with their long term partner, two children, four cats, two dogs, and a Diva koi Beta fish named Caroline (long I). Their favorite flower is all of them, with the exception of the gerber daisy, which looks fake. Han is the author of Larks (Ohio, 2025) and What Pecan Light (BCP, 2021), and hosts Of Poetry Podcast and co-edits River River Books with Amorak Huey.
Insta: @han.vanderhart
Bluesky: @hanvanderhart.bsky.social
Website: hanvanderhart.com
Episode 136: Mapping Experience Part II
Here’s a first for PBQ, the second of a two-part series on a single poet! We’re calling this two-parter the The Maggie Wolff Experience. We delight in spending more time with Maggie’s exceptional series of abcedarians, “Surveys, Maps, and Mothers”, which share an unspooling narrative of intergenerational trauma. Kathy notes the similarity to experiencing an anthology series, with each of the four poems we’ve discussed offering a complete experience, while added depth and richness emerges from reading multiple poems (this makes Episode 135 or Part I optional but still recommended listening!). Jason calls attention to the skillfully created sonic waves that appear in sections of some of the poems, notably “S” in this episode. We touch on the “lore” of the people in our lives (thanks to Divina for the Gen Z lingo) and Sam makes the connection with Philip Larkin’s This Be the Verse (“They fuck you up, your mum and dad.”). All of that and even a quick moment referencing Billy Joel’s Movin' Out (Anthony’s Song) from 1977 – if you listen, you’ll know why!
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Samantha Neugebauer, Dagne Forrest, Lisa Zerkle, Jason Schneiderman, Divina Boko, Lillie Volpe (sound engineer)
Maggie Wolff is a poet, essayist, fiction writer, and Ph.D. student. She recently won an AWP Intro Journal Award for her poetry, and her work has appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Juked, New Delta Review, and other publications. Her chapbook Haunted Daughters has just been released by Press 254. When she isn't spending her time stressing about Phd-ing, she enjoys long walks, horror movies, and hibernating at home.
Instagram @m_wolffwriter
Episode 135: Mapping Experience
Dive into the first of a two-part series (a first for us!) of what we’re calling The Maggie Wolff Experience. In this episode we dig into the first two of four poems from her exceptional series of abcedarians called “Surveys, Maps, and Mothers”. These plainspoken, unvarnished poems, which structure painful experiences in multiple dictionary-style entries within each poem, are skillfully crafted. We notice the calm sense of order the form brings to the experience of deconstructing this narrative of intergenerational trauma. We also appreciate the careful attention to lineation, which intensifies meaning, alongside the subtle layering of sound. You’ve got give it a listen!
Links you might like:
Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”
Mercator Projections
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Samantha Neugebauer, Jason Schneiderman, Divina Boko, Lillie Volpe (sound engineer)
Maggie Wolff is a poet, essayist, fiction writer, and Ph.D. student. She recently won an AWP Intro Journal Award for her poetry, and her work has appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Juked, New Delta Review, and other publications. Her chapbook, Haunted Daughters, is forthcoming from Press 254. When she isn't spending her time stressing about Phd-ing, she enjoys long walks, horror movies, and hibernating at home.
Instagram @m_wolffwriter
Episode 134: Tidbits & Trolls
Join us for a conversation about new poems by Kelly Egan and a discussion about line breaks, image systems, and the surprise turns poems make. Keep your eyes and ears open, Slushies, the landscape is full of lore. Egan has us pondering possibilities. Once upon a time folks believed in Selkies, shapeshifting seals who make folks fall in love with them in their human form. Who knew it's bad luck to open the door on Christmas Eve for fear trolls will maraud your house? You've been warned. Check out Danish artist Thomas Dambo's mammoth sculpted trolls hidden in plain sight. And if you want to deep dive into another legendary landscape – aka a brick-and-mortar bookstore – be sure to check out Parker Posey's documentary The Booksellers.
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Samantha Neugebauer, Dagne Forrest, Lisa Zerkle, Divina Boko, Jess Fielo (sound engineer)
Kelly Egan writes from dream, reverie, and long drives. She is the author of two chapbooks—Millennial, from White Stag, and A Series of Septembers, from Dancing Girl Press. Her poems can also be found in Maiden Magazine, Interim, Colorado Review, Laurel Review, RHINO, Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere. Kelly has an MFA from Saint Mary’s College of CA and has participated in writing residencies in Iceland and the Peruvian Amazon. She lives in California’s Bay Area. Find her at kellyjeanegan.com.
Episode 133: Delicious Disorientation
Three poems by Christopher Brean Murray cleverly dropped us all into a wonderful sense of disorientation that we relished navigating. Our discussion touched on time travel, dreamscapes, masterful language and wordplay, and we explored the importance of trusting the speaker in poetry that leans into surrealism. Samantha pointed us to other texts that play with time, perception, and reality, and we spent a little time considering accessibility in poetry. Doom scrolling, misinformation, and disinformation all make appearances in conjured landscapes that brought pointillism to mind. Jason reminds us of the risk of expecting more of the same from a poet when as a reader you’ve fallen hard for an earlier work. It was hard to end our discussion as it was so rich and rewarding. After enthusiastically voting “yes” for the first two poems, we ended on a cliffhanger with the third. (Update: the third poem was ultimately a “no” for us, but the discussion will show how much we appreciated it.)
Links you might like:
Tobias Wolff "Bullet in the Brain"
Tracy Chevalier, "The Glassmaker"
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, Dagne Forrest, Lisa Zerkle, Divina Boko, Jess Fielo (sound engineer)
Christopher Brean Murray’s book, Black Observatory (Milkweed Editions), was chosen by Dana Levin as the winner of the 2022 Jake Adam York Prize and was listed by The New York Public Library as one of the Best Books of 2023. Murray served as online poetry editor of Gulf Coast, and his poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Copper Nickel, New Ohio Review, and other journals. He lives in Houston, TX.
Episode 132: Trust & Fear
Talking about fiction is our JAWN slushies. Join us as we discuss Terry Dubow's "The Q," a short story that sounds like it wants to be a crime novel: a murderer gets out of jail and asks to stay with his pen pal. The surprise is that the piece is also a gentle story of male friendship and compassion. We're drawn to the story's ability to showcase the odd-ball sincerity of letter writing, and the strange, retro experience of having to wait for a response. Can you imagine? Putting a letter in a mailbox? Waiting for a reply that has to make its way to you through actual space and time? Does anyone remember licking a stamp? We're here for it, Terry Dubow. Tell us a story.
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, Dagne Forrest, Lisa Zerkle, Divina Boko, Jess Fielo (sound engineer)
Born outside of Los Angeles, Terry spent most of his adult life in the great city of Cleveland, Ohio. He is now in the middle of a planned mid-life crisis and living with his wife of 30 years in Marin County, California. While he works at a school that sits directly across from San Quentin, the origin of “The Q" comes directly from his uncle-in-law, Gary Weske, who 20 years ago told a version of it that stuck in Terry’s head ever since. Thanks, Gary! Over the last years, Terry has published more than 25 stories, most recently in The Meadow (upcoming), Litro, Clockhouse, and The New Ohio Review, which nominated his story “Bandits” for the Best of the Net. His frustratingly unpublished novels are represented by Lisa Grubka at the United Talent Agency.
Episode 83: Goodnight, Mary Magdalene first aired in June 2020 and features three poems by Vasiliki Katsarou, a poet and publisher. This time last year, Vasiliki published a new short collection of poetry Three Sea Stones with Solitude Hill Press. It’s a great time to revisit Vasiliki’s work.
Dear Slushies, join the PBQ crew (which includes a freshly-tenured Jason Schneiderman) for a pre-pandemic recording of our discussion of 3 poems by the wonderful Vasiliki Katsarou’s work. Be sure to read the poems on the page below as you listen. They’ll require your eyes and ears– and “a decoder ring.” The team has a grand old time explicating these artful poems. The muses are sprung and singing in us as we read and decide on this submission. Katsarou’s poems teach us to read them without projecting too much of ourselves and our current preoccupations onto them. We’re reminded to pay attention to what’s happening on the page. But synchronicities abound! Before we know it we’re ricocheting off of the poems’ images and noting the wonderful convergences the poems trigger – we hear traces of Wallace Stevens “Idea of Order of Key West” or Auden’s Musee de Beaux Arts. (But first we check in with each other, cracking each other up in a pre-pandemic moment of serious lightness. We’re heard that “Science” shows Arts & Humanities majors make major money in the long run. Kathy reports that “the data on success” shows that participation in Nativity Plays is a marker for career success. Samantha confesses she played Mary Magdalene in a Nativity Play. Marion might have been a Magi. And many of us were reindeer.. Also, Donkeys do better than sheep over time (which may or may not have been claimed on “Wait, wait… don’t tell me!”). Editing a Lit Mag shouldn’t be this much fun, Slushies. Listen through to the discussion of the 3rd poem’s deep magic and craft. And listen to our editors’ cats chime in).
Addison Davis, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, and Joe Zang
Vasiliki Katsarou grew up Greek American in Jack Kerouac’s hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts. She has also lived in Paris, France, and Harvard, Mass. She is the author of a full-length poetry collection, Memento Tsunami, and co-editor of two contemporary poetry anthologies: Eating Her Wedding Dress: A Collection of Clothing Poems and Dark as a Hazel Eye: Coffee & Chocolate Poems. She holds an MFA from Boston University and an AB in comparative literature from Harvard University. She read her poetry at the 2014 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, and is a Teaching Artist at Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, New Jersey. Her poems have been published widely and internationally, including in NOON: Journal of the Short Poem (Japan), Corbel Stone Press’ Contemporary Poetry Series (U.K.), Regime Journal (Australia), as well as in Poetry Daily, Tiferet: A Journal of Spiritual Literature, Wild River Review, wicked alice, Literary Mama, La Vague Journal, Otoliths, and Contemporary American Voices. She wrote and directed an award-winning 35mm short film, Fruitlands 1843, about a Transcendentalist utopian community in Massachusetts. Vasiliki’s website: https://onegoldbead.com/, Twitter: https://twitter.com/cineutopia , Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vasiliki.katsarou, and Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cineutopia/
The Future Arrives as a Redhead
They talk of mothers in law
but not of outlaw daughters
her sun and her moon is our son
her cool paleness, reflected
in an eye that looks like mine,
follows her curves along the shoreline
her hair like copper coils
from beneath a straw hat
a Maisie or Daisy, a woman of Stem
for whom we stem talk of servers,
thumbprint keys, on an ancient island
now we are all code-changers
the future arrives as a redhead
green, green love lays a glove
on us, we no longer count
in threes, a quaver
sounds, and the future
all sharps and flats
*
Wedding, Key West
A stitch in throat saves time
Infernal cough
speaks through me
@ the bride and groom
On sand they stand
to create a sand souvenir
from this empty glass vessel
Sunset drips from the lips
of the bride
As the prey is plucked from the air
between her palms
In the gulf beyond
the photographer’s camera,
a capsized sailboat,
but no one’s looking–
The Key light bedazzles
and defeats us all
Mouth tightly shut
clench in the solar plexus
*
Waited
you waited with me as the house
next door emptied of its guests,
then its owners, fairy tale turned animal farm
minted with ash and wishes
you were my kitchen elf
my second thought
my echo’s echo
cocked ear, cracked oasis
your absorbent embered orbs
that morning of the supermoon
setting behind the barn
you were quiet, then quieter still
white fog settling into the hollows
and a thin coat of frost everywhere
and this, the simplest death
you trained me well, M.
I listen for your listening
Welcome back to another Painted Bride Quarterly Slush Pile. Today we have an excellent episode with a bit of something different. After a set of introductions in which Marion gets out her glue gun the gang dives right into a piece of non-fiction by Andrew Bertania labeled “The Offering”.
Andrew Bertaina's work has appeared or is forthcoming in many publications including: The Best American Poetry 2018, The ThreePenny Review, Tin House online, Redivider, Crab Orchard Review and Green Mountains Review. More of his work is available at www.andrewbertaina.com
After an excellent reading by Kathleen, Tim describes how churches offer less of a sense of community these days; being more concerned with hellfire and crucifixion. Next, Marion describes how the piece offers a sense of timelessness while lamenting on her own exhaustion from various teaching duties. Marion contends that the piece allowed her to compose herself and gave her a sense of fulfillment. Samantha speaks a bit on curation, and how that differs from what is displayed on social media. Before voting Tim mentions how historically specific the piece is, and the idea of somebody that you used to know. Will this piece make the cut? Or will it fade into obscurity?
The Offering
At church this morning, I passed around a collection plate to gather up the scraps of all the people I have known. The bowl was silver and its size was like that of space. Inside, I found: a hike through a hailstorm in Colorado where blue jays where eating other bird’s babies; I found an evening spent from midnight till morning talking about the way that I dreamed of divinity; I found a piece of a tetherball string, still wound tightly around a silver pole; I found a pocket of gummi worms, unopened, thrown in the trash can at recess; I found a small side yard where I dug for dinosaur bones; I found a picture with the words I love you written across the top; I found tears and tears, until I was swimming through all the tears, trying to remember why we are all such bizarre puzzles; I found a slip of paper with someone’s e-mail on it that I threw in the trash; I found a cabin in the woods with a couch and a blanket; I found a picture of you standing with me in the same shirt I wore only two weeks ago, but it was more than a decade ago; I found that the years start to run together like water that you can’t separate out the moments that you used to; I found pictures of people in wedding dresses and tuxedos, people that I used to know, and I smiled at their happy faces, because they made me happy when I knew them; I found a picture of San Francisco, stiff breezes off the bay, always so damn cold, and inside the picture was another picture of a hospital, and inside that hospital a memory of people who are now dust; I found an evening in the mountains of Santa Barbara, and a sunrise too; I found a picture of five of us sitting in a room talking about the ways in which we had failed, the ways in which we’d like to succeed; I found a picture of a piano and green couches; I found a picture of a mountain trail, pine trees and old bear scat; I found a picture of the ocean, of your hand in mine, before we glided together. I found a picture of a tower in Italy, a winding staircase leading to a view of some ancient city.
I spent the evening afterward, sorting all these pictures into specific piles.
Afternoons that could have lasted forever.
Times I went to the ocean.
Women that I have loved.
Women that I did not have the time to get around to loving.
People that I once knew.
People that I used to know and wish I still knew.
Avenues that I have walked down.
Avenues that I wish I had walked down.
Pictures of places that I am not remembering properly.
After I was done organizing these moments, I wrote them all down on the computer screen, which flickered, in and out just like memory does. I know that thousands, millions, far more numerous than the stars, are still missing. I want you to know that I’m trying to remember all of you, despite the futility of it. I’m reaching out to the people I have known and the people I will know. I miss all of you already, so the next time you see me, let’s meet, not was if we were strangers, but as people who have, for longer than they can remember, been very much in love.
Slushies, waves abound in this lively discussion of a poem by Martha Silano and two more by Jane Hilberry. The way stream of consciousness can crest and fall, sound waves, the missed and caught waves in real life (including runs of luck or the lack of it), not to mention the different ways in which we experience poetry– the gang rides wave after wave. We regularly find that our process of reading poetry aloud causes one or more of us to experience a poem anew. Sometimes it provides clarity that wasn’t there when it was confined to the silence of the page. Sometimes it brings up questions. As always, we were grateful to have the trust of two amazing poets willing to share our discussion of their work. (We were going to call this episode “In Bed with Marion & Kathy” and we’ll let you find out why by having a listen!)
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Jason Schneiderman, Angelique Massey, Lisa Zerkle, Dagne Forrest, Vivian Liu (sound engineer)
Martha Silano’s six books include This One We Call Ours, winner of the 2023 Blue Lynx Poetry Prize, and available from Lynx House Press. She is also the author of Gravity Assist, Reckless Lovely,and The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception, all from Saturnalia Books. Martha’s poems have appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, American Poetry Review, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. She enjoys birdwatching, botanizing, and hanging out with her kids and cats. Learn more about her work at marthasilano.net.
The Luck of It
What counts is that my car, when it gets broken into, what’s gone
is replaceable, like that leather jacket my friend Alison threw at me
when she left for California. Please take it! (I got a new one for Christmas).
Once, when I left it unlocked, someone spent the night in my Hyundai.
All in all, I was happy to offer a place of refuge, especially on account
of nothing stolen, not the extra pair of socks, not my maroon hat or hand sani,
the only tip off being the empty bottle of Sprite. Sprite!
I mean, you’re kidding me. My husband jokes how I get so excited
about the crumb that drops on my plate from that giant chocolate croissant
in the sky, tells me I’m like a housefly with a tiny chunk of pizza
it can’t believe it’s had the good fortune to land on. And look! It’s even got a little dab
of pepperoni juice! It seems I set the bar low,
and maybe he’s right, though when I ran track,
the field part kind of scared me. In tenth grade, when Suzanne Glester
broke the state record in the high jump,
I could barely keep myself from looking away
as her contorted body landed in a heap on a thick mat
that never seemed thick enough. Honestly,
I’m just glad I’m not the guy on Next Door
who posted about the lonely chicken: I see her wandering around.
Seems like she need another little hen.
Do any of you have one you’d like to re-home?
Or the woman who shared someone’s been racing their car
up Juneau. making a hair pin turn onto Seward Park Avenue.
It literally rattles our windows. I’m tempted to respond I feel your pain,
but having rattling windows means you live in a home? I guess what I’m trying to say
is that when two guys were about to kick in
our basement window, I happened to stroll by with a bag
of dirty Huggies for the bin. Yep, a load of dirty diapers saved us.
Jane Hilberry is just weeks into retirement after a happy 35-year teaching career at Colorado College that began with Medieval and Renaissance literature and ended up in Creativity & Innovation. So far retirement involves mostly sleeping and swimming, but she aspires to write poems, paint, and make small objects for sheer delight. Her books of poems include Still the Animals Enter and Body Painting (Red Hen Press) and a chapbook co-authored with her father, Conrad Hilberry, titled This Awkward Art: Poems by a Father and Daughter (Mayapple Press). Paintings and small objects can be found on Instagram @jhilberry.
I might have planned badly
My friends are ga-ga over their grandkids, over the moon!
Pictures on their phones of the toddler pushing the vacuum,
the dog sleeping wrapped around the child.
My god, I was driven. I translated every word of Beowulf,
working out each noun’s case ending, nominative, accusative, genitive,
dative, or a vestigial instrumental. I spent my twenties
in a library carrel until 2 a.m. closing. I could regret it now,
but there was no stopping that one, whoever she was.
Baby, I’m going to be seventy soon, and eighty.
Coastal Cali
At the intersection, a stream of newly washed
Benzes and Bentleys. A man in a camel coat surveys
a café patio: "I'm dressed inappropriately,” he says.
He’s crew for Hollywood Medium. Against the roar
of leaf blowers, Que tiempo hace hoy plays on someone’s radio.
It's breezy, seventy-five.
Meanwhile, at the water,
surfers lift and fall, surge and sink. The dark triangles
of their heads and shoulders move like fins
in undulating circles, till one rises, twists and vees,
rides the wave into a bloom of foam.
What is this world? wrote Chaucer, What asketh man to have?
Xanax for the rough days. I can't identify the flora—
Yarrow? Ice plant? —or remember the gods of the sea.
Zephyr? Poseidon? No one here calls it the sea.
The natural world and human nature provide a variety of jumping off points for three poems that contrast the ego and experience of each poem’s speaker with other perspectives, both observed and imagined. The discussion touches on the use of a strong opening conceit, lineation that cannily reflects breathwork, and leaning into specificity as strong poetic moves. Let’s not forget the role that taste plays! Kathy’s internal sommelier springs to life twice to flag questionable taste in wine and a discussion of the third poem under discussion highlights the role that direct experience and cultural awareness can play in appreciating the landscape of a poem. The discussion also briefly lingers on the question of whether singer Dionne Warwick is still alive and well and performing. At the time of writing these notes, she most certainly is!
Some links we think you might like:
The Spin Doctors
Dionne Warwick, Do You Know the Way to San Jose (YouTube)
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Lisa Zerkle, Jason Schneiderman, Manuel López, Isabel Petry, Vivian Liu (sound engineer)
John Wojtowicz grew up working on his family’s azalea and rhododendron nursery and still lives in the backwoods of what Ginsberg dubbed “nowhere Zen New Jersey.” Currently, he teaches social work at Stockton University. He serves as the Local Lyrics contributor for the Mad Poet Society blog and has been featured on Rowan University’s Writer’s Roundtable on 89.7 WGLS-FM. Recent publications include: Rattle, Split Rock Review, Soundings East, West Trade Review, and The Ekphrastic Review. He is the author of the chapbook, Roadside Attractions: a poetic guide to American oddities. Find out more at: www.johnwojtowicz.com
Kolyuchin Island
Polar bears have taken up residence
within the marmalade walls
of an abandoned weather station,
the lone dwelling
on a small island in the Chukchi Sea.
This unexpected sanctuary,
strategically located
between Russia and Alaska,
has a post-apocalyptic feel
like the Statue of Liberty scene
at the end of the first Planet of the Apes, but cuter.
White-coated inhabitants
can be seen sunning themselves
on the front porch,
poking frosty heads from turquoise
window frames, wandering
their 2.8 mile yard littered with rusted tanks
and construction debris.
Pierre Boulle never wrote
a sequel to the Planet of the Apes.
Man loses. The End.
And with earth’s history of ruling classes
and our self-destructive tendencies,
this is the likely scenario.
If by some grace, we go out without taking
every living thing with us,
it gives me pleasure to picture
a sleuth of grizzly bears
as the heirs to Buckingham Palace.
As a whole, extraterrestrial
anthropologists will have to assume,
we cared very little
about the arctic fox, musk ox, and polar bear,
dooming these lifeforms
(and then ourselves).
And even though I didn’t do much to stop it,
I hope they’ll find
the remains of my glacial wall calendar
and arctic-themed necktie
or better yet the yellowed receipt
from a donation I plan on making
to the World Wildlife Fund
and conclude that I was one of the good ones.
Wild
The rugs haven’t been cut in a long while
and the shag is starting to tickle
my chin. It’s up to my neck
which is sometimes
how I feel navigating the jungle of my life
which germinated
from the garden of my childhood
and went mostly untended
for the first quarter or so.
Yes, it’s been some time
since I backpacked through nightclubs,
traversed the landscape of closing time,
tossed the map on an LSD trip.
Right now, I am dead-heading petunias
on my back deck. My two kids
are sleeping. The dog is chasing
lightning bugs. My wife is finishing a glass
of Moscato and will soon be
waiting for me in our bed. Earlier today
I added boat-tailed grackle
to my backyard bird list.
My zucchini is starting to flower
and so is (for the first time)
the southern magnolia
planted a few springs back.
The groundhog I nicknamed Big Orange
is on his hindlegs
taking in the evening news.
And as the sun moves to give someone else
a turn with the light,
I consider that this
might be the wildest I’ve ever been.
What's your love language, Slushies? Is it touch, or talk? Recipes or arithmetic? Join us for this episode devoted to poems by Jin Cordaro, whose work strikes an incantatory tone, draws us in, and gets us chewing on the riddles of the human predicament. How do our bodies know things before our minds do? How do other people's shopping lists make us ache for connection? We focus on the art of lists, the arc of poems, and the power of a poet's voice to invite and hold the reader's attention.
A link we think you might like:
Please Touch Museum, Philadelphia
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Lisa Zerkle, Samantha Neugebauer, and Holly Messitt, as well as our briefly larger than normal tech team Heath Bailey, Jess Fielo, and Vivian Liu (without whom we’d be lost!)
At four feet seven inches, Jin Cordaro believes she holds the record for most petite living poet. Having had twins, she also believes she holds the record for most times people have asked, “They came from you?” Her work has appeared in The Sun, Faultline, Smartish Pace, and Bacopa Literary Review, and has been featured on the podcast The Slowdown. She and her family live in central New Jersey.
That Time You Stole Someone’s Shopping Cart
With their shopping list in the seat,
and a flower doodled in the corner – a sign
not a curse or a prayer, a devotion,
a singular language
to nourish and be nourished.
Familiar words, combined in a cipher,
you can only translate every third word –
paprika followed by shallots means
to put effort or caring.
Cranberries combined with pecans
and butternut squash means
to sustain, keep well.
What would this taste like?
This list a thin opaque crepe filled with
the soft, oozing breadth of someone’s attention
and time. You slip it into your jacket
keep your hand on your pocket as
you walk the store. Rush home
to unfold it, imagine it still warm,
slightly browned on a skillet,
sweet and bready with love.
You chew it slowly –
the only piece of food
to be found.
The Sum of One1/3 parent + 1/3 employee + 1/3 spouse
does not equal 1 whole you but
permutations of you.
Only one can execute its function
at any given time.
Requirements call for
1 ½ parent you + 1 ½ work you + 1 ½ spouse you =
invalid calculation. Insufficient source.
Multiply by a factor of
school concert x illness x hosting holiday =
exponentially negative integer you.
Divide this number by
the number of your children,
given age as a factor of x.
Write a proof that demonstrates
1 you – job + bills = increase in sanity?
Or 1/3 parent you – cleaning toilets – cooking =
increase in you?
You are the product of division.
You ÷ x = disappearing you
reduced to null an imaginary unit
when all you want is to be prime
divisible by only 1 and yourself.
But 0 too can be divided by any number
and still remain the same
We just had to start this episode with a reassurance that everyone was dressed, which you’ll understand as soon as you read or listen to “Pneuma”, the poem by BJ Soloy that kicks everything off. The bonkers energy of a country and a world overflowing with bad news and tragedy is juxtaposed with some very real tenderness and self reflection in two astounding pieces by Soloy. These astutely paced poems are brimming with the overwhelm of modern life while threading in historical references (Brown vs. Board of Education, Troost Avenue, and scud missiles, for starters).
Some other links we think you’ll like:
Sapphic stanzas
Marion's IMDB credit
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Samantha Neugebauer, Dagne Forrest, Jason Schneiderman, Lisa Zerkle, Isabel Petry
BJ Soloy is the author of Birth Center in Corporate Woods (forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press), Our Pornography and other disaster songs (Slope Editions, 2019), and Selected Letters, a chapbook out with New Michigan Press. He lives and dies in Des Moines, home of the whatever.
Pneuma
Put your pants back on, America.
It’s four in the morning & also
five, three, & two, simultaneously,
you big lug. Plus, there’s snow.
In this light, really any light,
my nose looks like a tired potato
got punched in its mute mouth.
With any light on, I want to see other people
when I look in the mirror, when I slouch
in this bathroom booth where I hope to die
on the shitter, like an American,
like one of yours. Clinton, TN is any other frowsy town
with a cock & balls scribbled on its playground slide
& square pitbulls straining at their chains.
America, I came to bed late as always.
You roll over, softly surprised & then delighted,
offering, “I forgot where I was.” I’m yawning,
breathing just to get oxygen on this fire.
Well, tonight is not the only place I am
tonight. Beyond me & between me
light bulbs hiccup & burble
& a frenzied squirrel loses its map
of maples & restarts. Maybe we ought to
take what we’ve still got & laminate it in frost
& then salt & then the gold leaf over spring’s pat rapture.
There are things I’ve learned already this young
soft year I don’t know what to do with: one
gets a pregnancy test when in the ER
for their attempt on their own life. What to name that baby?
I worry I’m doing this wrong. I’ve got beans soaking, sharps
& meds hidden, the last dank well swill of our bank account
miraculously transformed into boxed wine. Winter’s here
with its expressive eyebrows & doomed neighborhood cats
under every car. You yawn so I kiss you & you taste better
than free food, but you can’t sleep & I try to stay up reading
but layers of exhaustion—wet blankets on this piss whisper
of a fire—keep accumulating. I worry you’ll do it right next time
& I’m still attached to this day of ours, whatever day it is.
Benesh
It’s been a long night & your mouth already tasted like rain an hour ago. Writing
often of the sky instead of tasting it, I look to the sconces & the sconces
look fake & their light looks fake & I have authentic responses to both,
which is how storms start. As seasons
digest themselves (a short talk on short talks), holiday cards become
less applicable & so more affordable & Fox 8 or whatever news vans circle
the weather or immanent site of tragedy tourism. Some nights I go out & walk
the sidewalk in socks or bare feet
longer than I’d meant to & notice the crystal glass & homely bends
& feel deeply the Troost neighborhood. My ears circle in on themselves, stereo
sinkholes, by which I mean I’m eavesdropping & I’m sorry. I’ve had bad teeth forever
& so got online & bought God’s vibrator
as a toothbrush & sunburned my mirror & stood boldly before the middle-aged self.
White as I am, I trust most the islands that kill their first tourists. Three weeks’
swim away, a cargo ship full of luxury cars continues to burn in the Atlantic.
A mother about a mile from right here
killed her dog & decapitated her son after calling the cops on the devil. The news:
The snows. The Olympics. Rubble-crusted outskirts of Kiev. The soft snoring
of our toddler. What do we do? I dither. I stand numb before the light.
I look deeply. I look like Fabio
if, instead of an angular chin, his face flesh just sort of dangled & then if also
that formless dangle continued on down the rest of the frame. My point is
I have long hair right now. A Hadean earth. A wobbling star. A thought floating in
like pickled nimbus, ghost fart. In the mirror,
I am an amplified echo of my middle school self making muscles at himself, waiting
for hair to grow, SCUD missiles arcing across the nightly news downstairs.
Tonight, I got news off Facebook, which makes me middle-aged again
& sad. You’d already gone to bed when I found out Robert died. I didn’t wake you up. I
didn’t even check you were asleep. You needed
a night & this news is not the night you needed. A neighbor is yelling at something,
maybe himself, & the still-lengthening night repeats. I rarely call in favors, but every
time I do, I claim to do it rarely, but still, please sleep. Please go to sleep or
keep sleeping. He was thirty-three. It’s later still & your mouth is full
of rain. I’ll tell you in the morning.
Our first order of business was debating lifestyle choices in NY vs. Philly, after which we dug into two wonderfully different poems by Glenn Shaheen. “Imago” plunged us into an elegaic interrogation of modern life, identity, and poetics framed by both the real world and open world gaming. With Glenn’s poem as our guide we roamed wide, touching on gaming terminology, Bey’s “Single Ladies” and 2008 as the last year of optimism, Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions, Shakespeare’s “filthy” Sonnet 135, and the ageless concern over the shelf life of language in poems and artistic works. The circular format of short, interlinked stanzas in the second poem, “Power and Punish”, introduced a real change in tone in the discussion. Frankly, we wondered if the poem’s format and approach would allow us to discuss it. We were delighted to discover it was possible, if different – but hey, you be the judge!
Some links we think you’ll like:
NPC (Non Player Character) on WikiHow
Beyoncé - Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)
Michel Foucault on the Panopticon Effect, Farnham Street blog
At the table: Marion Wrenn, Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Dagne Forrest, Isabel Petry
Glenn Shaheen lives in Houston and is the biggest Star Trek fan you’ll ever meet.
We kick off this episode with some riffing on Hallmark movies and a suspension of Jason’s voting rights. No worries, though! The two poems under discussion are by a former student of Jason’s and it comes clear pretty quickly that we’re all fans. Don’t listen to this episode for the suspense, but for the delicious delve into narrative possibility and how poetry is wonderfully suited to keeping the door open long after a poem ends. Indented lineation and how it can affect a poem’s pacing gets some attention, as does the sensory tease of wonderfully selected symbolism and imagery. We also touch on the implication of the reader in a poem where the speaker is still working things out. In this film-tinged discussion, Kathy reminds us that a sweet ending can hit the spot, Sam confesses to thinking a lot about “Baby Boom”, Dagne owns up to seeing Raiders of the Lost Art eleven times when it was first released, Jason pays homage to Diane Keaton and Liza Minelli, and Isabel poses a question that underscores our theme of narrative possibility.
Some links we think you’ll like:
Whisky & Rum in Raiders of the Lost Ark, ThirstMag.com
How Baby Boom Set the Template for Future Movies About Working Mothers, Vulture
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, Isabel Petry, Dagne Forrest
Georgia M. Brodsky is a recent graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She lives south of Boston, near the ocean, with her partner and their daughter.
The Tavern
After I cracked the 6-ball off the table,
he offered to teach me
to drive stick in the parking lot.
Before: whiskey
in no-one’s-joking-sized
shot glasses, the kind
the cool girl in Indiana Jones throws back
then stacks like a champ
while men fall off their stools
around her. Heavy glasses.
No windows. Just the door
to the lot, to the harbor
eventually, where earlier that day
I’d seen a girl my age
with a pocketknife, cleaning a fish.
She’d plucked the eyes out,
let them sit
on the ground staring up
like a figment in Charlie Kaufman’s
dreams. Every story is a version
of something else.
I followed him to his car. I didn’t.
I laughed and touched his arm. I balled
my hands into fists. My body
felt something was wrong. I felt
nothing. It always turns out alright
in the end. It never does.
I’m the girl who climbed
into the truck and the one
who got home safe. I taught myself
how to drive stick and how to run
the table. I’m the girl in the harbor.
All eyes.
At the Raw Bar, Housing Three Dozen Oysters for our Eighth Anniversary
We’re not in it for the sex,
if that’s what you’re thinking.
And besides, I’m not the kind
of person who shucks and tells.
That was a joke. But it’s exactly
what I’m talking about.
I’m the kind who makes jokes
when something matters too much.
We’re not in it for the sex.
It’s more about what happens
after the shell unlatches:
brine, salt, alive, pulling us in
by the shirt, shaking us
and putting us down as if
tentacles had launched out
from under the ice.
That wasn’t a metaphor
for our relationship. I’m honest
to God talking about oysters:
the knock-back, the vinegar zip,
extra lemon on the side.
A feeling like our bodies could turn
back into fish. A speedboat
revving from zero to sixty, that’s how
it felt to throw down my first
Mookie Blue after nine
pregnant months. Forget forks
or sauce or napkins. If every drop
of oyster liquor doesn’t make it
to your mouth, you shouldn’t
even be here, and by here,
I mean sitting across the bar,
gaping at us, saying, wow,
that’s a lot of oysters,
or standing on the shores
of an oyster farm, complaining
that the wind’s too cold.
Am I getting any closer
to explaining myself?
When we first met, he traced
his finger along the coves
of Maine’s coast, a chart
of waterways and kayak routes,
I swear, the only freshman
with a map of water pinned
to his dorm room wall, and
that was fourteen years ago,
but in that moment, I loved him.
We toast with a click of our shells—
he lifts one to his lips.
Watchers
Zany lies amid clutter on the floor beneath the dining room windows hugging her bandaged arm. She huffs loudly enough to reach the front porch where Mom and Aunt Vi imbibe scotch. Vi still isn’t used to afternoon drinking. They can’t hear Zany over the Krebbs’ crying baby on the other side of the duplex wall. Stupid baby. Plus Zany’s little sister overhead dancing to the transistor radio, rattling the light fixture dangling from the ceiling.
The fingertips on Zany’s bandaged arm are cold and maybe even blue. This is slightly alarming. She considers running to Mom but knows better. Take the damn thing off then, Mom will say.
There’s nothing wrong with Zany’s arm, but that isn’t the point. At breakfast, without preamble, she wound an Ace bandage from her palm to her armpit. The family no longer asks what she’s up to. Last week during Ed Sullivan she sat at her TV tray dripping candle wax over her fist. Aunt Vi blinked with every splat, but Mom only said: “If you get that on my rug I’ll take you across my knee. I don’t care how old you are.” Zany is thirteen.
Week before, Zany taped a string of two-inch penny nails around her throat at the kitchen table where Dad rewired one of Mom’s salvaged lamps. “Why don’t you do that in your room?” Dad didn’t like sharing his workspace. Zany shrugged and the nail tips jabbed her collarbones. She could have done it in her room, but doing the thing wasn’t the point. It was having someone watch that mattered. If no one watched, who would believe she could endure that much discomfort?
Nobody is watching now, so Zany grips a dining table leg and pulls it toward her, or tries to. It’s hard to budge through Mom’s junk piles, plus the weight of the extra leaf Dad inserted when Aunt Vi and Cousin Lester moved in after their apartment collapsed. Aunt Vi brought cans of flowery air freshener to hide the hoard smell—rotten food and cat piss. They don’t own a cat. Lester, sixteen, bought a box of rubble-rescued books.
“You better be setting the table!” Mom calls through the screen.
Zany hates Mom’s manly haircut and has said so. “It’s Gig’s turn!”
Overhead, Gig stomps the floor in the bedroom they now share. Aunt Vi got Zany’s attic where Mom’s hoard had been disallowed, but it’s begun trickling up. “No, it’s not!” Gig’s transistor blares louder.
“Zany!” Mom calls. “I swear to God! And close those drapes!”
Mom can’t stand looking at the neighbor’s wall she could reach across and touch, but Zany craves fresh air, as fresh as Pittsburgh air can be. Plus, she likes counting the yellow bricks Andy Warhol surely counted when this was his childhood home, the dining room his make-shift sickroom when he suffered St. Vitus Dance. Zany is certain his bed would have been right here by the window where he could see a hint of sky if he cricked his neck just right. She lies in his echo and imagines the day she’ll appear at his Factory door in New York City and say: “I used to live in your house.” Andy will enfold her in his translucent arms before ushering her inside, not to act in his films or screen print his designs, but to be his equal. Partner, even. Zany just has to determine her own art form. It sure won’t be cutting fruit cans into flowers like Warhol’s mother did for chump change.
Zany’s legs start the herky-jerky Vitus dance as if she’s running toward that Factory dream. Her pelvis and hips quake. The one free arm. The back of her head jitters against the floor. It’s a familiar thrum even Aunt Vi and Lester are accustomed to now. Mom yells: “Stop that racket!” She mutters to Vi: “We never should have bought this place.”
A kitchen timer dings and Aunt Vi comes in to disarm it. Her cooking is better than Mom’s, and Vi wears an apron and dime store lipstick while she does it. Fresh peas instead of canned. Real mashed potatoes instead of instant. Vi is a better housekeeper, too, organizing Mom’s trash into four-foot piles that line the walls. Every day Mom trolls back alleys and neighbors’ garbage in dingy clothes that make her look like a hobo. That’s what the kids say: Your mom looks like a hobo. She pulls a rickety cart and loads it with moldy linens, rolled-up rugs, dented wastebaskets. Zany wonders if Dad regrets marrying the wrong sister. She knows he regrets not having a son, a boy who could have been Lester if Dad had a different heart. Instead, Dad got Lester on at the blast furnace, because “No one sleeps under my roof for free.” Who needs a high school diploma?
In the kitchen, Aunt Vi lets out one of her sobs. She only does that in private after Mom’s third scolding: “He’s dead, Vi. Crying won’t bring him back.”
Zany misses Uncle Mo, too. His pocketful of peppermints. The trick coin he always plucked from Zany’s ear. The last time Zany’s family visited, she walked through their decrepit Franklin Arms apartment with its spongy floors and clanking pipes, but no maze of debris to negotiate. No cat piss smell or sister blaring the radio. She found Lester in his room at a child’s desk he’d outgrown, doughy boy that he then was, doing homework without being nagged. Astounding. His room was spartan, plenty of space for a second bed if Zany asked Aunt Vi sweetly enough. But no. Zany couldn’t abandon Andy in his Dawson Street sickbed. Lester’s only wall decoration was a world map strung with red yarn radiating from Pittsburgh to France, China, the South Pole. She wanted to ask why those destinations, but didn’t, entranced as she was by all that fresh-aired openness, plus his feverishly scribbling hand.
Now, Aunt Vi leans in the dining room dabbing her face with a dishtowel. She’s aged a decade since moving here and it isn’t all due to grief. She targets Zany on the floor. “Everything all right in here?”
Zany has stopped breathing. Her eyes are glazed and her tongue lolls from her mouth. She’s getting better at playing dead.
“All right then.” Aunt Vi is getting better at not reacting. The screen door slams behind her.
Zany pulls in her tongue and inhales. She starts counting bricks again until Aunt Vi calls: “There they are!” as she does every workday.
Zany pictures Dad and Lester padding up Dawson. Wet hair slicked back because they shower off the stench before coming home. Zany appreciates that. Their boots scrape the steps to the porch where Aunt Vi will take their lunchpails. And there she is coming through the door and dashing to rinse their thermoses at the kitchen sink. Mom will stay put and pour Dad a finger of scotch.
Lester bangs inside and pauses in the dining room entryway. He’s leaner now on account of the physical labor. Taller too. He eyes Zany’s bandaged arm, not with Aunt Vi’s alarm, but with the kind of baffled wonder Zany has always been after. Their eyes meet and it’s the same look he gave her the day she walked backward all the way to the Eliza Number Two—not because Dad and Lester worked there, but because it was lunchtime, and a gaggle of men would be eating beneath that pin oak by the furnace entrance. And there they were, her father among them, not easy to see having to crane her neck as Zany picked her way over the railroad tracks.
“What the hell is she doing?” said Tom Folsom. Zany recognized her neighbor’s voice. “She’s off her nut,” said another worker.
Zany twisted fully around to see if her father would defend her, but he was already hustling back to the furnace.
“Something’s not right with that girl,” said Folsom.
“Nothing wrong with her,” said Lester from beneath a different tree where he ate his cheese sandwich alone.
Folsom spit in the grass. “Shut up, fairy boy.”
Lester wasn’t a fairy boy, Zany knew.
Today, leaning in the dining room, Lester looks as if he can see inside Zany’s skull to the conjured Factory room she and Andy will one day share: walls scrubbed clean and painted white. Her drawings or paintings lining the walls in tidy rows. Maybe sculptures aligned on shelves. Or mobiles overhead spinning in the breeze. Lester nods at her fantasy as if it’s a good one. He has his own escapism. Zany knows that too, and she looks away first so her eyes won’t let him know that she knows.
Lester heads to the cellar where he spends most of his time. Mom partitioned off the back corner for him with clothesline and a bed sheet. Installed an army cot and gooseneck lamp on a crate. Andy Warhol holed up in the cellar when he was a kid developing film in a jerry-rigged darkroom. Zany constructed one from an oversized cardboard box she wedged into that shadowy space beneath the stairs. She cut a closable door in the box and regularly folds herself inside to catalogue her achievements in a notebook. Stood barefoot on a hot tar patch on Frazier Street for seventy-two seconds. Mr. Braddock called me a dolt, but I said: You’re the dolt!
From below, the sound of Lester falling onto his cot followed by a sigh so deep Zany’s lungs exhale, too. Whatever dreams he had got buried under apartment rubble along with Uncle Mo.
Outside, Dad has taken Aunt Vi’s creaky rocker. “He’s a strange one,” he says about Lester. “What’s he up to down there?”
Mom says, “Who the hell knows?”
Zany clamps her unbandaged hand over her mouth to keep that knowledge from spilling. She saw what he was up to the day she was tucked in her box and forgot time until footsteps pounded the stairs above her. She peeked through the peephole she’d punched into her cardboard door as Lester peeled off his shirt, his pants. He left on his boxers and socks. Didn’t bother to draw his sheet curtain, just plopped on the cot and lit a cigarette. His smoking still surprised her. The boy he once was was also buried under rubble. Zany regretted not making her presence known, but then it was too late with Lester in his underwear, and all. Plus, she was captivated by his fingers pulling the cigarette to his lips. The little smoke rings he sent up to the floor joists. She wondered if he was dreaming of China or the South Pole, or just sitting quietly at his too-small desk back in his apartment inhaling all that fresh air. Finally, he snubbed out the cigarette in an empty tuna can. Zany hoped he would roll over for sleep, but he slid a much-abused magazine from beneath his pillow and turned pages. Even in the scant light Zany made out the naked lady on the cover. Zany’s heart thudded, even more so when Lester’s hand slipped beneath his waistband and started moving up and down, up and down. She told her eyes to close but they wouldn’t, both entranced and nauseated by what she shouldn’t be seeing. She knew what he was up to, having done her own exploring when she had her own room. She’d conjure Andy Warhol’s face and mouth and delicate hands—because those rumors weren’t true. They just weren’t. Harder to explore in the bed she now shared with Gig. Stupid Aunt Vi, and stupid collapsed Franklin Arms.
What Lester was up to looked angry. Violent, even. A jittery burn galloped beneath Zany’s skin and she bit her lip, drawing blood. But she couldn’t look away from Lester’s furious hand, his eyes ogling that magazine until they squeezed shut and his mouth pressed into a grimace that did not look like joy. The magazine collapsed onto his chest and his belly shuddered. Only then did Zany close her eyes as the burn leaked through her skin. When Lester’s snores came, she tiptoed upstairs to collapse on Andy’s echo. She caught Lester seven more times, if caught is the right word, lying in wait as she was, hoping to see, hoping not to. “You better be setting the table!” Mom yells now from the porch.
Zany grunts and makes her way to the kitchen where Aunt Vi pulls a roast from the oven. Zany heaves a stack of plates to the dining room and deals them out like playing cards. “Don’t break my dishes!” Mom calls. I hate your hair, Zany wants to say. There is a crash, but it’s not dishes. It comes from overhead where Gig screams. Thumping on the stairs as she thunders down, transistor in hand. “Zany!” Gig rushes into the dining room, ponytail swaying, eyes landing on her sister. “He’s been shot!”
Zany’s mind hurtles back two months to when Martin Luther King was killed. Riots erupted in Pittsburgh’s Black neighborhoods: The Hill District and Homewood and Manchester. “Who?” Zany says, conjuring possibilities: LBJ, Sidney Portier. But to Zany, it’s much worse.
“Andy Warhol!”
Zany counts this as the meanest lie Gig’s ever told. “He was not.”
“Yes, he was!” Gig turns up the radio and the announcer confirms it: a crazed woman shot Warhol in his Factory.
Aunt Vi comes at Zany with her arms wide, because she understands loss. “Oh, honey.” Zany bats her hands away. “It’s not true.”
Vi backs into Mom’s hoard. “Is he dead?”
Gig says: “They don’t know.”
Zany can’t stomach the smug look on Gig’s face, as if she holds Andy’s life or death between her teeth. Zany wants to slap that look off, so she does.
Gig screams.
“What the hell’s going on in there?” Mom calls.
“Zany hit me!” Gig says at the very moment Aunt Vi says: “Andy Warhol’s been shot!” “No he wasn’t!” Zany says again, wanting to slap them both.
Mom and Dad hustle inside where Gig cups her reddening cheek and bawls louder. “It’s nothing,” Mom says at the sight of her sniveling daughter, but Dad enfolds Gig in his arms. “There, there.”
“Don’t coddle that child,” says Mom, and for once Zany agrees.
“Now, Mae.” Dad cups the back of Gig’s head and there’s a different look on her face. Triumph, maybe.
Pounding on the shared duplex wall, Evie Krebbs, who never could shush that wailing baby. “Andy Warhol’s been shot!” she calls to them. “Did you all hear?”
“We heard,” Mom answers as the baby cries louder, and so does Gig, who won’t be upstaged. Mom says: “That’s the price of fame I guess.”
“Being shot?” says Aunt Vi.
“Put yourself in the public eye and anything’s liable to happen. Lotta kooks in this world.”
The neighbor kids’ chant sounds in Zany’s head: Your mother’s a hobo.
“I’d rather be shot than a hobo,” says Zany.
Mom’s head snaps back. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
Zany doesn’t fully know what she means, or maybe she does.
Dad says, “Turn up the radio and see if he’s dead.”
Zany doesn’t want to know the answer, and to keep him alive she runs to the basement where Andy will always be a sickly boy developing film. Never mind Lester in his bed sending smoke rings up to the floor joists. Never mind her family still jabbering overhead.
Zany dashes to her cardboard box and closes the door, her body shaking, but not from any disease. Andy can’t be dead. He just can’t, because if he is Zany will never make it to New York. Will never pound on his Factory door. She will never be famous enough for someone to shoot.
She doesn’t know she’s sobbing until Lester’s voice drifts over. “Zany?”
It’s hard to speak with that hand gripping her throat and her father overhead still babbling: “Turn it up, Gig.” All Zany eeks out is a sob.
Lester’s skinny voice slips through that slit in her door. “Zany?”
The grip loosens and Zany puts her eye to the peephole.
There he is, Lester, on his narrow cot in the windowless cellar where he now lives. He slides his hand into his waistband and he tilts his head toward her. “Are you watching?” Zany’s breathing settles, and the overhead voices disappear taking with them the possibility of Andy’s death. Her eyes widens so she can take it all in, the violent strokes, his contorting face, because she won’t look away from Lester’s pain, or hers. Finally, she answers him: “Yes.”
Well, this could be awkward: when we last featured a story on the podcast a year ago, it also focused on parasocial relationships and included masturbation! This time around, we are again in deft hands. Marie Manilla’s short story “Watchers”, set in 1968 Pittsburgh with both the steel mills and Andy Warhol as vital elements, is replete with narrative and thematic echoes that satisfy and leave us wanting more at the same time. Tune in for this lively discussion which touches on budding creative and identity-based aspirations, celebrity, performance art, pain in public and private, and much more. Give it a listen -- you know you want to! (Remember you can read or listen to the full story first, as there are spoilers! Just scroll down the page for the episode on our website.)
(We also welcome editor Lisa Zerkle to the table for her first show!)
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Lisa Zerkle, Jason Schneiderman, Dagne Forrest
Listen to the story Watchers in its entirety (separate from podcast reading)
Parasocial relationships
https://mashable.com/article/parasocial-relationships-definition-meaning
Andy Warhol’s childhood home in Pittsburgh (the setting of this story)
http://www.warhola.com/warholahouse.html
“History” article about Andy Warhol’s shooting by Valerie Solanas
https://www.history.com/news/andy-warhol-shot-valerie-solanas-the-factory
I Shot Andy Warhol, 1996 film
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Shot_Andy_Warhol
** Fun Fact 1: the original poster for the 1996 film hangs in Jason's apartment.
** Fun Fact 2: the actor who portrayed Valerie Solanas in “I Shot Andy Warhol”, Lili Taylor, is married to three-time PBQ-published author Nick Flynn.
Nick Flynn’s author page on PBQ
http://pbqmag.org/tag/nick-flynn/
Dangerous Art: The Weapons of Performance Artist Chris Burden
https://www.theartstory.org/blog/dangerous-art-the-weapons-of-performance-artist-chris-burden/
In her fiction and essays, West Virginia writer Marie Manilla delights in presenting fuller, perhaps unexpected, portraits of Appalachians, especially those who live in urban areas. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Marie’s books include The Patron Saint of Ugly, Shrapnel, and Still Life with Plums: Short Stories. She lives in Huntington, her hometown, with her Pittsburgh-born husband, Don.
Instagram and Facebook: @MarieManilla, Author website
Watchers
Zany lies amid clutter on the floor beneath the dining room windows hugging her bandaged arm. She huffs loudly enough to reach the front porch where Mom and Aunt Vi imbibe scotch. Vi still isn’t used to afternoon drinking. They can’t hear Zany over the Krebbs’ crying baby on the other side of the duplex wall. Stupid baby. Plus Zany’s little sister overhead dancing to the transistor radio, rattling the light fixture dangling from the ceiling.
The fingertips on Zany’s bandaged arm are cold and maybe even blue. This is slightly alarming. She considers running to Mom but knows better. Take the damn thing off then, Mom will say.
There’s nothing wrong with Zany’s arm, but that isn’t the point. At breakfast, without preamble, she wound an Ace bandage from her palm to her armpit. The family no longer asks what she’s up to. Last week during Ed Sullivan she sat at her TV tray dripping candle wax over her fist. Aunt Vi blinked with every splat, but Mom only said: “If you get that on my rug I’ll take you across my knee. I don’t care how old you are.” Zany is thirteen.
Week before, Zany taped a string of two-inch penny nails around her throat at the kitchen table where Dad rewired one of Mom’s salvaged lamps. “Why don’t you do that in your room?” Dad didn’t like sharing his workspace. Zany shrugged and the nail tips jabbed her collarbones. She could have done it in her room, but doing the thing wasn’t the point. It was having someone watch that mattered. If no one watched, who would believe she could endure that much discomfort?
Nobody is watching now, so Zany grips a dining table leg and pulls it toward her, or tries to. It’s hard to budge through Mom’s junk piles, plus the weight of the extra leaf Dad inserted when Aunt Vi and Cousin Lester moved in after their apartment collapsed. Aunt Vi brought cans of flowery air freshener to hide the hoard smell—rotten food and cat piss. They don’t own a cat. Lester, sixteen, bought a box of rubble-rescued books.
“You better be setting the table!” Mom calls through the screen.
Zany hates Mom’s manly haircut and has said so. “It’s Gig’s turn!”
Overhead, Gig stomps the floor in the bedroom they now share. Aunt Vi got Zany’s attic where Mom’s hoard had been disallowed, but it’s begun trickling up. “No, it’s not!” Gig’s transistor blares louder.
“Zany!” Mom calls. “I swear to God! And close those drapes!”
Mom can’t stand looking at the neighbor’s wall she could reach across and touch, but Zany craves fresh air, as fresh as Pittsburgh air can be. Plus, she likes counting the yellow bricks Andy Warhol surely counted when this was his childhood home, the dining room his make-shift sickroom when he suffered St. Vitus Dance. Zany is certain his bed would have been right here by the window where he could see a hint of sky if he cricked his neck just right. She lies in his echo and imagines the day she’ll appear at his Factory door in New York City and say: “I used to live in your house.” Andy will enfold her in his translucent arms before ushering her inside, not to act in his films or screen print his designs, but to be his equal. Partner, even. Zany just has to determine her own art form. It sure won’t be cutting fruit cans into flowers like Warhol’s mother did for chump change.
Zany’s legs start the herky-jerky Vitus dance as if she’s running toward that Factory dream. Her pelvis and hips quake. The one free arm. The back of her head jitters against the floor. It’s a familiar thrum even Aunt Vi and Lester are accustomed to now. Mom yells: “Stop that racket!” She mutters to Vi: “We never should have bought this place.”
A kitchen timer dings and Aunt Vi comes in to disarm it. Her cooking is better than Mom’s, and Vi wears an apron and dime store lipstick while she does it. Fresh peas instead of canned. Real mashed potatoes instead of instant. Vi is a better housekeeper, too, organizing Mom’s trash into four-foot piles that line the walls. Every day Mom trolls back alleys and neighbors’ garbage in dingy clothes that make her look like a hobo. That’s what the kids say: Your mom looks like a hobo. She pulls a rickety cart and loads it with moldy linens, rolled-up rugs, dented wastebaskets. Zany wonders if Dad regrets marrying the wrong sister. She knows he regrets not having a son, a boy who could have been Lester if Dad had a different heart. Instead, Dad got Lester on at the blast furnace, because “No one sleeps under my roof for free.” Who needs a high school diploma?
In the kitchen, Aunt Vi lets out one of her sobs. She only does that in private after Mom’s third scolding: “He’s dead, Vi. Crying won’t bring him back.”
Zany misses Uncle Mo, too. His pocketful of peppermints. The trick coin he always plucked from Zany’s ear. The last time Zany’s family visited, she walked through their decrepit Franklin Arms apartment with its spongy floors and clanking pipes, but no maze of debris to negotiate. No cat piss smell or sister blaring the radio. She found Lester in his room at a child’s desk he’d outgrown, doughy boy that he then was, doing homework without being nagged. Astounding. His room was spartan, plenty of space for a second bed if Zany asked Aunt Vi sweetly enough. But no. Zany couldn’t abandon Andy in his Dawson Street sickbed. Lester’s only wall decoration was a world map strung with red yarn radiating from Pittsburgh to France, China, the South Pole. She wanted to ask why those destinations, but didn’t, entranced as she was by all that fresh-aired openness, plus his feverishly scribbling hand.
Now, Aunt Vi leans in the dining room dabbing her face with a dishtowel. She’s aged a decade since moving here and it isn’t all due to grief. She targets Zany on the floor. “Everything all right in here?”
Zany has stopped breathing. Her eyes are glazed and her tongue lolls from her mouth. She’s getting better at playing dead.
“All right then.” Aunt Vi is getting better at not reacting. The screen door slams behind her.
Zany pulls in her tongue and inhales. She starts counting bricks again until Aunt Vi calls: “There they are!” as she does every workday.
Zany pictures Dad and Lester padding up Dawson. Wet hair slicked back because they shower off the stench before coming home. Zany appreciates that. Their boots scrape the steps to the porch where Aunt Vi will take their lunchpails. And there she is coming through the door and dashing to rinse their thermoses at the kitchen sink. Mom will stay put and pour Dad a finger of scotch.
Lester bangs inside and pauses in the dining room entryway. He’s leaner now on account of the physical labor. Taller too. He eyes Zany’s bandaged arm, not with Aunt Vi’s alarm, but with the kind of baffled wonder Zany has always been after. Their eyes meet and it’s the same look he gave her the day she walked backward all the way to the Eliza Number Two—not because Dad and Lester worked there, but because it was lunchtime, and a gaggle of men would be eating beneath that pin oak by the furnace entrance. And there they were, her father among them, not easy to see having to crane her neck as Zany picked her way over the railroad tracks.
“What the hell is she doing?” said Tom Folsom. Zany recognized her neighbor’s voice. “She’s off her nut,” said another worker.
Zany twisted fully around to see if her father would defend her, but he was already hustling back to the furnace.
“Something’s not right with that girl,” said Folsom.
“Nothing wrong with her,” said Lester from beneath a different tree where he ate his cheese sandwich alone.
Folsom spit in the grass. “Shut up, fairy boy.”
Lester wasn’t a fairy boy, Zany knew.
Today, leaning in the dining room, Lester looks as if he can see inside Zany’s skull to the conjured Factory room she and Andy will one day share: walls scrubbed clean and painted white. Her drawings or paintings lining the walls in tidy rows. Maybe sculptures aligned on shelves. Or mobiles overhead spinning in the breeze. Lester nods at her fantasy as if it’s a good one. He has his own escapism. Zany knows that too, and she looks away first so her eyes won’t let him know that she knows.
Lester heads to the cellar where he spends most of his time. Mom partitioned off the back corner for him with clothesline and a bed sheet. Installed an army cot and gooseneck lamp on a crate. Andy Warhol holed up in the cellar when he was a kid developing film in a jerry-rigged darkroom. Zany constructed one from an oversized cardboard box she wedged into that shadowy space beneath the stairs. She cut a closable door in the box and regularly folds herself inside to catalogue her achievements in a notebook. Stood barefoot on a hot tar patch on Frazier Street for seventy-two seconds. Mr. Braddock called me a dolt, but I said: You’re the dolt!
From below, the sound of Lester falling onto his cot followed by a sigh so deep Zany’s lungs exhale, too. Whatever dreams he had got buried under apartment rubble along with Uncle Mo.
Outside, Dad has taken Aunt Vi’s creaky rocker. “He’s a strange one,” he says about Lester. “What’s he up to down there?”
Mom says, “Who the hell knows?”
Zany clamps her unbandaged hand over her mouth to keep that knowledge from spilling. She saw what he was up to the day she was tucked in her box and forgot time until footsteps pounded the stairs above her. She peeked through the peephole she’d punched into her cardboard door as Lester peeled off his shirt, his pants. He left on his boxers and socks. Didn’t bother to draw his sheet curtain, just plopped on the cot and lit a cigarette. His smoking still surprised her. The boy he once was was also buried under rubble. Zany regretted not making her presence known, but then it was too late with Lester in his underwear, and all. Plus, she was captivated by his fingers pulling the cigarette to his lips. The little smoke rings he sent up to the floor joists. She wondered if he was dreaming of China or the South Pole, or just sitting quietly at his too-small desk back in his apartment inhaling all that fresh air. Finally, he snubbed out the cigarette in an empty tuna can. Zany hoped he would roll over for sleep, but he slid a much-abused magazine from beneath his pillow and turned pages. Even in the scant light Zany made out the naked lady on the cover. Zany’s heart thudded, even more so when Lester’s hand slipped beneath his waistband and started moving up and down, up and down. She told her eyes to close but they wouldn’t, both entranced and nauseated by what she shouldn’t be seeing. She knew what he was up to, having done her own exploring when she had her own room. She’d conjure Andy Warhol’s face and mouth and delicate hands—because those rumors weren’t true. They just weren’t. Harder to explore in the bed she now shared with Gig. Stupid Aunt Vi, and stupid collapsed Franklin Arms.
What Lester was up to looked angry. Violent, even. A jittery burn galloped beneath Zany’s skin and she bit her lip, drawing blood. But she couldn’t look away from Lester’s furious hand, his eyes ogling that magazine until they squeezed shut and his mouth pressed into a grimace that did not look like joy. The magazine collapsed onto his chest and his belly shuddered. Only then did Zany close her eyes as the burn leaked through her skin. When Lester’s snores came, she tiptoed upstairs to collapse on Andy’s echo. She caught Lester seven more times, if caught is the right word, lying in wait as she was, hoping to see, hoping not to. “You better be setting the table!” Mom yells now from the porch.
Zany grunts and makes her way to the kitchen where Aunt Vi pulls a roast from the oven. Zany heaves a stack of plates to the dining room and deals them out like playing cards. “Don’t break my dishes!” Mom calls. I hate your hair, Zany wants to say. There is a crash, but it’s not dishes. It comes from overhead where Gig screams. Thumping on the stairs as she thunders down, transistor in hand. “Zany!” Gig rushes into the dining room, ponytail swaying, eyes landing on her sister. “He’s been shot!”
Zany’s mind hurtles back two months to when Martin Luther King was killed. Riots erupted in Pittsburgh’s Black neighborhoods: The Hill District and Homewood and Manchester. “Who?” Zany says, conjuring possibilities: LBJ, Sidney Portier. But to Zany, it’s much worse.
“Andy Warhol!”
Zany counts this as the meanest lie Gig’s ever told. “He was not.”
“Yes, he was!” Gig turns up the radio and the announcer confirms it: a crazed woman shot Warhol in his Factory.
Aunt Vi comes at Zany with her arms wide, because she understands loss. “Oh, honey.” Zany bats her hands away. “It’s not true.”
Vi backs into Mom’s hoard. “Is he dead?”
Gig says: “They don’t know.”
Zany can’t stomach the smug look on Gig’s face, as if she holds Andy’s life or death between her teeth. Zany wants to slap that look off, so she does.
Gig screams.
“What the hell’s going on in there?” Mom calls.
“Zany hit me!” Gig says at the very moment Aunt Vi says: “Andy Warhol’s been shot!” “No he wasn’t!” Zany says again, wanting to slap them both.
Mom and Dad hustle inside where Gig cups her reddening cheek and bawls louder. “It’s nothing,” Mom says at the sight of her sniveling daughter, but Dad enfolds Gig in his arms. “There, there.”
“Don’t coddle that child,” says Mom, and for once Zany agrees.
“Now, Mae.” Dad cups the back of Gig’s head and there’s a different look on her face. Triumph, maybe.
Pounding on the shared duplex wall, Evie Krebbs, who never could shush that wailing baby. “Andy Warhol’s been shot!” she calls to them. “Did you all hear?”
“We heard,” Mom answers as the baby cries louder, and so does Gig, who won’t be upstaged. Mom says: “That’s the price of fame I guess.”
“Being shot?” says Aunt Vi.
“Put yourself in the public eye and anything’s liable to happen. Lotta kooks in this world.”
The neighbor kids’ chant sounds in Zany’s head: Your mother’s a hobo.
“I’d rather be shot than a hobo,” says Zany.
Mom’s head snaps back. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
Zany doesn’t fully know what she means, or maybe she does.
Dad says, “Turn up the radio and see if he’s dead.”
Zany doesn’t want to know the answer, and to keep him alive she runs to the basement where Andy will always be a sickly boy developing film. Never mind Lester in his bed sending smoke rings up to the floor joists. Never mind her family still jabbering overhead.
Zany dashes to her cardboard box and closes the door, her body shaking, but not from any disease. Andy can’t be dead. He just can’t, because if he is Zany will never make it to New York. Will never pound on his Factory door. She will never be famous enough for someone to shoot.
She doesn’t know she’s sobbing until Lester’s voice drifts over. “Zany?”
It’s hard to speak with that hand gripping her throat and her father overhead still babbling: “Turn it up, Gig.” All Zany eeks out is a sob.
Lester’s skinny voice slips through that slit in her door. “Zany?”
The grip loosens and Zany puts her eye to the peephole.
There he is, Lester, on his narrow cot in the windowless cellar where he now lives. He slides his hand into his waistband and he tilts his head toward her. “Are you watching?” Zany’s breathing settles, and the overhead voices disappear taking with them the possibility of Andy’s death. Her eyes widens so she can take it all in, the violent strokes, his contorting face, because she won’t look away from Lester’s pain, or hers. Finally, she answers him: “Yes.”
Dear Slushies, we have a confession. The first draft of these show notes included references to Wawa, Jason's sweet tooth, the relative repulsiveness of hot milk shakes, and professional wrestling. But then we realized that approach eclipsed what this episode illuminates: the poetic trend of self-reflexive gestures like the one we just made, confessing that this isn't the first draft! Listen in as we discuss Krysten Hill's poem "Are We Still Good?" The poem challenges us to think about analogy, metaphor, and narrativity. How poets can stage the occasion for a speaker's confessional reflection via the spark of a story plucked from our information dense mediascape -- revealing what it means to feel terror when that terror might otherwise be dismissed. How does she do this? Manatees and memes, silence, and a meta-textual turn. Enjoy!
PS Samantha also references this great essay by John Shoptaw on eco poetry. Dig in!
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Dagne Forrest, Jason Schneiderman, Samanatha Neugebauer
Krysten Hill is the author of How Her Spirit Got Out (Aforementioned Productions, 2016), which received the 2017 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize. Her work has recently appeared in or is forthcoming from The Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day Series, Poetry Magazine, PANK, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Winter Tangerine Review,Rust + Moth and elsewhere. She is a recipient of the 2020 Mass Cultural Council Poetry Fellowship, 2023 Vermont Studio Center Residency, and 2024 SWWIM Residency.
Author website
Are We Still Good?According to officials, the animal does not appear to be seriously injured.
Someone adds in the comments that, Obviously, it was just a joke.
Calm down, Liberals. Highlightsthe part in the article where
the man’s name was scraped onto algae growing on its skin.
From what they could see, nothing was truly threatened.
The sea cow was probably too dumb and fat to feel anything.
I think of all the ways cruelty begins as a joke until
it chooses to finish what it started. The friend I’d known for years
didn’t stop when I asked and asked again. I thought maybe he didn’t hear me.
Later, he told our mutual friend that, Things just got out of hand.
I thought she knew I was just playing. I remember when I was sure he heard me,
I recognized it was my fear that made him smile so loud. Still, I attempt
to explain the surprise. At least I didn’t die there, I tell myself. Even here,
I wrote that as the first line of this poem and buried it. Anyways,
he had work in the morning, offered to drive me home.
I didn’t have to walk back to my dorm in the snow. I laughed
at everything he said on the way and tried not to let him see
my hands shake when I took the gum he offered me. He asked,
Are we still good? I chewed my tongue, relieved that I could
do something else with my mouth until he parked, unlocked
the door to let me out. I thanked him. I was so scared that I didn’t run.
Episode 123: The Catholic Episode
Dear Slushies, we have a confession. We love being close readers as much as we love being close listeners. And if you are a fan of this podcast, we know the same is true for you. We’re delighted to consider Charlie Peck’s poems “Cowboy Dreams” and “Bully in the Trees” in this episode. We’re talking about unreliable narrators, homeric epithets, dramatic enjambments, and the difference between small “c” catholicism and capital “C” Catholicism. Confession and exultation, Slushies! Floating signifiers and The Sopranos. It’s a doozy! We hope you love listening in as much as we loved considering Charlie Peck’s poems for PBQ.
(Oh, and we excitedly celebrate Jason’s fifth collection launching in April, Portrait of Icarus as a Country on Fire!)
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Jason Schneiderman, Samanatha Neugebauer
Charlie Peck is from Omaha, Nebraska and received his MFA from Purdue University. His poetry has appeared previously in Cincinnati Review, Ninth Letter, Massachusetts Review, and Best New Poets 2019, among others. His first collection, World’s Largest Ball of Paint, is the winner of the 2022 St. Lawrence Book Award from Black Lawrence Press and is forthcoming April 2024.
Twitter: @chip_nutter
Cowboy Dreams
Winedrunk along the river on a Tuesday,
boy howdy, my life. I ignore another
call from my mother because today
is about the matted grass and the skipping trout.
When my brother jumps companies
after the Christmas bonus, it’s Ruthless.
When I pillage the family silver
to slick forty bucks at a pawn shop,
It’s time you start thinking about recovery.
Instinct makes me wreck anyone who comes
too close. You ever snapped a dog’s
stick just to watch his ears drop? I’m Catholic
with how quick I loose my tongue to confess,
my guilt just a frequency my ears quit hearing.
One snowy May in the Colorado mountains, I stripped
to my underwear and raised my pack to wade
the glacial river. Dried by a fire with a pot
of beans. All night I dreamt of my lasso
and revolver, riding the hot-blooded horse
alone across the plains, no one in sight to hurt.
Bully in the Trees
Indiana cornfields leave so much
to be desired, and lately I’ve desired nothing
but clean sheets and pretzel bread. For a decade
I was ruthless, took whatever I wanted:
last donut in the office breakroom, merged
lanes out of turn. I stole my roommate’s
change jar, sat on the floor of a Wells Fargo
rolling quarters to buy an eighth. In this new year,
I promise I’ll stop being the loudest in the room
like a bear ravaging a campsite just to be the bully
in the trees. For so long I thought my cruelty
was the world’s fault, my stubbed toe blamed
on the coffee table’s leg, not my stumbling in the dark.
Throwing every fish back to the river
doesn’t forgive the hooked hole I caused.
Once, I undressed a woman in the giraffe enclosure,
but maybe that was a Soprano’s episode. Once,
my life was so ordinary I replaced it
with the things I saw on television. I ate fifty
hard-boiled eggs. I robbed the bank and screamed
Attica! I stood in the trees cuffing the Nebraska
suburb and watched my mother set the table
through the window. A porcelain plate at each chair.
My ordinary life stranged by the window frame.
If I fall asleep before the credits, let me dream the rest.
My pockets are empty, but the metal detector still shrieks.
Dearest Slushies, we’re so happy to be back in the saddle! We took a mini-hiatus and return with this episode devoted to the poems of Jodi Balas. You’ll hear us mull over her artful use of concrete poetry and dive deep into her thinking about poetry, the body, and NFTs. How does a poem’s form entwine with its image system in order to serve its sense? How is taste also (always) about power? All of these questions are wrapped in a glittering cascade of editorial acumen and quirky dishing: Listen as Dagne explains the difference between NFTs and Cryptocurrency, reminding us of Rattle’s prescient issue dedicated to NFT poets. Or let us know what you think: should “mini cocktails” ever be a thing for happy hours? Is “drinkable” ever a compliment? Can we make a meme of Jason’s seductive eyebrow skills? In addition to the following links you might dig– NFTs explained in 5 Minutes & Brit Bennett’s “Ain't That Good News”-- we invite you to contemplate the ritual of champagne sabering (if you try this in your backyard, shout “Poetry!”) With best wishes for a happy new year from the Slush Pile Crew.
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Jason Schneiderman, Dagne Forrest, Samanatha Neugebauer
Jodi Balas is a neurodivergent poet from Northeast Pennsylvania. A lover of words (salacious, being a favorite – it just rolls off the tongue), her poetry has been accepted in Hole in the Head Review, Wild Roof Journal, Humana Obscura, Pinch Journal, and elsewhere. Jodi’s poem, “His mouth, mine” was selected as a finalist for the 2023 River Heron Review poetry prize and her poem, “Bone Density” won the 2023 Comstock Review Muriel Craft Bailey Award judged by Danusha Lameris. Jodi is in the process of developing her first chapbook to market to the poetry world. You could follow her musings on Instagram @jodibalas_
WALKING TO SURRENDER
The ghost at my side,
the knife in my coat pocket
hanging on the coat rack. I
yield to morning in apprehension
almost every morning. I’m
hardening, becoming the
weight of two dead trees. A
spool of thread wound so tight,
it’s hard to find the starting
point - the dull tip of a needle is
useless. I try and unknot the
shoelace from yesterday, the
muscle of memory below the ribs
and figure out which direction I’m
headed or which route is correct for
my mental state I’ve been trying
to correct but cannot correct
until I surrender entirely to the
blinding wave of fear.
MY BODY AS AN NFT
Allow me to unshackle
your wrists, bring you
up off your knees & up to
speed. Call me a good
investment, the original
copy. Non-refundable,
metallic over bone, wire
over skin – untethered,
the virtual sin. You cannot
use me in some side hustle,
sleight of hand deal. I am
my own creator. Watch
how I catapult through
your veins and rush you
faster than a thief with a
shank. Electric/cryptic
mytongueisdigitalweight
Begging for a bit of action
you’re not sure how to
obtain. Tell me, is there
mutual interest? I can
tell you that I’m priceless.
Watch closely before I
become a liability, before
your pockets explode,
before the scales begin
to re-balance themselves.
In this episode we discussed three very different poems by Oregon poet Lorna Rose, all three resulting in juicy conversation and resulting in three tie-breakers (none of them involving the same voting configurations amongst our team!). This was a big first for us. The episode was kicked off by a larger discussion (prompted by the first poem) around aspects of cultural appropriation and touched on facets of trauma and language. This wide-ranging discussion and the split in our voting pointed to the power and ambiguity of various elements in these poems. In the end, a tie-breaking editor helped deliver two of these poems into PBQ’s pages! Have a listen!
Note: This episode was recorded in December 2021, so there will be a bit of time travel involved.
This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Jason Schneiderman, Alex Tunney
Absentee voter for the tie-breakers: Samanatha Neugebauer
Links to things we discuss you might like to check out:
"Declaration" by Tracy K. Smith, an erasure poem of the Declaration of Independence
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/147468/declaration-5b5a286052461
"Native Son" by Richard Wright
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1992/07/20/the-hammer-and-the-nail
"Appropriate: A Provocation" by Paisley Rekdal
https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324003588
"How-To" by Anders Carlson Wee and retraction by The Nation
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/how-to/
"Inside Kate Winlset's Mare of Easttown" Pennsylvania Accent, Vanity Fair
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/04/kate-winslet-mare-of-easttown-accent
Lorna is a Pacific Northwest writer and speaker. Her narrative nonfiction and poetry have been recognized by Pacific Northwest Writers Association and the Oregon Poetry Association, and have appeared or are forthcoming in Scary Mommy, Jellyfish Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Writers Resist, and elsewhere. She's also a speaker and workshop leader. When not wrangling her two small children, she fantasizes about being interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air.
Author website
Leaving Libya
I flood my lungs
with the wet stench of fish and bodies and fuel.
Dinghy motor whines against the night.
Salt air grinds my skin ‘til it’s threadbare and
there’s no sitting since leaving Sabratha.
Body clenches tight to its bones
and shrill muscles shriek and weep and lock up.
Damp t-shirt clings to goosebumped flesh under a
tattered orange life jacket. But what life?
Next to me a shaking woman holds her boney baby
and cries. She has shit herself.
Behind me a man mumbles and mumbles for water.
His eyes roll hollow,
mouth slacks open.
From his breath
I smell the thick stink of rot,
the gray smell of
forgotten humanity.
Lights of the Italian coastline appear and
my heart races,
vision blurs.
From somewhere behind there’s a jolt.
Yelling.
Floor tilts.
And the lights of Lampedusa go black.
Surviving the Rush
No music plays in
the general store in Circle, Alaska,
which is full of mukluks and
Wonder Bread.
Villagers fish the Yukon,
memorize river rise,
bet on
breakup.
Long ago miners arrived from Outside
to sift, chip
rip fortunes
from earth.
Stilts were drilled into permafrost and
structures were imposed and
all bustle and
rage.
Then claims fell dry and
no patience and Circle started to
wither.
The locals
picked up pieces of buildings, tried to
heal the
pock-marked ground.
Today a tourist’s crisp dollar might
mean something,
except the locals would have to tolerate
the perfumey tourist.
Villagers fish the Yukon,
memorize river rise,
bet on breakup. The soil smells of
fool’s gold and blood.
Slushies, in this episode we consider two poems by C. Fausto Cabrera, both of which speak, in very different ways, to the imagination in building our sense of self. The notion of being seen, a topic of universal relevance to any writer or artist, is explored in the first poem, which ends with the line “stuck in between the covers wondering when you’ll be back”, simultaneously exploring themes of incarceration or imprisonment. This discussion leads us to consider the many layers of being seen and Jason takes a moment to appreciate the “sexy time” of having a book tucked in your pocket. The second poem takes us on a related yet palpably different journey and reveals one of the paths our editorial discussions can take us to. Take a listen, you won’t be disappointed!
This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, and Dagne Forrest.
C. Fausto Cabrera is a multi-genre artist and writer currently incarcerated since 2003. His work has appeared in: The Colorado Review, The Antioch Review, Puerto del Sol, The American Literary Review, The Water~Stone Review, The Woodward Review, among others. "The Parameters of Our Cage" is his prose collaboration with photographer Alec Soth.
To Be Seen at All ,
"What makes us so deserving of space
in other people' s minds?"
-Daniel Ruiz
My boss in the kitchen asks me how it felt to be famous
after looking up my Washington Post Magazine
essay & cover art online. The question left me stuck
I didn't feel famous. I hadn't received much mail in years.
What does celebrity mean separate from saturation, fame to
the incarcerated— but infamy?
I question the value of telling people about accomplishments,
about publishing at all— in a place where your spades
game gets more respect, & swagger's stuck in the last time you punched a
muthafucker in the face, what' s the point? I just felt petty
for wanting to be seen at all. Guards are more concerned
with how many towels I have than who I become.
I'm being heard— & that should be the focus, right?
Is the nobility of a thing in or on purpose? Or the other
way around? Cause who ever does anything for nobility—
I'm starving to be objectified: stripped down by the new young blond
guard like a Skinamax late nite B-movie, why else do hundreds
of burpees if not to play into the bad boy fantasies of anyone watching?
I went away before social media, but had my Lil’ cousin Artesia build
me a platform to stand upon, thinkin' it'd present me
somehow, someway, maybe keep me present— be on someone's mind or
wall, admired even for a moment. The Past says they miss me, but
since they never reach past the screen it's not the real me,
only their memory. It’s not about me at all—and neither should the work be.
There is a point to this poem, in its lack of trust. & none of it is an answer.
How can I count on anything through a 2-way mirror? I am just
a writer, the world through my eyes glows different due to the depths of my
damage. When you close this book & move on
I'll still be stuck in-between the covers,
wondering when you'll be back.
In the Sun that Seeps from the Dungeons/ Window/ Everything is Bright
Because God is in an algorithm I hear through the toggle of my shuffle button/ from a playlist I
composed/ I tell myself/ that if I listen, while the TV projects a pretty face to see when I look up
from what I'm reading of poetry, mechanical pencil, click, click, underlining & taking notes in
the margins— sipping a mug of French vanilla creamer laden coffee w/thoughts swirling in my
cinnamon head/ the sheer alchemy of it all should/ naturally combust! What butterfly wings must
taste like/embers floating/escape the chaos, wondering west to set fires/troublesome/I
want blood in the cut, I want noise/they made me something vicious. Will I burn out or fade
away? The man in black speaks for me & reminds me I'm not alone. A rainbow in
the dark, I'll take death before dishonor, bet I bomb on them first/ it's just the life of an
outlaw.
I am an amalgamation of influences, intricate in their darkness, complex in their
origins, some speak integrable nostalgic, others spark dumb & rash/& I gave
away my youth to sit & listen to all at once/hopeful/ saying something of a future I'
II forget/ I longed for/ once /it arrives. I read my poetry book, circle a
word or phrase to slow down, hoping to see something I can lift/ above a drawn
line or jot in the margins that can change the way I see or say.
Words & wonder/ pour into my ears, my eyes catch/ images I pull into my
heart while I swallow the sweetness of an appreciation. In these
moments I am alive. Then God says, through The City of Prague' s
Philharmonic Orchestra that the path isn't interchangeable.
There's no other person I'd rather be.
When to break a line, Slushies. And why? What’s the shape your poem takes, and how does the poem’s form serve its complexities, subtleties, and heart? Three poems by Karl Meade are up for consideration in this episode of The Slush Pile, and they call the editors into conversation about trauma in literature, narrative (in)coherence as craft, and the pleasurable risks of stair-stepped stanzas. Poet L.J. Sysko joins the conversation on this episode of The Slush Pile as we discuss “Beach Fall,” “Christmas Break,” and “Doom Eager.” (If a tree falls in the woods, Slushies. Ammiright?)
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, L. J. Sysko, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, Alex J. Tunney
Karl Meade’s work been published in many literary magazines, a few of which he didn’t even donate heavily to, or previously serve as editor—including Literary Review of Canada, Tusculum Review, Arc Poetry Magazine, Grain Magazine, Chronogram, Umbrella Factory Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, Event Magazine, The Fiddlehead, Open Letter, Under the Sun, and Dandelion. His work has also been mistakenly longlisted for four CBC Literary Prizes, shortlisted for The Malahat Review’s Open Season Creative Nonfiction Award, and Arc Poetry Magazine’s Poem of the Year. His novel, Odd Jobs, written as a solemn literary manifesto, was a finalist for the Foreword Reviews Book of the Year for Humor, and an iTunes Top 20 Arts and Literature podcast—“Laugh Out Loud,” one listener said of this grave work.
Karl’s chapbook “Doom Eager” has just been released in September 2023 by Raven Chapbooks, just in time for us to publish this podcast, which has waited longer than it should for release!
Author website: www.karlmeade.com
Guest Editor: L.J. Sysko
L.J. Sysko's work has been published in Voicemail Poems, The Pinch, Ploughshares, Rattle, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. She is the author of a poetry chapbook, BATTLEDORE (Finishing Line Press, New Women's Voices series). Poetry honors include several Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg awards, two fellowships from Delaware's Division of the Arts, and poetry finalist recognition from The Fourth River, The Pinch, and Soundings East. Sysko holds an MFA in poetry from New England College.
X: @lj_sysko
Instagram: @lesliesysko
Facebook: @lesliesysko
Author website: http://www.ljsysko.com
beach fallfor Holli and Terry
Mountain to stone, prairie to sand, redwood to ash,
from here I can see the heart of the sea, but not the beach
he fell on. I can see the picture
window you sit in—waiting, watching the shore, iPad in lap, short-haired
Flossy at your side, the one who dug your dad’s
water bottle from under him. I don’t know why
you brought his suitcase to his wake
empty—what it was between you. Only he knew the words
you could not say. The doctors’ words for you—non-verbal, spectral—sent him
back to rage. He said they weren’t worth the hair
on a dead chicken, that aut-ism was just too much self for them to take
from you. He knew what his raging
love could do: four hours a night on the couch, talking
through your iPad. He called himself Manitoban, the prairie farm-boy
who watched his dog run away for three days, the rain-man
to lead you out, teach you how to mouth the O, the awe
in Holli. Yes, from here I can see the redwoods
fall, the mountains decay, his sea-bed—
they say all the big hearts of the earth
love where they fall, that his heart stopped
before he hit the beach. But we both know
why his mouth was full of sand.
Christmas break
for Doug and Arlene
The earth heaves, the ice cleaves. Erosion
cuts the heart from every stone, while every night
I watch you drive your family past a starving glacier, turn
from a truck laden with salt. You head off
the head on, take the bumper to the heart, leave
your family straining your lungs’ last
words from the floor of the minivan.
I’m on the floor beneath my desk, straining
to plug in the phone that I will blame for years: why
did I plug it in? Every night
I watch the driver’s stoned eyes, petrified as your broken
daughters in the back. Every night
I piece you all back together: brake, I say, turn
over and over while the glacier leaves
its terminal moraine. I gather the stones,
offer them to the moon, last witness
to your last turn. I turn
to your wife, try to face her head on
with what the earth knows:
core to crust, mouth to lung
the rupture comes, the rupture
stays. Every Christmas
she wakes to the words
brake, turn.
doom eager*
because one of us
took a spike to the lung
a minivan to the chest
hit the beach with his heart
to say nothing of the one
whose only breath was broken water
because I believe
the hand, the wound, the moon
is how I show you where I fell
through the hole I thought I was
diving for pearls through the green
fuse of ice in my dream of you
because I run naked
through the forest on a moonless night
with a penlight in the hand that broke
my mother’s heart waning at the seed
of light the moon won’t show me
because its dark side calls all of us
because I believe
I’ll find your heart in the east
your marrow in the moon
fever just before the sun rises
I’ll swim for it all day forgetting
how the earth turns east south west
circling all night forgetting
there is no moon
in the new moon
because the only way out
is my hand on your chest
I walk the shore all night
dream back the back of the moon
because the only cure
for the wound
is the wound
*after Ibsen, Graham, Moore: an Icelandic term for the isolation, restlessness, caughtness an artist experiences when sick with an idea
A wonderful sense of wordplay permeates the poems we were able to discuss from Barbara Diehl. Sadly, one of three poems we’d flagged for the podcast was snapped up before our discussion was recorded, and we talk a bit at the start of this episode about our process and timelines. Barbara’s work gave us space to consider how word choices, sequencing, and combining can lead to new experiences in a poem, as well as a debate over the roles of joy and darkness in poetry, including the balance we seek as readers in the world we find ourselves living in these days.
This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer and Dagne Forrest.
Barbara Westwood Diehl is senior editor of The Baltimore Review. Her fiction and poetry appear in a variety of journals, including Quiddity, Potomac Review (Best of the 50), SmokeLong Quarterly, Gargoyle, Superstition Review, Thrush Poetry Journal, Atticus Review, The MacGuffin, The Shore, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Raleigh Review, Ponder, Fractured Lit, South Florida Poetry Journal, Five South, Allium, The Inflectionist Review, Switch, Split Rock Review, and Free State Review.
Socials: Twitter @BarbaraWestwood, Facebook @ barbara.w.diehl.3, Poets & Writers listing
December Goodnight
it’s sunfall, and the papersky is grayed
with erasures of bestlaid plans
all the daymistakes
forgiven
the brokenpencil points of planes
thumbsmudged away
their grumblechatter
hushed
the blackening windows
shuttered
so sleep in the nightsee
in the skylisten
so dream a planetdance
breathe a metronome
so keep time to a ticktock moon
to evening’s pocketwatch
its face a dozing chaperone
so humfade, so eyes closed
nothing to shudderfret
allsafe
In the midst of excitedly preparing for AWP 2017, we record this episode in which we discuss two poems by Rita Banerjee, “The Suicide Rag” and “Georgia Brown”
This week’s discussion both took us back and made sure that none of us would see the world the same way again. With images of breakdancing, gospel choir, and the not-so-innocent Georgia Brown, we were in it. Whether we’re distinguishing jazz from jazz or figuring out what a clapper is, this episode is filled with risky moves.
Join us in the campaign to have your local library carry lesser-known authors and small presses. Let us know what books you’ll be requesting with #getsomebooks! Let’s support libraries, small presses, and the authors who write for them.
Make sure you follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and let us know what you think of this episode with #longandskinny! Stay tuned to hear about our AWP 2017 experience–we hope to see you there! And of course, most importantly, read on!
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Jason Schneiderman, Tim Fitts, and Sara Aykit
Rita Banerjee is the author of Echo in Four Beats, CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writing, the novella “A Night with Kali” in Approaching Footsteps, and Cracklers at Night. She received her doctorate in Comparative Literature from Harvard and her MFA from the University of Washington, and her work appears in Hunger Mountain, PANK, Tupelo Quarterly, Isele Magazine, Nat. Brut., Poets & Writers, Academy of American Poets, Los Angeles Review of Books, Vermont Public Radio, and elsewhere. She is the co-writer of Burning Down the Louvre, a forthcoming documentary film about race, intimacy, and tribalism in the United States and in France, and serves as Senior Editor of the South Asian Avant-Garde and Creative Director of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop. She received a 2021-2022 Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council for her new memoir and manifesto on female cool, and one of the opening chapters of this memoir, “Birth of Cool” was a Notable Essay in the 2020 Best American Essays. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and Director of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.
The Suicide Rag
Billy played ragtime
on the church
organ but we
lunch hour kids,
kept time by another
name. Behind St. Augustine’s
we learned to hit
the pavement, sound
like an anvil
crack
hammers hitting
steel, Billy playing
skeletons
on the fifth,
we arpeggioed
haloed, froze
on the black
top. Learning
to cakewalk
This was our
battle—
tar-mat babies
doing handsprung
suicides
for the girls
standing ’round
with knife-like eyes
That’s all
we needed—
a rolling
beat, a firing squad
and schoolyard
skirts
scouring the lot
as we fell
face forward
hands locked
& stiff, the only
thing
that could’ve
come between
us was a kiss.
Georgia Brown
Harlem had yet to be born,
the globe had not been spun,
but we knew how to whistle,
how to call clappers and skirts on cue:
That summer, we first met Georgia,
she was an echo in four beats,
we learned to hum her story.
Mike played her with a licked reed
but she was all brass, sharp
like an abandoned railroad cutting through
wild wood, and when she took stage,
she made those trombone boys whisper,
“Sweet Georgia, Sweet.”
Welcome to Episode 19 of Slush Pile! For this episode, we have two “creepy” poems submitted for our Monsters Issue by Sarah Kain Gutowski.
While these poems, part of a suite, did not get unanimous votes, we all felt they enveloped us into a universe of magical realism. True to the tradition of scary stories, these poems demand to be read slowly, deliberately, and out loud. Additionally, Gutowski’s work is more than simply scary. Like Kathy says, “Sometimes freaky shit happens,” and these poems force our team to consider the ambiguities of life, or pre-death, as Tim puts it. Listen to the outcome, but one thing is for sure: these poems are stronger together.
Comment on our Facebook event page or on Twitter with #frogtongue and sign for our email list if you’re in the area, and even if you’re not! Read on!
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Lauren Patterson, Tim Fitts, Caitlin McLaughlin, Jason Schneiderman, and Marion Wrenn
Sarah Kain Gutowski is the author of two books, The Familiar (forthcoming) and Fabulous Beast: Poems, winner of the 14th annual National Indies Excellence Award for Poetry. With interdisciplinary artist Meredith Starr, she is co-creator of Every Second Feels Like Theft, a conversation in cyanotypes and poetry, and It's All Too Much, a limited edition audio project. Her poems have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The Threepenny Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, and The Southern Review, and her criticism has been published by Colorado Review, Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women, and the New York Journal of Books.
Chapter VI: The Children Have a Request
The season stretched itself thin, weakened by storms and heat.
Inside the damp, shadowy space of the children’s fort,
the woman with the frog tongue wove baskets and bowls
with tight, interlocked laces, while her silk stitches
began to fray and lengthen. The gap between her lips
widened to where the children could see the white of her teeth.
They stared at her, sometimes; she saw them clench their jaws
and try to speak to each other without moving their mouths.
Before long they’d begin to laugh, and she’d shake with relief at the sound.
Then one day, when the trees broke into glittering shards
of gold and red and green, and light spun pinwheels above
their heads as they walked together between the falling leaves,
the girl looked at the woman and asked if she had a name.
At this, the woman jerked to a stop. The old surge,
the impulse to speak that rose within her belly and chest,
overwhelmed. She wanted the girl and boy to know her name.
Her tongue, rolled tightly and barred from moving inside its cage,
strained against her teeth and cheeks, contorting her face with its rage.
The boy stepped back when he saw the change on the woman’s face.
The girl moved closer, though, to pat the hand she held
like she might a frightened kitten or skittish, fallen bird.
Let’s guess your name, she said. The woman’s jaw fell slack,
as much as the stitches allowed. Her panic passed away.
The boy saw her relax and began to hop around.
A game, a game, he chanted. Across her eyes the sun
sliced its blade, and though her vision bled with its light,
she felt cheered by the girl’s hand and the boy’s excitement.
Aurora. Jezebel. Serafina, guessed the girl.
Her brother laughed and grabbed a fallen branch, whacking
the moss-covered roots of the trees surrounding them.
The woman laughed, too, short bursts of air through her nose.
Her happiness shocked them all. The boy laughed again,
a raucous sound, and she looked the little girl in the eye.
A curve tested her mouth’s seams, more grimace than grin,
but the girl smiled back and sighed with some relief. Then she reached
toward the woman and pulled her close, until they were cheek to cheek.
The girl’s face, cold and smooth, smelled of the moss and earth
her brother lashed and whipped with vigor into the air.
The woman with the frog tongue hugged the girl loosely,
as if those little shoulder blades were planes of cloud,
a shifting mist she could see and feel between her arms
but couldn’t collect, or hold, or keep for her very own.
The girl stepped back yet kept her hands by the woman’s face.
Her small, thin fingers hovered before the fraying threads.
Why don’t you take these out? she asked, as she touched each ragged end.
At this the boy stopped his joyful assault of the trees
and ran to see for himself what they discussed each night
when walking home: her muffled, choked murmurings,
the gray lattice unraveling across her mouth.
He peered closely at each loose stitch, searching beyond
her lips for whatever monster she’d locked so poorly inside.
He found no monster, just a hint of pink tongue.
So he shrugged, said Yes, and spun on his heel to resume his game.
The girl jumped up and down, shouting: And then you’ll tell us your name!
The woman watched the boy whip tree roots free of moss,
the tufts spinning into the air and separating,
becoming dust, the dark green spores like beaks of birds
that plummet toward the rocky earth without fear.
She watched the girl’s hair lift and fly away from her head,
the wind dividing its strands, the way it hung, suspended
like dust in the sun, then sank like spores: a sudden drop.
She worked her mouth from side to side, and by degrees
opened her lips enough to burble a sound that said: Maybe.
Chapter VII: She Grows a Second Heart
That night she woke to find another oddity:
during sleep her heart had split or twinned itself,
and where one muscle pumped before, now beat two.
Her blood coursed through her veins twice as fast as before,
and over those paths her skin buzzed and stammered, like wire
strung tautly between two poles and charged with load.
As if she’d run for miles across rolling hills,
as if inside her chest two fists beat time all day,
beneath the bone she sped at death in the most alive way.
The day crawled while her two hearts raced. Above the fire
she set a series of clocks to ticking. She watched the flames,
sometimes leaning close enough to feel the heat
singe her stitches a deeper shade, their fibers scorching
until they curled, like dark froth spilling from her mouth.
But when her hearts began to flicker more, and faster
than she could stand, she turned her eyes to the clocks’ marked faces
and drew comfort from the second hands’ neurotic twitch.
Every minute witnessed meant another minute lived.
Beneath her breastbone her strange second heart pulsed harder.
She sensed the muscle, like her tongue, would leap and fly
away from her body if her body let it go.
She took the silver-handled knife and incised a cross
above the cavity where her hearts ballooned together,
jostling for room and dominance. The flaps of skin,
pale as egg shell, trembled slightly. A head appeared.
A bird with obsidian eyes emerged wet with her blood,
shook to shed its burden, and leapt toward the rafters above.
She watched the bird and felt air seep into the space
it left behind, her single heart unrivaled but lonely
in its great room. The wound bled slowly, healing fast
to a pale silver scar, flaps falling back to close
neatly over the bone, which laid itself again
like lines of track or scaffolding across her chest.
The bird flew to the window’s sill, and ticked its head
to look back at the woman. A slight breeze, cool and calm,
caressed its dark wings, and it leapt for the steady branch of that arm.
In this short trailer, we tease the next three poets to be featured on the Slushpile: C. Fausto Cabrera, Barbara Westwood Diehl, and Jodi Balas. We are so excited to be featuring poetry from these three very diverse writers. Have a quick listen for a taste of each poetic voice! (And remember – we pull our featured poets and writers from our submissions slushpile – polish up your work and submit it to Painted Bride Quarterly, knowing we might choose to feature it here!)
This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller and Dagne Forrest
What were you wearing in the ‘90s, Slushies? Sleeveless flannel and crochet? Paco Rabanne? We’re beguiled by Emily Pulfer-Terino’s poems on this episode as we discuss how she slides us back to the ‘90s. She has us sniffing magazine perfume inserts and marveling at the properly cranky voice she invokes for an epigraph, borrowed from Vogue’s letters to the editor. What were we thinking wearing all those shreds? Only the girls on those glossy pages know for sure. For more context, check out Karina Longworth’s excellent podcast, You Must Remember This, and her recent deep dive into the bonkers eroticism of the 1990s. Plus, Sentimental Garbage’s episode on Dirty Dancing featuring Curtis Sittenfeld.
For a great collection of poems that draws its title from grunge-era jargon (kinda, sorta, wink, wink), we recommend a book we love by our pal Daniel Nester: Harsh Realm: My 1990s.
This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
At the table: Jason Schneiderman, Marion Wrenn, Kathleen Volk Miller, Samantha Neugebauer, and Dagne Forrest
Emily Pulfer-Terino is a poet and writer whose work has appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Hunger Mountain, The Collagist, The Southeast Review, Poetry Northwest, Stone Canoe, The Louisville Review, Juked, and other journals and anthologies. Her poetry chapbook, Stays the Heart, is published by Finishing Line Press. She has been a Tennessee Williams Poetry Scholar at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and has been granted a fellowship for creative nonfiction at the Vermont Studio Center. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Syracuse University, and she lives in Western Massachusetts.
Author website: http://emilypulferterino.com/
Instagram: @epulferterino
Grunge & Glory
“You’re kidding. Tell me you’re kidding. At least I’ll know where to find my new wardrobe this year...in the nearest dumpster…talk about the Emperor’s New Clothes. Tsk, tsk.”—(Letter to the Editor)[1]
What’s more glorious than a girl in a field,
curled in the whorl of a deer bed, alfalfa
haloing her dreams of fashion magazines
while she plies matted hay, untatting her world?
Bales score the landscape, parceling
endlessness, parsing this solo tableau,
while her heroes wrench their music
into being in Seattle, gray, time zones away.
What’s grunge if not her dense crochet
of castoff couture curated from dumpsters
and worn with a frisson of pride and shame:
flowering nightgown, old ski boots, sweater
turned lace in places by moths and age?
And this field like where models pose
in Vogue, each page itself a piece of land
and an ethos framed inside a storyboard.
Scala Naturae
Like prying pods of milkweed
so those astral seeds effuse—
unseaming magazine ads for perfume.
Anointing my wrists with scented glue,
running each over the edge of a page,
testing scents I aspired to buy
and classifying my olfactory taxonomy.
Grass evoked the world I’d known
with hints of rain and magnolia
slight as fog above an unmown field.
DNA’s rosemary, oakmoss, and mint,
ancient and clear as purpose; glass
spiraled bottle signifying sentience
and enduring iteration. Both
ethereal and hyperreal, Destiny
offered apricots, orchids, and roses--
bottle opaque as an eyelid,
veil of petals sheer as promise.
Samsara was amber, sandalwood,
ylang ylang, peach. Syllabically lulling,
its s and a extending, repeating, suggesting
endlessness. Cycle of birth and death
rebranded as serenity in ongoingness.
Angel’s burst of praline and patchouli
lit the crystal facets of that star,
making heaven of my pulse and ordinary air.
[1] Wynne Bittlinger, letter to the editor in Vogue US, February 1993
Finding flow in modern life is increasingly challenging, Slushies, but we sure found it here in two poems by Erica Wright. Loosely defined as the melting of action and consciousness into a single state, flow in poetry allows us to fully inhabit the world or experience conjured up by the poet. Nothing serves to distract or pull the reader out of the poem. How do we get there? There isn’t just one way. It helps when the poem’s form is attuned to the pacing required by the subject matter or focus. Strong beginnings always help -- and there are two fantastic ones here -- as well as a system of imagery that’s both relatable and unexpected. In “Marine Biology”, we see a conversational style used in parts of the poem that’s deeply grounding, and in “Too Many Animal Stories” the poem’s form supports its dense mosaic of images and moments.
This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, and Dagne Forrest.
Erica Wright's latest poetry collection is All the Bayou Stories End with Drowned (Black Lawrence Press). She lives in Knoxville, Tennessee with her family where she enjoys looking at the mountains and not camping in them.
Socials: Twitter @eawright, Instagram @ericawrightwrites, Facebook @ericawrightauthor, Author website
Marine Biology
Not even my dog knows me, hovers
outside the bathroom as I wash blood
from the porcelain, wipe up the floors.
I feel more at ease with the mess
than the pain. We’re not supposed to
talk about that anyway, my fleet
of would-be mothers who never labored
but birthed something too.
Mine half-seahorse, half-anemone
like something you’d find in an off-season
coastal gift shop after looking for whales
and not finding any whales.
And now my skin turns blue
as if my veins are submarines
surfacing after too long underwater.
Did you know the Navy studies sharks
in hopes of making better ships?
Can you imagine? Mariners on megalodons.
Let’s name them after our ancestors.
Let’s hold the notion of them
inside our heads until they’re real.
Too Many Animal Stories
In the same town where a man’s gun discharged,
killing a woman across the street, we ordered
sandwiches and watched tourists rent inner tubes
to hold their bodies up in the river below.
I’ve been sick for weeks now, bad sick
at first, and now I can hold myself up.
You started grinding your teeth at night,
and it hurts to move your jaw in the morning.
We joke about low points. We joke
about how we’ll never leave this house again.
Of all the days to miss, I can’t say why
I latched onto that one in Helen, Georgia.
We find a movie about the Trans Am Bike Race,
and I make a joke about my dad’s old car
with a phoenix on the hood, its wings
spread with such precision that they never spilled
over the sides. Sometimes a snake hid underneath
and was so long it could stretch its body
from one side of the two-lane road to the other—
tail in one ditch, head in the other—
a perversion of that joke about the chicken.
The thing about being sick while the world has stopped
is that I start to wonder if it’s all a carousel game,
and we’re being punished for trying to jump off.
When I push myself off the bathroom floor again,
the tiles won’t stop spinning. Asbestos.
I remember the real estate agent warned
us about asbestos and not to take them out ourselves.
I like the bathroom. The porcelain tub feels like ice
when I rest my head against the side, wait for stillness.
You take out the trash for us because of the rats.
I don’t mind them, but once when one ran
across my foot, I couldn’t get clean enough after.
The neighbors coo over our new dog,
leave chicken bones for her, which we pry from her teeth.
Sometimes the incisors scrape my skin, and she never
apologizes for her nature. I apologize for mine
all the time. I’d prefer to be hearty, the kind of traveler
who could take a cross-country train alone
and sleep sitting up, living on trail mix and Coke.
Not the one who needs sea bands. They sound like
the bracelets of some strong-willed mermaid
who doesn’t care what anybody thinks of her,
but they’re cheap elastic with plastic eyes.
Outside my window, the wind harasses the trees
and their new leaves, which are less impressive
than the old ones. Last year, a grim lived there,
and I’d make up stories for him before bed.
Not that he slept. Not that I know of.
There once was a hellhound who loathed
the predator rigamarole. He disliked
the rending of flesh and gnawing of bones.
The howling he could take or leave.
One day sheep wandered below him.
They smelled of honeysuckle and dirt.
They didn’t bite each other then pretend
they were joking. He sewed his costume right away.
There’s not much more I can say about the rat
from earlier. He fell from a trash bag
and leapt at me, tiny claws digging into my shoe.
A medium-sized rat. They say they’re more
afraid of us than we are of dying.
For a really fresh take on obsession, take a look here Slushies! Lisa Gordon’s short story is a masterclass in taking a popular form and quietly exploding it (pun intended). By turns deeply human, comical, sad, and just a little bit “out there”, Gordon’s story sweeps alongside a protagonist whose undying love for civilian astronaut Christa McAuliffe drives a story with the hallmarks of space exploration. NASA’s obsessive attention to detail, understanding of real world factors, and commitment to thinking outside the box are shared by Gordon, who tells a surprising and rewarding story. You might want to jump down the page and read or listen to it in full first, as there are spoilers in our discussion!
Listen to the story Paul on Earth in its entirety (separate from podcast reading)
And in the spirit of confession that permeates this story, our team is confessing their obsessions:
- Kathleen Volk Miller – podcasts and keeping her wine racks full (purely for aesthetic reasons!)
- Jason Schneiderman – the original Doctor Who series (1963-1989), keeping it old school!
- Marion Wrenn – onion dip (very hard to find in Abu Dhabi, so it’s her go-to when she’s Stateside!)
- Samantha Neugebauer – old tin boxes
- Dagne Forrest – space exploration and marzipan
You might want to read these related links:
All Addicts Anonymous
Christa McAuliffe and the 1986 Challenger explosion
Parasocial relationships
The Week in Longing, Dagne Forrest on Rust+ Moth (a recent poem by one of our editors that references the Challenger explosion and the late 2022 recovery of a piece of the shuttle off the Florida coast)
This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Marion Wrenn, Dagne Forrest, and Samantha Neugebauer, as well as technical team Ta’Liyah Thomas, Anthony Luong, and Sebastian Remetta
Lisa Gordon's short fiction has been published in Paper Darts, ANMLY, Hypertext, Storychord and elsewhere. She lives in the Boston area and is working on two novels.
Paul on Earth
Paul had a hard time concentrating on the wedding. Maybeth had tears in her eyes, but then again, she cried at everything. The rabbi was saying words about how important trust is when it comes to love. Maybeth took his hands. She had nice, soft, small hands—Paul always liked that about her. She could do a lot with those hands: not least of which, much earlier in the morning, even though they weren’t supposed to see each other until the wedding (Maybeth had wanted it that way) he knocked on the door of her hotel room. Tap tap, tap tap, tap tap, so she would know it was him. He needed her, he said. He needed her to touch him. And she did. And he’d felt better, but only for a moment.
He still couldn’t get Christa out of his mind.
He still looked her up. Often. All the time, you might say. It had been years since 1986, but still—she was a household name. Christa McAuliffe. The whole thing had affected everyone, especially school children. It was one of Ronald Reagan’s most celebrated speeches, and he’d been a former movie star! Not that most people remember that. Now, there’s a show about it on Netflix. He still hadn’t watched it. He couldn’t bring himself to do it.
She was still alive inside him like a constellation, burning layers through his skin. And now he was getting married, again, to another very, very nice lady. She knew everything, and she forgave him. He was getting a chance to start over.
“Paul, Maybeth, do you take one another?” the rabbi said.
“I do,” Maybeth said, squeezing his hands.
“Yes,” Paul said. “I mean, I do. Yes.”
Little lines crinkled adoringly around Maybeth’s eyes. Her eyes were the color of limestone.
“Then it is my honor. To announce. You as husband and wife, to one another.”
The guests roared as ceremoniously as a small crowd can, gathering to their feet, a wave of low thundering applause ebbed and flowed as they kissed. Paul knew next to none of them, but luckily, Maybeth had many friends. She was liked by many people, unlike Paul. It was one of the things Paul told her when they first met: I won’t bring much to your life. I’ve tried to change but—
She had interrupted him. “That’s for me to decide.”
Maybeth’s lips were slick with lipstick and he worried, for a moment, he’d look like a clown. But he could feel her smiling through her mouth, through her kissing, and she kissed him with abandon, and he let her. He loved her. He really wanted to love her.
Paul was 15 when Christa McAuliffe was his teacher, and he fell for her like a rocket burning through the universe. (It was a cheap analogy, he knew that. It was cliché, obvious. But it was how he felt.) She was so pretty—! Just so, so pretty. All the school boys seemed to like the girls with big hips and big hair and pink mouths, always open. It was the early 80s, after all.
But not Paul. It was Mrs. McAuliffe, with her brown eyes wide as planets, her tall teeth, her curly hair, she was—well, she was a lot of things, but mostly, she was the mother figure he’d needed at the same time his sexuality was burgeoning, so she represented the classic oedipal complex, except a little inverted, for Paul. At least, that’s what he was told in therapy, later in life. It seemed true enough. He accepted it. But he couldn’t change his behavior.
His behavior didn’t take hold until after the explosion. She wasn’t even his teacher then—she’d moved on to another school, and Paul was floundering without her presence to steady him. To give him something to look forward to. But it was after that when his obsession really bloomed. He was devastated for her two children. Of her husband, he was fiercely jealous—jealous that he got to be the husband, even after she’d died. Jealous that he could mourn, really mourn. He called their house often, back then. He’s not proud of it, but he did it. He got to know the sounds of all of their voices: the little girl’s, the young boy’s, the husband’s. Lots of people were calling then, obviously. It wasn’t too invasive. But they did change their phone number, later. Unlisted, of course. Paul was saddened. Deeply.
Back then—then being, before the internet—there was only so much he could do. Newspapers stopped reporting. He kept copies of some of the ones he could find, the issue of People Magazine with her face on it, and the like. He kept them in a notebook. He went to college. He went to class. He tried to connect his obsession with the idea that maybe he was obsessed with space—! Yes, that had to be it! He majored in astronomy, but he just couldn’t take to it. It was too mathematical. Too science-oriented. Christa had been his English teacher. It was escapism, he preferred. He graduated with a degree in Literature and asked Sandy to marry him. It was what you were supposed to do. She expected it, but she was happy, very happy. They lived in a little apartment in Boston for a few years, while she finished her Masters’ degree at BU. He took a teaching job in a small town called Concord, west of Boston, in—what else? English. It was not lost on him that Concord—albeit, New Hampshire—was where Christa was from. And he’d learned that she’d lived for some time in Framingham, Massachusetts. It was not far from Concord, not far at all. He spent his days driving around strange neighborhoods, aimlessly, wandering, or in the parking lot of the high school she’d attended, which was still there. He told Sandy he’d started a chess club for his students. He’d never played chess in his life, but she believed him.
That was all for a long, long time. He was happy enough. He enjoyed teaching, though he feared he wasn’t very good at it. When he closed his eyes, he could still see Christa’s back, the way her arm would raise to the chalkboard, how her writing made a pleasant sound. Tap tap, tap tap. He’d developed some decent cooking skills, and Sandy baked, and they ate well. They made love occasionally, and then frequently, because Sandy wanted badly to have children. Paul was thankful that they were inexperienced lovers—they’d only really had each other—and didn’t know that he didn’t touch her the way a man does when he loves a woman. When he’s in love with her. But after a year or so, the test results came back with bad news: she wouldn’t be able to bear children. And she stopped turning to him in bed. And Paul found that he was pleased. It allowed space in his mind for the obsession to grow. And grow, grow it did. It was like a whole other place in his mind he could turn to, retreat into: he could go into different parts of Christa’s body and inhabit them, and they were in love in a way that didn’t exist on Earth—it was unique to them, and them only, and it was everything; it was his world.
Years passed. Years upon years. Until finally, one day, he was arrested. A little girl in the town of Framingham, Mass. had been abducted. She’d been missing for three days and discovered later, in the conservation land lining the towns’ perimeter, murdered, sexually abused. Such an awful, tragic thing. Paul had been seen too often in her neighborhood, and others nearby, idling around in his brown Pontiac, a stranger. His likeness matched the description of the abductor: tall, glasses, a non-descript male. He was taken to the station and questioned for hours.
He was bewildered. Truly and simply bewildered. He wouldn’t have known where to begin, is what he said.
“Where to begin with what?” the detective had said.
“With stealing a child,” Paul had whispered. “With touching a child.” He clasped and unclasped his hands.
Yes, he’d been around the neighborhood. Often, on and off, for years. No, he had no business there, knew no one, not a soul who lived there. No, he had no alibi—he had, indeed, been driving around that very night. He’d been lying to his wife for so long he’d begun to believe there was a chess club. The only way out was the truth.
“McAuliffe,” they’d said. “The teacher astronaut lady? The one who got blown up?” The detective. A lawyer. Repeated it, as if they hadn’t heard him right. Couldn’t have possibly heard him right.
“Yes,” Paul said. “That’s the one.” He told them about the file he kept in the magazine in the downstairs bathroom. They sent a squad to get it, and his wife followed behind, hysterical. The questioning was relentless. He was shoved in a cell for 14 hours. Eventually, they found the right man. He’d committed a similar crime in Western Mass., in the Berkshires. They opened the door to his cell and he was free to go. But they recommended he get therapy.
“We think you’re a little nutso,” one of the policeman said, on his way out. Behind him, echos of laughter. He started his car—it sputtered and died. It was a freezing, gray day in November. Sandy wouldn’t pick him up. He tried to hitch, but no one would stop for a man who looked like the man who abducted children. Eventually, he called a cab. It cost him $143 to get home, and, not having that kind of money on him, the cabbie had to drive him to a bank. He watched the cabbie eying him in the rearview mirror as he peeled away.
Sandy left, which didn’t surprise Paul in the slightest. What did surprise Paul was how little he cared. Somehow, they didn’t fire him. He’d thought they would have, but they didn’t. (“You didn’t commit the crime, Paul,” the principal said, disapprovingly. As if he’d wanted him to have been the criminal.)
His time was his own, finally. He couldn’t drive around the way he used to, which left a void in his life he wasn’t sure how he’d fill. But it turned out, it wasn’t as hard as he thought. He grocery shopped and cooked elaborate meals, gaining weight, filling out in places he didn’t think could grow. He masturbated on the couch as he pleased. He read different books and grew excited by new lesson plans. He even became energized by teaching in new ways. His life, it seemed, was changing. Christa was there—she would always be there—but he needed her less and less.
But then, as if out of nowhere, the internet became faster and stronger and more ubiquitous, and suddenly, the world was at his fingertips—anything he wanted could be his, information of any kind—and, well. Life took on new meaning. He bought a printer. He printed everything. He posted the photos, the articles, up around his house, a shrine. He was scared of himself. His teaching suffered. He stopped eating. He was fired. He’d hit rock bottom. And then, one day—it really was like that, just one day—he saw an advertisement for Addicts Anonymous. Whatever you’re addicted to, we can help, is what it said.
Paul went. He didn’t know what his life had become and he didn’t want to give up, not yet. He was 40 years old. His father had died long ago. Sandy had moved to Virginia, adopted a daughter, gotten a dog. He drove to the meeting, concentrating on the way the cold winter air felt in his lungs. And at the meeting, he met Maybeth. She was addicted to painkillers. She was a tiny, cute thing. Sprightly. Energetic. “But I have a dark side,” she said, when she spoke to the room. She’d been watching Paul carefully. He could feel it, even when he turned away. After the session, she approached him. “I’m looking for a new boyfriend,” she said. “Addictions don’t bother me.”
“Even mine?” Paul had said.
“Even yours,” she had said.
He’d addressed the room—all 27 of them (he’d counted) and he’d said, “Hi, I’m Paul. And I don’t know why. Or maybe I do. But—and sorry if this freaks anyone out—I’m addicted to Christa McAuliffe.”
There’d been chatter, a couple of laughs. Some of them looked at him quizzically. He heard someone whisper to someone else “Challenger”. And he’d felt very much like crying. It was the first time he’d felt like crying in—well, maybe ever. Since he could remember. And it felt like being opened, like a present.
When he told that to Maybeth, she cried. “I’m your present,” she’d said. “And you’re mine.” She smiled into his neck and curled up in his lap like a little dog. Paul held her. Never had his arms been so full. He closed his eyes and tunneled through space, slowly at first, just exploring, until he was rocketing through her again, ready to find what he was looking for.
We are enswirled in this episode, Slushies, enswirled! We discuss three poems by John Sibley Willliams, two of which are ghazals. Williams’ poems are the gravitational force around which our conversation about craft, form, fluidity, identity, and the flux and spaciousness found inside poetry spirals. Williams’ poems draw the swirl of our attention not only to the choices he makes on the page but to Agha Shahad Ali’s rules for real ghazals, Williams’ poetic conversation with Tarfia Faizullah, and his nod to Kavek Akbar’s “Gloves”. There is a pun these show notes want to make about guzzling ghazals, Slushies, but we are trying hard to resist it…
At the table: Marion Wrenn, Jason Schneiderman, Kathleen Volk Miller, Dagne Forrest, Samantha Neugebauer
This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist A.M.Mills, whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
John Sibley Williams is the author of nine poetry collections, most recently Scale Model of a Country at Dawn (Cider Press Review Poetry Award) and The Drowning House (Elixir Press Poetry Award). He serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review, Poetry Editor at Kelson Books, and founder of the Caesura Poetry Workshop series. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his partner, twin biracial six-year-olds (one of whom is beautifully transgender), a boisterous Boston Terrier, and a basement full of horror movie memorabilia.
Author website, Facebook @ john.sibleywilliams
Ghazal for Transparency / for Reflection
My ghosts breathe accusingly—a winter mass, a mirror’s impermanent
erasure—again shaving I’m sorry from the face over my face in the glass.
It’s not just the birds—their abridged flight, the stains the sky wears today
through this washable window—but my children’s tiny hands absolving the glass.
Of guilt? Of shame? Is it his blood raging generations through my veins or this white-
washed silence compelling me to pull our history, face-by-face, from its frames of glass?
All this uneaten grain filling silo after silo—always at dusk, in my mind—swarmed now
with mealworms & mites & someone else’s hunger. How it cuts the tongue like shards of glass.
& those goddamned honeycombs, failing again. How our neighbor’s unable to keep his bees
close enough to cultivate. Our house too is a small box of dust & wing & against the glass
separating us from the world curtains blur our reflections like rain. Like stars cutting through
cloud, a sustainable song. May my girls never be dead enough to fear themselves in our glass.
Ghazal Beginning & Ending with Lines from Tarfia Faizullah
Let me break free from these lace-frail microscopic bodies.
My breath (always shared); trace it back to unmasked foreign bodies.
Taking that last winter deep into her lungs. Breathe, I remind her.
& remember me a child, Mom, not this unrecognizable foreign body.
The sky’s aperture widens. Sight ≠ witness. The organ’s rusty song catches
in the rafters (unascended). & all this rain leaking down on us like foreign bodies.
Grey fox. White cells. Families fleeing one home for (hopes of) another.
Some borders, perhaps, are meant to be trespassed by unforeign bodies.
Row after perfect row = harvest. Harvest ≠ everyone is fed. Sated. Breaking
up from the earth beneath, star thistle & bindweed. To us, foreign bodies.
The day an autumn orphan, & we’re yanking roots. My daughter’s tiny
misgendered fingers in mine, (pulling. Together), no body is foreign.
Field of Anchors
—for Kaveh Akbar
Darkness on both sides.
& wild grasses. Sun-hurt.
Browning. So as not to drift.
Too far from shore. A man.
Palms the tiny church inside.
The warm casing. Inside a god.
Prays to another god. For more.
Of himself. More devotion.
One more detonation. Of roses.
Less blood next time. Less field.
Without end. Or is it more.
That’s required to make a mirror.
Of each window. All that untilled light.
All that goddamn reflection.
The old maple out back. No longer.
A noose swinging from it. Lifts its arms.
In praise of its leaves. Fallen & otherwise.
Only a god. My grandmother promised.
Can beat the trees. Of its birds. Can lullaby.
The field into paradise. Only fear can.
Halleluiah the anchors from their green.
Deerless. Wolf-filled. Moorings. Or is it.
Love. When I open the front gate. Rusting.
Still. Despite drought. Despite me. I hear.
My children playing with. The blood inside.
The roses. Inside the bullet. An impossible anchor.
A darkness. That gives a people. Its name.
Are you ready to get primal, Slushies? We look at poems of birth and mothering that call on the senses as they shift between what’s animal and what’s human in us. Kathy celebrates the pure, messy pleasure of a classic tomato sandwich and Jason reminds us why an irregular opening line can be the hook a poem needs, while we all marvel at a poem’s ability to dazzle us with changing perspectives, locations, and personas. Oh, and strong titles get some much deserved love too.
This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, and Dagne Forrest
Sarah Elkins lives in southern West Virginia where she is rounding the final curve of a four-year term as a councilperson in the City of Lewisburg, population 3,700ish. She is also chair of the Parks Commission (Yes, you should be thinking Leslie Knope). Sarah and her husband Max run Hammer Cycles, a bicycle shop in White Sulphur Springs, WV. She and Max founded and coach the Greenbrier Valley Hellbenders Youth Mountain Bike Team and work tirelessly on trail advocacy and mountain bike initiatives throughout the region. Sarah’s son, Tad, is a high school freshman and loves hearing poems about his birth and progression through puberty. Oh, yeah, Sarah writes poetry. That’s what she loves to do most. Therefore, she fills her time with all the aforementioned stuff to remain at an appropriate level of disequilibrium from which the poetry springs.
Website: SarahElkins.com
BirthingThe summer before my son was born, I ate tomato sandwiches
with mayonnaise, salt and pepper.
The rain was so heavy in June, the fruit
swelled on the vines and their skins ripped.
I took big bites holding thick bread with two hands,
pink rainwater running down both forearms
to my elbows—everything reduced, then,
to hunger. At night, curled on my side
in the un-airconditioned dark
I dreamt of big cats’ razor tongues
dragging the length of my back,
saber teeth at my throat, not tearing
the skin but feeling for pulse,
their muscled hips coaxing me
into the sweaty delirium of my final weeks.
The cats returned every night until
twenty-six hours before I howled him into being,
I opened. All the rain of June, and July
leaving me for the hardwood floor
where I crouched on all fours looking
for flecks of vernix, tasting my wet fingers,
sniffing the sweet water for signs it was time.
The cats slunk away until now, eating
this tomato sandwich, my first in twelve years—
I recall I was a panther once.
From the Tall GrassI floss at night after steak and butter.
My house: unguarded range, bison huffing,
ice-faced, hooves stamping an echo stutter.
I do nothing in this boundless nothing.
No thought, no synapse firing. Still hands still
stained—berry juice of an empty morning.
This room-less space, a translucent thin will
through which I, good sow, whiff my boy’s homing.
His trek complete, except for the recount—
bighorn sheep, bull moose, near miss, eagle plume.
I toss one sleek mink to the catamount.
The grass lies down; walls rise around my room.
Ursa fades. A house cat lurks in willow.
I sip gin, smooth the pelt of my pillows.
Can you lean into experience without always needing meaning, Slushies? The psalm is a Christian form similar to a song or poem where meaning is often elusive unless the reader is prepared to put in the work. Sometimes, though, things just are, and we certainly encounter that here in some very satisfying ways. We talk about the importance of the pause or caesura in poetry, proofreading, and powerful image systems. We also just enjoy the experience of reading two gorgeously rendered poems full of both the specific and the mysterious.
Links to things we discuss that you may dig:
Poetry Foundation: Caesura definition
Flannery O’Connor’s The Violent Bear It Away
Robert Hayden’s Those Winter Sundays
This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
At the table: Marion Wrenn, Kathleen Volk Miller, Samantha Neugebauer, and Dagne Forrest
John T. Leonard is a writer, educator, and poetry editor for Twyckenham Notes and The Glacier. He holds an M.A. in English from Indiana University. His previous works have appeared in Chiron Review, December Magazine, North Dakota Review, Ethel Zine, Louisiana Literature, Jelly Bucket, Mud Season Review, Nimrod International Journal, The Indianapolis Review, Genre: Urban Arts, and Trailer Park Quarterly among others. He lives in Elkhart, Indiana with his wife, three cats, and two dogs.
Socials: Twitter @jotyleon and @TwyckenhamNotes
Psalm
Prone to wonder. Lord, I feel it.
Nomad, no man, no son, father, sun.
I am bright, rusted, and wretched.
You turned the doorknob right,
hot shower and cold bathroom tile.
I was wrapped in that small, soaked rug.
A place that filled the garden of our souls,
superior and sewn, stones dancing across a lake.
Look how Christian a puddle of vomit can be.
You held me, let me breathe into your arm.
You forked my tongue and sewed a map to
North Dakota with that black medial lace.
For Hell’s sake, I am holy, holy, calm, and true.
Be escaped. Be fallen, black, and blue.
My call to evaporate, pulled upwards to
the real adventure. Wide awake now,
bruised vanity, summer of head colds
and bodies washed up on the pebbled shore.
If I took it back, my sunglassed future glance,
my walk of muses, my pacing lonely apartments,
spitting on each and every brick. If I took it back,
but not what I’ve suddenly become: a contrail
of promises, sci-fi crimes, Saturn in the traffic.
I’m chasing altars to the daylight of you.
Feels like I feel it, prone to rip the husk of your lips.
Still, the rusted son of red starlight, gospel music
touching lovers in the limo behind the hearse.
I am lime, let moonlight citrus me further.
Then Sunday will come and sweep it all away,
back into the rose quartz river of a psalm.
Fledgling
Waking up to the white bone of dawn;
memory of light, half-life of darkness,
a daily prophecy of frozen floorboards.
This cold, fading silence of Sunday morning,
falling like the ash of a thirty-year volcanic winter.
The way all of our merit would vanish, if we gave up
a moment of the day to plunge back into our dreams.
Light, now imagined as radiant cloud or burning crown.
The slow trudge outside, curse and prayer of woodpile.
Eastern red cedar still asleep: erasure of termites,
black snake of phone line limp with snow, sick fledgling
whose eyes didn’t close, not even once throughout the night;
who waited out the insectile buzz of street lamps, waited
for one final glimpse of flame. Moments now, moments,
and the flick of my lighter will catch its eye. The soft glow
of cherry, the ritual of my ignorance, the weeks of feeling
watched—so full of myself that I thought it must be God.
By dusk, one of us dead and the other, none the wiser.
There’s a lot packed into this episode, Slushies, including sibilance and balancing gravity with a light touch. Differing perspectives and the resonance of history, both real and mythical, cascade through a trio of poems by Danielle Roberts. Jason worries that his erudition has collapsed momentarily, Kathy loves the rush of wanting to immediately re-read a poem, and Samantha reminds us of an Anne Carson line: “Aristotle says that metaphor causes the mind to experience itself in the act of making a mistake.” Oh, and Marion brings to life the idea of hearing a baby’s cries in the ceiling when she recounts living in the apartment below a family with newborn triplets!
Links to things we discuss that you may dig:
Jeanann Verlee’s Helen Considers Leaving Troy
George Eliot’s Middlemarch
Anne Carson’s Essay on What I Think About Most
Elizabeth Bishop’s Collected Letters
Jason Schneiderman’s How the Sonnet Turns: From a Fold to a Helix, APR Volume 49, Issue 3
British Antarctic Survey: Ice cores and climate change
The Norton Reader
Smartless Podcast (Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, Will Arnett)
This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Samantha Neugebauer, and Jason Schneiderman
Danielle Roberts is a queer poet from California. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Atlanta Review, DMQ Review, Okay Donkey, Prairie Schooner, Reed Magazine & others. When not writing poetry, she can be found drinking too much tea & pestering the nearest cat. Read more of her at sonnetscribbler.com.
Socials: Instagram: @sonnetscribbler
How can I leave this behind?after Jeanann Verlee’s Helen Considers Leaving Troy
after a floral gin cocktail
Do I want to live and die my whole life here—
buried in county lines—or is it time
to stretch the map? There’s more
to plan than simply running away.
while holding my niece
Picking up the baby doesn’t help:
I smell her hair & wonder if she thinks
of me when I’m out of sight. Will she know?
Her eyes stare into the distance
along with mine. Maybe she travels
in her dreams. Maybe she lives
elsewhere.
while eating dinner
Gorging myself on routine, I chew bread & think
about the bagels in New York. I live these sour-
dough rituals—oven baked in centuries
of families. A young tradition bound by water
on all sides. They say it’s in the water.
Doubtful, I gnaw on my nails.
when people ask if I’ll have kids
Come on, Karen—I just blew up
my life & you’re asking if I’m ready
to be a sacred vessel? The only answer
I can give is to flee far away
from anyone who had dreams
for me or thought I could be
marriage material. Go where
all folks care about is which street
I live above in the gridlocked graph
or whether I’m walking fast enough. Blend.
It would be easier than questions of barreness.
when my ex wants to get back together
Absolutely not.
from the freeway exit
Behind the wheel of my car, I carve trenches
again—circle and retrace my path—map
the small universe on foot, pace my cage.
Maybe I take to the night sky
or simply head east until I hit water.
Gorges and grooves heal, scarred
cutting board life. Do I keep driving?
Where do I even go from here?
These dreams that weren’t mine
festering in my wake. What city takes
such hazardous rot? How do I leave
my family behind? How
do I tell them I’m already gone?
Extracting memories[1]Speak to me in layered tongues of bitten snow, slow
molars carved with frost collected in the valleys between your teeth. The scientist bores a core—
plucks the long memory from each glacier—this meter holds your first bicycle ride, this
a bridal veil of volcanic ash from Pompeii, six cylinders of centuries trespass
the sterile air—blink at the unforgiving sun. From the dentist chair, you look
up at the light and this persistent body shrinks—cracked with age
and use. Our indestructible jaws crumble with heat, losing
enameled eons to inaction, forgetting to stitch our gums
with floss. It’s far too late to mend our habits
now: best to preserve what we can. Each
line, a thought pulled out of context—
precious archive of time before tales.
We transcribe the answers to
our final test without
any chance of
knowing the
questions.
Reassurance1—
My cat startles & I tell her nothing
bad is happening, but
we both know that’s a lie
on a large enough scale.
She hears the neighbors’ doors
slam, the child in the ceiling crying
like an injured mouse. She knows footfalls
on the landing lead to the uninvited
lead to us coaxing her to accept
strangers in her home. She knows
the rush of sirens down Oak or shouts
from the narrow park must mean something
in the same way we all know
that one thing always leads
to another.
She turns a pale eye towards me as if to say
just because it’s not happening to me
doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
2—
As we wade into the cold mountain
lake, my sister promises me
nothing’s going to touch your feet—maybe
some grass or a fish, but I’ve never seen anything bad
here. She shifts the baby to her other hip & walks
deeper. Her husband rows away from the widening rings
of sunscreen filming the top of the swampy water, oil slick
of caution. I know she loves me.
Later, I scramble onto the inflatable raft & hold
the baby & my breath. My sister stays rooted
in the water—extracting the implanted
leeches from between my toes—doesn’t
glance down at her own feet. Not even once.
Her husband saw the signposts on the shore & told
no one. He thought they didn’t apply anymore:
he’s never noticed anything in the waters.
3—
My boss sends a message before an important meeting
to ask if I can still lead in light of the news. I reassure him
yes, I’m in California—I’m not affected for now.
In the crowded room,
the men make small talk,
but have nothing to say.
[1]Ice cores and climate change - British Antarctic Survey
Slushies, get ready for some trailblazing poems in the form of mathematical proofs, theorems, and other types of mathematical reasoning that level their gaze at heartbreak. One poem even embeds a second poem as a footnote. Alex reminds us all of the hermit crab essay/poem format, prompting Sam to recall Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, in which the end of a powerful love is likened to the experience of shedding yet still living with an abandoned skin or shell. Come along for a ride with some poetic work that’s furious and logical in equal measure!
Links to things we discuss that you may dig:
Samantha Hunt’s The Seas
Maggie Nelson’s Bluets
This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Samantha Neugebauer, Alex J Tunney, and Dagne Forrest
Rei Alta is a black writer, disciple of science, artist, and proud supernerd. She resides in Massachusetts where she was born and raised. Rei spends most of her time supporting brilliant young people from historically marginalized communities in their exploration of science and engineering.
Socials: Instagram: @reialtaspeak
Inflection Point 1b
Theorem 1.1. The pain, longing, and ambivalence I feel related to this particular past lover (hereafter “him”, “he” or “you”) is not unhealthy.
Proof: By definition, “Time heals all wounds.” Suppose for all purposes, 11 years is considered to be ‘Time’. It is true that 11 years have passed, however I am not healed. Thus, this thing I feel is not really a wound.
Theorem 1.2. There exists a value in this lover that I use to cope with a deficiency in my current state of being.
Proof: By Theorem 1.1, this lover does not represent some larger, unresolved issue. It is true, however, that I still have been unable to let him go. Therefore, he must be notable for a different reason. By supposition, that different reason is that he and I had an unrivaled connection. I.e. While there is no such thing as soulmates, our cognitive compatibility was substantially higher than that of my previously observed matches. Hence, I feel an intensity through recollecting him such that most other things pale in comparison. Therefore, I remember him in order to feel something when I don’t.
Theorem 2.1. There exists an absolute truth about why I loved him and why I haven't been able to let go.
Proof: By definition, “All things happen for a reason.” Since it is true that loving him and being unable to let go has happened, there must be a reason that caused it. This reason must be the truth. Suppose not; i.e., suppose this reason was not the truth. Then it would not have possessed the power necessary to cause such a consequential thing to happen. Such a consequential thing did happen. Thus, there is an attributable reason that is the truth.
Theorem 2.2. I must understand why I have not been able to let go—in order to let go.
Proof: By my own definition, I am a finder of truth. By Theorem 2.1, there is a truth to be found. If there is a truth I have not yet found, then I must find it in order to exist since finding truth defines me. Thus, I have no path forward but to find the truth.
____________________________________________________________________________
CAVEAT: Due to the following factors, the validity of the proofs outlined above is questionable:
- Invalid underlying assumptions
- Faulty reasoning
- Insufficient information
As a result, extrapolation based on the conclusions laid out in the preceding section is not advised.
----more----
wave height
CREST
you approached
after cycles of fire
there was a tectonic shift
fueled by molten rock and dressed up decay
i believed your promise this time around — i felt it lift my feet
TROUGH1
you receded
re-defining “forever”
as “only thirteen days” (a real trailblazer!)
and like eddies forming behind Pinnacle Rock
the reverse current dragged me in asymmetric swirls
----more----
I Outline the Hypotheses
I got this
This is 101
I simply need to determine what a human woman should feel in this situation based on whether or not I can reject the null:
H0 (null) =
He’s a small person on a power trip
Who never cared
He wasn’t actually sick from bad Indian food
Each time I felt we needed to talk
H1 =
He’s not small but broken
It was shame that caused him to disappear without warning;
I memorialized every scene of his trauma
While he forgot my middle name
H2 =
He’s an emotionless sociopath in a decade-long grift
Laughing about me with his friends
Each month he adds some new mark to his collection
One day he’ll be caught and I’ll guest star in a true crime documentary
Yes, all very plausible
Now all that’s left to detect an effect is to dampen the noise
If your story had a sound, Slushies. What would it be? A rush, a zuzz, a sizzle? David Landon’s “Bach, Onomatopoeia, and the Wreck” triggers a discussion of stories and sounds, and poems that resist narrative closure. Shane Chergosky’s “Headwind” takes us down a different path. Erasures, Slushies. Ammi right? Listen to us puzzle over the way erasures “make it new” and simultaneously obliterate and conjure the from which they’re made. Special note: Jason reads the erasure twice. First as a robot, then as a human. We love both versions-- of the poem, and Jason. And if you are hungry for more: take this and this and this.
At the table: Marion Wrenn, Alex Tunney, Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, Larissa Morgano
This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist A.M.Mills, whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
David is never quite sure whether he is an actor who writes poetry or a poet who acts. And perhaps he can be forgiven his obsession with iambic pentameter: he has done a lifetime of Shakespeare, as an actor (New York, Nashville, and Alabama Festivals), director, and coach. His poetry—all iambic pentameter—has been published in Able Muse (Write Prize, winner), Georgia Review (Williams Prize, featured finalist), Southwest Review (Marr Prize, runner-up), the Dark House, Think Journal, and elsewhere. Officially, he is the Bishop Frank A. Juhan Professor of Theatre Emeritus at Sewanee, the University of the South.
Bach, Onomatopoeia, and the Wreck
For all we knew, it was a random chunk
of interstellar rock, the rear-end crash
that brought us to a halt. Dinner was out,
of course, and the Bach too, I realized,
feeling it in my neck, and standing there
in the rain, examining my totaled car,
the guilty driver soaked, in tears. The cops
were nice enough, did what they had to do
efficiently. The wrecker did show up,
eventually, and we began to cope.
And since it’s now collision story time,
the word I’m hearing in my head is ‘thud’.
There’s ‘clunk’, of course, or ‘jolt’, ‘wham-bang’, or ‘thwack’.
‘Thwack’ has that sudden, can’t-be-happening feel,
as in, “I was just sitting, reading Kant,
when suddenly, inside my head, I felt
this ‘thwack’, and everything went blank.” But no!
The word that truly bongs the knell is ‘thud’,
essence—onomatopoetically—
of impact, ‘thud’, from dice, to hand-grenade,
to asteroid. We need the stupid ‘d’
of ‘doo-doo’, ‘dodo’, ’dude’, or ‘dud’, or ‘dead’.
‘You’re-done-for-d’ is what we’re up against;
you never know when out of nowhere, ‘thud’!
But on the other hand, there’s Bach: the Bach
we missed, the works for cello solo. Bach:
initial ‘b’, a kind of plosive bump,
terminal ‘ch’, a bit of friction in
the throat, but in between the ‘b’ and ‘ch’,
the ‘ah’, release: sustained and open, ‘ah’.
Think of the bow colliding with the string,
a subtle thud, a scrape, and out floats Bach,
genial Bach-analia of dark
and light, a theory of the universe
as music: bang, and then the sarabande,
the minuet, the allemande, the gigue.
Shane Chergosky was born in Minnesota where he was raised on stuffed cabbage and heavy metal. His work has appeared in Pithead Chapel, HASH Journal, Juke Joint, and is forthcoming in Adirondack Review. He holds an MFA from George Mason University and lives in Washington, D.C.
Headwind
? When I think about the story she told me
about that I don’t even wanna hurt the guy. I don’t
know if I could meet that person and act normal.
I remember I did that when I was about 20,21.
I didn’t go into CVS with Xunaxi to
What a bastard I was . And
//
ith what courses I take.Luckily I can only take two (!!!). Maybe a lit course
and…an elective? It’d be SO cool to do screen-
writing. Finally would have a chance to write that
SciFi…I ordered “The Art of Syntax” after Phebe
brought it over. I honestly get so self-conscious talking
with her about sentence-level stuff. She’s so smart and
her recall is so good (regardless of what she says re: her
//
I want to sleep in a crappy hotel and make
jokes hold her after we kill a pint of ice cream.
something feels right about her, about the way I feel
around her. I want her attention. I want her to
pay attention to me. She does! but I don’t know it’s
different when you’re with what I have a
hard time with imagining her with her ex, though they’re
//
I feel like fragments could be a part of
my work/thesis. It’d be cool to take a finished
poem of mine, print copies, and do some Christian
Hawkey-type process with it/them. The 19th and 20th
days had that feel to them because I tore a bit
from the top of the page, forcing me to write around
the tear. Now, if I had a finished poem, and shot
it with a gun, or let an animal chew on I, or
let a human chew on it even, the parts that survive
//arrative time no time
feeling of the trout throat closing odd breathing
but accepting that I have limits I deserve to feel
OK, to take a break I’m OK I’m doing everything
//
I’m afraid of telling her how strong my feelings are
I think it wise to simply show her and not ask about
sex for a few more months.
She said we’re dating and that makes me feel
secure.
//
Canal
a cane smoothed
orchard
backlogged
beggar concrete
daisy a conquest
//
not together I guess I’m having a hard time NOT
imagining them together. How could he treat her
that way? I mean no relationship is a cakewalk
but like how could someone tell a woman they’ve
been with for over a year that they’d rather
keep driving and make it (home?) on time than
stop for a tampon, to let the woman you supposedly
love (did he even tell her?) that you’d rather her sit
in her own blood, in discomfort and shame than
do everything in your power to relieve her? to actually
act? to perform an act of humanity? of care?
concern
//
subcultural history. I feel like (and I’m probs
stating the obvious) thagt the niches of already niche
are erased by the dominant cultural narrative/
the narrative(s) that are hoisted up by capitalist/
supremacist ideals and/or organizations. I can’t
write organization without thinking about grant writing
//
I can, I’m doing a lot. Teaching is a lot. I’m
going to apply for the fellowship. It’s not that I
don’t want to teach, I just want time to
focus on my work. I keep feeling its really getting
somewhere. A chapbook at the least and a
publishable one too! I want it. This semester is
just wearing
//
Where only a portion of the whole survives. Then,
I could make the other parts appear elsewhere?
Maybe it’s too on the nose but I’ve been thinking
about the fragmented texts of the Anglo-Saxons
(and probs other traditions) in association
with incomplete narratives
//
raging satin page paginate vagina labia vulva
intestinal contested protest regress transgress
shake Shakespeare a knight made of feathers
stuffed w/ feathers feathers on the doorstep
rich lumber in heaps full pools of yellow
beer getting warm in the kitchen
the glow of the microwave the suran wrap
melting on the still-cold lasagna, the color
of waiting. Not even a color. Page page again
wait know confound botch rip slap chirp
girder serve elastic teeth cold
//
I’m so glad I’m not that way. Maybe I
am and don’t know it until it happens?
Maybe thinking about
Phebe’s ex reminds me
of that, that’s why it
makes me so disgusted
and maybe it’s good
that I’m disgusted
//
to do. But you live and learn. I
want to love again and make it right, or do it
effectively, the way that makes us both feel whole or
more whole/full than empty. I will get an A in
grant writing. I will succeed. I know I’ll get an
extension and be able to make the internship
//
I want to
make love to her real bad she d r ive s me crazy.
She’s sensual , and erotic, and really
It was a terrible, immature thing
//
Intelligent ran runaways kept barking on. A sub miss ion
hold putting entire cities into head
-shirt void a void you can buy a void that becomes
armor, a subculture, an agreed upon set of
val u es in t elligent lights through a crispy gauze
of hair swollen blue halo widening behind them
like a wedding band. Overblown evening leather
charms hanging on the door handle, on the bedpost.
Literally thieves war paint corpse paint
a mouth like a root system spreading, fragmenting
branching diverging at both ends a worry
squirrely ratchet odor smolder controller
recover withdraw sheath hearth bust bent
bruised lashed fixate lack lax creation Bonneville
cruiser a loose ruining
How much meaning do you need, Slushies? When language lingers, when images form a spiral, a murmuration, might a poem’s mood hold meaning close to its heart and simultaneously at bay? And, also, how do you pronounce ‘ichor’? All this and more in a rollicking conversation about poet Nick Visconti’s new work, “Burial” and “Unmake These Things.” And speaking of things, listen for Samantha on Anne Carson’s zen koan dollop of insight from Red Doc>: “To live past the end of your myth is a perilous thing.” Or for Kathy and Marion confessing their North Carolina ritual groping of the Dale Earnhardt statue in Kannapolis, NC. And finally: geese. Nick Visconti’s poem triggered a reverie-- that time when we accidentally stumbled into the annual Snow Geese migration in Eastern Pennsylvania.
At the table: Dagne Forrest, Kathleen Volk Miller, Alex Tunney, Samantha Neugebauer, Marion Wrenn.
This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
Nick Visconti is a writer living with an artist and a cat in Brooklyn. He plays softball on Sundays.
BurialIt is love,
not grief, which inters
the deceased
in a hill made of clay.
Sod embraces
crossed arms, legs, eyes shut
looking forever
at nothing
beneath our feet—a container
for men unmade,
no boat to speak of.
No oars
darkly dipped
in water as we pictured
it would be. Instead,
a single shred of light
piercing every lens
it catches. Instead,
a pathway none cross,
just follow through
and up
and up—the cusp of ending,
nothing at all like the end.
He isn’t in this yard when
his children roam. Still,
they dig,
they expect to find him:
braided leather, steel-wound aglets,
his black opal intact.
Unmake these thingsThe sand before me like water, fluid and holy
under the cratered crown nearly
half-awake, circling
as I draw the one way I know—stick
figures in a backdrop scenery, thick-
headed and content, wheeling
psalms of birds, wide-sloping M’s
grouped in permanent murmur. I don’t bother
with the sun’s face, bare in the upper
left corner of the page. I’ve made
a habit out of hoarding ornaments,
given them their own orbit like the russet
ichor dashed with cinnamon
I choke down every morning and afternoon.
The city’s puncture-prone underbite nips
the sky, consuming the bodies
above—thunderheads, billboards
notched, alive in the glow of that always-
diurnal square. There’s been talk lately of
irreversible chemistry, an acceptable stand-in
for cure among believers and experts
in and on the subject of Zoloft-sponsored
serotonin. A first weaning is possible.
Do not bother with a second.
We have a special treat, Slushies!! In today's episode, you’ll get a duet from Nancy T and Rachael Philipps. Starting with the accents of Long Island, T’s poem makes Alex think of Nassau and Suffolk County while Marion recalls Billy Joel's music. The language also leaves the crew thinking about Tracey J Smith’s, “Solstice.” The tables turn when the crew reads, Philipp’s “After you left us,” going from jargon about the sounds of the world to the description of human remains. With cremation on the rise, the crew ponders the process being described in this not-so-sentimental poem.
Alex mentioned that he is able to do a full SNL Skit, which one do you think it is?
This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist A.M.Mills, whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
Nancy T is a high school teacher, poet, artist from NY, currently living down south.
Rachael Philipps is a poet, journalist, and a properly misanthropic Welsh woman with an unhealthy dependency on caffeine and marmalade. She is constantly chastened by her iPhone’s audio settings for playing LCD Soundsystem too loud whilst out on her regular jogs around the mean streets of Westchester. Rachael’s poem “Perfect Little Houseguests” was published by Swwim Every Day in August 2022, she was awarded a Bethany Arts Poetry Residency in 2021 and was the recipient of an AWP Writer to Writer mentorship for poetry in 2020. Her journalism spans broadcasting for the BBC plus writing and editorial work for print titles including Time Out London, The New York Times and Food and Wine magazine. She is currently at work on her first chapbook.
Nancy T Long Island Sound
The chop on the sound nearly drowns the clubbing you deal bluefish on deck. Red slicks beneath one bold bastard flipping you silvered curses, straining for water
or flesh, some end. Then wind surprises, cracks you a backhand, a cleat bruise begins darkening your rose tattoo.
They suspend at depth, hit and hit until sated and free, or iced under gray. The bow
begs a turning back we know you’ll refuse. Tired, still for a time not long, never long, you swear when the inboard coughs taunts and seizes,
and the rain, the rain dares spit on your back in the hold under gulls striking near, the siren water sounds gone unlovely, steady long gone, just the sound of metal striking struck metal, like metal resisting your forge hard and hot and bent and
The gulls cry over diesel on waves sheening a sad iridescence, like soap on tongue.
Rachael Philipps After you left us
After you left us, I got the call Her cremains are ready, she said. The what? I said
The cremains...cremated remains. She explained, testily. Like... duh. Oh, I say Her ashes.
What I wanted to say – She, should never be called cremains.
Of course I angry-Googled it – industry term, euphemism, first found in a newspaper obituary in 1947.
Discovered that her body, once incinerated, was swept from the furnace with a metal broom
and looked nothing like ashes (or cremains) but like sand and bleached sticks. A desiccated high-tide at the beach.
I found myself admiring our stubborn big bones which apparently always refuse to yield to 1800 degrees.
Yet even they must submit to process, get pulverized
in a Cremulator to a uniform grind to fit the urn.
to make the gone, and their place inside us, take up the least space possible.
Nancy T
Rachel Phillipps
It’s okay to be somber, Slushies! Don't let the poetic gestures confuse you as the rhythm and pacing contribute to a starburst of flash fiction by Maria McLeod. The obligation to help the writer leaves the crew thinking, as Kathy recalls Dubus’s “A Fathers Story” and Marion thinking of “The Defeated” on Netflix. “The Eternal Fall Backwards” will have you captured in the stream of the writer's thoughts and deeply invested in remaining there.
What piece of media did you recall while reading “The Eternal Fall Backwards”?
This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist A.M.Mills, whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
Maria McLeod writes poetry and prose. Honors include the Indiana Review Poetry Prize, the Robert J. DeMott Short Prose Prize, and three Pushcart Prize nominations. She was named the 2020 WaterSedge Poetry Chapbook Contest winner, judged by Oregon State Poet Laureate Kim Stafford, for “Mother Want,” published in 2021. Her second poetry chapbook, "Skin. Hair. Bones.," will be published by Finishing Line Press in 2022. Her poetry and prose has appeared in leading literary journals such as Puerto Del Sol, The Brooklyn Rail, Critical Quarterly, Crab Orchard Review, Sonora Review and others. Originally from the Detroit area, she currently resides in Bellingham, Washington where she works as a professor of journalism for Western Washington University.
The Eternal Fall Backwards
I hold his head in my hands, pull it to my chest. O. O of his mouth. Eyes glazed. It's dark and he didn't mean to do it. Make out the words, hit and run, man run over. Wanted to kill him. Words of the mouth: pathetic, half human, why don't I die, why not dead. Words slide one after another, into each other, slur, collapse, run down, run out.
There are tears and, sorry, I'm so sorry, drinking, always too much drinking. How an evening progresses, regresses. There are his two bodies: one ferocious, to be feared, a man afire; the other, a boy's, a fetal position, a thumb to his lips. There are nights like this when I am the mother. When I cradle his head in my lap, smooth his hair and say, it’s okay, you're okay now.
I have gone to the jail tonight to pay them to release him, because, drunk, he tried to kill a man. Drunk and stoned or hallucinating, he had run over a man, but missed his body and only hit his leg and the man fell down in the night and someone thought they heard a deep, deep moan but all were sure they had seen him fall backward in that eternal fall backwards that happens in slow motion. And someone said the man's body flailed and twitched after the car drove too fast and right at the man who didn't have time to run but looked up to see the face of a driver already afraid of what he had done.
There are days when I am not the mother. There are days when I am small, when I am the girl, when his hands are too large and his arms too strong. Days when my death comes too soon and then not soon enough, when he drinks too much and finds me in his bathroom seeing myself in his mirror and he's angry; my face is too much in his house and he cannot stand it there and pushes me quick into the mirror and the mirror cracks and my face is cut. These are the days I am not in my body, and so I walk and walk away and down the street afloat above myself, waiting for him to come. But first, he must hit me so it's my voice calling us back from the street, my screaming that draws us from the dark, saying look, look what you have done.
Night again. I bathe him and he is crying into the bath. On this night, he has pushed his best friend through a storefront and has cut himself trying to save him, deciding, after the glass shattered, he didn't mean it. It is like this for him, the before and the after: the anger behind the headlights followed by the fear of the body fallen backwards. Collision of two moments: hit and run. He bleeds into the bath, and I worry that I will need to take him to the doctors and they will see that he has taken drugs and has been drinking. I fear they’ll send him away, or keep him for themselves, thinking I won’t know how to heal him.
I am good at giving the bath. I rub circles at the sides of his head. I know to scoop hands full of warm water over his shoulders so they run down his chest. When I do this, my mother appears in my head, angry and not allowing my brothers to bathe because they make a mess she is sick of cleaning up. Instead she drinks and sleeps on the couch with her own hair greasy and stuck to her head. My brothers would go to school stained, unwashed, and the others would hold their noses and laugh and point. So I would wait until my mother fell into the deep sleep she does not easily wake from and I would gather my two brothers into the bathroom and tell them to take their clothes off. And I would fill the tub with water and the oldest one would refuse to take off his underwear because he didn't want me to see him. And I would say to get in anyway and I won't look at you. And this time he would do what I said.
I know his sickness. I know that what is left looks like him, but is not him. When I bathe him, he stops my hand from scooping the water and pulls me to him. He sees that I have been crying, too. He says that he did this. And I say yes, but that moment is past and now we are in another. He is crying the tears that come after the screaming and the hitting, tears that ask forgive me. I am closing my eyes and whispering that I have a room where a bed waits for him, where the walls give way and the light is a soft, cloudy white. I am circling him with my arms and he is crying into my belly. I am taking him, guiding him down the cold hallway into the warmth of the room where I cover him and keep watch, waiting for what is yet to come.
Join us as we consider a pack of poems by Pier Wright, and the complexities of pacing, prosody, and narrative poems with strange and powerful images: memory, tenderness, a “magnificent young moose,” & the magic of being caught in the act. Kathleen “Gratitude” Volk Miller, champion explicator and advocate for gratitude and neuroplasticity, analyzes the “small pointy hats of hope” as lovers entwine. Jason “Gorgeous Vectors” Schneiderman loves sticky collisions. Gabby and Alex and the crew ponder happy endings and surprises that feel like “Objective correlatives,” slushies. Spoiler: Marion “Sunshine” Wrenn makes an appearance from future past, or future perfect, or…something like that. It all makes a great story.
Slushies, what is your “embarrassing at the moment but will be funny later” story?
This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist A.M.Mills, whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
Pier Wright attended Kalamazoo College where he was influenced by the poetry of Con Hilberry and later by that of Diane Seuss. The first poetry reading he ever attended, and has never forgotten, was Robert Bly reading from Silence In The Snowy Fields. He received a Post-Baccalaureate & Masters degree from The Art Institute of Chicago. As a student he discovered Fairfield Porter, Monet’s large Water Lilly paintings at at Musée de l'Orangerie, Terry Winters, Mary Heilmann, Philip Guston’s late paintings, Giotto, Noguchi, etc.. Influences include Prayer Wheels, Marie Howe, Chris Martin, Peter Matthiessen, Stephen Dunn, John Cage, Ornette Coleman, Joni Mitchell, Phyllida Barlow, the ceramic work of Toshiko Takaezu, and, most recently, the writings of C.D. Wright. While living as a hermit for several years at the end of a peninsula in N Michigan he began working with Michael Delp. He has been the director of Wright Gallery since 2002 and is recently married.
Socials: Instagram is pierdwright, Facebook is Pier Wright, and website is pierwright.net (paintings)
Driveway Poem
we arrived early at the house by the subshop
after the bar closed
it was cold and being new at love
the only way we thought to keep warm
was by undressing completely, with great urgency
in the front seat of the Ford
then my foot got stuck in the horn
just as our friends began arriving
we couldn’t have left even if we’d wanted to
with all the cars having parked behind us
so we went to the party anyway
me with my shoes untied
you unfolding yourself from the car like a magnificent young moose
the night sky on one side of you and the stars over there
the way you had of entering a room back then
as though by just walking the muddy path to the stoop
a lotus popped out
Gratitude
what was once impotent in me
remains in this fiery house
on a small lot, crap lawn
every roughed grief
the small pointy hats of hope
red hibiscus bushes wilting in a row
the heat slicked fur of a sleeping hound
a house made not of things
but the relationship between things
such as the desire two bodies have
when flying blindly toward each other
at incredible speed
so, when I ask if I can make you breakfast
what I mean is, I am thankful you are finally here
The Hibiscus, Key West
we shared thin, raw, slices of tuna,
conch salad, cracked stone crab claws,
drank dark rum, tripped over the noisy chickens
on our way to your room.
drank more rum from plastic cups,
then a table broke, the matching chair in pieces,
waltzing together across worn linoleum
like aging Tantric porn stars.
waking to Cuban coffee, I remember eggs,
while waiting for a bus to Miami
you wrote your number on a napkin.
I tried calling several times,
a memory persistent as the fly banging
on this kitchen door screen.
Mother’s Day
what a day in the garden
pulling out the knotweed
the clover and spurge
forgiving you for leaving so soon
the way they cut your head open
I recall a dream
I find you in a dumpster it’s hot
your bones are missing
and you can’t get out
just now before dark
beside the thistle and burdock
your cheeks wet I ask if you are hungry
I chop potatoes eggs olives
how tender the early dandelion greens
are tossed with sea salt
bitter with lemon
drizzled with the good oil
I keep for company
Slushies, what are some ways a writer may gain your trust? Kathy lifts a brow at poems including questions. Marion looks side ways at pop-cultural references. (Check out this favorite of ours from issues past.) But these poems may make them think otherwise. In “Diving For Pearls” the imagery pulls us into the world of Bedouin and sea-faring cultural economy. Or how “Tidying up with Marie Kondo” may trivialize the idea of the context of curiosity.
Speaking of sparking your joy— or not— what was an item that you loved but had to get rid of?
This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
Rasha Alduwaisan is an oral historian from Kuwait. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Cincinnati Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Willow Springs and The Common. She earned an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University.
Diving for Pearls
My body is a sack of bones, feet bound, heavy with stone, I plunge and sand shatters without a sound, tongue- tied, this sea is breathless, rope & leather & lead, I grasp what I can see, rough shells, round shells, hollow shells, I mouth your name and something stirs – I pry myself open to find it.
Tidying Up with Marie Kondo
Marie, I drove to the landfill yesterday to find my wedding dress the one I couldn’t bear to give to anyone else I know I shouldn’t have but I followed the truck down the beach road and into the desert tried to plead at the gates you know the way they do in the movies but security was so tight, Marie so I watched from the car and it looked like a mound of bodies lace wrapped around denim around plastic around mulch and there were so many toys, Marie dolls without stuffing bikes without wheels so many fridges torn at the hinge and the truck I followed could have been any truck my dress any dress so I left drove deeper into the desert until all I could see were seagulls dipping in and out of the heap nothing on their backs but feathers and they looked so happy, Marie they really did
Agarwood
I dab oud on my wrists, my neck, the gap between my breasts,
the way the Agar pours sap into its wounds, the tender scent filling the room.
In Cambodia, they strip down trees to find it, the infected bark, the salve.
My throat is dry from shouting, this time about you smoking inside the house,
the stove I left on all night, the text we cannot translate.
I want you to kiss me, but all I can do is tell you I would be better off without you.
Tell me, how long does a bruised tongue take to heal? How sweet does it taste?
How do you pronounce “San Gorgonio,” Slushies? How do you say “Schuylkill?” We talk regional accents, local knowledge, and artistic craft-- from the risks of the pathetic fallacy to the unknowability of metaphor, the art of ambiguity, and, of course, the golden shovel. Join us for an episode devoted to poems by Marko Capoferri where we discuss poetic craft, resonant symbols, and the peculiar power of telephone poles.
What can’t you pronounce where you live?
Links to things we discuss that you may dig:
Eula Biss’s “Time and Distance Overcome”
Jennifer L. Knox’s “Irwin Allen Vs. The Lion Tamer”
At the table: Katheleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, Larissa Morgano & Kate Wagner
This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
Marko Capoferri has lived and worked in eight US states, including Montana, where he currently resides. He is an incoming MFA candidate at the University of Montana in Missoula. He is desperately seeking fellow Italian-Americans in Montana for good pasta and raised voices.
Instagram: Instagram.com/markocapoferri
San Gorgonio
White paper coffee cups collect in drifts
by the freeway exit ramp—the hearts of ghosts
once held tight then tossed out the window
of a car speeding across the desert at four a.m.
trying to stay awake to see, when the light
came back, what the battered face of the land
could tell us about ourselves: how the mountains
were stark and risen; how we were sunk dumb
in between, a scathing plain of wind turbines
resonating unearthly as Amelia Earhart's flooded engines
chugging their final gasp on the ocean floor;
how the sea was here once and swallowed heights,
long since yawned and pulled away paving
this desert with a tired yellow dirt now blown
through our teeth, through our beating pistons,
and a few black rounded stones as souvenirs
from lost time; how thistle-studded towns
were hardly refuge; how the many stones
we had gathered were bright and jagged,
too young by design to tell any real story;
how lust and lost became an exchange in glances
through a motel’s cracked facade; how these roads
kept on dressing down like lightning on a postcard
running fingers in the hot mouth of experience.
Self-portrait with Elegy
Just like we were on the Great Plains
in 1949, my father and I would gather
summer nights with neighbors
lining our country road to watch
constellations disbanding. Whether tragedy
or a tragic lack of imagination, it’s hard
to say—he and I simply could not see
any threads or their severing. Then,
as now, telephone wires also lined the road
linking the night one lighted island
at a time, though the wires are now dead
gestures, props to a faded empire
of distant voices made close but never
close enough to turn that light
into warmth. What’s left—sinking
into my own humidity, my own
expanse of darkness, and he
to his own. As you read this
it is surely a summer night some place
the land extends forever
until it gives up where the visible
begins to visibly waver, either
from the heat or from the failure
of the possibilities of sight.
Social handles: Instagram (@stericeifel) and website (www.ericstiefel.com)
ERIC STIEFEL
Greek Mythos and Labyrinths
Hello Slushies. Do you see the string? Past the blooming peonies and fungus gnats? Follow us into the labyrinth of our minds as we discuss the work of Eric Stiefel. You may need to brush up on your Greek mythology and Italian literature as a guide. A discussion about various versions of ourselves turns into discussion of an app that animates photographs of faces and National Mason Jar Day (November 30th). And, maybe, the only way out of the labyrinth of the mind is to open your mouth only to forget what you were going to say.
If there was a national day to celebrate you, what would you want people to do that day?
This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist A.M.Mills, whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
Eric Stiefel is a poet and critic living in Athens, Ohio with his dog, Violet. He teaches at Ohio University, where he is also pursuing a PhD. His recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Apple Valley Review, Prism Review, The Literary Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Frontier Poetry, and elsewhere.
At This Point, I’d Take Anything
A claw of thread’s all it takes to follow one thought to the next—
when West killed himself I didn’t say his name out loud for months,
though most days I still lean forward and pull my head back as if some spectral hand pulls my chin taut and points my gaze to the life
he abandoned inside this house of chaos we call everyday or otherwise inscrutable, my shoulders trembling like stained glass, the same way,
I imagine, Theseus trembled as his father threw himself to the rocks, not long after he left Ariadne sleeping on a beach made of coral and grit,
the mind displaced while the body stays behind, the breath clipped short and calcified, strung up in the overgrown garden Dante held back for suicides,
while, in some version of the myth, Ariadne became a god, goddess of serpents and twine and everything tangled, winged beasts hovering on the fringe
of knowing one way or the other, gloating on the worn-out roots of the trees we’ll be burdened to, until I’m sitting on the floor in front of a coffee table
pleading first with myself and then everything else, this skeleton of history and an infinity of arrangements of the stars for an answer of some kind—
at this point, I’d take anything that masquerades as understanding like a barrel to my chest, something to cradle off into the murk and the shadows of the night.
Phantasmagoric
Each time I kill one of my old selves—or more often let him loose into the static—I stumble on his shade sometime later, often when the seasons have changed and the lilacs have withered so that they, too, no longer resemble their former selves—
He was there, right there, standing in front of the meat market, with a ring of brass keys in his hand, just watching
as the pedestrians idled by—
and I start to ask if I would recognize myself if seen
from any real distance, or would it all just blur, terribly,
so that there could be no gesture, no omen or ominous figure lurking in the corner of one’s eye, and what
would I do then, what jar would I keep the days in, and how would I order them or else unravel further into a blizzard of ideas, and then what sense could I make of this before suddenly drifting away?
If It’s True of Human Nature
Actually, I hate the flowers—
now that the birds have vanished, as the last clouds drain away and a thin light winnows down where a grove of bees used to flourish—
and if you spoke to me of cruelty, I’d think about primrose in winter, lying dormant in the dirt, holding itself frozen, while the leaves left on the surface lose themself to rot—
I’ve been bestial and cunning, the way
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤa troop of foxes conspires to survive the snow,
as winter moths lay havoc on landscapes of white trees—
and if you spoke softly, I might learn to trust you, even fold as a feathered wing, knowing that you might hurt me
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤand that that hurt might be a kind of devotion
that we couldn’t explain, as the roof dulls the raindrops above us into something bearable,
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤas if we could know
the limits of what we could bear—
Slushies, are you ready to take a deep dive into some fiction? Listen to “Benefitting Positions,” at the link below, or read it here. Would you ever hire a professional hugger, or would you want to be one? Listen in as the group discusses the concept of professional snuggling and what the drive is behind good fiction. In this time of social distancing, the topic of touch has become more pignant than ever, and very much so in Jac Smith's piece.
Maybe you’ll be a different kind of touched when you listen to how proud the group is of Jonathan. Maybe you’ll feel even another kind of touched when you hear about Jason’s academic journey, followed by Larissa's journey in the VCap Department, which has helped acclimate an ungodly 30,000 zoom users.
Send us your thoughts on the piece, and what you think of Jane’s anger, and we'll leave you Slushies with one last question. There isn’t a right or wrong, although we are side-eyeing you, do you read a book’s ending first? Or are you NORMAL and read the book from the beginning to end?
Listen to Benefitting Positions
This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist A.M.Mills, whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
Jac Smith is a MFA graduate from the University of Notre Dame and a recipient of the Studios of Key West Fellowship. She is currently seeking representation for her novel, The Loose, which explores grief as a form of addiction and is set in the Florida Keys. She lives in the mountains of Southern California with her wife. Her work can be found at Hypertrophic Literary and Santa Ana River Review.
We’re thrilled to consider new poems and flash fiction by Dr. Emily Kingery on this episode. Subtle and specific and utterly compelling, these poems make us ponder and pause and praise. We’re global as ever, Slushies: from Lititz, PA, to the KGB Bar, Gabby is somewhere in Powelton, it’s last year’s Ramadan (Ramadan Kareem!), Samantha hasn’t gotten married yet, and Kingery’s got us thinking about the trouble we got into in high school basements. Time warps and shapes shift! Listen in & enjoy.
This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist A.M.Mills, whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
At the table: Addison, Alex, Gabby, Jason, Kate, Kathy, Larissa, Marion, & Samantha
Emily Kingery is an English professor at a small university in Iowa and the author of Invasives (Finishing Line Press, forthcoming), a semi-finalist in the New Women’s Voices Series. Her work appears widely in journals, including Birdcoat Quarterly, Blood Orange Review, GASHER, The Madison Review, Midwest Review, New Ohio Review, Plainsongs, Raleigh Review, and Sidereal, among others. She has been a chapbook finalist at Harbor Editions and Thirty West Publishing House, as well as the recipient of honors and awards in both poetry and prose at Eastern Iowa Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, Midway Journal, Quarter After Eight, and Small Orange Journal. She serves on the Board of Directors at the Midwest Writing Center, a non-profit supporting writers in the Quad Cities community (mwcqc.org), and you can follow her on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ekingery/
Dirtbag Wilderness
Our dirtbags, our dirtbags
were medicine men.
They spoke as oracles,
capped bottles, skated
razorblades across
the glass of pictures.
It’s just like shoveling snow,
laughed our dirtbags
as they unburied
their parents’ faces.
Like raking leaves,
want to try?
We watched their hands
swap bills, our eyes
the wrong kind of wild.
Our dirtbags laughed:
You can sit with us
while we finish.
This was intimacy:
our sitting; their finishing.
We laughed; we returned
frames to their shelves.
We bought shadows dark
and lip stains darker. Darker,
said our dirtbags, damp
on basement couches.
We envied in secret
the laughs of bright girls,
high as their hair
pinned in hard, slick curls.
They spun like acrobats
in the high school gym,
strobing in glitz
we were disallowed.
Bitches, spat our dirtbags,
skanks, whichever
words coaxed our laughter.
We swallowed them
like expectorant
and laughed in wet coughs
under canopies
of parking lot trees,
our arms crossed as though
coffined already.
We rolled in our dirtbags’ scent
like hunting dogs,
napped in stuffy rooms
as their hands, their hands
blessed guns, made backpacks
heavy with Ziploc holy.
It’s all good, laughed our dirtbags.
Our hips, our ponytails
swayed easy as leaves.
By summer, our dirtbags
wore sly, deep pockets,
weighed powders,
held capsules to the light
under a jeweler’s loupe.
The car windows glided,
phones lit up like lightning
bugs on the shoulders
of gravel roads. Such soft light,
light of vigils, light the yellow
of a forgiven bruise.
We rode to neighboring towns
of missing teeth and needles.
We cried in bathrooms
far from home. We were home
when we laughed, when we laughed
we laughed Everclear vomit.
But our dirtbags, our dirtbags
let us sit while they finished,
and their hands were warm
as stones pressing us to sleep.
Funeral for a Cat
When the cat was killed by a driver in a tragic hit-and-run, the dirt bike kid watched it happen. He screamed to gather us to her carcass: Pumpkin! He pedaled hard around the block. Pumpkin is dead!
I was afraid to tell Dad, at first. He went outside, shoveled Pumpkin into a grocery bag and dug a hole under a lilac bush. It was too late in the season for flowers, but he said they would bloom next year: a small truth sounding like kindness.
The kids begged him for a real funeral to say goodbye. He smiled a little, but not at them, and had us circle the grave and hold each other’s sweaty hands while he prayed. It was a test.
The dirt bike kid and the girls with yards of upside-down toys wept for the cat, loose with their sadness. The streetlights flickered on, and I was afraid of Dad again. I tried not to picture Pumpkin with a halo and wings, but I failed. I begged God to forgive me for it, then tried not to picture God as a cat shaking its head at my blasphemy, then prayed not to cry as the cats kept coming. I missed the amen, but I held out. I passed.
After the funeral, Dad said I was so grown-up, not weeping over a cat that didn’t belong to anyone. Not to the neighborhood, not even to God.
He prayed over hamsters in the years to follow, maybe a second cat. He prayed, and I grew into a tragic, feral thing.
Slushies, do you know your shades and types of blue? Do you know how to say blue in Russian? When we talk of St. Petersburg, are we talking about Russia? Or Florida? When we discuss Max Lasky’s poems we discuss what we call things and how we write things and what to call the things we write. (Discuss what ‘lyric’ means amongst yourselves.) “Come Here” takes the table to a scene in Maryland, once home to Jason and his long “O,” and is heavy in Hikmet. After reading “Prothalamion Poured from a Copper Cezve,” a love poem or a poem about love, we continue to praise Lasky’s juggling of images and figurative tight-rope walking.
This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist A.M.Mills, whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
At the table: Samantha Neugebauer, Alex J. Tunney, Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, and Marion Wrenn
Max Lasky is a poet from New Jersey, currently living in Maryland with his fiancé where they are raising two plant children: a hardy mum named Thomas, and a basil plant named Bunting. Max is finishing up his final year in the MFA program at the University of Maryland and earned his B.A. from Ramapo College. His poems have been published by Trillium and Frontier Poetry, and he is the co-founder and editor of the literary magazine Leavings. He lives in and for the slush.
Come Here
We read Hikmet during what she called a picnic, though we brought no wicker basket, no plaid blanket, we rolled our jeans up under our knees to wade across the river, wide and knee high, the entire riverbed bedded with sharp rocks covered in moss, slick enough beneath our bare feet to make us walk slow, half cautious, as a group of five men flyfishing spoke Spanish, reeling in fish too small to keep, taking swigs from warm beer cans at the shore when they turned bored, wanting us to leave. We stayed. As did the birds pitching in a nearby thicket, almost inaudible near the pop blaring from a portable speaker, and a quiet drone flew high above the water. Which is to say nature’s no more, at least not there in Catonsville, Maryland, mid August, where the Patapsco flowing toward the Chesapeake could double as the sound of traffic passing on a highway. All the plastic, all the tin cans and wrappers littered across the rocks, the sand— and yet hopeless is not something to be, not for me or Hikmet or my love, who smirks when I say a new Turkish word correctly. My love, what are we to do? We lounged on that ripped towel, smoking, when we should’ve scoured the shoreline picking up trash. In masks because of a pandemic, not one person walking past on the trail looked us in the eye or said hi, how are you? I lose a little hope… I hope a little less and learn a new language, or try. I learn how the river was commandeered from Native American tribes by dead men, white men who wanted to fuel their new plants and mills, men who never imagined the future here, hundreds of years later, or else just didn’t care, not for us or the two women who walked hand in hand, a leashed dog barking at their feet, not the men who spoke Spanish and looked at me confused when I asked what kind of fish is that? I already knew it was a trout. I already knew Hikmet was a communist who loved Marx and Lenin and each of his three wives. Some of us strive to better the world, some strive to better ourselves, and the striving sometimes transcends joy. Hikmet tried both not long ago when he wrote “My strength is that I’m not alone in this big world. The world and its people are no secret in my heart, no mystery in my science. Calmly and openly, I took my place in the great struggle.” I turned to face a warm wind that laced my face with sand, for the future’s everchanging, before it even happens… Come here and change me, you whose tongue on my tongue tastes of Turkish tobacco, and sun, you who say the unsayable. Come here, aşkım, lend me your hope, teach me how to grin again after two decades of elegy and a broken language rife with misogyny, and god. We took Nazım to the water’s edge and read the translations energetically, sweating, as the park closed and the sun lowered, and for a few moments, it seemed as if it was just us three and the river, carving through the earth like the blood through our veins, I learned a new word for landscape.
Prothalamion Poured from a Copper Cezve
Zuleyha read my fortune in the dried coffee grinds
and tossed the saucer toward the future, its arc across
left a chem trail renting the sky, and I didn’t ask why,
I didn’t point it out or make a scene about the vision
I’d been led to believe, as if with a shovel in a lame novel,
as if my ears were a septic chute that accepted every story,
no matter how far from true. I didn’t mention my nomad past
or how my brain’s forced from place to place in caravans, canal boats,
tents reeking of frankincense, pine, or how that’s just another story
I’d been fed with a shovel. I realized somewhat early on
in this early life that most people are eager to live their lives
like stars beyond a projector, a drive in, seemingly unaware
of the dark screen, and willing to wrong anyone if it means
someone lifts the loose noose from their own bowed necks—
they almost sprint down the steps. I crawl up the steps to every
bad decision I’ve let happen, happy to say I’ve changed,
took notes on each mistake and if I ever turned back
I was sure to take a different path. When I go home to the house
I grew up in, it’s not to stay. As for the story, neither one of us
could say if it was imagined. I wake some mornings to find
signs that don’t make sense, suspicious of my own breath
and the sunlight through the slats, because the world’s senseless
and nonsensical and tense. A paranoiac and a high priestess
make for one hell of a couple, our studio’s more like a circus,
we’re trapeze swingers swooping from corner to corner, blowing
clown horns as we paint our faces in a shattered mirror. Our strict
schedule requires us to weep all day and dance at night,
saying I’m so fucking lucky I met you. I’m so fucking lucky…
I rejoice, I digress, I paint two red lines under each of our eyes
and step in line, waiting stone like. I’m well aware it could be me
paranoid and schizophrenic on the side of the street, paranoid
past repair, not knowing where the self ends and society begins,
it could easily be me if not for five or six good people.
As for the lover, I’m damn sure. I put a poem around her finger
because I couldn’t afford a ring, which means I’m always already
all in. I push the stack of chips to the center of the table. I grin.
Slushies! We’re excited to release this episode featuring three poems by Hillary Adler: "Did You Google that or Shake a Magic 8 Ball?"; "We Must Be Animals"; and "Letter to Erika from a Bench on Christopher St." Recorded in the spring of 2020, our crew is well locked down but looking up, delighted to be reading poems together from afar. We’re down with “dirty words,” Slushies, and the ontology of the self, despite Marion’s broken thumb. It’s animality and the annoyingness of humans in “We Must Be Animals.” “Letter to Erika” brings the Big Gay Ice Cream back to us, and Jason talks about football while Marion tries to imitate Charles Bukowski, badly. Adler’s poems invite us into reverie, meditation, frank images, syntactical pleasures, and the challenge of sweetness.
This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist A.M.Mills, whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
At the Table: Jason Schneiderman, Kathleen Volk Miller, Addison Davis, & Samantha Neugebauer.
Hillary Adler is poet and journalist, and is currently the Director of Marketing for Topl, an impact technology company that enables digital and sustainable transformation across value chains and empowers the monetization of impact verified on the Topl Blockchain. She is from New York City, and holds an MFA from The New School. Her work has appeared in The Huffington Post, The Poetry Foundation, BuzzFeed, Rolling Stone and elsewhere. Her first completed book of poems, We Must Be Animals, has been in a drawer for over a year. Maybe one day it will see daylight. Until then, she can be found on Twitter and IG @HillaryAdler.
Featuring Sarah St. Vincent & Karolina Zapal
How many times can we reference the 90’s before you actually start believing that we can time travel? Are hairspray bangs enough (specifically Kirsten Dunst’s lack of them in On Becoming a God in Central Florida)? As the editorial table moves through space-time in our usual fashion, starting off in 1991, Sarah St. Vincent gives us a feeling of the WWE moments of intimacy which make, as Jason says with some Hulk Hogan gusto, YOUR BODY SING WITH PAIN! The spectacle of boxing and the compelling stillness of combat reminds Marion of Gabrielle Calvocoressi’s poetry book, “Apocalyptic Swing.” If you’re hearing the poem twice, that’s not ringing in your cauliflower ears! This episode, we take some cues from Pádraig Ó Tuama’s “Poetry Unbound” series by reading, discussing, and then reading again. Repetition, both in words and time loops, seems to be the theme here with Karolina Zapal sliding in more than a few ‘I love you’s into her poem. Calling all Grammar Slushies: What is the term for doubling up on words?
This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
Sarah St. Vincent
Sarah St.Vincent is a human rights lawyer by day and poet by night (or very early morning). Her debut novel, Ways to Hide in Winter, was published in 2018, and she currently directs a clinic at Cornell University that provides computer security advice to domestic violence survivors. She's originally from that swingin'-est of swing states, Pennsylvania, and lives in Brooklyn.
Sarah’s Twitter handle is @Sarah_StVincent.
Karolina Zapal
Karolina Zapal is an itinerant poet, essayist, translator, and author of two books: Notes for Mid-Birth (Inside the Castle, 2019) and Polalka (Spuyten Duyvil, 2018). As an immigrant and activist writer, she writes frequently about her native Poland, languages, borders, and women’s rights. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from The Rumpus, Inverted Syntax, Tupelo Quarterly, The Seventh Wave, Mantis, Posit, and others. She has completed three artist residencies: Greywood Arts in Killeagh, Ireland; Brashnar Creative Project in Skopje, Macedonia; and Bridge Guard in Štúrovo, Slovakia. She works at the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts & Humanities.
Website: karolinazapal.com
Facebook: karolina.zapal
Instagram: Karoissunshine
Twitter: KarolinaZapal
At the Table: Jason Schneiderman, Kathleen Volk Miller, Samantha Neugebauer, Marion Wrenn, & Alex Tunney
In anticipation of the Collingswood Book Festival, we thought it might be nice to have some of our senior editors and a couple of festival participants sit down for a proper chat about poetry and community, the anonymity of sending work out into the void and the anonymity of masks, and of course, bears and bathrobes.
Enjoy and let us know what you think! Has the pandemic made writing more universal or melted our minds so terribly that our relationship to literature has changed? Will readings stay virtual and/or can we find a happy relationship between Zoom and IRL?
This episode includes these special guests:
Cynthia Dewi Oka is the author of Fire Is Not a Country (2021) and Salvage (2017) from Northwestern University Press, and Nomad of Salt and Hard Water (2016) from Thread Makes Blanket Press. A recipient of the Tupelo Quarterly Poetry Prize and the Leeway Transformation Award, her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, POETRY, Academy of American Poets, The Rumpus, PANK, Guernica, ESPNW, and elsewhere. In collaboration with Philadelphia Contemporary, Friends of the Rail Park, and Asian Arts Initiative, her experimental poem, Future Revisions, was exhibited at the Rail Park billboard in Philadelphia from July to August 2021. She has taught creative writing at Bryn Mawr College and is a 2021-2022 Poet in Residence at the Amy Clampitt House in Lenox, MA. She is originally from Bali, Indonesia.
Rogan Kelly is the author of Demolition in the Tropics (Seven Kitchens Press, 2019). His work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in New Orleans Review, The Penn Review, Plume, RHINO, and elsewhere. He is the editor of The Night Heron Barks and Ran Off With the Star Bassoon.
We thought we’d include our bio’s here, since we never do:
Jason Schneiderman is the author of four books of poems, most recently Hold Me Tight (Red Hen 2020) and Primary Source (Red Hen 2016). He edited the anthology Queer: A Reader for Writers (Oxford UP 2016). His poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, VQR, The Believer, and The Penguin Book of the Sonnet; he is a co-host of the podcast Painted Bride Quarterly Slush Pile. His awards include the Shestack Award and a Fulbright Fellowship. He is an Associate Professor of English at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.
Kathleen Volk Miller has written for LitHub, NYT Modern Love, O, the Oprah magazine, Salon, the NYTimes, Huffington Post, Washington Post, Family Circle, Philadelphia Magazine and other venues. “How We Want to Live,” an essay, was chosen as the penultimate piece in Oprah’s Book of Starting Over (Flat Iron Books, Hearst Publications, 2016). She is co-editor of the anthology, Humor: A Reader for Writers (Oxford University Press, 2014). She is co-editor of The Painted Bride Quarterly and co-host of PBQ’s podcast, Slush Pile. She has also published in literary magazines, such as Drunken Boat, Opium, and other venues. She holds “Healing through Writing” and “Writing and Neuroplasticity” workshops, and other memoir classes. She consults on literary magazine start up, working with college students, and getting published in literary magazines. She is a professor at Drexel University.
Marion Wrenn is Director of the Writing Program; Senior Lecturer of Writing and Literature and Creative Writing at NYU Abu Dhabi. Marion C. Wrenn is a media critic, cultural historian, and literary editor who writes essays and creative non-fiction. She earned her PhD from NYU’s Department of Media, Culture, and Communication and has received grants and awards from NYU, the AAUW, and the Rockefeller Archive Center. Recent work on satirical news and citizen audiences have appeared in Poetics. Her essays have appeared in American Poetry Review, South Loop Review, and elsewhere. She co-edits the literary journal Painted Bride Quarterly (pbqmag.org) and has taught writing at NYU, Parsons, and the Princeton Writing Program.
This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist A.M.Mills, whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
This episode is about allusions, Slushies. How do poems gain dimension by relying on references? Where is that ekphrastic sweet spot? Listen in as we focus on the poems of July Westhale. Under the influence of her work, we talk glass flowers, ghost towns, road trips, and snow. Here are links to a few of the references and allusion we make on the show, inspired by Westhale’s way of seeing the world: This is America; “My Mother is a Fish”; Teresa Leo’s Junkie; and ee cumminings [i carry your heart with me]
With thanks to one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Lorraine” now opens our show.
At the table:
Samantha Neugebauer, Alex Tunney, Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, and Marion Wrenn
July Westhale is an essayist, translator, and the award-winning author of Trailer Trash, and Via Negativa, which Publishers Weekly called "stunning" in a starred review. Her most recent work can be found in McSweeney’s, The National Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, CALYX, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and The Huffington Post, among others. She also has an inventively-named collection of salty chapbooks. When she’s not teaching, she works as a co-founding editor of PULP Magazine. www.julywesthale.com
Rotten Apples Return to Harvard's Glass Flowers Exhibition
What you have heard is true—
something rotten once got us
from our houses, from our beds
where what was there may
or may not have been.
Remember, my darling, my sweet,
that a blistered and blackened
thing, a thing representing life/
sin itself, was a cause for art.
Gave a man, many men,
a lineage of pride.
The moon rose tonight as usual,
no spore-filled scab. As ivory
as the cut belly of an apple
sliced to share. Nothing noxious
to point to, say you.
The world of museums and love
are, as it turns out, through the machinations
and designations of man-made things,
defined by abstractions: Security,
beauty, even, in our worst days.
One day, Blaschka told his son, yes—
American Literature
for Joey
“the silver lamp,--the ravishment, --the wonder--the darkness,--loneliness, the fearful thunder” John Keats
There’s a billboard with the route 66’s version of June Cleaver, holding a pie underneath block letters HO-MADE PIES, which is how dry towns get their jollies, I guess.
We buy coffee in cups so thin the joe becomes us and we never regain our human shapes, and I say to you I wonder where they keep the half-bull man and you shotgun back I’ve spent my life asking that like the sharp shooter you are.
Who wouldn’t want to be the son of a bull and a damned woman
we are all sons of bull and damn
you’ve gone West to find everything or me
and look at girls the way I look at girls who are bad for me. Like a desert
through slatternly windows. This is America: the big-pricked statues statuary in their old-growth knowing:
in the end--spoiler alert--we’re both after the wrong bandit, the bank gets robbed, the two women who should be lovers but aren’t arc their Caddie like a rainbow into the lavish vaginal canyon at the last moment, the whale gets away, Faulkner’s pretend mother doesn’t get the burial she deserves, we have to choose between Liz Taylor in a kerchief or James Dean with his shirt stuttered open, and we can’t---
moon moon
Now there’s snow on the ocean, which is meant to confuse us
and does, though not because we are unprepared for it
but rather because the sight of it reminds us
of the static-hearted parts of our bodies as they prostrate
themselves in years-over-yonder: exploratory attempts
to find warmth—not unlike a surefooted expedition—,
in the disappearance of everything ripe—now covered
with snow’s annihilating speeches—, in the blank stares
of our children as they amputate themselves
from us, in the cloudscape of come forgotten to be enjoyed,
on the snow of a down comforter at which we’d first begun
(circle back to exhibit A), in the cold expanse following
the question am I like winter to you, in the unspooling
that happens when we, I, I mean I play a memory
over again for the too-many-ith time, in the television’s
convex and prudish eye, in the snowy sound of over-use,
in the way empty feels like brain-freeze, in the brilliant
and nearly-neon white of the sign which mourns vacancy
even if everyone around us says off-season, says they love
the snow, the way it makes well-conquered land possible again.
earthling
You’d never guess it (oh, good, a game!),
but here we are many days without our bouncing
blue ball, our terrestrial ball and chain, our baby
planet—not even a note as it slipped from the rearview.
Now a footnote in a book that, were we on said earth,
a man would walk door to door to sell as a collection:
The History of Aquamarine, Abridged. But we are not earthlings
any longer, with no taxonomical replacement in sights. Stars
coronate the endless black, winging it, and here we are:
the most select, the most tourist. The most inclined
to shoot the earth for the moon’s moon, to go nil,
to bankrupt because it is the most American thing to do,
though America was left behind, no matter nationality—
only the home, the journey to and from.
Let us not
seek solace from the callousness of quietude, for it is what exiled us.
Daydream Believer
Listen in as pop culture, nostalgia, and formal craft converge in a discussion of poems by Jeff Royce. As of this recording “we are not the epicenter,” but it feels as if we have all the time in the world as the pandemic spirals on just outside the sound of our voices. Royce has us remembering The Monkeys and Lava Lamps, recalling Larkin’s famous insight that “They F&^% you up, your mum and dad,” and imagining angel trumpets and panthers (both Rilke’s famous panther poem and Teju Cole “On The Blackness of the Panther”). It’s all about resonances and craft, slushies. (Or resonances and interventions: Dear Queer Eye crew, Kathleen needs a home-office resurrection!). If you are looking for more fabulousness, Kathleen recommends two podcasts, Jonathan Van Ness’ “Getting Curious” and Sam Sanders’ “It’s Been a Minute.” Samantha suggests the film Now and Then. Jason is loving Andrea Lawlor’s Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl.
This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist A.M.Mills. The song “Spaghetti with Lorraine” opens our show.
BIO
Jeff Royce lives and teaches in South Florida. He is elaborately married with two refreshingly complicated daughters, though he is less enthusiastic about the two dogs and fat lizard who also live with him. Jeff was social distancing before it was cool.
At the Table: Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, Kathleen Volk Miller, & Marion Wrenn
WATCHING A PANTHER
AT THE PALM BEACH ZOO
Her chirps and caterwauling are
the echoes of an empty sanctuary.
She lowers her stare, pulls back
the fat of her mouth, but the growl
rumbles in from another pen.
Thunderheads build on backs
of roseate spoonbills, restless
in the next enclosure.
Their pink shadows and the stink
of flamingo shit are enough to remind me
my heart is a muscle.
Near the reptile house, wooden manatees
drift on an ocean of organs.
The music is coming from somewhere else.
LINEAGE
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
--Phillip Larkin
It began with horseradish in her mashed potatoes,
her father slipping it in before dinner.
(It began much earlier I suppose.
But this is my mother we’re talking about, younger and thinner
and unaware that fathers can be cruel.)
She dove in without sniffing, and since that day something within her
grew guarded and deep. They met in high school--
my father and she, I mean. She let him kiss her breasts
only through her shirt, so he imagined each one a jewel.
Think of the let down when he saw them undressed,
not cut as he’d expected them to be,
not flawless as the ones he had caressed
under her blouse. He learned to live with them, though; he
learned how not to ask for very much,
to ignore her responsibly.
Her body arched, in dark, under his touch.
They fumbled dutifully until it hurt.
My brother soon was born, a crutch
to hold my mother up. But he wouldn’t wear a skirt.
She cried until her shoes were damp,
and my father taught him how to play in dirt.
Let’s try again, she begged--words pressing like a stamp
on my brother’s soft head--and I, too,
was pushed into this world like a rudderless tramp.
I’ll never know for sure if this is true.
ANGEL TRUMPETS
I have this 1960’s sitcom desire
to frolic on the back lawn.
Our shirts will be fashioned after white sides
of ranch style houses.
Our hearts will take shapes
of plastic Adirondack chairs.
The kids can blow bubbles that’ll satellite the shed
like little acrylic space shuttles.
In the linen-scented afternoon, the backward-stumbling sunlight
will brighten angel trumpets,
drooping polished shuttlecocks
swinging like clean sheets in the here-&-there breeze.
& I’ll pick one for you, & you’ll remark
that the day has smelled just like a fresh haircut,
then you’ll kiss my cheek with the same precision
with which you clip coupons
& the girls, giddy from so much Frisbee,
will roll their eyes & mock our tenderness,
& we’ll chase them & they will feign terror
& scream like they mean it,
& we’ll prolong their terror by pretending to just miss them,
but eventually we’ll tackle them & splash onto the lawn
which has always been just weeds.
We’ll lie there breathing for a while, the four of us,
our heads forming a circle in a way
I imagine might have made an excellent cover for a Monkeys album,
before one of us, probably me, will spot the vultures circling,
not menacingly, but in a shiftless, existential sort of way,
drifting on lava-lamp currents, & I’ll note
how they resemble jets, not in shape
but in the way how we feel about them flies out in front of our voices.
& then someone, probably you, will say,
We are, after all, sitting in weeds, & I’ll say,
What? & the girls will squeal & scramble to the badly cracked patio
where they’ll pick beggar ticks from one another’s backs,
& by now it’s dusk dark
& a fat tarantula moon is crawling up over purplish clouds.
Then, Shit, what’ll we do about dinner?
&, Papa, I still have homework to finish!
& Goddamnit, why are you crying? Stop crying!
& you tell me we don’t even have an angel trumpet tree,
& your breath smells like sparklers,
& the sparklers, in the black air, are scrawling something
that vanishes before I can get it.
I don’t get it, I say, & you say,
You never get it, & I say,
Just go to bed, you can do it in the morning.
& I put a movie on so we can all sleep
& we eat popcorn & freezer pops for dinner, & I tell the kids,
That’s life, & they’re like,
Great!
This episode is all about craft and connections: literary craft and professional connections. In the notoriously small world of poetry and creative writing, should editors recuse themselves from making editorial decisions? Things get wonderfully complicated when you know a poet— be it from grad school, from a workshop, from a conference. Or from dressing up in potentially crass Halloween costumes. (Listen for further confirmation that Jason and Kathy are soul mates via their 90s -era matching Princess Diana getups, complete with steering wheel as accessory and pals playing paparazzi). In addition to the nuances of professional ethics in poetry land, we talk sonnets and the divided self as we discuss 2 poems by Charlie Clark. Clark’s archive of references ranges widely—from Death Grips to inept gladiators to the power of grammar and etymology to charm readers. At one point we’re making rock n’ roll hand gestures to indicate his poem’s caesuras; at another we’re mesmerized by the way Clark works within the confines of 14 lines right under our noses. If you like what you hear, Clark’s new book of poetry The Newest Employee of the Museum of Ruin will be published by Four Way Books later this year.
At the table:
Samantha Neugebauer, Jason Schneiderman, Alex Tunney, Kathleen, and Marion Wrenn
This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Lorraine” now opens our show.
Charlie Clark studied poetry at the University of Maryland. His work has appeared in New England Review, Ploughshares, Threepenny Review, and other journals. A 2019 NEA fellow, he is the author of The Newest Employee of the Museum of Ruin (Four Way Books, 2020). He lives in Austin, TX.
You can find him on Facebook.
The Beast I Worship
I light my torch and burn it.
I am the beast I worship.
—Death Grips, “Beware”
The beast I worship doesn’t blame
the tree for its lithe, expanding
glamour, yet beneath a sky full of blue
kingfishers crying tears from the tree
the placard with its Latin name
laid out in a lush calligraphy
and as many as he can reach
of the narrow green articulations of spring
starting to feel their way into the air;
before he finally takes leave completely,
the beast I worship climbs in and sets the whole thing
burning down. The beast I worship
offers meek relief. What sometimes feels like
beauty sometimes feels like grief.
Address To That Inept Gladiator Timorous
- Supposing the Futility of Language as a Means of Protecting Oneself from Harm
Your armor amounts to the skin of some very large dead beasts,
yet you retain such glamour. If you don’t know the word,
that’s because the Scots hadn’t yet invented it. There wasn’t enough
enchanting mist strewn on even a rainy Roman summer morn
to veil the parts your opponent hoped to hack from you. Had there been,
had a cloud become the air around you, had you survived and done it in this way,
had the poets seen this and gone crazy, probably you still would have been
stuffed back into your cage, fed no more gruel than usual by the mulch-
hearted man who ran the place before next week’s show where he’d charge double
for all the people eager to see some new brute cut your meek gray swarm in two.
Pardon, please, these aimless suppositions. Did you know glamour
is only a corruption of grammar ? This proves nothing but the impossibility
of any word’s use to the dead. No word will build a door out of air
and let you step safely through it before it grammars shut.
- Concerning the Awfulness of Audiences Across Time
Should you somehow fast-forward through millennia, it would likely be
the sons of paper-product scions laughing at your harm. They will be no less noxious
than whoever watches you now. before I waste our time trying to explain the value
of flowered vines embroidered on what people wipe up grape-juice spills and urine with,
let me just call them rags. It is a sound so plain I hope it makes sense no matter what
the tongue or age. It’s rags the audience throws at you, not that they want to offer salves
or congratulations; they simply want to throw things at you and rags are the cheapest thing
on hand. Were I to acknowledge that the word audience existed in your tongue,
what would that matter, except for how it meant something more like listening then,
which means irony existed then too, as some hack-eared opponent hollowed out your mouth
and to slow the bleeding you filled it with the audience’s rags, the loosened red thread-ends
of some drifting in the wind from your mouth toward the lords drunk at center court,
who hear only their own voices naming which next portions of your body they have
paid good money to see your rivals cleave?
- Cataloging Some of what Awaits Him After the Morning’s Dogs Are Done
Heaven is an archive full of friends
whose legs have been restored. You can walk
with them through the ever-longing haze and regather
the other parts both they and you had scattered,
heads and brains and arms and tongues and eyes,
the eyes most especially, because there is so much
now that you are out of the arena’s daily dust and blight,
out of the darkness of its catacombs; there is so much now
for you to gaze at, it is worth acknowledging
the Norseman who would, drunk at sea some mist-
decked century hence, invent the verb to gaze as a variant
of to gape, what does not describe a wound exactly
but does suggest a body breached as well as it does awe,
which in this heaven’s tongue is infinite.
POEMS BY KAILEY TEDESCO
THREE POEMS ACCEPTED
April 28, 2020
Bloomwards & Eggsome
What’s your background, Slushies? Sounds like a loaded question, right? But it’s really a reference to your choice of green-screen background Zoomery. This episode opens with a larking conversation about our current delight in Zoom’s capacity to allow us to upload virtual backgrounds for our physical spaces. (The discussion of poems starts at 8:01 if you want to skip the banter). Kathleen’s surrounded by tulips (while she’s actually holed up in her 3rd floor garret, with a dormer ceiling making her look like Alice in Wonderland). Jason is perched in front of IRL bookcases. Samantha is podcasting with her kitchen over her shoulder. Opting for a plain white wall, Marion nonetheless dons a seriously fringed top in honor of Jason’s signature leather jacket. And Alex Tunney, long-time PBQ editor inducted by our dear pal Daniel Nester a million years ago, joins the podcast for the first time and rocks a Piet Mondrian background. (Nicely done!). All of which serves as a perfect set up for an episode dedicated to poems submitted by Kailey Tedesco. Tedesco’s poems are full of magic and mysticism, shadows and spells. Her work moves across a range of styles—from an ekphrastic poem inspired by Hilma af Klint’s magnificent paintings to a reconfiguration of creepy childhood legends (like Bloody Mary) while playing with forms. We were drawn to the process-based mysticism, speculative feminism, and feminist horror coming through these poems. And Kathleen jumped in and read #7, because…#7.
THE DISCUSSION BEGINS AT 8:49
Recommended Reading:
Marion’s raving about Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other
https://groveatlantic.com/book/girl-woman-other/
Samantha’s loving Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir, In the Dream House
Jason’s devouring Brenda Shaughnessy’s So Much Synth
https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/so-much-synth-by-brenda-shaughnessy/
And we are supremely grateful for the poetry of Eavan Boland, who passed the day before we recorded this episode. Here is her masterful poem, “Quarantine.”
This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Lorraine” now opens our show.
At the table:
Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Marion Wrenn, Samantha Neugebauer,
and Alex Tunney
Kailey Tedesco is the author of She Used to be on a Milk Carton (April Gloaming Publishing), Lizzie, Speak, and the forthcoming collection, FOREVERHAUS (White Stag Publishing). She is a senior editor for Luna Luna Magazine. You can find her work in Electric Literature, Fairy Tale Review, Gigantic Sequins, and more.
Her Instagram & Twitter is @kaileytedesco
- 7 adulthood
after Hilma af Klint
you’ll remember me
as a zygote
scrambling towards
cronehood
on its haunches; i grow
bloomwards. my teeth
outstretched
on the front lawn
during the violet
hour, spelling
spells disguised
as poems.
hermit to hermit;
we kiss
to form
a single nautilus,
sistering
divinity. tell me
when was it
you last
heard from
your spirit?
my guides
have abducted
me quite
violently
from the tulips
i’ve found myself
asleep in.
it is all but
true; my eggs
have clasped
in my womb
like pearls.
my intention
is not to create
life,
but death.
though, i misspoke —
my true intention is
to create
life out of death.
find me in the portal
on the left, right next
to the electric
fences of my
darknesses, all
clumped.
inside the beheaded apartment
the sky whispers something eggsome then breaks its rain, thick & frozen. i crave the cigarettes
i’ve never smoked; not marlboro. i picture you before the time everything could kill you, glamour
in your beehive & twiggy dress, smoke haloing the mini-chandeliers. i beckon for you
to gemstone through me, egyptology — my lipstick glyphs on the edges of your sink. there are
teeth in the walls, did you know that? whole fangs, pulled clean at the root, & toenails, too,
flaking from the ceiling. i lived with estate sale busts of nefertiti, estate sale victorian lace,
bagged & labeled with the year, estate sale chaises of green velvet. green because it reminds
me of france, where i have never been, but where the sun is a vintage wallpaper. in the window
across the way, women in mourning bonnets have st. columba hands holding tight
to the dogs in their rosary chains. the plexi glass cracks in the shape of a crown or witch hat. there
is no bathroom but the one with the freckled clawfoot. the cats have become anxious with the
roach-scroll of the floorboards. we say they perform theatrical productions — one ophelia,
lounging in wet lavender sogging the carpet-shag, one desdemona, clawing at tissue for
handkerchiefs. something is crawling in me, teeth in the walls of boning. i wear the whole house
that used to be yours like a corset. this place is no good for us, i tell your lack of existence. all
the bodily fluids of every other tenant filth me — all the living hosts whispering in tune with the
mold water-logging my pillows. bring me my peacock & she-bear, my estate sale saints. it is time i sic them on my landlords, bring back your sight & my seeing. i shall go ahead
and make my own kingdom out of deadbolts.
bloody mary x 3
there goes my top skull jack-in-the-boxing from your suzy-talks-a-lot eyelids. maybe i’ve been dead a long time. maybe i’ve been dead never ever. live with me forever in the medicine cabinet
where my limbs smoke ring doll-wards through your own reflection. spinning my head
all the way around is what i do for a pageant talent. every time you call my name,
you put a knife in it—my face wounds towards yours. i become nothing but a blood-aura
on your tooth fairy bedding. unlike yours, my wedding gown will lack knuckle-buttons & i envy.
you should have made me more opulent in the story where i’m saint-corpsed with gumball rings on every finger. let me live display-cased at the dead mall, cradling the body you’ve made us.
i’ll hold you too, if you’d like. we can lace together, spine glued to spine, a jar of our parts
now puzzled. then my head, free by comparison, can decapitate & become a locket
facing the wrong way. the backstage of night is what i’d like to see most—everything zombifying from the dirt of sky. i see the same stars as you.
there goes my head. i’m coming back to life.
An array of relevant links:
Hilma af Klint at the Guggenheim
https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/hilma-af-klint
And here is the Guggenheim on No. 7 Adulthood:
https://www.guggenheim.org/audio/track/group-iv-the-ten-largest-no-7-adulthood-1907-by-hilma-af-klint
(Or this link, too, for more images)
https://arthistoryproject.com/artists/hilma-af-klint/group-iv-no-7-the-ten-largest-adulthood/
The legend of Bloody Mary
Debunked:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bloody-mary-story/
And scienced up:
https://u.osu.edu/vanzandt/2019/04/17/bloody-mary-from-the-bathroom-to-the-laboratory/
Courtesy of www.FridaKahlo.org Frida Khalo’s 1946 oil painting The Wounded Deer
Dear Slushies, on this episode we focus on the heart of literary editing and pose the age-old question: “What do you like when you like what you like?” We also break our own rules on this episode of The Slush Pile. Instead of flipping our thumbs at the end of each poem we’re scheduled to consider, we decide to discuss a group of poems by Shari Caplan as a suite. She submitted three poems about the female gaze, and we’re mesmerized by them. With Kathleen, Samantha, and Marion at the table, it’s an all-female crew discussing three of Kaplan’s poems, each one focusing on a powerful woman who worked in and with images: artist Frida Kahlo, psychoanalytic film theorist Laura Mulvey, and Lee Miller (check her out in “Lee Miller: In Hitler’s Bathtub.”) Listen in as we consider Kaplan’s ekphrastic project as she creates these experimental monologues. We’re flying by the seat of our collective pants, trying to muster what we know about Kahlo, Miller, and Mulvey, half recalling Maya Deren’s surrealist short film Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) and trying to accurately summarize Mulvey’s supremely influential essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” all the while recalling Dali’s three flying cats, and being serenaded by Sam’s cat Bowie while being observed by Marion’s cat Imia, who joined us at the editorial table. “Dear Pandemic Diary, Day 79, our animals want in on the editorial process. We want to call them ‘Podcats.’ Someone should intervene.”
With thanks to one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Lorraine” now opens our show.
POETRY DISCUSSION BEGINS at 4:00
Author Bio
Shari Caplan is the siren behind "Advice from a Siren" (Dancing Girl Press). Her poems have swum into Gulf Coast, Nonbinary Review, Masque & Spectacle, Tinderbox, Deluge, and more. Caplan's work has earned her a scholarship to the Home School in Hudson, NY, a fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center, and nominations for a Pushcart Prize and a Rhysling Award. You may encounter her as "Betty BOOM: America's Sweettart" giving intimate readings as part of the Poetry Society of New York's Poetry Brothel or ring-leading the Poetry Circus, an in-character immersive event she produces.
website: sharicaplan.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shari.caplan.5
Instagram: @sharic88
Plus, Marion’s cat insists on a seat at the table.
The Works
"Frida Kahlo (on Frida Kahlo) on the Female Gaze"
Comparison fragments the green-gold of my body. Nothing compares.
As a woman, I see a deer in an arrow forest with my face on and hear palpitating hooves across dry needles. As a deer, I see a woman poking her paint into my wound. What do you see, Diego?
You were called Auxochrome the one who captures (color). I Chromophore — the one who gives. Friendly reds, big blues, hands of leaves, noisy birds, fingers in. Flowers cackle at my ear. Can the female gaze grow fruit in a pick-axe climate?
As a woman, my fingers touch blood. You may have seen it undisguised in the bathroom. As a deer, my blood touches fingers and arrowheads. You might have mistaken it for paint. You may use it.
As a deer, I retain my eyebrows to express the paths of my nerves, which are yours. As a painting, I multiply into flowers and a mountain because my eyes blanket rivers and roots.
I don’t see a mountaintop. The mountain held in the veins of the sky.
"Lee Miller on The Female (Gaze)"
Don’t! melt until I’ve lit you.
Covered to the neck. A sheet to morph you, size the shine on your
- don’t!
face.
Now, topless
in the metal chair, like an uncorked bottle. Cross
at the elbows, look down at the ants.
Don’t –
cavort until I’ve snapped. We’ll have some when he’s over. Come under. An object
could fall on top of you at any moment. It might be a person.
Tar stretches like a bird’s foot. Maybe life’s a nude
picnic, then the tar comes in with the tide and I’m dyed
blue, wearing a net. I can take my own
pictures, thank you. I can deal with some glare.
If you’re thinking,
it’s not my place to guess what. Maybe this dead coral you’re posing with
puts your father in your head. Maybe a dead
pillow or a case packed. Hide it
behind your face.
"Laura Mulvey on the (fe)Male Gaze"
A bear turned to a lounging place.
Instead of unspooling story
the fe/male leans in her lack
/light against the paradox
of phallocentrism.
Bear/er of the bloody
wound. Subject by being
object/ed.
To exit/exist, she must thwart
the male ailment, fuck Freud.
Virgin/Vixenhood fantasies.
Ropes hissing the bedframe.
All the men I know want to do it.
Man/ipulation.
Active/male/passive/female/active/male/passive.
Act/I’ve/male/pass/I’ve/fe/male/act/I’ve/pass/I’ve
Activate!
How does the bearskin rug become a bear again?
How big is an alligator heart, Slushies? Have seen the wingspan of a Sand Hill Crane (a bird once mistaken for the Jersey Devil)? And what happens when you put Mentos in your soda? Life and its peculiarities, its soaring losses and aching beauty, and its utter, utter absurdity come barreling at us in “a flood of images” in Ryan Bollenbach’s poems, 2 of which we consider on today’s episode. Bollenbach has us recalling Willem Defoe at Sgt. Elias in Oliver Stone’s Platoon and envisioning Florida’s “serrated coast.” Cue Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings.” Bollenbach’s second poem “My Lover Squawk Squawks and then Explodes” demands we take it on face value; the title is on point. Listen for a fabulous meta-reading and feel the way the poem wants you, too, to be Seagull. We couldn’t resist – a la Dillard’s “Living Like Weasels”-- and spun out into our own squawking flock. Listen in as we welcome longtime member of the PBQ fam Warren Longmire to the podcast. His good work has a wide reach these days, keeping poetry thriving via The Nick Virgilio Writer's House and Blue Stoop.
Poetry discussion starts at 3:30
Author Bio Ryan Bollenbach is a writer with an MFA from University of Alabama's creative writing program where he formerly served as the poetry editor for Black Warrior Review. He reads for SweetLit: A Literary Confection and Heavy Feather Review. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Timber, Colorado Review, smoking glue gun, Bayou and elsewhere. Find his tweets @SilentAsIAm, more writing @ whatgreatlarks.tumblr.com
The Works "Adagio For Strings" No one wanted this smoke. Not Willem Dafoe or the albatross Whose wings Willem borrowed as splint for his splayed arms As if real bullets ripped through him. Not the wisteria Planting its tendrils on the ground’s sweaty palm Like the sun taking pennies as a return investment on heat. I drove my truck at forty miles per hour over the grey-blue asphalt And looked into the eyes of some Sandhill Crane Crossing the road unfazed by the wind whipping off my steel bumper. On the radio, there was a composer giving a talk about the hope he found In the last note of Sam Barber’s “Adagio for Strings.” As if of body memory, Mark’s corpse rose from a bare patch of sand On the side of Interstate 75! As is of body memory, Chris’s corpse rose from the gated-in parking lot Of a pain management center in Northeast Tampa! The ground swallowed every traffic sign in immune system response After swallowing them both on the same road. I drive that interstate northbound to escape the gulf and the ocean Overtaking Florida’s serrated coasts. I keep only the smoke, The Blackhawk’s wingspan, and the violin notes Piled on top of each other like bodies to be burned. I remember The way the Sand Hill Crane did not flinch. I cannot put my tongue around that. Under the trees where I slipped into dreams, I woke skewered By what the composer said, and the question the crane’s eye’s asked in response. From my morning stomach, I pulled speakers made of the hearts of the alligators I have eaten. Placing them in between the saw palm bushes, I started them Broadcasting “Adagio for Strings” in a staggered order. In the clearing, there were bushes of Pentas and Evolvus In the shape of soldiers kneeling to the sound. There were squirrels kneeling. Snakes bending their bodies to kneel. Bobcats kneeling. Chris kneeling. Mark kneeling. The dusk sun made shadows Of the withered tops of trees. The wind blew its violin trills And all the hearts I planted fell on their side in unison, Restarted in unison from the top. Just as the shadows started to grow, Blue smoke rose from the grasses.
"My Lover Squawk Squawks and Then Explodes" We spent the morning before just talking.
He said your body is slick like construction equipment, how it can move the sand to make a runway for my unhurried strut.
He said your body is like a French fry on a laminated paper plate.
In the high noon sun, I said you have a survivor’s disposition. It makes you gray.
Slick and survivor made us think of our own days of darkness, his coated in motor oil on the gulf coast in search of something white, mine coated in olive oil, garlic, sea salt tears and smooth jazz.
I told him his gray feathers and white food made me think of marbles.
I told him that it seemed odd that he prefers dark drinks when we come out to the beach like this.
He sipped his diet soda and said you just don’t understand, but I saw the white shining in the furthest reaches of his black eyes, that look as if he was already gone.
He walked toward me for a kiss, then changed direction. Sprinted to the white pearl beached in the sand.
I yelled to him as he passed me that I could see how, after living in all that oil, the clean sand, the white, could feel romantic, but inside I was hurt.
He picked the piece from the sand with an instinctual fervor then gave a soul-curdling squawk.
He swallowed the Mentos and exploded like a fourth of July firework over Coney Island.
At the table:
Warren Longmire, Addison Davis, Jason Schneiderman, Kathleen Volk Miller, Samantha Neugebauer, Marion Wrenn, & Joe Zang
This episode happy to thank sponsor Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Lorraine” opens our show.
Dramatic tension in this episode, slushies! “There are no ties in baseball,” but what are the rules for editorial meetings? What happens when the editorial board splits? Do we flip thumbs, thumb wrestle, or rely on another voice to make the choice? Marion joins us from her “transitional liminal space” in the Marlton Hotel in NYC, while Kathleen and Addison call in from Drexel University, and Jason from his Brooklyn home. We launch into three poems by Sarah Best, an assortment of vivid, imagistic pieces referring to everything from sonograms, vanity, Truman Capote, and “coffee served in mason jars.” In the midst of such scenes, we talk regional accents: Warsh & moisturize—the morning ablutions. We discover that “Context” is king when we mistake the poet’s reference to The Master Builder in her poem "Extended Shots and Long Takes" (27:53) for a reference to a reality TV show rather than the Ibsen play and Demme’s 2013 adaptation, A Master Builder. And we delve knee-deep into the myth of Echo & Narcissus, the namesake for the poet’s second poem Narcissus (13:07). At the end of the podcast we fall into a discussion of the seeming rule-less-ness of Gaelic rugby, marvel at the size of rugby players’ thighs, and ponder the relative legality of edibles in Texas, finally coming away with the mantra: Exfoliate and Moisturize, slushies! Especially “inna winner time.”
At the table: Kathleen, Addison, Jason, Marion, Samantha
Timestamps:
3:10 ‘Echo’
12:27 Team vote
13:07 ‘Narcissus’
26:05 Team vote
27:53 ‘Extended Takes and Long Shots’
38:50 Team vote
Dear Slushies, have you ever heard a theremin? Visited Utah? Tried a baked Alaska? Join us for an episode dedicated to poems by Natasha Sajé, whose work explores belonging, queerness, & womanhood in a flow of humour, insight, and vivid images. In “Dear Utah,” Sajé takes us on a trip through her connection with her now-familiar state, which she “complained about for one-third of [her] life”. “Is Homosexuality Contagious?” directly addresses the reader as it contemplates homosexuality, politics, and the way other people's Baked Alaska commands our attention. Finally, “Dear Catilyn Jenner” stops the show. Listen in as the editors collectively lose it. It’s goosebumps and tears in an episode in which the editors wear matching tunics and Jason’s thumbs cry. If you can't wait to get right into the poems, you can skip to the 4 minute mark.
At the table: Marion Wrenn, Kathy Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, and Joe Zang
This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Lorraine” now opens our show.
It’s a rainy day in Philly, even rainier in NYC, and curiously blue in Abu Dhabi. We’re wondering whether you can OD on zinc, what’s happening on planet Saadiyat, and whether ghosts are real. These poems are full of curious imagery, versatile movements and occasional hot-pants and sneeze-ghosts. We loved journeying through each one, which took us, “artfully all over the place.” We learned about Caroline Knox’s poems, cellist Miroslav Rastropovich’s work, and Culpeper’s Herbal. Thank you, James Grinwis!
This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Lorraine” now opens our show.
Dear Slushies, join the PBQ crew (which includes a freshly-tenured Jason Schneiderman) for a pre-pandemic recording of our discussion of 3 poems by the wonderful Vasiliki Katsarou’s work. Be sure to read the poems on the page below as you listen. They’ll require your eyes and ears-- and “a decoder ring.” The team has a grand old time explicating these artful poems. The muses are sprung and singing in us as we read and decide on this submission. Katsarou’s poems teach us to read them without projecting too much of ourselves and our current preoccupations onto them. We’re reminded to pay attention to what’s happening on the page. But synchronicities abound! Before we know it we’re ricocheting off of the poems’ images and noting the wonderful convergences the poems trigger - we hear traces of Wallace Stevens “Idea of Order of Key West” or Auden’s Musee de Beaux Arts. (But first we check in with each other, cracking each other up in a pre-pandemic moment of serious lightness. We’re heard that “Science” shows Arts & Humanities majors make major money in the long run. Kathy reports that “the data on success” shows that participation in Nativity Plays is a marker for career success. Samantha confesses she played Mary Magdalene in a Nativity Play. Marion might have been a Magi. And many of us were reindeer.. Also, Donkeys do better than sheep over time (which may or may not have been claimed on “Wait, wait… don’t tell me!”). Editing a Lit Mag shouldn’t be this much fun, Slushies. Listen through to the discussion of the 3rd poem’s deep magic and craft. And listen to our editors’ cats chime in).
Addison Davis, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, and Joe Zang
Be warned. We love the writers who submit to PBQ, slushies. We love doing this podcast. And we love you; we love that you listen to us discuss and deliberate. In short, slushies, as Mister Rogers would say: “1-4-3.” One. Four. Three. (I. L-o-v-e. Y-o-u). (Get it?!). We do. It’s hopeless. We’re hooked.
We discuss 3 poems by James Pollock in this episode. Join us for this wonderfully raucous discussion of craft and precision, technology and point of view, and big ass fans™. Addison is sleep deprived (too much late night coffee). Jason is in his jammies (sleeping in after hosting KGB’s open mic Monday). Marion is a cheerful maniac in Abu Dhabi, and Samantha calls in from Dubai.
Reminding us of Pinsky’s First Things to Hand, Pollock’s poems spin us around, bathe us with craft, and make us re-see things, especially the power of poetry. Yup: That sentence actually refers to all 3 of the seamlessly crafted poems Pollock shared with us-- “Ceiling Fan,” and “Shower,” and “Spectacles,” And yup, by calling your attention to it, we just exposed our seams. (Ugh. Craft is hard. For poets and coffee roasters. “Form makes the language seem inevitable,” sayeth Jason (who is also “completely obsessed with tap water”). And great coffee should have a proper name. Ask KVM. Listen to the end of the show when she describes naming a new coffee for “Cup of Bliss” coffees in Collingswood, NJ. Spoiler: “Be My Neighbor!”).
At the table: Joe, KVM, Samantha, Addison, Jason, Marion
Well before we found ourselves in the COVID 19 pandemic, we had the sniffles on this episode, slushies. But neither head colds nor hangovers will keep us from the great pleasure of discussing Daryl Jones’ “Not Your Ordinary Doppleganger.” The poem’s gentle humor and delightful details have us in stitches: the poem puts the “P” in poetry, the “P” in PBQ. (There is a badly delivered dad joke buried in that sentence, slushies, apologies-- trust us, the poem does it better). Listen in as: Jason reveals his mother was actively trying to gaslight him when he was 5; Samantha reveals the science of scent and stepmothers; and we trade Shakespearean puns and tips on slankets. All of which made us think about father and fatherhood, those we’ve had and those we miss.
Daryl Jones recently retired from a career in academic administration and rediscovered the passion for writing that he had set aside more than twenty-five years ago, after receiving an NEA Fellowship, serving as Idaho Writer-in-Residence, and winning the Natalie Ornish Poetry Award from the Texas Institute of Letters for his book Someone Going Home Late. Since courting the muse again, he has published poems in The American Journal of Poetry, The Gettysburg Review, New Ohio Review, Poet Lore, The Southern Review, and elsewhere.
Coffee: a security blanket, health-hazard, and world-tilting device.
Hey slushies, today we’re discussing Frank X. Christmas’ poem “Coffee, Ice Cream.” But first! Alien business people are descending on Drexel’s cafeteria (“the place… where people eat?”) and our editors are braving malfunctioning footwear and costume parties. Much mayhem at the top of this episode, Slushies, so if you’re eager to check out the poem and the critique you can skip ahead to minute [11.35]. Frank X. Christmas’ poem is both surreal and nostalgic. Somehow it acts on us the way a good cup of coffee does: we feel a little bit separated from space and time. The editors discuss how it drags us into a reverie where everything spins and flows. We are in flux. They then debate about the age of the girl in the photograph and the ways time seems to have collapsed. There might be feelings of loss embedded in this work, but there is also warmth, comfort, and the sweetness of a vanilla scoop. After their discussion the editors lay out a few of their recent reads including The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner and The Tradition by Jericho Brown.
At the table: Marion Wrenn, Kathy Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, Addison Davis, and Joe Zang.
F.X. Christmas, a lifelong New Englander, was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. He studied accounting at Bentley College and journalism at Northeastern University. His poems and stories have appeared in Northwest Review, Seattle Review, Manoa, Gulf Stream, Midwest Quarterly, and other magazines. Today he is working on linked stories, longer manuscripts, and more verse. He lives in the suburbs with his wife, his daughter, and the family dog.
Hello Slushies! Today, we put the “pee” in PBQ when Jason reminds us not to over-hydrate (it’s a thing!). Marion is in the Philadelphia Studio and Samantha in Portland for the Tin House Summer Workshop, which triggers an epic donut-discussion. Must-try doughnuts: VooDoo Doughnuts in Portland, Federal Doughnuts in Philadelphia, and Dough in New York City. After daydreaming about desserts, and resisting the bullying power of nutrition Apps, we dive into three poems by Tanya Grae. These poems are included in Grae’s book Undoll (YesYes Books, 2019). All are ekphrastic, allusive, homage poems-- and we pour over the way Grae is adapts, innovates, remixes, and recreates poems across these poems. We’re drawn to the layered conversation and formal prosody and synchronicity she sets up-- our thumbs are flipped, our heads are spun. The first is after Lorca’s “The Unfaithful Housewife” (translated by Conor O’Callaghan). The second is an intriguing and baffling poetic rant, “Duchess, A Found Poem.” And the final, the tripendicular “Dear Ozy,” triggers the sound of thinking from the Slush Pile crew: we ponder maps and palimpsests, spirals and dimensions, Google searches and precarious empires. Samantha reminds us that someone, maybe Twain, said “history doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes.” Associative spirals make this conversation a joy.
Short bio:
Tanya Grae was born in South Carolina while her father was stationed at Shaw, and she grew up moving to random Air Force towns like Little Rock, Minot, Tucson, Panama City, and Homestead. This survivalist training prepared her for a litany of jobs, academia, and parenting three humans, two of whom are now adulting. Her debut poetry collection, Undoll, is forthcoming from YesYes Books in fall 2019 and was a National Poetry Series finalist. Her poems and essays have appeared in AGNI, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Post Road, and other journals. She now lives in Tallahassee with her youngest daughter who loves her despite her inability to help with advanced math, certain her mother’s attempts could bring about the apocalypse. Spotting bad store sign grammar is her superpower; kvetching about it is her weakness. Find out more at: tanyagrae.com
At the Table: Kathy, Marion, Brit, Jason, & Samantha
It’s a beautiful fall day in the neighborhood, slushies. Kathy’s in love with the equinox, Jason’s in his bathrobe, Joe has a new porn name (“Brusque 80”), and Marion is in air-conditioned climate denial. (It’s always sunny in Abu Dhabi!).
We kick off briskly with three poems by Blake Campbell. “The right parts of the brain light up / for the wrong reasons” in Campbell’s “New Year” and our brains can’t stop sparking about the wonderful terribleness of a bad day. Editors spar over the poem’s potential meaning, threatening each other with Billy Joel lyrics, and delight over debating who’s naked, who is reinventing themselves, and who is caught up in a haunting season.
We turn to “Chicken Hawk,” a long, skinny poem that surveys gay nightclub goers from self-depecating “vulture’s” point of view. From the NAMBLA documentary to Death in Venice, from unrequited lust to line breaks, we found lots to discuss. We talk otters. And bears. And Orville Peck. Addison says it best: the poem puts us in the club.
“Dead Moonlight” is full of images that mesmerize-- and make us thumb wrestle. What lingers? What fractures? What moves you-- or moves through you? What makes us love the poems we love?
It’s a brusque ending, slushies, brusque. (Stay on til the end and give a listen to “At Pegasus” by Terrance Hayes at the end of the episode).
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Addison Davis, Jason Schneiderman, and Joe Zang.
Blake Campbell grew up in a farmhouse in Pennsylvania and now lives near the sea in Salem, Massachusetts, where he works as an editor by day and a tour guide by night. He likes dogs and can tell a hummingbird from a hawk moth. His poems have appeared in, The Lyric, The Road Not Taken, and Hawk & Whippoorwill, among other publications, and his chapbook Across the Creek is forthcoming from Pen & Anvil Press.
If you are like us, Slushies, then you love a good duality. We're hooked on the way "belly-up" can mean to be a flop and to roll in closer. So, belly-up to this episode where we discuss two poems by Judith Roney-- “Belly-up” and “Relictual Taxon.” After some laughs about how it’s easy to mistake our basement studio’s relative isolation as evidence of a Zombie apocalypse (and name our weapons of choice), we talk about Marion’s vertigo in her new apartment, Jason’s strategies for alternate side street parking, Samantha’s tips on how to properly pronounce Abu Dhabi, and the global proliferation of pumpkin spiced lattes. Judith Roney’s poetry reigns us in and rewards our focus. Listen in as the The Slush Pile crew has an epiphanic, intertextual jam session with “Belly-Up” and “Relictual Taxon.” We start with “Belly-Up,” which immediately had us contemplating room dividers and family tensions and an array of resonances and literary echoes. Listen for Jason’s references to Rickey Laurentiis’s poems and to Adrienne Rich’s Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers. From “Belly-up” we turn to “Relictual Taxon.” Hear why we love poems that make us smarter about our cultural predicaments. Poetry, climate change, and the anthropocene: no better way to reckon with extinction than huddled around a mic talking poetry & flipping thumbs.
Judith Roney tends to write about dead people (a lot), relatives, the abused & murdered sent to the Dozier "School" for Boys, the forgotten and misunderstood, hauntings & ghosts. The city she grew up in, Chicago, haunts her. Brick, soot, single pane windows, frost-covered, small protection against wind howling in from Lake Michigan. Sometimes it seems everything haunts her. This is probably because she read Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier when she was quite young, but it's still her fav book ever. Ever.
Judith Roney is the author of According to the Gospel of Haunted Women (ELJ Publications, 2015), Bless the Wayward Boy, (Honorable Mention, Two Sylvias Press), Waiting for Rain (Finalist, Two Sylvias Press 2017), and Field Guide for A Human (Runner-Up, Gambling the Aisle 2015 Chapbook Contest). Her poems and other writing have appeared in many anthologies, most recently in the UK’s Shooter Magazine’s “City” themed anthology, as she “poetically takes the pulse of Orlando following last year’s nightclub shootings in “
A Toilet in Denver or
Florida is for the Fraught
On today’s episode, we realized that the sound studio needs some naked art! We never thought about it before, but after the Abu Dhabi team and Jason “showed off” about the art in their offices, we got jealous. Joe said we could BYOA, so we’re gonna. Stay tuned.
This got us right off on a tangent about Icarus, a sad one, as he apparently is outside of BMCC, warning students “not to aim too high.” We had our first vote of the day and it was a loud and long “Booooooooo” re: the sheer meanness of its message.
We started with “Shops Like That” which immediately began a conversation on sense and syntax. Which lead us to a conversation of the image system of the poem, the descriptive scene, and whether this poem would have appeared in Fence in the 90’s (ask Jason). KVM didn’t tell anyone, but she loves the poem for its Wooly Bully reference.
We spent at least 15 minutes dissecting the piece, only to have our vote---end in a tie!!!!
We moved on to “Travel Light.” We were smitten by its sprawl and humor, maybe especially the couch catapult (you’ll love that image too). The poem is so dense, KVM thinks there could be chapters and chapters. And the tangent we went on with THIS poem’s was—toilets! (Listen—it will all make sense.)
The next poem we discussed was “Planet’s Climate Reversal.” Spoiler alert: iguanas abound. You’re about to learn a lot about iguanas and to see an image that you might not be able to shake. You’ve been warned.
This poem doesn’t only have iguanas, now, it also has state mottos and led us on one of our two-hour journeys through the swamp lands, filled with rehab scams and Disney World factoids.
The poem gave us the chance to recommend “Dumb People Town,” the podcast where Joe Zang learned that all crimes committed in Florida must be publicly reported.
Stay tuned when the show sounds like it’s over to hear the crew respond to Addison’s silky smooth voice. And more after-the-show news: The poem that ended in a tie was ultimately rejected, BUT, the poem we didn’t get on air, “Egypt” has been accepted! Look for them all in Issue #100 of PBQ!
Alicia Askenase’s poetry jaywalks across the streets of American poetry casting a gimlet eye at every word she encounters. Undaunted, she juxtaposes her greatest joys and disenchantments through sonorous and rhythmic landscapes of unexpected insistence. She confronts the world we live in with daggers and oyster forks, swallows it and returns it to the reader in covert scores. For her, language is primary. Meaning evolves organically from the stolen seeds she sows.
This week, we are bringing you an extra special podcast! That’s right, we recorded LIVE for the first time ever at Philly’s PodFest in the National Liberty Museum. Well...most of us. Marion joined us via Zoom from chilly Cork, Ireland, instead of her usual home base of Abu Dhabi. However, everyone else was on stage in front of old, and new, Slushies! Jason Sneiderman traded up his yellow Parsons table in New York for a yellow Honda, to join us in the flesh. On the other hand, poet and professor Laura McCullough joined us by way of a blue Honda. (And no, Honda did not sponsor this podcast. Unfortunately…) Lastly, present were: Kathleen Volk Miller, Tim Fitts and Joseph Zang (who for once, had the opportunity to just sit back instead of pulling all the strings behind the scenes).
Okay, now onto the incoherent babbling and “sweaty festivities.”
Jason reminisced on how he came to join PBQ, back in the dinosaur ages of the early 2000s, when he was a graphic designer finding his way in the world.
Next, we discussed how online publications were looked down on back in the day. In fact, Jason pointed out a huge contrast to publications today, from online posts being as good as sticking flyers on a bulletin board, to “if it didn’t happen online, it didn’t happen.” Now, podcasting has caught on with just as much speed as online journals. That is why Slush pile has become one of our most prized platforms, as it’s given us the opportunity to broadcast our democratic process that takes place behind the scenes.
Joe expressed hopes that our podcast has made submitters realize that we strive to be gate-openers, rather than gatekeepers. In fact, we encourage all writers out there to do what they want with their personal work, first and foremost, and then let people appreciate their ideas. See, we might be more open-minded than you think!
We went on to deliberate over the “Iowa Method.” This technique is practiced in “brutal workshops” in which peers talk and give their opinions, while the writer stays silent and bares the heat. Do you, Slushies, believe this method is outdated? Or necessary for growth?
Laura went on to give those who may have received a rejection letter from us, or other publications, some encouragement. She told us a story about how editors messaged her saying they cried over a piece she had written, but funny enough, this came in the form of a rejection letter. The point is that some pieces may need some further revision, but it does not mean they are not worthy of being published, one day. Also, just because your piece does not fit the theme of what one publication is looking for, does not mean another will not fall head over heels in love with it. Laura joined us from an extremely unique position: She had her own poetry discussed on an early episode of Slush Pile.
Jason had the audience rolling in laughter when he told us the story of a friend who received a rejection letter for a children’s book. This mother of 2 was told that she clearly had no experience with children.
To conclude our babbling, we encourage writers and readers to visit our “naked meetings,” in which you could meet our editors in a relaxed environment. In fact, we have a public reading coming up September 9th, 2019! All upcoming events can be found on our Facebook page (@painted.quarterly).
ON TO THE POEM! BJ Ward was so brave that he allowed us to read his poem, “Madagascar” in front of a live audience. Tim Fitts described this piece as being “so close to being stupid that it’s not stupid” and “sentimental without being cheesy.”
We praised the film allusions to Citizen Kane and Solaris. As a matter of fact, Marion said it best: The poem is like an “invitation to think cinematically.”
(Side note: When Joe said, “Mad At Gascar,” did you find yourself laughing with him, or at him?)
Tim pointed out a possible “Gen X image system” in reference to Van Morrison, Rosebud (Citizen Kane) and... duct tape? Can a generation really claim duct tape?? The popular joke of duct tape might have resurfaced a few years ago, as prom dresses and wallets, made from this magical-fixer-of-all-things, started popping up on social media. It seems the Millennials might have reclaimed it as their own as they’ve done with Polaroids, high-waisted jeans and anything else to make themselves look more “hipster.”
Our podcast came to an end with a vote from not only the usual panel, but the entire audience. Imagine that, a wave--no, a TSUNAMI--of thumb flippin’!
Well Slushies, if you missed this event, your loss.
Just kidding! Look out for another live podcast next year. In the meantime, we’ll be back in our regular recording studio every other week. Until then, read on!
BJ Ward is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Jackleg Opera: Collected Poems 1990-2013 (North Atlantic Books), which received the Paterson Award for Literary Excellence. His poems have appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, The New York Times, and The Sun, among others, and have been featured on NPR’s “The Writer’s Almanac,” NJTV’s “State of the Arts,” and the website Poetry Daily. He is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and two Distinguished Artist Fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. He co-founded the creative writing degree program at Warren County Community College in NJ, where he teaches full-time.
This week we welcomed a special guest: “busy writing lady,” poet and food journalist for the Midatlantic region, Tammy Paolino.
Headlining the discussion on poems by Kyle Watson Brown, were standing desks. Yes, the giraffe of desks! We talked about it all: Drexel’s lottery system for standing desks, Jason’s makeshift standing desk, and DYI portable desks being an indication for becoming the President of the United States and leader of the free world.
After desk-related helpful tips, we moved on to discuss the first poem, “Too Many Funerals.” This one had us floored by its “weird” (Jason’s word), syntax and word choices.
This piece prompted a diverse conversation on the term “junkie” and its evolution from a label to a condition. Then, to give you whiplash, the discussion switched to sunscreen. Usually, the only new member of our podcast meetings are the poets being discussed, however, this week we welcomed a special guest: “busy writing lady,” poet and food journalist for the Midatlantic Region, Tammy Polino.
Headlining the discussion on poems by Kyle Watson Brown, were standing desks. Yes, the giraffe of desks! We talked about it all: Drexel’s lottery system for standing desks, Jason’s makeshift standing desk, and portable desks being a qualification for becoming the President of the United States and leader of the free world.
After enough talk on these wooden objects, we moved on to discuss the first poem, “Too Many Funerals.” This one had us floored by its peculiar syntax and word choices. Moreover. our editors felt as if they were in a maze. Listen in to hear if we found our way out!
This piece prompted a diverse conversation on the term “junkie” and its evolution from a label to a condition. Then, just to give you audio and intellectual whiplash, the discussion switched to sunscreen.
Thank you, Marion, for taking the reins and attempting to steer us back in the direction of the actual poem. Unsurprisingly, we ended up in Ocean City, Maryland, despite her best efforts. (Look, we told you Tammy Paolino lives in NJ—of course the shore—any shore--makes sense.) Joe Zang, our outstanding sound engineer, helped us out in regards to nails and teeth, as well. Listen in and it will all make sense.
The second poem, “Cornerwork” also provoked conversation on drug addiction. Then, Jason tried his best to culture some of us “lazy Americans” on how the word “love,” used in tennis, ionderived from the French. The more you know...
The final poem discussed was, “Cagelight.” After reading the first two poems on drug-addiction, this one will surely have you a bit bumfuzzled on how to interpret it. (And you’re right, bumfuzzled is not a word---yet---but we’re trying.)
The editors of PBQ are curious: Why do some submitters remove their poems within days of submission? Should we point the finger at workshops? Or too many drinks at 3 AM?
Speaking of too many drinks, have you ever ordered something off Amazon at midnight and forgotten all about it the next day? And still failed to recognize the purchase once it arrived at your front door? If not, Kathleen will have to explain that one for you.
Slushies, please consider writing more poems with “conspire” in them, as per Tammy’s request. Also-if you missed the “Whitman at 200” events, make sure to mark your calendar for 2119! Until next time, read-on!
Kyle Brown-Watson one of the grumpier baristas in Philadelphia. He has read poetry and fiction on stage for Empty Set Press and the Breweytown Social. He's contributed poetry to Yes Poetry and Luna Luna Magazine. Before that, he worked in advertising, software development, and heaven forgive him, television. He infrequently updates his newsletter Terminal Chill and is working on a graphic novel.
Too Many Funerals
My undertows are not the ones
I show you
Sheets of ice stained with salt and
SPF 78 gunmetal grease runoffs
sucking back the xenon haze
No shells
No towels
No balls of greasy dough
Not even the quiet closure
of junkie needles in you heel to
Mark the hours passing
that vanishing point
Where fingernails and
necks and teeth
Conspire to meet,
Blind on February shores.
Cornerwork
I’d start with the fat veins
Work South
The empty weeping chirps of
valves closing
All the gaps and discs and tremors
that make me
From tooth to toenail
Black on carbon black
suspended in silence
The stupid red haze of your eyelids
and nothing else.
Cagelight
Sugarblasted doorframes
so light you can press and
Drop
To fly
in the space
where the boredom of
transit makes even a wander
into a magswipe
clogged-artery anonymity
of Mifflin streetlamps to rest
your face
in bars and shadow they make for you
chilled and cold rolled and waiting for you.
Well Slushies, it’s summer, which means warm days and summer vacations for the crew, comprised of mostly professors and students. This time around Marion joined us in our homebase of Philly, and Samantha joined us from Portland, where she’s attending Tin House’s Summer Workshop.
In this week’s podcast, we discussed poems by Micheline Maylor. The first of her poems up for dissection was “Your Motto.” This piece made us think about the difference between caring and possessiveness in a romantic relationship. HOWEVER, before we could finish our conversation, we had a little surprise: a fire alarm went off a quarter of the way through our podcast!
Once the crew (all and well) were able to reconvene, Jason had had a haircut and Marion was in North Carolina, as it was 2 weeks later. However, we tried our best to continue right where we left off. It seemed the break inbetween veered the discussion, as our editors had some time to figure out some things that had tripped them up in our first conversation. (Is it just a coincidence that Mercury just happened to be in retrograde this time around?) (And who knew nice people like us could have such passionate feelings about teddy bears?)
“Your motto” reaffirmed for us that perception is everything, as many different viewpoints were concluded from the same event depicted in the poem. For example, Jason was the only one reminded of the film, “The Daytrippers”, which he highly recommends. Britt described the poem as having “warm anger,” which became our favorite phrase of the day.
Next up was “(N)Ever Thought.” The most important question that presented itself from this poem was whether or not anyone used the word ornery anymore? If you don’t use “ornery,” would you consider using “hornery?” (Listen to the episode and make “hornery” part of your lexicon!)
“(N)Ever Thought” was a reflection of “Your Motto,” as it showed us a another version of the same event. Kathleen HATES comparing two poems to one another as much as Tim loves to do so, but this time, we all had to agree that it must be done. Spoiler alert: we agreed on A LOT today!
The last piece, “She tells me,” was one that had our heads spinning. It caused as much disorientation in our crew as that fire alarm…but in a good, poetic way. We never get bored of creating metaphors about how we enjoy poetry, how we measure our own responses. Kathleen loves the metaphorical stomach punch, but Marion came up with a much more elegant one: a poem should feel like a great wine and leave you with a satisfying taste in your mouth (or something like that). We do recommend that you do NOT try drinking wine and getting punched in the stomach simultaneously! But, tune in to join the head-spinnin’ and thumb flippin’!
Now, it’s time for the final recommendations: Sam and Kathleen urge you to watch “Book Smart,” a relatable, coming-of-age drama that had them wanting to watch it again half way through. Kathleen called it a “female-centric” movie reminiscent of Super Bad, but much better, and Sam said it was the first teen movie that did NOT make her feel bad about herself!
Until next time Slushies, read (or watch) on!
Micheline Maylor’s was Calgary’s Poet Laureate 2016-18. Her latest poetry collection Little Wildheart (U of Alberta Press) was long listed for both the Pat Lowther and Raymond Souster awards. She teaches creative writing at Mount Royal University and the University of Calgary.
Your motto
I told you once I love you, if anything changes, I’ll let you know.
- John Wayne
I couldn’t stay faithful after New Year’s eve,
all those aggressive philosophy majors and tequila’s shot.
You and me like the stuffed bears in our son’s room,
propped up in corners, staring, neglected, a bit dusty.
What was to be done after that party? All my switches
flipped, a fuse box shutting down. Click by click.
Time to wrap it up, kids. Last call. Last song.
And I’m sitting here in my corner now, hearing you say,
“What’d you want me to do, punch the guy?”
No. No. No. I wanted you to love me so hard,
that he never asked if I would go home with him.
I wanted you to love me, but you were too busy laughing.
(N)Ever Thought
I’ve been having home-wreck dreams of you.
I’ve got an inside view from our big window.
This is a metaphor, of course, not manufacture, yet.
We stay shrouded in a cloud of disaster.
Dust in the loader bucket, the ideal view ruins itself.
This dream is all I could pull out of the dark.
A toothy, wild punk drunk at the controls.
I get ornery when unprotected.
I’m the wife at the party guarded by friends
husbands who have more vigilant shoulders.
Some big bully wants me for his own.
You have such lovely smiling dimples when you watch.
Over there in the corner, you eye the trespasser.
He drives right into your marriage and you watch.
She tells me,
The toilet in the basement has belched up and over
its intestinal wreckage, drained-stained the floor
like a party goer dunked up and shaken sober.
In my new office, I’ve become the scapegoat
for my grandmother’s guilt. I’ve become a beacon
of success. I hardly pick up the phone anymore.
She tells of irrelevant relatives, things
I walked away from. I tell her, you taught
the art of dehydration. I was so parched.
Didn’t I tell you, I was a fern in the desert,
a plate spinner with thin skin and shoeless,
didn’t I warn you from the start?
Let’s start by celebrating our democratic editorial policy by seeing which of the many titles we came up we should use! “Bag O’Wigs,” “Just the Tip,” or “I Find it Aching (Oh, Yeah)?
This week’s podcast consisted of three of our “well-hydrated” original members, the OGs, Kathleen, Marion and Jason, along with the co-op, Britt. At the center of our table were poems by Sarah Browning, who allowed us to dissect her poems like a turkey (see below) on Thanksgiving.
The first poem up for discussion was “For the turkey buzzards,” which Marion described as “ghasty but beautiful” (both the buzzards themselves and the images in the poem). We’ve provided you with an image so will understand why Britt would never want to be reincarnated into one. This poem possessed metaphors that had our crew members meeting at a crossroads. Be sure to listen in to find out our destination (aha-see what I did there?).
We skipped the main course and jumped right to desert as we discussed the poem “Desire.” Let’s just say Kathleen was a little too excited to volunteer to read this one! This brought back childhood memories for Britt, as it reminded her of evocative songs like Candy Shop by 50 Cent and Ego by Beyoncé. It even had us playing the roles of relationship counselors as we tried to get into the head of the woman going through such terrible heartbreak.
Lastly, we deliberated “After I Knew,” a soap-opera-like piece that will certainly get you in the feels, if you were not in it already.
Just when we thought things could not get anymore steamier, Kathleen brought up a dream by Bryan Dickey’s (a family friend of PBQ) partner, but that is one you must listen in to learn more about. We are so excited for you guys to tell us your interpretations of this scandalous dream. Furthermore, should this dream be turned into a poem or has enough been said?
Is purse slang for the vagine? Could Marion’s cat sitter be no ordinary cat sitter, but…a spy?
Okay, okay! You have read enough here; go listen.
We are SO SAD we have bruises from beating our breasts, but “Desire” was snapped up by Gargoyle before we got to Sarah!!! We’ll put the hyperlink here when it goes up, but until then, check Gargolye out anyway.
We are SO HAPPY that Sarah agreed to our edit of “Turkey Buzzards” that the neighbors complained about our dancing (to “Candy Shop” and “Ego,” of course.
Until next time, Slushies!
Sarah Browning stepped down as Executive Director of Split This Rock in January 2019, after co-founding and running the poetry and social justice organization for 11 years. She misses the community but not the grant reports… Since then she’s been vagabonding about the country, drinking IPAs in Oregon, sparkling white wine in California, and bourbon in Georgia. She’s also been privileged to write at three residencies, Mesa Refuge, the Lillian E. Smith Center (where she won the Writer-in-Service Award), and Yaddo. She is the author of Killing Summer (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017) and Whiskey in the Garden of Eden (The Word Works, 2007) and has been guest editor or co-editor of Beltway Poetry Quarterly, The Delaware Poetry Review, and three issues of POETRY. This fall she begins the MFA program in poetry and creative non-fiction at Rutgers Camden.
For the turkey buzzards
who rise ungainly from the fields,
red heads almost unbearable
to regard, crooked and gelatinous,
how they circle their obsession
on the scent of the winds, always
circling back, returning to settle
on that one dead thing that satisfies,
the past to be pecked and pondered –
forsaken fare for others, but for
the scavenger the favored meal –
like us, the poets, who eat at the table
of forgetfulness, ask the dead
to nourish us, beg forgiveness
as we circle and swoop, descend,
fold our wings, bend to the maggoty flesh,
gorge on the spoiled, glistening feast
Desire
I took your large hand and raised it.
Just this, I said, the tip of a finger or two –
just to the nail or so – into my mouth, which
had dreamed of just that. You made a sound
I hoped was a gasp and I wanted – as I
had for 30 years – to do it: open my
mouth and take your two large fingers all
the way inside my throat, the size of them
filling me. But I stopped, in shame and desire –
I blush writing – because you said we would
say goodbye inside my rental car outside
your hotel: Even now, days later, miles apart,
I am hungry for such thick and full.
After I Knew
I drove alone through the farmland
of central New York – the open vistas
and steep drops – towns with names
like Lyle unexplored, their secrets hoarded,
as I was hoarding my own secret
then. I-88 was empty as always and I
followed its long high valley, driving
away from you. We had not yelled
or broken mere things. I did not cry.
I drove fast, but not recklessly.
I stopped for a nap before Albany,
a middle-aged woman sleeping alone
in an aging Geo Prism. For a few more
miles I hoped I could just drive away.
Although we had a small group for this week’s podcast, we sure had some big discussions.
First and foremost, we are sad that Jason has repurposed his yellow parson’s table. We always loved picturing him there when he did episodes from home, but—we finally got a photo! Now back to business! (For now…)
This was our second go at discussing these three poems written by Gwendolyn Ann Hill. The first time around, everyone had attempted to chime in from remote locations: hotel rooms, the back of cars, Abu Dhabi. So, it was no surprise that after great effort, it all went up in flames. However, here we are again to give it another shot! fingers crossed
The first poem up was “Unplanting a Seed,” which was an interconnectedness of tragic events, rewound. It’s ambiguity and ambivalence had the crew awe-struck, and remembering the film Adaptation, “Reverse Suicide” by Matt Rasmussen, and “Drafting a Reparations Agreement” by Dan Pagis.
Of course, somehow our conversation on this extraordinary poem somehow turned into a discussion on anatomy. For those out there who did not know (hopefully, only a few of you) we have 2 ovaries. Kidneys are not the size kidney beans. And most times, identical twins share a placenta.
Moving on! According to Jason, the second poem “This Wood is a True Ebony, But it Needs a Century to Grow,” had a certain “luminescence" to it. He compared it to “This Tree Will Be Here For A Thousand Years” by Robert Bly…even though he’s never read it. Guess we’ll just have to have faith in his intuition!
Pause: Are freckled bananas like old ladies? Do persimmons taste like deodorant (Well, even if they didn’t, I bet they will from now on. You can’t untaste that.)
The final poem “We As Seeds” brought us a winter experience in the middle of summer. On the contrary, it’s mysterious symbolism or possibly, literal meaning, had us pleasingly stumped, because we made that a “thing.”
If you were a fan of these poems, Marion recommends that you read Teresa Leo’s book of poems, “Bloom in Reverse."
Well, that’s it for now Slushies. But listen in to see how #flippin’thumbs went! (And help us make #flippin’thumbs a thing, too!)
Gwendolyn Ann Hill is a native of Iowa City, IA, earned her BA at Oregon State University in Corvallis, OR, and is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, AR. In her spare time you will find her either in her garden or hiking in the forest, because she feels more comfortable around plants than she does around most people.
Unplanting a Seed
In a phone conversation with my mother
we say good-bye first, and finally,
after hours, hello.
A ripe Brandywine turns
from burnt umber, to pink, to green.
Flesh hardens. Juices dry up.
As the fruit lightens,
stems lift their droop.
My cousins and I collect
my grandfather’s ashes
from his fields, gathering them in fistfuls
we place tenderly into an urn.
Petals fly from the ground.
Pollen migrates upward
from deep reproductive recesses,
attaching to a bee’s leg.
The bee flies backward
to a tomato plant in the neighbor’s yard.
Bee populations are on the rise.
A surgeon places the ovary
gently into my body, twists
my fallopian tube into a tangle,
watches it turn black and blue.
My grandma gets all her memories back
for one fleeting second,
then forgets them one by one
as wrinkles dissolve slowly from her face.
Whorls close into diminishing buds.
Rain floats skyward;
gathering, in droplets, to the clouds.
The Brandywine plant contracts
its leaves, one by one,
meristem lowering into the soil.
My grandfather collects pesticides
into nozzles. His plows reverse
the soil back into place. He tucks weeds
between vegetables. Rivers run clean
all the way back to the source.
My mom is a teenager, pulling smoke
from the air with her lips,
returning to the town she will call home
its population growing
then dwindling, to fade
eventually into prairie.
Roots recede. Cells merge,
walls breaking down
between daughters.
A casing hardens around the seed.
My grandfather—now a boy, eyes
shining beneath the shadow of his hands—
plucks it out of the ground
between thumb and forefinger
and places it carefully
into the seed-packet,
closing the hole
he made in the earth
as he moonwalks away.
This Wood is a True Ebony, But it Needs a Century to Grow
Split, by the bottomland
creek in mid-October, a persimmon
lay on a bed of netted leaves,
waxy skin hiding the dazzle
jack o’ lantern fruit. I extract
an ant invader, lick my lips.
A little rot sweetens it for sucking,
like jelly Grandma boiled all summer—
the sun with sugar and pectin, a drop
or two of rosewater. Fallen
from a thicket with bark deeply
rifted and cracked; charred campfire
logs. Blow on them. When the lights
go out, these trees glow from within.
We, As Seeds
Right now, we are enduring
a period of cold
stratification, as we must.
Let the sun droop low.
Let the snow
melt, crust, pile
up, and melt again,
tumbling over
the husks of our bodies.
Let the temperature drop.
Let the starlings flock
to peck at the detritus
that engulfs
us, burying us over
and over again.
Only this long
freeze can soften
our shells. Only this dark
washing and rinsing
of our skin can bring
us to bloom.
Welcome back again Slushies! For this podcast, we had a full house ready to discuss three poems by Brandon Thomas DiSabatino.
The first poem was tuscarawas river song. Surprisingly, this piece initially erupted a discussion on the beautiful descriptions of a river, turned quickly to a dialogue on drugs. Trigger warning: This topic could possibly hit home for many of our listeners as opioids have become a pervasive problem, especially in our Slushpile’s home base of Philadelphia. We learned more about opiod overdose than we wanted to know.
But forget the drug problem! Joe Zang, our intrepid sound engineer, expressed the top problem today might just be the Ohio-ians, and he revealed his Instagram handle, so…go ahead and slide into his DM’s!
Challenge of the Day: Try saying “hog-tied whippoorwills” three times in a row as quickly as you can! Most of us could not even say it once.
Next up, a portrait of cave fires on walls as the first sitcom in syndication. The first thing that caught the eye of our crew members was the structure of the poem, which had many of us stumped: Its center juxification had the gang in a quite a tizzy! No need to fret, we think Joe may have cracked the reasoning behind this peculiar format. Listen in to find out Joe’s theory.
The last poem discussed was a department of corrections state-of-mind blues, which many of described perfectly as a fresh piece with crazy imagery and strong tone. According to Marion, it was quite witty as one of the lines specifically winked at her.
Plot twist! The final verdict left the cast stunned and even had some begging for a recount. Listen in to hear the final decision on this piece.
As this podcast comes to an end, Tim Fitts announced that Patrick Blagrave, a regular voter in Painted Bride Quarterly’s democratic process, started a magazine of his own, the Prolit and no! Tim did not just promote the new mag because his flash piece was published in it!
Finally, Marion gave a much needed thank you to Habib University's student journal. Habib is located in Karachi, Pakistan. We love to see students being afforded access to a creative writing outlets—around the world! Also, her recommended read for this podcast is Hajibistan by Sabyn Javieri.
Brandon Thomas DiSabatino was born in Canton, Ohio – the same town Hank Williams died in the back of a Cadillac to avoid playing in. He used to take pride in this fact, and has since been in contact with several psychic mediums as to the possibility of a posthumous rain-check performance for Mr. Williams to fulfill his outstanding contract. After several years of minimum wage, minimum effort work throughout the Midwest and Florida, he washed-up in New York and began writing as a way to compensate for the fact he would never be drafted into the NBA. His work for the theater has been performed in Cincinnati and throughout NYC, and his writing can be found in Belt Mag, Silver Needle Press, After the Pause, Stereo Embers and other publications. His full-length poetry collection, “6 Weeks of White Castle /n Rust,” is available from Emigre Publishing, with all proceeds benefiting his Faberge Egg habit. He now lives in Brooklyn with his partner Shelbi and their toothless, one-eyed cat, Leonard. He considers himself an adequate dancer and a decent American.
“tuscarawas river song.”
born sightless but
going into focus
w/ the softness
of an acetylene flame –
your eyes, blue animals
running from their own reflection
(torn-into) as a mouth
w/ the gums gone open:
for hog-tied whippoorwills
in mock poses of the living;
clouds balled w/ the fists
of arthritic gamblers;
naloxone canisters, clorox walls,
the hard asking of rain –
the rain
in the fashion of a human body
that does not fall
faster while laughing.
“a portrait of cave fires on walls as the first sitcom in syndication.”
the naked, midnight diners
are at it again, posed
in the windows
like an advent calendar
across from me. totems
of unwashed dishes
pile in the sink; heat
from hog grease peels
their wallpaper back.
a nightmare
of human real estate.
scalloped potatoes.
shrimp cocktails.
cheeto bags /n chicken-
fried steaks – every night
eating
vast servings in silence
sitting naked in generic, metal chairs.
they have never noticed i am here.
i have been watching them in darkness
since the utilities were turned off.
i ask myself
when will she give it up –
beat his head-in w/ a frying pan,
blow her brains in the tuna casserole
out of grief.
because i am a romantic
i can imagine it:
brain spurs stippling
cheap, yellow tile,
bodies
decomposing to shadow,
leaving an outline
like a child’s drawing
on the ceiling of the apartment below them,
undiscovered, for weeks,
until the neighbor is fucking his wife
on the living room floor, witness
to this new constellation above him.
i am envious to be there –
not so much w/ the wife
on the living room floor
but as a guest this time,
on the couch, maybe
watching the super bowl,
astonished by something, anything
i look into.
“a department of corrections state-of-mind blues.”
white trillium gores
through rib-bones frozen
on the shoulders
of county roads
(aluminum-lined,
lung-like)
these clouds give cinema
to a surface of windows
that have yet to be blinded
w/ wooden boards
this horizon laid
- as smoke raised
from a mirror –
meant less to reflect
than see yourself
passing
through.
Hello Slushies, new and old. Welcome to another episode of the Slushpile! On this week’s podcast, we will be discussing poems by Yumi Dineen Shiroma.
First up is a MEGApoem and no, we are not over-exaggerating. However, here at the Painted Bride Quarterly, we always go big or go home, so Kathleen took two deep breaths and jumped right into reading the first poem, “Welcome to Connecticut”. Immediately, we were quick to realize that even though it would be a difficult one to read for a podcast, it was oh so worth it.
Samantha compared this to the work of Tommy Orange and his book, "There, There." Marion recalled Middlemarch, and other literary works came to mind (if we can call The Omen literary?).
This is a piece that took us into the mind of Yumi and its rhythm was “like a flood”. The crew felt as if the inner-dialogue brought them into a world of its own with memories so grand, we just want to stay in that moment, or literally-speaking, re-read certain lines to relive it.
This poem brought a lot of suppressed memories for our Tim Fitts, one of which was a terrifying flashback of a woman driving with a dog on her lap, while texting. The least she could have done was pick one reckless decision at a time, or better yet, just drive?
All in all, this fun and humorous piece awakened a wide range of emotions in the gang, and even had Kathleen’s thumbs up from the moment she read the title. Listen in, to find out the direction of everyone else’s opposable thumbs.
The next poem titled “A Surfeit of Saturation and Light / Hungry Ghost,” smartly used nouns as verbs and vice versa. Our own music genius, Tim Fitts, also said that this poem had a perfect pitch, so who are we to argue with that!
Yumi’s second piece was consensually described as "weird without being goofy" and "smart without being pretentious.” Now that would make a million-dollar t-shirt!
It seems both poems dived into the subconscious of the gang because Marion was reminded of the time she was possessed by demon in Singapore. You just have to listen to get the details.
Random yes, but after listening to this podcast, do you agree with Tim Fitts that people are going to start smoking again when the zombies come? In addition, how do they pronounce “water” where you live?
Yumi Dineen Shiroma is a PhD student in English at Rutgers University, where she studies the theory and history of the novel. Her poetry has previously appeared in BOMB, Hyperallergic, Peach Mag, and Nat. Brut, and her chaplet, A Novel Depicting "The" "Asian" "American" "Experience,"was recently published by Belladonna*. You can find her on Twitter at @ydshiroma.
Welcome to Connecticut, Land of Death and Rebirth
I had run through fields in white pants bleeding
from the eye I recalled as I ran through the field
in my white pants bleeding from the eye and you
walked beside me your briefcase your flannel your messenger bag
Your spontaneous face your spontaneous face your
spontaneous face where one won’t expect you are mine
in the field in the valley in the valley in the tunnel
spooled through your spatialized mind you are mine
as a tea-kettle whistles at the heat I love you
tryna drink my cold brew in the window as you walk
by and by and walk by and walk by in my cat’s eye
shade in your shade with the tassel in her ear I am yours
I run my virtual hand through her virtual hand
11:45 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. do yoga stare at trees, location:
trees. I grew so much this year your year gray
hairs an evening fishing for eels in the creek
a season overlays space the meeting of homogeneous
empty and messianic times where time informs our time
spent among any given spatial totality and you walk
by the window and
thinking about #revenge again she shreds
the straw with my teeth the buttons done up
to the neck like you used to do again
the hand on my head the head-
stubble (oedipal, stacy suggests)
conference next slide none of the backs of the heads
look like you and a season overlays time like you in
cambridge a casaubon like dorothea
in rome a casaubon whose fits in the center
for rare books and special
collections prove non-fatal
the trick was throwing my phone in the compost moving
on with my life in my arms and I walk
ostentatiously past the window as you walk
by the window in my new vegan
leather freezing the air with my breath
gcal notification total knowledge project due
today you have executed your total knowledge project
with aplomb the crowd explodes tickertape and katy perry
songs for him the king of the total knowledge project
breaking a dish on my wrist I watch
from the kitchen your faithful wife and staunch
the blood with the tapestry she weaves night in night
out of my limited intellectual means with its warp
of fact with its weft of I feel like
You fucking moron don’t you know I’m in love, walking you
back and forth my fingers staining the window blocking the natural light
this high noon I still cough at the smoke and the smoke still smells
like you in my lungs bent over your total knowledge project
(sign on the door a girl in a dress reading OMEN)
I love you as a tea-kettle whistles at the heat
as a window won’t lock when the dust weeps in
she allows the pipes to freeze and burst, changes
the locks and you aren’t coming back
recognizing neither my face nor my name
I take the train
you once told me about your people their
parlors and names their inhibitions
how they questioned the wisdom
of classifying even the seemingly non-sexual
passions as libidinal
back in your stomping grounds welcome to connecticut
land of death and rebirth says the wizened
crone on the metro north stirring her coffee a yellow nail
a greek key cup a fleck of krispy kreme in the fates she thought
I would die before she saw rome she thought
she would die before she saw rome she thought
she would take you with me
I once told you about my people how they lacked
objects to organize their lives their fucking a figure
for interconnectedness a leftist poem writ
in my blood just for you the object arrives
with me and ends at last with me in the object-
narrative (you called my name and it was the name of the LORD)
holden will walk me to class the day I can’t
breathe because of my pollen allergy
because I’ve lost you because she’d lost you
sam would bring me a glass of wine in bed
as he walks by the window he walks
by the window he walks by the window you walk
I love you as you walk by the window and she loves you
as I love the pills she swallows with wine to draw
a circle of salt around my heart to keep you out
like a mouth loves a lost tooth drooling blood I love
the way that she loves the pizza delivery
man like the lost and found where he found her umbrella again
between the storm that cold summer day I left it again
again distracted by you
I saw her standing, drawing off her glove, standing contrapposto in her limited edition Doc Martens. I saw her standing in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I saw her standing before a red canvas, standing contrapposto. I said: She looks like the statue of Artemis. I desired to paint her as I would sketch a charcoal sketch of the statue of Artemis, I told her: You look like the statue of Artemis. We debated the merits of visual versus textual representation, their transparency, their potential for eloquent distortion, to reveal the truth of a truth that overwhelms truth with its canvas of red. I saw her stand.
I once told you about my people they were
prophets all, burned in the brain the prophet
who buries herself in new haven will rise from the earth
in 17 years reborn reborn in the mouth of 2013
your name in her mouth like a cut like a cut like I always got lost
in a city any city like the dreams of being naked or lost
in my city I always got lost in the wrong metaphor
like she always got lost in your spatialized mind in the
box house and metaphor and the train and the train
they claimed could only move one way
A Surfeit of Saturation and Light / Hungry Ghost
The foxes hold their wedding at the base of the mountain
They wait for the rainbows to banner the sky
For the rain to fall while the sun shines
Their normative ideas about the future keep them yoked
to such couplings
No matter what dreams they might have held for themselves
Dressed in your finest you buy them two voles off their registry
I catch the bouquet of narcissus, willow and peony
You walk through a field in black and white
and you walk through another field in green
and one in gold
I love you a 29-year-old sprung fully formed
from the pit of a peach
Charisma in your footsteps
and your heart so impetuous
and your eye flits along the fields of differing colors
I stand every day on the New Brunswick train station platform
waiting for you
Tapping my foot with a sound like water on stone
You reproduce yourself exactly in each of your children
My throat is too narrow for the hole in my stomach to be filled
Which is why I need you, stepping from the train, clothed
in the skin of the peach
But you are a bad man
Bumming around in the rice fields
You are the fox in her house dress who sits by the window
watching the hens
Your heart is full of peach pulp and fuzz and the fruit
around the pit is sour
You are not the monk in his field of persimmon trees
You are not the painter eating his blues
Nor are you the blues or their valuable pigment
You are a man who sprang from the pit of a peach
I loved you while my hair was still buzzed with the #3 clippers
I came to meet you, as far as the platform
The oni rifle through my desk for valuables
They take $300 in cash, my ID cards
They take my money to their castle in the sky
I will grow older and you will grow older and the foxes will fuck
beneath the rafters of the porch
You will fight the oni in the sky for me
But I can also fight the oni in the sky
I can climb up to the castle on the hill
You have met so many amazing people on this journey
You have this really special connection with the fox
and the pheasant
and the monkey who stands, hand pressed to his silent mouth
I press and hold my hand to my mouth
I am biting the peach pit in half with my sharp fox teeth
It was a blustery day in Philadelphia when this podcast was recorded. That is how we learned that Tim is one of the few people who can say that the wind works for his hair.
To add to this trying weather, most of the crew was suffering from a terrible case of jet lag, as they had just come back from AWP's conference in Portland, Oregon.
After some light reminiscing about rooftops and candy in Portland, it was time to get into the poems! Get your buttered popcorn ready for the first piece written by Erin Kae, "Q&A: (Of World's Anatomy At The End)." This one opened the way for one interpretation after the other. However, the most important question remained: What would you do if you knew the world was about to end?
The next piece was by Amy Bilodeau. Due to its smart wording, "(It’s warm here inside the fierce)" many of the gang liked it before even trying to fully understand it. It just had that pa-zazz, you do not see too often in the world of poetry. Kathleen teased that she was stealing it for the title of her next album. (Even funnier if you ever heard Kathleen sing…) Also, Marion thought that the color schemes of this poem resembled that of Reginald Shepard's "You, Therefore." Do you agree?
Out of curiosity: What's your definition of fierce?
Somehow, the conversation took a complete one-eighty and went back around to Tim's hair, or should I say the lack thereof. Can't a balding man just live in peace around here? We keep him around for so many reasons, one of them being his ability to make nutball connections, like Amy’s poems reminding him of Ginger Baker, the drummer from CREEM.
Once we were able to get back into discussion mode, the second poem, "(The morning makes me nervous)" led to a discussion on the mysteries behind sleep. Tim pointed out how "everything changes at night" as the right brain takes charge and causes humans to show their true colors. Remember to ask your loved ones or wannabe’s to reveal their secrets once the sun goes down.
Today's recommendation is brought to you by Marion. She suggests that you all read "The Carrying" by a Ada Limón, a long-time friend of PBQ. Even better, finish it in one sitting and if possible, on a plane with a glass of champagne, or on a rooftop in Oregon. Whatever butters your popcorn!
Q&A: (OF WORLD'S ANATOMY AT THE END)
True/False: It is required that the Earth crack open, burst
its yolk before the end. Is there a certain sound you need
to hear? An anguish of language melted down inaudible—or fevered
droning spread over all corners?
True/True: Disregard the temperature, it’s only
going to get worse. You avoid the sun, bed
into the mantle, mark out a spot for all
to see you have had this dance before—licked
flames off old boxing gloves & waltzed
into fractured fault line breach.
False/False: There was the proverbial flash/bang & then
everyone was served popcorn while waiting
for it to be their turn. Of course it was buttered, extra
buttered—this is the end of the world.
False/True: You thought it would be much grander;
there’d be more splendor in this. Are you really putting hope
into structural integrity at a time like this? Act smart;
call it a crevasse—that sounds scientific enough.
If all else fails remember the real estate market
for lava is looking pretty good right now.
You/You: In the movie-version of what happened
you’ll call it Fissure Island.
How much more literal a name do you need? Toe
around it all you want, but at the end, the only way off
this rocky body is down. Bring a shovel
& your best dancing shoes.
Born and raised outside of Rochester, NY, Erin Kae is a proud graduate of SUNY Geneseo. Her poetry has been featured in Vinyl, Sonora Review, Crab Fat Magazine, andFugue among others. She was recently nominated for the Pushcart Prize by Aster(ix) Journal, and was selected as a finalist for the 2017 Locked Horn Press Publication Prize for their issue Read Water: An Anthology, 2019. Her first poetry chapbook, Grasp This Salt, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2019. She currently resides in Somerville, Massachusetts.
(It’s warm here inside the fierce)
It’s warm here inside the fierce Blithe belly of the beloved
The wedding was entirely gray The way I like it
There were guests A cold colorful wind Though we didn’t want them
The ring is gray on the Gray mottled counter and the floor Also gray The walls etc
The tender sky... You can imagine
(The morning makes me nervous)
The morning makes me nervous Some days Until the music starts
Being jumpy isn’t dancing I guess
But maybe I’m playing the strings so beautifully eerie In my head I’m moving me with it
Coffee helps and saying Quiet to all the no ones
When the bold nights fight for me I’m not certain Who to root for
I know what a forest looks like The inside of the beloved’s mouth Shadows and pale reds and a threat
The dogs inevitably want back in The coffee being cold by the last Drink of it
(I am definitely getting younger)
I am definitely getting younger I know because Laughing inappropriately And uniform of twelve year old boy I haven’t decided what will happen When I’m born But if it’s something good You can believe I will stuff my blue pockets Grin dumbly
One last thing Slushies: The final piece by Amy Bilodeau, "(I am definitely getting younger)" was voted YES!
Amy Bilodeau's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Connotation Press, DREGINALD, DMQ Review, RHINO (runner-up for the Editor's Prize), Two Hawks Quarterly, and others. Her full-length manuscript was a finalist for the Four Way Books Levis Prize in Poetry, and her chapbook manuscript was a semi-finalist in the Black Lawrence Black River Chapbook Competition. Her work has also been nominated for inclusion in Best Small Fictions. She lives in Indianapolis, Indiana.
In this week's podcast, we welcomed Samantha from Abu Dhabi to the home team in Philly!
The group was in a celebratory mood for lots of reasons. Did You Know: Tim Fitts is the co-founder of Philly's Home Brew Reading Series, which will not only provide you with free beer, but also, an experience only to be described as a "full blast".
Before we got into the poems, Kathleen could be heard chanting, "I love my job, I love my job." That's right, speak it into existence!
The first of several poems, was written by robo voice Stephanie Berger. (Listen to the episode and you’ll get it.) "Just To Give You An Idea," is a dense piece with surreal lines. Or according to Jason, "feels like the whole universe. Incredibly expansive and intimate at the same time." Whew! Just take my breath away, while you're at it.
Next up, is a fun read titled, "It Doesn't Hurt That She Is Beautiful." After reading the poem, do you agree that it has "little land mines" or "pop rocks" (or both)? This piece brought a wave of nostalgia amongst the crew. Kathleen was brought back to reading a book by a brook (see what I did there?) as her husband went fly fishing. However, this piece put Kathleen and Tim Fitts at opposite ends and although they did not literally arm wrestle, they did figuratively speaking, as true literary geniuses do to settle disagreements over poetry.
Thirdly was "Below His Monocle" which had us evaluating its depths down to point we were arguing how many exclamation points are too many in a poem. It got so fiery that our sound engineer, Joseph Zang, threatened to cut off Tim's mic!
After they were able to cool down, we continued with "Only Light Where The Leaves Once Were." You just have to read that one yourself to be hit by the fantastic ending.
Dear Stephanie Berger, Tim is begging you to let him use your creative genius for the title of his next set of short stories: How does "Truth, Marrow, Stone and Consequence" sound?
Tune in to hear Jason's sad attempt at French, as he refers to Wallace Stevens', "Le Monocle de Mon Oncle" while Kathleen ups the ante with both The Handmaid’s Tale AND The Great Gatsby. Or if you're a Tim Fitts fan, as a person, not an author, although that's okay too, take his advice and read "The Beginning Of His Excellent and Eventful Career" by Cameron MacKenzie.
Finally, listen in to possibly comprehend how we ended discussing monocles in the 21st century. Do you have one? More importantly, do you want one?
Fifteen facts and one lie about Stephanie Berger:
- Stephanie is a natural born redhead.
- At the age of 1, she drank from a $500 bottle of grand vin Château Latour.
- At the age of 8, she ate a pigeon in a Parisian cafeteria.
- Stephanie was raised by not one, but two cultural sociologists.
- She is left-handed.
- She is a switch-hitter.
- The first poem she remembers writing was called "Dog and Cat Baseball at Sunset."
- Her favorite place to write is at the bottom of a canyon or the site of a spring.
- Her favorite herb is tarragon.
- Her favorite sound is suction.
- Her favorite section of an essay is the introduction.
- Her least favorite section of an essay is the body.
- Her favorite goddess is Mnemosyne.
- She once had a 21-year-old cat named Daphne.
- Her partner's name is Alex.
- Her business partner's partner's name is also Alex.
JUST TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA Imagine this rock here is the center of the universe. Imagine this rock is your belly button. Divide your body into halves, then quarters, & then: make a planet. This leg of our journey will take about 500 years. I would like to stop & show you why along the way, but the bones, they’re telling us to keep moving. Seas of femurs, pools of pelvises, arranged as arrows & symmetrical suns. Here you find a hole & make something in it. Your aesthetics reflect a fear of empty space, a terror of the vacuum, like a sleeping feline with the face of an owl & the tail of a snake must be sacrificed. I returned to the fetal position in the afterlife. My soul made a circular journey down the river & up the Milky Way. Now I’m back! So, let me tell you a little something about caves & rivers. No one shall pass through but by me. My belly button is the center of this universe, a sacred valley, surrounded by mountains filled with silver so luxuriously. We all want to look a little richer than we are. Those ear plugs are a status symbol. We all know that baby alpaca is cool to the touch, that eucalyptus towers above the peaks & helps us breathe at the site where we can see the founder of the lightning bolt, that golden idol with a hole where his heart should be. A mole on his face in the shape of Peru. Jesus with a guinea pig laid out on the table. Mother Mary with coco leaves puffing out her cheek. Teenage girls grinding the corn like teeth. I believe in reciprocity: offering my tears & receiving your laugh, splitting my body into two & giving you half. This is the point where our two valleys meet. That’s why we’re in a wind tunnel.
IT DOESN’T HURT THAT SHE IS BEAUTIFUL As she descends into the canyon, she becomes the descent, the way an action can become solid as a steeple. I can be the downfall of man! That sunburst of flesh! For I am the moment the desert meets water from the mountains, an instant connection, a language that can travel into your memories like a fiction, like water from the earth, a landscape more various than the human heart. But she isn’t human. The way her nose comes down the center of her face like a coin, like candle wax, a waterfall. A beautiful creator. A dutiful daughter. Excitedly, she babbled, more adorable than any brook. Things come to a head. They come into it. You reach a point in your life. There is a point in every life at which you can see no further, a black hole in a bucket, & so you let it drip, clear as a window in the water. It is important to remember there are windows in the water.
ONLY LIGHT WHERE THE LEAVES ONCE WERE Truth, marrow, stone, & consequence. She didn’t earn a dime of it. The light, hammering down on the desert from the opposite side of your expectations as the morning shifts to afternoon. His hat tilted low over one eye, he was practically debonair in his exhaustion, drunk on the feather in his cap. She asked who gave it to him. Once she’d skinny-dipped with some kind of demigod & his daughter. She found a dog in the water & the word for “family” was born. She wanted to eat the lilies, to be filled & floating on the water like a body. I can see her, sun-drenched & precise & yet, we have never met. Love is a mystery that way, more civil than any city, like a pilgrim who reaches her destination & cannot bear to stop.
BELOW HIS MONOCLE Before the pharmacy, above the apothecary, I lived for a spell. With broomsticks in a closet with no name. Along the spine of the hill, below the ashen face of heaven, I waited for his ovine spirit to graze my face. She held her breath so tightly it escaped her, she lied in the desert, like it’s just so cruciform that the vultures sitting down for dinner with gods are like gentlemen in comparison, cartoonish only to the hawker, the rhyme of her cracked lips. It is everywhere, this sack of pronouns, holding onto each other for dear life—its fetching beaks & blouses, boutonnières. It is dear to glare imperially from one’s mountain-palace. If vulgar, it is vulture, valiant, a peach and so chatty, she inhaled the words voluptuously with a churchlike desire to conceal her meaning. The tremendous gentleness of that moment smothers me, divested of its garland, its daughters, the page holding itself together like a life.
Hello all and welcome to another episode of Slushpile! In this episode, look forward to not only critiquing a few poems along with the gang, but also some discussion on the original tale of Hansel and Gretel.
Setting a new precedence, rather than lots of jackassery before we got down to business, we quickly moved into the poems (below the bio!) by Susannah Sheffer. (Though we tussled a bit over who of us found these poems!)
The first poem titled, "After: An Introduction" was read by a sniffly Ali.
However, instead of a discussion on the poem itself, following the reading, a discussion on the history of the IPod's evolution ensued. Nevertheless, we just as quickly got back on track!
The crew decided that the poem was crafted as a re-telling of the story, "Hansel and Gretel" and prompted a fascinating conversation that will have you glued to your audio device (whether that be an IPod or IPhone).
This piece even had Jason and Tim agreeing with each other, which if you have been listening to the podcast for a while, you know is rare.
Re-tellings of an original story can be tricky as it could either go really well, or come off as overdone. A debate amongst the gang resulted from this. Obviously, the poem did a good job as the majority agreed that even though it was a recreation, it still possessed unique qualities. Even those who weren't big fans of the story, could say that they understood why someone else could.
Moreover, there were some lines in the poems that had the gang tripping, which begs the question: Is it a good poem if it does not?
Overall, it led us into a deep discussion of not only the poem itself, but the original Hansel and Gretel tale (and no, not the Disney version, but the original original by the Grimm brothers).
Who knows how or why we started talking about “Say Anything,” but we did, and Kathleen was incredulous that there was anyone left in America who hadn’t seen such an iconic film.
The next poem “Hansel At His Stepmother’s Grave,” wowed the gang with its jaw-dropping rhythm, which had Kathleen saying "Holy Moly" in more ways than one. Everyone agreed it was executed beautifully.
Jason went the extra mile and did a bit of quick research helping us to dig even deeper into the poem. This was a poem that not only evoked the emotions of our crew, but also explored the emotions of and between the characters within the original fairy tale and Sheffer’s poem.
However, this poem left the crew at a tie! Or as Joseph described it “high drama.” Listen in to find out what the final verdict was!
The last poem, “Hansel Prepares For the Future” offered yet another unique twist on the tale. Trust me folks, this is one you do not want to miss.
Let us know how we’re doing, Slushies! Read on!
If you just can’t get enough Hansel and Gretel, Jason recommends Anna Marie Hong’s “H & G” and Marion recommends “Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods” by Tashini Doshi.
Susannah Sheffer teaches writing (and other things) to young people at North Star: Self-Directed Learning for Teens in Sunderland, Massachusetts. She also works as a therapist at a local mental health agency, often with people who have experienced trauma. All of this in some way informs her perspective on the Hansel and Gretel story. Susannah’s poetry chapbook This Kind of Knowing was published by Cooper Dillon Books in 2013 and more recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Threepenny Review, Copper Nickel, Tar River Poetry, the Massachusetts Review, and elsewhere. Her book Fighting for Their Lives: Inside the Experience of Capital Defense Attorneys was also published in 2013.
AFTER: AN INTRODUCTION
Home again, and it’s as if the forest never happened. No one wants to hear about that great indifference, or the lure of the witch house, or what we had to do to save ourselves. I understand they won’t talk about the hunger, the banishing, how easy it was to be rid of us. So I don’t say anything about the forest inside me. I don’t tell them that trees grow behind my eyes at night, or how I sometimes want to touch the bark because I learned to cherish its rough comfort. I’ll do the remembering myself, letting it make of me what it will as memory does, with its own moonlit trail, bread crumbs, peril, revelation.
HANSEL AT HIS STEPMOTHER'S GRAVE
It’s not as if I can’t understand why you did it. I couldn’t stand it either, the house so groaning and bent at the knees, the cupboards with their gaping mouths, our useless hands. And the demon in my belly, the reproach it put on my face – I would have ripped it out if I could have, so I understand why you said we had to go. Did you think we didn’t hear you? Even then we were good at lying still and listening to the sounds the night makes. Did you think that even then we wouldn’t try to find our way back to you?
HANSEL PREPARES FOR THE FUTURE
Bread isn’t good enough; he understands that now.
It’s too soft, too porous, too yielding, and he knows now
that what is scattered at night can be gone by morning.
Whenever he goes outside now he keeps his eyes on the ground,
scanning for something so cunning and indelible
that next time someone sends him away
he will have what he needs to resist the thieving world.
Welcome to Robe-isode II—the one where Kathleen is in her robe instead of Jason! Though Tim Fitts, Ali (The Co-op) and Zoe Heller were in the studio in Philly, (hopefully in their outdoor clothes) most of the gang was not present in the studio for this recording. Instead, they could be found in the comfort of hotel rooms, coffee shops and such, relying on modern technology to bring everyone in on the show!
After some fun banter about ice cream sandwiches rolled in bacon bits, chocolate milk spiked with salt, and other reminiscences, they were ready to get down to business. (We never believed for a second that Jason now works as a barista.)
Both poems discussed in this podcast were by Ryan Clark. (Poems below the bio!)
First up was “Creta Mine.” Jason described its initial tempo as adagio. Everyone else seemed to agree, in their own words, as the first part was slow and soothing, while the rest was more upbeat.
They also applauded this poem as it focused on a topic rarely given the light of day: abandoned towns.
Next up was “Crossing Trails: Cowboy to Homesteader” which received props for its intriguing formatting, resembling a river. Just take a look at the actual poem for yourself. The “river” is like seeing a shape in a cloud, you’ll either see it, or you won’t.
Discussion surrounding this poem was followed by a long silence as the gang pondered on the piece. Remember when you listen: silence is the sound of thinking!
In order to even more fully appreciate the work, Kathleen gave us a peek inside Clark’s cover letter, which is rarely ever done on the Slush Pile.
The author used “homophonic translation,” to produce these poems. Listen to the podcast for a more in-depth description of the technique given by the author himself.
Clark’s cover letter was so fascinating to point the crew decided that it would have to be published with the piece as an artist’s statement.
The show wrapped with some of our favorite things: Tim recommends everyone visit every taco shop in San Francisco. His opinion should be trusted, since he bragged about cooking burritos for a year after college. Kathleen would like us to listen to the On Being episode with Sharon Olds.
This is Ali's last podcast as it is his last week working for DPG, so unfortunately, you won’t be hearing him as much around here in future podcasts. cue the boos However, he did leave us with the last words, “we’ll survive.”
Let us know what you think of the show, the mag, our voices, and whether or not you’ve ever sprinkled salt in your chocolate milk!
Ryan Clark was born in what was once part of Greer County, Texas, but which now makes up the southwestern corner of Oklahoma. Thus, his parents would tell him that while he was born in the state of Oklahoma, he was--more importantly--born in the Republic of Texas. Today, he is strangely obsessed with borders and the doubling power of puns. As a result, he writes his poems using a unique method of homophonic translation that re-sounds existing texts based on each individual letter's potential for sound (i.e. "making puns out of everything"). He is the author of How I Pitched the First Curve (Lit Fest Press, 2019), and his poetry has recently appeared in Yemasse, The Shore, riverSedge, Flock, and Homonym. He is a winner of the 2018 San Antonio Writers Guild contest, and his work has been nominated for Best of the Net. He currently teaches creative writing at Waldorf University in Iowa, where he misses the relative temperateness of Texoma winters very much.
Creta Mine
for Creta, Oklahoma, no longer a town
1.
Touch Creta wherever you want to seize a thing from out of the unfriendly earth.
This is a sound we make furious with mineral imagination, the heave of site
advertising what we love of the future, but which is just land unsuitable for farming.
Mine is a cover for rocks much like the rest but only these are mine—
this is a land that only I can open, and I will line my position with structures.
2.
To churn a crust into use,
you must take a skin and
tear the layers through a mill,
where the word copper is processed
from unwanted versions of redness
the earth has retained. Then,
from the freshly revealed form,
make units of yield. Sell this
in a quantity that feeds
the mine you discovered
when you bought what a place is.
3.
A town of Creta forgot to catch a feel for history, leaving nothing.
The mines opened after the wake had evened out.
This is how everything is fit to the bundle of was—not a trace of splash
but the unavoidable loss of stillness pulsing in new ways.
What left the land knew the dirt as well as the miners had.
Towns create enormous piles of knowing, of dreams
sown into everything in the dead of night.
It is not dug up and carried away.
It will not be processed.
4.
At the mile where a body was,
I see nothing but a road-divided land.
Trucks shake through the area automatic.
Such is a repossessed story of Creta:
contained in a line just for a moment,
it drags its traces with it way out of sight.
You send pounding feels toward the sound
of its rumors and know this is over already.
No foot is large enough to drive itself
through years of dirt. Time shovels
its song deep and unaware.
5.
Wide the pay of oil, wide the machine to drill, wide
enough to hide a blue sky in unceasing width of hope,
wide enough to force it down with eventual losses,
down where you realize you were wrong to spend
so much to take apart the deep earth.
Among the early efforts to make of Creta a way to take,
this was a faint passing through the rustling of its scrub brush.
Each of its resources refused to make productive land enough
for a town, and so miners shred their hands for awhile
and leave unused parts far more patient than money.
6.
In a roughly peopled width of space, Creta is a sign grown into
fathers and rust-turf, mothers and wind-dress, a thought just looking
outside at the everyday the town never got to reach.
The mine is not only a word for economy and scratch,
but also the way the home hears itself in a mind.
Crossing Trails: Cowboy to Homesteader
for Warren, Oklahoma
1.
We tether to a bend
in a fork in a mud-
faced river. It is
much more complex
than this
course of trails
that drained us
through the past, this
loud gathering of
cows that has given us
this process for roots
as to
what living has
launched us here.
Our settlement grew
at the feet of granite
in a wildness of grasses
flattened hard
as a crossing.
Here are engines
we turn into a way
to make a home,
into a way to feel love
at the view of
really any fixed thing
when we are
away for as long
as it takes to see it
with the eyes
of return. We
place ourselves
at the road
where pass a wide
thread of cattle,
and we stay
to build when
the thread is cut.
2.
To be a product of the Great Plains
you must become a line with a series
of hooks holding you in the dirt.
The force you fear is the wind—
it isn’t history in the usual sense,
but it does pull you out and forget.
3.
Religion assures us as a sound heavy enough
to anchor a Warren uncrossed by the herds of the past.
We are a strong series of ties in a building fit to purpose.
We imagine the spirit entering the skin and talking.
What thing do we have as a way to hold each other
on the frontier except for this. The building of rooms
extends with the distance from isolation we are in prayer,
and these rooms are remade over years as signs of Warren’s existing.
For everyday that we are full we are a town that continues rising out of grasses.
One of the things we love about our podcast is that it brings together speakers from all over the world. Getting to see and hear Marion and Samantha is our main reason to love modern technology!
The topic of discussion rotated around three poems written by Anne V. Devilbiss (apologies again, Ann! Maybe it’s a nice thing that Kathleen saw your name containing “bliss?” ).
More about the poet: Ann V. DeVilbiss has had poems in BOAAT, Crab Orchard Review, The Maine Review, Pangyrus, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the 2017 Betty Gabehart Prize in poetry and an Emerging Artist Award from the Kentucky Arts Council. Via the Love in the Street project, Ann has a poem forthcoming on a sidewalk in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, where she lives with her partner and two perfect cats.
It was a wonder how Kathleen was able to function normally after drinking enough to coffee wake up a classroom full of college students during finals week. In fact, she was quick to volunteer and took on the task of reading the first poem, “Spelled to Cultivate Gentlemen.”
Within this poem, there was one word that got everyone talking, “skink.” Everyone proceeded to “call up” Tim Fitts, one of our main editors, who was not able to make this recording. We all assumed to know what a skink is, as he always refer to his Florida chidlhood. Marion went as far as to do an imitation of Tim. They consense was if they have alligators, they must have these baby-alligator-like creatures as well, right?
Overall, the poem was described to be smooth in its wording and calming to the ears. These “spells” worked on us.
Kathleen reminded the audience about part of our editorial process. Very few of our staff ever see these poems before they get to the table.
Kathleen claimed her own witch potential. She gave us chills as she described how lights sometimes flickered when she entered rooms (maybe she’s a ghost?) and the things she thinks sometimes come into fruition (or maybe she’s God? God is a woman, after all). Then, Marion was revealed to be an unintentional witch, which had us wondering if Kathleen and Marion’s friendship was a pure coincidence?
Maybe our answer could be found in the book “Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive” written by Kristen J. Sollee, a suggested read by Samantha.
Next up was “Spell to Begin Again” in which Marion described the techniques used by Anne as “f***ing brilliant.”
We would like to interrupt this summary with a tip for our readers: Were you baking cookies, only to realize that you were all out of sugar? No worries! Just grab that molasses everyone has in the back of their pantries for no apparent reason and save yourself a trip to the store! (Ask Google if you don’t believe us.)
Unfortunately, Jason had to take off early from the podcast. As soon as he left, Marion and Kathleen, proceeded to gossip about him. They joked about his stealing Kathleen’s satin pajama pants. However, Kathleen admits that his butt looked great in them and Jason must have known it too, as he shamelessly shared pictures of the crime.
The next poem read was “Spell for Empty Hands,” which was the last of Anne’s poems to be voted into publication. I guess those incantations really do work!
To end this podcast, we would like to give a BIG congratulations to PBQ editors, Samantha Neugebauer and fellow poet Amna Alharmoodi for winning second place in the UAE for creativity in Literature We’ll share more details on that soon!
Read on!
Greetings everyone, Slush Pile is fast approaching three years of publication. To honor this we have a rather excellent episode today. After some introductions, the gang discusses what they have been up to since their last sightings. Kathleen informs us of a catastrophe she had back at home involving her new kittens. Luckily Marion’s mother was in prime position to swoop in and save the day with a valuable shred of information. Afterwards we get right into the work of Stephanie Bolster.
Stephanie Bolster has published four books of poetry, the most recent of which, A Page from the Wonders of Life on Earth, was a finalist for the Pat Lowther Award. Work from her current manuscript,Long Exposure, was a finalist for the 2012 CBC Poetry Prize. Her first book, White Stone: The Alice Poems, won the Governor General’s and the Gerald Lampert Awards in 1998. Her work has been translated into French (Pierre Blanche: poèmes d’Alice), Spanish, German, and Serbo-Croatian. Editor of The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2008 and co-editor of Penned: Zoo Poems, she was born in Vancouver and teaches creative writing at Concordia University in Montréal.
The first piece ANCESTORS has the editors performing an in-depth dissection that is a must listen. Jason expresses the idea that one’s ancestors reflect a mirror of themselves and the modern popularity of services like 23andme.
The second work THE ZONE bring up images of Chernobyl and the question of whether or not one is inclined to look up references to works in poems. Before the vote Jason admits that he commits abhorrent movie taboo.
Do these pieces make the cut? Or will the fall into the obscurity of history. Listen on and find out!
ANCESTORS
We didn’t know them. They’re in us the way a mirror is.
Whomever they loved we never knew. There is a mouth in a photograph that has a certain heat but we do not know that mouth. It is whose we might have kissed had we been then. It is a stitch missed or loosed a twitch resisted. They held their heads still which gave them the look of stone or ghosts. Eyes held open so they are the dolls they played with, porcelain, chips hidden under the hair. Lie them back and they’d shut into their carriages without a hum their skin the dusky grey of dust even their hair past gloss and pulled so taut it hurts.
THE ZONE
In the film before it happened there is no answer there is no question.
What you wish for’s better left unknown. The water they lie in flotsam and fishes.
When they enter the Zone there’s colour. This happened decades earlier.
When the house landed on the witch. It’s never easy in a place of colour.
Each leaf interrogates beauty. In both there are dogs.
For men a place of freedom. Far enough inside the self there is no self outside.
His wife tells the lens she could not have lived a different life.
She covers him with a jacket. While he sleeps their daughter moves glasses with her mind.
Through the pipe of fear to where. They call it the meat grinder.
Downstream from a chemical plant it seeped their deaths into them. They met it in reflections.
You can’t go back the way you came. Next time will be different.
—Note: Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Stalker was released in 1979, seven years before the Chernobyl disaster and forty years after The Wizard of Oz.
Welcome back to another Painted Bride Quarterly Slush Pile. Today we have an excellent episode with a bit of something different. After a set of introductions in which Marion gets out her glue gun the gang dives right into a piece of non-fiction by Andrew Bertania labeled “The Offering”.
Andrew Bertaina's work has appeared or is forthcoming in many publications including: The Best American Poetry 2018, The ThreePenny Review, Tin House online, Redivider, Crab Orchard Review and Green Mountains Review. More of his work is available at www.andrewbertaina.com
After an excellent reading by Kathleen, Tim describes how churches offer less of a sense of community these days; being more concerned with hellfire and crucifixion. Next, Marion describes how the piece offers a sense of timelessness while lamenting on her own exhaustion from various teaching duties. Marion contends that the piece allowed her to compose herself and gave her a sense of fulfillment. Samantha speaks a bit on curation, and how that differs from what is displayed on social media. Before voting Tim mentions how historically specific the piece is, and the idea of somebody that you used to know. Will this piece make the cut? Or will it fade into obscurity?
The Offering
At church this morning, I passed around a collection plate to gather up the scraps of all the people I have known. The bowl was silver and its size was like that of space. Inside, I found: a hike through a hailstorm in Colorado where blue jays where eating other bird’s babies; I found an evening spent from midnight till morning talking about the way that I dreamed of divinity; I found a piece of a tetherball string, still wound tightly around a silver pole; I found a pocket of gummi worms, unopened, thrown in the trash can at recess; I found a small side yard where I dug for dinosaur bones; I found a picture with the words I love you written across the top; I found tears and tears, until I was swimming through all the tears, trying to remember why we are all such bizarre puzzles; I found a slip of paper with someone’s e-mail on it that I threw in the trash; I found a cabin in the woods with a couch and a blanket; I found a picture of you standing with me in the same shirt I wore only two weeks ago, but it was more than a decade ago; I found that the years start to run together like water that you can’t separate out the moments that you used to; I found pictures of people in wedding dresses and tuxedos, people that I used to know, and I smiled at their happy faces, because they made me happy when I knew them; I found a picture of San Francisco, stiff breezes off the bay, always so damn cold, and inside the picture was another picture of a hospital, and inside that hospital a memory of people who are now dust; I found an evening in the mountains of Santa Barbara, and a sunrise too; I found a picture of five of us sitting in a room talking about the ways in which we had failed, the ways in which we’d like to succeed; I found a picture of a piano and green couches; I found a picture of a mountain trail, pine trees and old bear scat; I found a picture of the ocean, of your hand in mine, before we glided together. I found a picture of a tower in Italy, a winding staircase leading to a view of some ancient city.
I spent the evening afterward, sorting all these pictures into specific piles.
Afternoons that could have lasted forever.
Times I went to the ocean.
Women that I have loved.
Women that I did not have the time to get around to loving.
People that I once knew.
People that I used to know and wish I still knew.
Avenues that I have walked down.
Avenues that I wish I had walked down.
Pictures of places that I am not remembering properly.
After I was done organizing these moments, I wrote them all down on the computer screen, which flickered, in and out just like memory does. I know that thousands, millions, far more numerous than the stars, are still missing. I want you to know that I’m trying to remember all of you, despite the futility of it. I’m reaching out to the people I have known and the people I will know. I miss all of you already, so the next time you see me, let’s meet, not was if we were strangers, but as people who have, for longer than they can remember, been very much in love.
Today the Philadelphia is blessed with Marion Wren’s presence, who is the director of NYU’s Abu Dhabi writing program. The discussion started with the flu epidemic hitting Philadelphians, which Marion even said made her feel as if she was “swimming in a petri dish”. Then, Kathleen once again, regales the listeners about CBD and the miracles of a concoction of B12 and Vitamin C that has saved her from catching any kind of sickness going in and out of the hospital to visit her father. Moreover, she vouches that CBD has helped her with sleep after “15 years of sleep meds”. Talk about a miracle drug!
Then, without further adieu, the gang jumps in to the poems for the day. The three poems discussed on this podcast were written by Emily Cousins, a teacher and poet in Denver, Colorado.
The first poem was titled, “Refuse To Write You”. The gang discussed how some lines were a bit awkward, but were masterfully saved by the following lines. Hilariously, Ali compares Cousins writing “I’m not going to write you a love poem” to “I’m not going to write you a love song” by Sara Bareilles. You just cannot un-hear something like that. Thanks for the valuable input, Ali! We are so sad to see you go in three months!
They discussed the meaning of the poem, in which Marion thought it represented a rocky` relationship, while Kathleen got that it portrayed the author’s hesitation to commit.
Next up were two short poems, the first being “To Make Space.” Marion suggested that it read like a prayer, which Ali echoed sounded like a mantra. The crew discussed the freshness of the piece and the originality of ideas. Also, an issue discussed was the lack of images, the barely seen image of the seed. Although, Marion did argue that the poem promotes mindfulness so the images should not be focused on too much.
The last poem discussed was “With Fruition”. It raised up arguments from the weather around the world to its “meditative” qualities.
Finally it came time to vote, did these pieces earn their love songs, or will they wilt into obscurity, listen on and find out!
“Two Out of Three” by Meat Loaf plays
Painted Bride Quarterly presents another especially excellent episode of Slush Pile. This is of course because we are joined by Pushcart Prize winner and newly annointed #PeopleOfThePile BJ Ward!
BJ Ward is an American poet. Ward is a recipient of the Pushcart Prize (Anthology XXVIII, 2004) for poetry and two Distinguished Artist Fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. He has published three full books of poetry and has been featured in many journals including: Cerebellum, Edison Literary Review, Journal of Jersey Poets, Kimera, Lips, Long Shot, Maelstrom, Mid-American Review, Natural Bridge, Painted Bride Quarterly, Poetry, Puerto del Sol, Prairie Winds, Spitball, and TriQuarterly. His poem "For the Children of the World Trade Center Victims," is cast in bronze and featured at Grounds for Sculpture, an outdoor sculpture museum in Hamilton, New Jersey. Ward is an Assistant Professor of English at Warren County Community College and has served as University Distinguished Fellow at Syracuse University. BJ Ward is an active educator in a number of realms. He teaches writing workshops in the public school system throughout New Jersey, and his work there earns him yearly residencies in many school districts.
After introductions, and Kathleen teasing a potential tale regarding flea killing solution, we dive into two pieces by James Arthur, On a Marble Portrait Bust in Worcester, Massachusetts and Study.
James Arthur was born in Connecticut and grew up in Toronto. He is the author of The Suicide’s Son (Véhicule Press 2019) and Charms Against Lightning (Copper Canyon Press, 2012.) His poems have also appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The New York Review of Books, and The London Review of Books. He has received the Amy Lowell Travelling Poetry Scholarship, a Hodder Fellowship, a Stegner Fellowship, a Discovery/The Nation Prize, and a Fulbright Scholarship. Arthur lives in Baltimore, where he teaches in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. In 2019, he is Visiting Fellow at Exeter College, University of Oxford.
Bj offers a masterful observation in his analysis of Study, which offers the reader a bit of an interesting existential question. After Marion is untimely raptured, and Tim’s emphatic urging for Ali to fight guests of the Podcast, the gang votes on the first piece before moving on to On a Marble Portrait Bust in Worcester, Massachusetts. The editors offer a gambit of opinions on the piece and eventually come to a final vote.
After the poems are voted on Kathleen regales the listeners with a tale about CBD oil and Flea remover, in addition to praising the benefits of the substance.
How did the poems do? Did they make the cut? Listen On and find out!
Hello! Welcome to another episode of Slush Pile! This episode is chock full of laughs and language exploration. After discussing Jason’s impressive performance in the weight room the gang rolls right into the introductions. Afterwards Kathleen goes balls to the wall and presents an interesting question for our listeners. Painted Bride Quarterly’s Slush Pile has started a poll to determine the names we will call our listeners. After discussing the options, we throw the choice back at you. After the madness that is our editors initial discussion we begin the discussion of two pieces by David Rock labled “Just Gravy” and “Driving through Idaho”.
David Rock has work appearing in The Carolina Quarterly, The Laurel Review, The Bitter Oleander, The Chattahoochee Review, Image, New American Writing, and other journals. An Idaho native, he teaches Spanish and international studies at Brigham Young University-Idaho in Rexburg.
The first piece was interrupted by the barbaric yawp of Marion Wrenn’s beloved cat, Emi knows good poetry! The gang goes into depth with Rock’s amazing use of metaphors in “Just Gravy” and his excellent use of sound.
The second piece “Driving through Idaho” was luckily devoid of a cat-astrophe. The editors discuss the way the poem captures the spirit of a long ride. After some debate among the editors they move to a vote. Will these pieces make the cut? Slushies or Peeps? Stay tuned in and find out!
This week’s episode of Slush Pile sees a newcomer to the table, but not a stranger to PBQ. John Wall Barger's poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Cincinnati Review, Subtropics, The Malahat Review, and he has published two collections, and most importantly, to us, he is now an editor for Painted Bride Quarterly! After John drops a quick bombshell about his new book coming out in the spring of next year, Jason laments about the supreme court striking an arduous blow to his union. When everyone is done grieving over the absence of beloved editor Marion Wrenn (where in the world is she now? Florence?) the gang dives right into three poems by two different authors starting with Karen Neuberg’s “Same House.”
Karen Neuberg’s poems and collages appear in numerous journals including 805, Canary, Epi-graph Magazine, and Verse Daily. She’s a multiple Pushcart and a Best-of-the-Net nominee, holds an MFA from The New School, is associate editor of the online journal First Literary Re-view East, and lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her latest chapbook is “the elephants are asking” (Glass Lyre Press, 2018)
“Same House” sparks an in-depth discussion about memories and nostalgia. Several of the editors comment on pieces of language that they admire as well as how their own nostalgic experiences can relate to the narrative. After a quick vote the board moves onto two poems written by Sadie Shorr Parks labeled “Lunacy” and “Good Sleep.”
Sadie Shorr-Parks grew up in Philadelphia but currently lives in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, where she teaches writing at Shepherd University. Outside of creative writing, Sadie dabbles in calligraphy, painting, stop animation, embroidery, and puppetry. She likes to start her day by doing the NYT Crossword and hopes to enter the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in 2019. Sadie’s creative writing can be found in Witness Magazine, Sierra Nevada Review, Appalachian Heritage, and Blueline, among others. Her book reviews can be found with Los Angles Review of Books, Southern Literary Review, and Iowa Review.
The gang begins to explore the pieces by Sadie Shorr-Parks discussing the risks and interesting qualities of her pieces. Kathleen and the gang do a great job at breaking down some of the intricacies of Sadie’s work. Will these pieces make the cut? Listen and find out!
The group ended the episode in their usual manner: Tim Fitts challenged ANY LISTENER to challenge our co-op, Ali, to an MMA battle, while Kathleen and Jason happily discussed their last visit to The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop. (And don’t forget to celebrate 1970’s National Geographics and the French Revolution. Whaaaaa?)
Today is a special iteration of Slush Pile as we are graced with the excellent presence of two friends of Painted Bride Quarterly. Marion Wrenn has landed in a foggy Philadelphia and is causing trouble after being reunited with Kathleen. Also joining the gang is Isabella Fidenza, a graduate publishing student here at Drexel. Our first debate is flats vs heels for Marion's role as wedding celebrant during the upcoming weekend. After discussing the reasons for Marion leaving the desert and gracing us with her appearance in Philadelphia and Kathleen describing a harrowing experience while attempting to attend a book meeting for Trevor Noah’s “Born a Crime” the gang dives right in to two sonnets by Bino A. Realuyo.
BINO A. REALUYO has published poems in The Nation, The Kenyon Review, New Letters, Manoa: International Journal of Pacific Writing, Missouri Review, Puerto del Sol, and recently, in ZYZZYVA’s Resistance Issue. These two sonnets are from his recently completed manuscript, The Rebel Sonnets.
His poetry collection, The Gods We Worship Live Next Door, received the Agha Shahid Ali Prize for Poetry in 2005. Its Philippine edition, published three years later, received the Philippine National Book Award for Poetry in 2009. He has received fellowships and awards from Yaddo, New York Foundation for the Arts (twice), Valparaiso in Spain, Urban Artist Grant, Queens Council on the Arts, and a Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from Poetry Society of America. Realuyo is currently a NYSCA/New York Foundation for the Arts fellow in fiction. He works in the field of adult literacy, providing education and support for immigrants in New York City.
The first of the poems speaks on the impermanence of relationships in life using an excellent metaphor of cherry blossom or sakura. After a lengthy discussion and a vote the gang moves forward into the second piece which looks at the correlation between relationship and a tea ceremony. What do you think? Is Jason Schneiderman’s nick name “The Ray of Gloom” appropriate? Will we ever find out what Marion was going to wear? Will these pieces be accepted? Or will they wilt as the cherry blossoms always do? Listen on and find out!
This episode is particularly special as present in Drexel’s Korman Studio is a very special friend of PBQ, Elizabeth Scanlon.
Elizabeth Scanlon is the Editor of The American Poetry Review. She is the author of Lonesome Gnosis (Horsethief Books, 2017), The Brain Is Not the United States/The Brain Is the Ocean (The Head & The Hand Press, 2016) and Odd Regard (ixnay press, 2013). She is a Pushcart Prize winner and her poems have appeared in many magazines including Boston Review, Ploughshares, Colorado Review, Crazyhorse, and others. She lives in Philadelphia.
After short introductions, and some technical difficulties in which our Abu Dhabi team is lost to the internet for just a brief moment, the gang jumps right into the work of Elizabeth Cantwell and her works “Housewarming” “Emergency Queen” “The People Who Live in Boats”.
Elizabeth Cantwell is a poet and high school teacher living in Claremont, CA. Her first book, Nights I Let the Tiger Get You, was a finalist for the 2012 Hudson Prize; she is also the author of a chapbook, Premonitions. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in a variety of journals, including The Cincinnati Review, DIAGRAM, The Missouri Review, and Hobart.
Her first piece “Housewarming” had the editors reflecting on the pieces excellent use of reassuring imagery and line spacing. After some short discussion and a vote, the gaggle of editors move on to the second poem “Emergency Queen,” which is rife with ,”“delicious words according to Kathleen. After exploring the intricacies of the piece the gang moves on to the final piece of the batch “The People Who Live in Boats”. Structured into a giant prose block, this piece doesn’t even slightly resemble the form of the poems which preceded it. With this piece, Elizabeth takes us to what can be referred to as image school. The editors practically have a gleeful field day, it’s so much fun deconstructing all of the intricacies of this final piece. What do you think? Do all of these pieces make the cut? Or will time devour them as it does everything else? Listen and let it be revealed!
This week on the Slush Pile we welcome our great friend John Wall Barger into the Korman Studio for another fantastic iteration of our podcast! The gang gets rolling by discussing their various summer activities and Kathleen suggests hypnotism to anyone who is attempting to rid themselves of a nasty habit. Marion informs the group that she is currently residing in North Carolina near a prison that has been turned into a whiskey distillery. This of course segues into conversation about the poet whom has taken the spotlight, Susan Grimm and her two pieces “Made Manifest/Glassy” as well as “A Fest of Wishes: Birthday Ghazal"
Susan Grimm is the author of Almost Home (Cleveland State University Poetry Center 1997), Lake Erie Blue (BkMk Press 2004), and Roughed Up by the Sun’s Mothering Tongue (Finishing Line Press 2011). Her work has appeared in Blackbird, The Journal, The Cortland Review, Seneca Review, and Tar River Poetry. She earned an MFA in poetry through the Northeast Ohio MFA consortium (NEOMFA) and teaches creative writing part-time at the Cleveland Institute of Art. She also occasionally teaches classes for Literary Cleveland. She lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and can be found online at The White Space Inside the Poem.
The first poem got the group pondering on the effects "big brother" has had on our society in addition to the younger generation's indifference to being watched. After a bit of in depth discussion as well as a vote the topic shifts to the second poem of the day which is applauded for its excellent use of language. What was the fate of these pieces? Does the gang ever get their hands on legitimate prison whiskey? Find out all of that and more inside of this Slush Pile.
Made Manifest/Glassy
Nanny cam. Traffic cam. Bank machine eye. Facial recognition software. I imagine being watched
which I don’t have to imagine. Facebook’s old photos. Look at that hair! Avatars which used to
mean gods, maybe sitting on lily pads. By the supreme power of my two-legged presence. Or two thumbs.
Maps in the front of books or the glove compartment where there are no gloves. Every time the left hand
turn off of Clifton like a disappointed hummingbird. Peacock’s eye. I have my eye on you. Dream
scraps invigilate the movie of my intention. Daisies. Nipples. There’s you and the you you say you are.
Potato eye (gouged out). Eyedropper. I-land. My stories are not about you. The small window high up
like a letterbox to peer through. Somewhere a crumpet of light.
Fest of Wishes: A Birthday Ghazal
Obdurate leaning pine, rough-barked, this witch’s wooden prism, the organs damp, high-colored like sequestered caves—my best wishes.
Wet, red fist. The heart grown larger like a pearl, a bird that strains at the top of the ribs, breaks from my chest like a zest of wishes.
Each day like a caught breath, a love blow. There can never be enough—gasping, swollen, luminous—arrested by wishes.
Trolling for the unobserved—road smoke, a gravel pit of years, the caution tape (that clean bird not yet bested by wishes).
That it should go on—the moon riding above me like a promise in the sky, a milky penny fitted to its slot—the rest of my wishes.
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Tim Fitts
Marion Wrenn
John Wall Barger
Ali Ziabakhsh-Tabari
Engineering Producer:
Joe Zang
Sex tape? Kardashians? This week's podcast has a little bit of both as the gang, consisting of Kathleen, Tim, Marion, Jason along with his partner Michael and Ali the new PBQ co-op, examines the work of the talented Jameka Williams.
Jameka Williams is an MFA candidate at Northwestern University hailing from Chester, PA, fifteen miles southeast of Philadelphia. Her poetry has been published in Prelude Magazine, Gigantic Sequins, Powder Keg Magazine, Yemassee Journal, and Tupelo Quarterly. Muzzle Magazine nominated her poem, "Yeezus' Wife [when asked what do you actually do]," from their June 2017 issue for "Best of the Net 2017" and the Pushcart Prize. She resides in Chicago, IL.
The team touched upon Sex Tape’s structure, praising the stanza’s execution and how the lack of punctuation worked well for the first poem. After talks about a variety of gods (yes---gods and sex tapes—listen, you’ll see) the vote was completed and the crew dove right into her second piece, The Kardashians for a Better America
The second speaks of illumination and even sympathy for the muse the poet had tried to connect with, providing a different perspective to the editorial board. One of the most interesting points of the discussion came from Michael, who had made connections to a video game relevant to the context of the poem. As the episode was winding down, Marion linked the subject of the piece to an essay she had read previously and everyone voted once again.
How does talk of botched iced coffee orders lead into discussions of poetry? How does desire possibly relate to the very topic Williams’ poetry? What dictates the moments in pop culture that “stick?” Did both make it through the editorial process? Plug in and find out, as these questions are bound to keep listeners up at night, much like the antics of the Kardashian family.
In rare form the Abu Dhabi editing team has invaded Philadelphia. Marion Wrenn finds herself sitting alongside Kathy, Tim and Joseph inside of the recording studio here at Drexel’s campus. The group is also quite delighted to have our special guest Jennifer Knox...
In rare form the Abu Dhabi editing team has invaded Philadelphia. Marion Wrenn finds herself sitting alongside Kathy, Tim and Joseph inside of the recording studio here at Drexel’s campus. The group is also quite delighted to have our special guest Jennifer Knox join the discussion. After a short discussion about the inception of Slush Pile as well as cuckoo clocks and pet birds we jump right into the works of this episode’s poets. Marion starts the podcast off right with an exquisite reading of Lauren Michele Jackson’s “A Child of Hers Has Rules for Color”
Lauren Michele Jackson is a born and raised Illinoisian, currently living in Chicago(which, contrary to popular belief, is not a part of Illinois and rather an entity unto itself). A card-carrying member of the Beyhive, she measures time between album releases and Instagram updates from a one Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter. Poetry is a relatively new thing and she considers prose her first love, as indicated by her Twitter handle @proseb4bros. She is working on a dissertation and book of essays, (slightly) more about which can be found at laurjackson.com.
The editors loved discussing Jacksons creativity in her word play and stanza breaks. After the vote, the group explored a work written by Stella Padnos titled "Houseguests".
Poet, social worker, mama, and, perhaps by the time you are reading this, ex-wife, are among the identities of Stella Padnos. Her poetry appears in various forums, including Women’s Studies Quarterly, The Wild Word, and Lady Parts, a Barbie-themed collaboration on Tumblr. Stella regularly performs as one of the Unbearables in New York City. Her debut collection of poetry, In My Absence, was released from Winter Goose Publishing in 2016. She enjoys writing about ambivalence, attraction, and general emotional discomfort.
The board gets into an in depth discussion about the use of pronouns in "Houseguests,” but our favorite moment might be when Jennifer makes an amazing metaphor likening the poem’s movement to a cruise ship. After Tim Fitts makes a comparison between the poem and Prince the group decides to vote on this piece as well.
Will these pieces make it through the editorial process? Or will they slip through the cracks? What was that final pronoun about? Listen on to find out!
Present at editorial table: Kathleen Volk Miller Marion Wrenn Jason Schneiderman Tim Fitts Joseph Kindt Jennifer Knox
Engineering Producer: Joe Zang
On this week's episode, a council torn straight from the lore of Star Trek emerged to discuss the works of two poets. First up is Sarah Heffner and her pieces "I Love California More Than You" and "Maybe New Orleans" followed by Jacob Thomas Berns with "Frieda, Callie, and Kelly Lou." This iteration of the podcast is unique as it is the first time in two years of production that the group has its three longest-running members present, a.k.a., the Klingon Council.
The council discussed the different ways Sarah Heffner's titles could be interpreted, e.g. do you love California more than you love your friends? Kathleen explains her fascination with the life of pilots and flight attendants in reaction to Jacob Bern's piece which then segues into Jason promoting "I'm So Excited" or "Las Pasajeros Amantes". Jason feels a bit left out that he doesn't have a magical fairy watch like the other Klingon members. Will these pieces survive the brutality of the Klingon Council? Listen on and their fate will be revealed. Tweet us @PaintedBrideQ with the #KlingonCouncil and give us your thoughts on the episode or ask any questions you might have!
As Sarah gets older what she realizes is that we have so many lives in this one life. Teacher, bartender, creative writing accountability coach, are a few of her titles. They are all paths that have found her, though her choices and the challenges she has faced, have all prepared her for them. But the title she loves most is poet! If you want to know more you can follow her on instagram @mermaidpillow or her website : sarahheffner.com!
Jacob Thomas Berns received his MFA from the University of Oregon. His writing has appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, The Briar Cliff Review, and Hot Metal Bridge. Purchasing a home has taught him the quiet joy of weeding. He is at work on a novel.
I Love California More Than You
I thought only bullets
Lose inertia
I’m extinct in Pennsylvania
Our city
A linoleum experiment
I fell steam
Eventually does
It was on the porch painting
I was
Little black air
Maybe New Orleans
We no longer have a favorite place
We have one flawed summer
Blame it on the generosity of moisture
Back in the country
I felt hay’s rotundity
I sweated out grains
Now my hair is sleek
The beak of an oyster catcher
Frieda, Callie, Kelly Lou
PORTLAND FLIGHTS ARRIVED at 12:35, 3:16, 6:46, the baggage handlers ready at wheels-down, having already flipped a coin for who’d gut the plane of last-minute checked bags and who’d deliver them to the bridge, where the flight attendant—their attendant—bid farewell to passengers, and even if someone were in her place, the handlers would feign a moment on the Jetway—a wink flashed between passengers, a flutter of fingers at her hip—before days, then weeks without a sighting, suspicions becoming fears becoming fact—she had switched routes or jobs or cities—and so the stories themselves became the thing, retold until each word and gesture was perfected, the details too real not to be true—a fleck of pink on a tooth, a stocking run shaped like California, a Tom Collins shared in a hotel room—details later told to girlfriends who became wives, by which time they’d moved themselves—to Sacramento, to Duluth—their attendant’s name changing from telling to telling (in truth never known at all) as each other’s names inched just beyond reach, until, ticket in hand, they could watch a plane greet the tarmac with neither regret nor urgency, without anything at all but a sense of the shifting distances between once and now and to be.
Present at editorial table:
Kathleen Volk Miller Marion Wrenn Jason Schneiderman
Engineering Producer:
Joe Zang
On this week’s episode of the Slush Pile, we review two prose poems by the author Daniel Biegelson labeled “Neighbors III” and “Neighbors IV”. Kathleen and the gang welcome Pulitzer Prize winner Gregory Pardlo to the editorial table for this very exciting iteration of the podcast. Everyone was intrigued to delve into the works Daniel Biegelson provided for us and were quite pleased to find that they offered interesting conversation.
Daniel Biegelson is the author of the chapbook Only the Borrowed Light (VERSE) and Director of the Visiting Writers Series at Northwest Missouri State University. An Associate Editor for The Laurel Review, his poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from Cream City Review, Denver Quarterly, DIAGRAM, FIELD, Meridian, Salt Hill Journal, & Third Coast, among other places. He hails from New Jersey—a fact that means more to him than it probably should.
Did these poets survive the gauntlet? Listen on to find out!
Let us know what you think about these three poems and this episode on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook with #HelloNeighbor
Present at the Editorial Table: Kathleen Volk Miller Marion Wrenn Tim Fitts Samantha Neugebauer Jason Schneiderman
Engineering Producer: Joe Zang
Love is in the air as the gang gets together on Valentine’s day to feature two poems by Emma Hine: “I Wake Up in the Painting by Rousseau” and “The Red Planet Counts Her Craters“. Tune in to hear the lamentations of several of our editors as they discuss Valentine’s day
Emma Hine is from Austin, Texas, and holds an MFA from New York University. Her work has previously appeared in Arts & Letters, Gulf Coast, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Ninth Letter, and The Missouri Review, among others. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, and works at the Academy of American Poets.
Listen on and hear the fate of these two pieces! Let us know what you think about this episode on Facebook and Twitter with #MarsBuffet
I Wake Up In the Painting by Rousseau
This time he, the sleeping figure, I, the lion, my pupils round in their egg-whites, night-wind angling his scent dunewards. He has surprised me. I never expected a human in the sand like a god fallen asleep, a bare-throated mandolin on the pillow beside him. I smell the striped shoulder of his robe. Don’t know which path he took across the desert. On the nightstand we keep a lamp, a vase, a digital clock. Beneath the blue walls I hold the moon in my teeth and breathe on it, feel no devouring dread.
The Red Planet Counts Her Craters
The way Mars is bolted in place, all she can see is the sky. She recites red sky at night, sailor’s delight until her atmosphere shimmers. She hopes that from everywhere else, she’s visible, the brightest storm brewing in this big wide sea. She converts sensations into units of distance and units of force, so that each time a body collides with her, she can add it to her catalogue of impact: where, how hard, how long the tremor. She lifts the oxide dust gently from a crater and says asteroid at an oblique angle, seventy-eight miles across. She does this just by feel. No looking. Which might be why she so loves the probes. When they land, she goes as still as she can, so they won’t startle and unlatch. She wants them always charting her shoal plains. When one enters her gravity too slowly and bounces away, she wonders what went wrong. She imagines it lost out there without context, how it wanted her, couldn’t touch her, or stay.
Present at the Editorial Table: Kathleen Volk Miller Marion Wrenn Tim Fitts Samantha Neugebauer Jason Schneiderman
Engineering Producer: Joe Zang
Anxiety, God, glitter, pixie dust, sparkles... all of this can be found within our latest episode of Slush Pile, which features Rosemary Kitchen’s poem "How to Cauterize," followed by two poems by Jessica Pierce, "Without" and "How to Take What You Want." This is a rare occasion as the gang is all present at the editorial table—in fact-- Kathleen and Marion are absolutely delighted to be physically reunited and sharing the same space and the same microphone for the first time in ages.
Currently a PhD student at the University of Tennessee, Rosemary holds an MFA in creative writing from Warren Wilson College. Raised in a fiercely religious family, her only Halloween costume was “the little boy with five loaves of bread and two fishes,” sewn by her mother. Rosemary is so enamored with poetry that she once laminated all the pages of her favorite book to withstand the weather when she ran away from home. She can be found on twitter, where she is frequently mistaken for a restaurant. Her poems have been published in several print and online publications, including Hunger Mountain, Tinderbox, Cimarron Review, and Gulf Coast.
Marion began by reading Rosemary Kitchen's "How to Cauterize" . Tim really enjoyed dissecting the character of the speaker in this piece, making several good assertations about his or her nature.
Jessica Pierce can swear in Spanish and Bengali, change a flat bicycle tire in under 5 minutes on the side of the road when it's 95 degrees and she's inches away from roaring semis, and sing the guitar solo in Bohemian Rhapsody with relative accuracy. However, she cannot do cartwheels or go on swings anymore—having two children seems to have permanently changed her center of gravity in a very literal way. When she's not staring into space and pondering death, which often leads to walking into doorways and tables, she can be found staring into space and pondering how to radically transform public education. Which also leads to walking into doorways and tables. As a result, she has a pretty consistent rotating display of bruises on her arms and legs, but she's hoping the new multivitamins with more iron will help with that. She's grateful to her sitar-playing husband for making sure she always has plenty of dark chocolate to eat and pushing her to send her work out into the world.
The editors found themselves pondering over what the "it" is that is being discussed in Jessica Pierce's first piece "Without" which was read by DPG co-op Joseph Kindt. Overall it was great read, but brought up different opinions on the editors' interpretations of the piece. Next Kathleen read "How to Take What You Want". The table was quite pleased with the brazen imagery displayed in the piece, listen in to hear more discussion on Jessica's work.
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Did these poems receive the go ahead, or are there red flags? Tune in to find out! Thank you for listening, and read on!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Tim Fitts
Joseph Kindt
Engineering Producer
Joe Zang
Rosemary Kitchen
How to Cauterize
Pack with clove oil and minced garlic. Dress with poultices of peppermint, a tincture of myrrh. Count the beats of your pulse with the underside of your tongue pressed against the opening; count the seconds since he went. Let stale air whistle through cracks, like the tooth you chipped on embroidery needles that night you patched pants to wear on a first date. Try to forget the taste of powdered bone and fluoride, drill bit between your lips. Ask the god- who-is-dentist: won’t you reach inside my skull and make me sparkly again ? Count the parts of the skeleton you can clean. Tilt your head beneath spigot of sink—drink. Drink and drink.
Jessica Pierce
Without
I can say it now without shaking. Without crying. Without falling down. It still grabs my throat sometimes, but it will release its white-knuckle grip if I whisper tenderly, you are true. It does not need me to lie and say it is beautiful or that through force of habit it has become exalted. And when I can’t speak, it has given me permission to carry it between my breasts, against the grief that has become cellular. Almost just something else to carry through this fraught world.
How to Take What You Want
And another thing, as he splits open a warm loaf of bread, pleased with the crackle of crust. This may I business. Get to the point. Take action, damnit. And why tell me to do things, and then say thank you. Sit down, thank you. Take a number, thank you, stand there, thank you.
His father got to the point. For weeks he would watch his neighbors’ peach trees, rooted in the dirt of crumbled gods and goddesses. Waiting until the fruit stunned with ripeness. He would take it. He would eat it. The first time he went apple picking, he ignored the abundant apples, found a walnut tree on the other side of the fence. He pointed. Smiled. After walking 500 miles to escape the enemy army, after raising his children while his wife’s heart and mind failed, after crossing oceans, after loaf after loaf of coarse brown bread, he had no interest in denying himself such pleasures. I spread apricot preserves on my piece of bread. He dips his piece in fragrant olive oil, the grass of his childhood unfurling beneath our feet. And then my baby runs towards us, hold me, no please no may I, and he grins as he reaches down for her. That’s how it’s done.
Slush Pile is back in the studio! For this episode’s micro editorial meeting, Kathleen and Joseph recorded from the studio for the first time since… June? April? A long time! Marion called from her office at NYUAD, looking out over a dark campus with a giant new microphone!
For this episode, we discuss three poems by Michele Wolf. We were, in fact, early adopters of Michele! She was published way back in Issue 63, just one issue before our first print annual! Check out what she wrote, but because we’re rebuilding our archives, you’ll only find it here (along with access to Issue 63, if you’re up for some digging).
Michele Wolf had a friend in Painted Bride Quarterly early on, when we first published her poems and her chapbook, The Keeper of Light, in 1995. Little did she know then that an Amazon rare-book seller would now offer this special booklet for $75 (!). Note to the world: Michele would be delighted to make one yours for $5.
Fun fact: Michele was raised in Florida, and she loves not only the ocean but also Disney World—almost as much as PBQ editor Kathy Volk Miller does.
On the poetry front, Michele has gone on to publish two full-length collections—Immersion (Hilary Tham Capital Collection, The Word Works) and Conversations During Sleep (Anhinga Prize for Poetry, Anhinga Press). Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Southern Review, The Hudson Review, North American Review and many other literary journals and anthologies, as well as on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily. A contributing editor for Poet Lore, she teaches at The Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland. She lives with her husband and daughter in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
You can read more of Michele's work on Poets.org; on Poetry Foundation; and on her website.
Listen in on our discussion of Michele’s poems, and check them out below! Our conversations brought up whether or not man landed on the moon (which we could debate, we suppose), deer’s bedtimes (7:00 PM, right?), and poems that make you go “WOWZA!”
Our engineer, Joe, shared a story about finding a paper crane on his windowsill with “as if you could kill time without injuring eternity,” by Henry David Thoreau, but attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson. He recognized the handwriting, and thinks he might know who left the mysterious missive. Listen in to hear all about this “beautiful world” sort of story, then Kathleen and Joseph have a mini cook-off on air. Tell us what you like to bake! Is baking better than cooking? Let us know your thoughts, and, as always, keep reading!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Joseph Kindt
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
Michele Wolf
To Orbit the Earth
The steel capsule, ridged and riveted—an oversize
Can—rests suspended at street level, docked
Inside the Air and Space Museum’s entrance.
A bounty of white lilies mingled with spider mums,
Placed yesterday, honors the trail of pilot John Glenn,
Dead at ninety-five. In ’62, even a second grader,
Gripped by the grainy blastoff in black and white,
Knew that the compact can was a bleak conveyance,
That that helmeted dad, a human Superman laced up
In a silver suit, could at any moment be lost in flames.
And yet we launch from terra firma, compelled to behold
The blue orb—its panorama of oceans as they curve
From continent to continent. It knocks you down,
This vision, your ache to enfold the globe in your arms.
It is that child who slips into the darkness, sounding
A cry you cannot ease, although you circle round and round.
Expecting Snow
Against a sky and lake bleached icy gray, the solid
Surface edged with snow and spindly bones
Of leafless trees, four silhouettes, a single file
Of ash-brown deer—two adults, two adolescents—
Halt their slow-mo synchrony of steps
At the middle of the lake, its top layer hardened
To host weightlessness, not illusion on elegant legs.
Beauty is no help. The starving deer, weary of feeding
On bark and road salt, resume their lake-top trek.
From spring through fall, the white-tailed locals feast
On roses, carry ticks. One after another, they meet
Your eyes, and yet they leap onto the road—
At the same bend where that drunk teen driver
Bashed the fence, then flipped. Nature
Holds you. When it drifts, it breaks your heart.
Zebras in a Field
The younger woman—hollowed out, reduced
To a shadow wrapped in skin—allowed
The older one, nearly her duplicate,
To enfold her. They had both seen the knife,
A small, glinty blade with a pearlized handle,
When it was set beside the younger woman’s
Thigh. “But you are not dead,” the older woman,
Unable to speak, had wanted to say, “although
It may seem so. You will live an abundant life.
Someday you will drive, after seventeen hours
Aloft, along a paved road edging a clutch
Of tumbledown farms when a herd of zebras
Will race to meet the wooden fence—whinnying,
Tails flapping—oscillating your vision, the total scroll
Of what you know, with the whirl of their stripes.”
Kathleen and Marion were so blown away by Rooftop Rhythms, the well-respected spoken word event held at NYUAD, we asked its host Dorian Paul Rogers to sit down with PBQ and talk about poetry, performance, and creating one of the liveliest poetry scenes we've ever seen. Learn about the world of spoken word poetry in the United Arab Emirates, the tricky project of curating the series, and roots of Dorian's faith in the transformative powers of spoken word. Marion's interview with Dorian is the second in a 2-part series celebrating Rooftop Rhythms. Check out the first episode here.
For more information on Dorian:
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-31986646/working-lives-uae-arts-impresario
https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/welcome-to-rooftop-rhythms-abu-dhabi-s-poetry-scene-1.633366
For more information on Salem el Attas (one of the poets who read at the event we saw)
https://man.vogue.me/entertainment/interviews/emirati-slam-poet-salem-al-attas-something-say/
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
If you’ve tuned into recent episodes of Slush Pile, you’ve more likely than not heard Kathleen raving over her time visiting Marion in Abu Dhabi.From another windowless university office, this time at the NYUAD writing program, we produced this special episode of Slush Pile.
Kathleen and Marion talk about their time together in Abu Dhabi: the pink desert, the early morning camel ride, the quick dip in the Gulf, the amazing classes, and spoken word poetry in the United Arab Emirates. As we say, we really never know whether or not these episodes are going to be published sequentially, and in this episode, Kathleen mentions an amazing experience she had in class that she and Marion co-taught. “Maybe we’ll talk about it on another episode,” she said, and if you tuned into Episode 44: Fairy Dust Watches and John Bonham, you know exactly what she’s talking about! If you didn’t, listen into the episode here!
Rooftop Rhythms is a huge open mic event on NYUAD’s campus. It's hosted by the remarkable Dorian Paul Rogers (who joined us for an interview that will be featured on an upcoming episode). Listen to poetry by emerging and established poets from Yemen, Sudan, Philippines, and the UAE who gather for a monthly event that packs the house at NYUAD with an equally diverse crowd. Please enjoy these excerpts from poets Hibba Rasheed, Salem Attas, Shammah al Bustaki, Danielle Gramby, Seb Eubanks, Aamtha, and Logan.
Present in this Episode:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Rooftop Rhythms Readers
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
We were scattered to the winds, but focused on Erin Adair-Hodges’ “In Barstow” and “The Last Judgment.” Antics became part of the swing of things as everyone called in this week.
Kathy called in from her office at her home in New Jersey, a different shade of blue than her office at Drexel; Marion called in from her home office at NYU Abu Dhabi (where she could still keep an eye on a student-run dance party); Jason used his phone to call from his office in Tribeca; and Joseph called from his office at Drexel, right under a giant poster of the Slush Pile Icon and a poster by The Oatmeal, “How to tell if your cat is plotting to kill you.” Jason strongly believes that your cat, should you have one, is always trying to kill you, which led, as these things do, to debate and discussion about cats and dogs, and talks of Tampa, plans to visit Disney World, doin’ shrooms, and the universe!
But now, more about the poet: Erin Adair-Hodges grew up in a small town in New Mexico where there were no trees for treehouses so instead kids dug holes and sat in them for fun. She quit writing poetry for a long time after some people said her stuff was not so good. Since sending out her work for the first time in 2014, she's been awarded The Georgia Review's Loraine Williams prize and a Bread Loaf-Rona Jaffe scholarship; her first book, Let's All Die Happy, won the Agnes Lynch Starrett prize and will be published in October 2017 as part of the Pitt Poetry Series. The moral of the story is some people don't know what they're talking about.
“In Barstow” was a great read with brazen imagery, and we loved discussing it. Next, Kathleen read “The Last Judgment” for us, and really enjoyed the delicious words of the poem. Listen in to hear our discussions about Erin’s poetry.
Jason revealed to us that while he was reading up on Erin, he found out that she won his favorite poetry prize, the Agnes Lynch Starrett prize for her first poetry book, published by University of Pittsburgh Press.
After discussing Erin’s work, we talked about Marion’s experience in the Dead Sea, and the pros and cons of technology in the modern day when it comes to meaningful experiences (naturally!). Kathleen asked Marion if she felt different after floating in the Dead Sea, and she was excited to tell us that yes, she was! Then she was disconnected before she could tell us why and we could only hope it wasn’t Divine Intervention. Listen in to catch the start of the story, and tune in next time to see if Marion was raptured or if the evil of technology got her instead.
Important question: Are cats capable of being just as loving as dogs can be, or are they killing machines? Tweet us @PaintedBrideQ with the #PBQSlushPile and give us your thoughts!
Present at the Editorial Table: Kathleen Volk Miller Marion Wrenn Jason Schneiderman Joseph Kindt
Production Engineers: Tony Young
Erin Adair-Hodges
In Barstow
I was in-between emotions,
the night a tube sock
of doom! Well probably just
boredom! Also that heat!
It was the hinge of my life
maybe, how do I know
until the end what the middle was
and why not that night in Barstow
the butt crack of California
in a Super 8 alone reading a book
of Jing Si Aphorisms found suffocating
the Bible—Even the tiniest bolt
must be screwed on tightly
in order to perform its best
it said and I needed comfort but all
I got was stuck on screwed
which is what I wanted but also how
I felt that summer I did not move
to Portland again, the summer
of almosts, crab grass choking
the hyssop and sage with its homely
greed and who can blame crab grass
for seeing something beautiful
then stepping on its throat.
There are so many tiny murders.
It’s why handjobs were invented
and I am a scientist inventing
new ways to be lonely.
I get bonuses every year.
That year, July was pressing
its mean heat to the door, listening
for a heartbeat inside and I thought
how wonderful to be wanted
through all the meat straight
to the marrow and July said yes
July said whatever it is you are thinking
I am thinking too so I tore off my clothes
to get closer, the book of aphorisms yelling
If we can reduce our desires there is nothing
really worth getting upset about but I don’t like
being told what to do and out of spite
started wanting everything I saw—
popcorn ceilings! Unremovable
hangers! Stains of strangers’ failures!
The room shrugged. The shag carpet
yawned and swallowed my name.
Erin Adair-Hodges
The Last Judgment
I come to you in all seriousness, reverent
as a turtleneck—I am graceless but I am not depraved.
I went to synagogues for a year because I had lost God
and was trying to find Him, following clues
with my comically oversized magnifying glass held up
to my giant eye, lashes collapsing like jaws, grilling congregants
under the naked lightbulb of my longing. I kept just
missing him. He went thataway. Maybe I wanted to be Jewish
to be done with Jesus but not yet break up
with God, as if moving into the guest room but leaving
my clothes in the other closet, that version of myself
a hallway away. I am the ghost of the house I live in—
old me-phantoms surround, fuck around with the furniture,
make all the mirrors tell the truth. One night I have a dream
my husband leaves and the nightmare part is that I’m
relieved and so I finally see who I am. It’s not
that I got used to loneliness, only that it was too late
to learn anything else. The first time a man touched me
it was to lower me into the water and raise me out,
new fish, the sin picked clean. I was saved, as if I could be
spent—saved, I saved myself for God, or if not God
then a man God sent, posing us toward each other
in a desert diorama, His Holy Homework,
but the first two boys I loved are dead, so at night
I give myself to them, unzip the hollows, usher them into
the pitch. The books inside me are blank. I birth the boys
as my son, whom I love and whom I try to forgive.
Our editorial table discusses Kayla Carcone’s “Benediction for: the boy who’d know it was his,” and “Foresight.” We began, of course, by letting listeners know that our new co-op Joseph is a Gemini. Tim Fitts reminded us that he’s just published a new book through Xavier Review, titled Go Home and Cry For Yourselves.
On this week’s episode of Slush Pile, our editorial table discusses Kayla Carcone’s “Benediction for: the boy who’d know it was his,” and “Foresight.” We began, of course, by letting listeners know that our new co-op Joseph is a Gemini. Tim Fitts reminded us that he’s just published a new book through Xavier Review, titled Go Home and Cry For Yourselves. Kathy, having just returned from a trip to Abu Dhabi where she met with Samantha and Marion, talked about time as a meaningless idea as she went to teach classes as soon as she got back. The experience made her think of Artemesian fairy dust watches, made with shattered mirrors and vintage frames.
Kayla Carcone
Kayla Carcone is trying to practice humility. She is also trying to rewatch every episode of Dawson’s Creek with a critical eye and eat less cheese. None of these things are panning out. She often thinks about the complexity/simplicity/overall weirdness of gratitude & how she feels it for every poet & essayist who has managed to keep her writing & alive. Sometimes, she tweets.
We started with Carcone’s “Benediction for: the boy who’d know it was his,” and whether you read in, listen in, or both, you’ll know that this is a loaded, arm-hair kind of poem. We had to read it a second time! This brought Kathy and Marion back to their time in Abu Dhabi, reviewing this poem with a class of Marion’s, and even bringing Kathy to tears.
“Foresight,” was a slow-you-down, snap-inducing poem! Another loaded, dense, and intense work, our talks of tempo got us talking about John Bonham’s aesthetic and style as Led Zepplin’s drummer (naturally).
“The world is full of pixie fairy dust, that’s for sure.” -Marion Wrenn
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Tim Fitts
Marion Wrenn
Samantha Neugebauer
Joseph Kindt
Production Engineers:
Joe Zang
Matt Propp
Kayla Carcone Benediction for: the boy who’d know it was his
Happy birthday to us, from me: this is not a gift
I will remember you every August twenty-first
for every August twenty-first I get to see.
I will remember you every time there is
Providence, every time there is consequence,
every time I am dizzied by a cigarette breeze
blown, a spinning tornado of someone who is not you—
I will hear your tap tap tap knuckle kiss shock
the coffee shop window—watch your metamorphosis
from October boy mystery to November boy slick to
December boy sick every time I choke on
the letters of your name, the letters that string together
November sixteenth: reminders that you were never
here but aren’t gone, hear your tap tap tap knuckle kismet
in my head at night when there are other boys
who like you, won’t remember me, after. But somehow
every time, I will confuse confession for repentance.
I will confuse indifference for misplacement.
I will confuse myself, think I cannot hear you.
I will remember you every time death is a dial tone,
wonder if you made it to twenty or if I’d even find out if you didn’t.
I will blame myself for failing to save
this, the blind sin of unholy devotion,
an Indian summer on Mount Sinai,
every time, there is consequence.
With our names both sewn into the same calendar box,
let there be light for candles and cigarettes—
your smoke, a ghost, something like a Pentecost.
I will remember you every time
I blow out candles, every August twenty-first
for every August twenty-first I get to see, we share,
and I am one trip around the sun behind you, but
I will wonder if you even celebrate your birthday
when all you ever talk about is dying.
Make a wish, I cannot hear you.
Kayla Carcone Foresight
in the morning, when I am still
pulsing in shades of fever dream,
seeing the day burn to color
by cracked kitchen light—
I will wonder what your face
must look like sleeping, staying.
how quickly you would tire of
the sick girl, spinning plates and
spitting crazy across the coffees.
how quickly the jewelry box
sprung open: you watch the ballerina
bleed out from her knees & you learn
you never really knew her, at all.
how quickly you would slip out
of the theater, gripping the untossed
rose stem, spilling red to your elbow.
how it is not the same. how you’d splash
all over the car seat, scream it her fault for
crying at your absence at curtain call,
for tapping at the window, for smoothing
out the rose petals on the drive home—
tell me again how this was not what you
signed up for. slam the box shut, throw
her into the attic and run for the getaway car.
your hands hide their wispy scars well. I was
never here. I will never come back, will brush my teeth
with honey, call out sick & fade—
Tags: Kayla Carcone, slush pile
This week’s episode of Slush Pile sees the editorial table discussing George McDermott’s “Frames Per Second” and Gabrielle Tribou’s “The Loneliness of Mothers.” On this episode, we also say goodbye to Sharee Devose as PBQ’s Co-Op and welcome Joseph Kindt as the next…
This week’s episode of Slush Pile sees the editorial table discussing George McDermott’s “Frames Per Second” and Gabrielle Tribou’s “The Loneliness of Mothers.” On this episode, we also say goodbye to Sharee Devose as PBQ’s Co-Op and welcome Joseph Kindt as the next, but don’t worry–Sharee has an open invitation to join us for any future podcasts we record, so she’ll be around! As lit lovers, our conversation trying to find the right word to describe Joseph’s training experience led to some hammer banter about Game of Thrones character, Gendry, before starting our editorial meeting with George McDermott’s work.
George McDermott has been exploring the Merry-Go-Round Effect. Many years ago, he left high school English teaching to become a speechwriter and screenwriter. Some years later, as a sort of penance, he became a teacher again. Most recently, he’s co-authored a book with a woman who was a student in one of his eleventh-grade English classes. He’s hoping that traveling in circles can add up to progress. See more @ www.gorge-mcdermott.com; www.facebook.com/WhatWentRight and Twitter: @McDwrite
We really enjoyed reading George McDermott’s “Frames Per Second.” Tim Fitts enjoyed it so much, in fact, that he is tempted to steal some of the lines. Then, speaking of plagiarism, Jason mentioned a recent plagiarism scandal involving a former Canadian Poet Laureate taking work from Maya Angelou and Tupac Shakur! Naturally, then, Marion transitioned us to talking about Cinema Paradiso’s25th anniversary, and talks of obsoleted technologies led us to our vote! Listen in to hear the results before we moved on to Gabrielle Tribou’s “The Loneliness of Mothers.”
Gabrielle Tribou
Gabrielle Tribou currently lives in Hue, Vietnam. When she’s not working, she splits her time between the different cafes in her neighborhood, visiting an average of three per day. She’s a fan of vegetables and public green spaces.
“The Loneliness of Mothers” got us into deep discussion about the role of mothers and parenting. After two poems dealing with various family matters, we shared stories about our parents, and Kathleen and Sharee bonded over a friendly parenting tip for all to enjoy: Take your kids to The Home Depot! Tim reminded us not to forget to get some Honeycrisp apples while they’re in season, and Jason shared a list of good reads for you to look into. Tune in to hear all about it.
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Tim Fitts
Sharee DeVose
Jason Schneiderman
Marion Wrenn
Joseph Kindt
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
George McDermott Frames Per Second
Sorting old photos and cans of home movies
she comes across a yellowing shot
of a laughing girl her younger daughter
the one who moved to Arizona
or who knows where ’cause truth be told
they haven’t talked in a very long time
About ten in the picture probably ten
when they sang together every day
before the eyes the defiant shoulders
the silent years when it seemed they met
only on stairways passed only
in doorways and the cameras
were pretty much packed away
She puts the photo back safe in its folder
opens a can and threads the projector
and the reel of film flickers to life
ratcheting through from moment to moment
enough pictures to create the illusion of motion
enough motion to create the illusion of progress
playpens and sandboxes bicycles and then
the interstitial flash of white
just six or eight light-struck frames
dividing what came before
from what will follow
Gabrielle Tribou The Loneliness of Mothers
is louder than any afterschool clamor.
The mother hears it
in early fall. One lane over:
an Escape’s exhaust is bleeding,
mixing into air, thin city air,
hot with end-of-summer heat.
Strum of a stilled, unmoving carpool line.
The mother’s child, in the school,
doors away, will soon be late
for the meet.
The mother hears it
at the dinner table, in waiting rooms
left to wait, left to listen to clock scratching,
stranger to the strangers she created
once, at night, during many nights,
at morning, midday, among angry sheets,
or no sheets, dog brushed from bed,
pawing behind closed door,
the first baby asleep, sleeping,
and later, held to breast,
howling for warmth, that intangible, ungraspable
mother warmth, gone before you know it.
Outside, car doors grunt and close,
children disappearing within.
Along the horizon, meek clouds disperse.
Hold her, in the echoing emptiness
of her darkened house, in the thin-stretched
minutes of carpool lines,
at the sink, between the scrape and rinse of dishes;
Listen to her when she speaks,
to her repeated stories,
those rehearsed and practiced complaints,
and handle gently
the bolted fabric of her days.
This week features three poems by two authors: “Gala Dali Speaks Broken French” and “What Can Happen to Women and Men” by Wendy Cannella and “Nightmare” by Jana-Lee Germaine. Wendy Cannella once fronted a rock band in Boston, back when everyone fronted a rock band in Boston…
This week’s episode of Slush Pile features three poems by two authors: “Gala Dali Speaks Broken French” and “What Can Happen to Women and Men” by Wendy Cannella and “Nightmare” by Jana-Lee Germaine.
Wendy Canella
Wendy Cannella once fronted a rock band in Boston, back when everyone fronted a rock band in Boston. She is an avid supporter of the local arts and leads writing workshops, runs a reading series or two, serves on the board of the Portsmouth Poet Laureate Project, and generally embarrasses her children by volunteering in the classroom on Poem in Your Pocket Day (what, didn’t your mom ever hide poems in your jean jacket?). You can find her work in various places including Fogged Clarity, Houseguest, Mid-American Review, Salamander, and Solstice. She continues to play the same few guitar chords, sing off-key, and speak many languages brokenly.
Jana-Lee Germaine
Jana-Lee Germaine recently moved from Massachusetts to a small village in the English countryside where she lives in the old post office, homeschools her 4 children, and has thoroughly embraced the idea of beans for breakfast.
She is an avid runner and cyclist (will it ever stop raining?) and has recently taken up weightlifting, despite the fact that her mother thinks it will make her look weird. Her favorite holiday is the 4th of July (not celebrated in the UK, for obvious reasons). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Potomac Review and Naugatuck River Review.
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Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Tim Fitts
Marion Wrenn
Sharee DeVose
Jason Schneiderman
Engineering Producer:
Amber Ferreira
Wendy Cannella Gala Dali Speaks Broken French
Of the spinning wheels—trés vite
and straight
from the States of the United
to Montréal City. Of the heavy
traffic—bumper to bumper—and us, look
at us, full to the brim, a clown car
of activists, caravan
of aerialists,
and suddenly I pull my black hat
down lower over my forehead, telling each of you
which lines are yours to sing, wanting it all so badly
to lead into the poem—
turning
up Footloose, snapping back
the door handles
to escape like Smurfs
into the congested highway
—and this takes us
nowhere, egotism of drawing
attention, egotism of dwelling on
those swaying hips—between stopped cars—
but this is it, this is where
we dance the good
little dancing, I mean some
excellent shaking—will you make it
meaningful in the end? Will you
make out with me? For the moment will you hold
the wheel—I’m taking my sweater
off and the stars
seem so agitated up there
trembling in their deep space
and that is just the sort of dramatic
gesture we’ve come to expect
from the stars and one after another our
sweaters are cast off. The traffic starting
to move again, the drivers left
with the unsettling ache of knowing
they have teeth inside
their tender mouths—strangeness
of the body, and of living—through them the breath
of words. I think. Je pense. I believe.
Je crois. I feel. Je sens. The neck
and the shoulders. Le visage. I never thought
I had power to hurt
anybody. I can barely make sense.
But why else would I coerce the entire universe
into bowing before my imagination,
bestowing a corny nickname
on each of us. You’re Mama and I’m
La Bamba—let’s cover
the world with our America, yeah let’s take it
with us to the Jazz Festival—where all of us—my Papa, my Painter,
my Smurfette—my friends all of us my friends made wreaths
of our foolishness
and I made a nice wreath
I wear it around my face
all night, the prayer for you
to touch me.
Symphatique, symphatique.
This is nice. It feels good.
You want to hear something else, something sophisticated
in French but I’m far
too young to know what it is you want. I know only one phrase.
It tells us when the music moves
you will hold my hand and eat
from my hand—it tells me the whole bright blue
night is a crown. So here is my
stupid, unstoppable tongue.
If you misunderstand,
you misunderstand.
Wendy Cannella What Can Happen to Women and Men
Honey honey the call is for war
And it’s wild wild wild wild
—Patti Smith “Ask the Angels”
I never met an angel
I didn’t like.
The one who knits hats
for newborns,
the one humming delusions
to the broken world,
forlorn angels
pacing the room,
pulling out
their own wings,
feather
by feather,
stone angels
crumbling beneath
the pure
arch of love,
even the worst angel
there ever was,
I liked him especially,
with his motorcycle
and stolen jewelry,
his murderous thugs.
I rode with him
down the fiery path,
never asking
for more
than the opposite
of what we had,
the good reasons,
and the master plan—
which he failed
to fully envision.
Once, he gave me
Patti Smith
and Lou Reed
as examples
of what can happen
to women and men
who believe deeply
in upheaval—
transcendence,
a new form.
He made me think
I even liked
the idea of betrayal,
and for awhile
I sang
those kind of songs.
Jana-Lee Germaine Nightmare
My son wakes to creaks and thumps
like boots on his bedroom floor.
They are here for him, they’ve found his room,
the demon with the hedge clippers
who stands against the wall,
or the man with the muddy shovel
waiting to tangle him in sheets
and bury him, still breathing, out in the yard.
Night moves around his room, grinning.
What he fears is pain he cannot handle –
us, dead in the other room –
and hands, not those attached to wrists,
but the kind that fingercreep along the floor.
He kicks the covers back,
brushes past the thumbs,
the clippers, the raised shovel,
he’s down the hall to our bedroom,
where we are still alive. When he says,
crawling between us,
I needed to know you were OK,
I kiss his head,
and the dark sits like a stone on my tongue.
What can I say to him tonight?
These things are real,
but not here. My own dreamer sits
sniggering on my shoulders,
elbows digging into my skull.
This week, the editors review three poems by Nick Lantz: “An Urn for Ashes,” “Starvation Ranch,” and “Ghost as Naked Man.” As a child, Nick Lantz was obsessed with paranormal phenomenon and the unexplained, from cryptids to aliens to ghosts…
For the first and possibly only time, we were in a recording studio within Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business, which made us feel like we were on an episode of The View. This week, the editors review three poems by Nick Lantz: “An Urn for Ashes,” “Starvation Ranch,” and “Ghost as Naked Man.”
Nick Lantz
As a child, Nick Lantz was obsessed with paranormal phenomenon and the unexplained, from cryptids to aliens to ghosts. These days, he tells people he’s writing a book of poems about ghosts, though that’s only sort of true. His fourth book, You, Beast, won the Brittingham Prize and was published by University of Wisconsin Press in 2017. He was also the recipient of a 2017 NEA fellowship for his poetry. He lives in Huntsville, Texas, where he teaches at Sam Houston State University and edits the Texas Review.
“An Urn for Ashes” gets us started off on our a conversation on past lives and reincarnation. Lantz’s impressive use of language and imagery draws up ideas of present beings possessing remnants of those far in the past. Moving on to “Starvation Ranch,” the editors reflect on what memory and recollection look like in the modern era. The poem layers alluring images that are beautifully constructed and give us a front seat in recounting many summers past. The final poem, “Ghost as Naked Man” offers a reimagined commentary on gender as a social construct. Seemingly in conversation with other works on the topic, the poem conveys frustration and destruction, then pride, as expressions of manhood. It also brings to mind Ada Limón’s “After the Storm,” published in Issue 66 of Painted Bride Quarterly. Listen in for our takes on these poems and the verdicts!
Let us know what what you think about this episode, ghosts, red paint, and more on Facebook and Twitter using #WeAreStardust!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Tim Fitts
Sharee DeVose
Jason Schneiderman
Marion Wrenn
Samantha Neugebauer
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
An Urn for Ashes The atoms that made up Julius Caesar’s body, burned on a pyre, spread by wind and time, have since dispersed far and wide, and statistically speaking you have in you some infinitesimal bit of carbon or hydrogen from his hand or tongue, or maybe some piece of the foot that, crossing a river, turned a republic into an empire. But that means you carry with you also the unnamed dead, the serfs and farmers, foot soldiers and clerks, and their sandals and the axles of chariots and incense burned at an altar and garbage smoking in a pit outside a great city at the center of an empire, that you are a vessel carrying the ashes of many empires and the ashes of people burned away by empires, their sweet, unheard melodies. And look how finely wrought you are, how precise your features, your very form a kind of ceremony for transporting the dead through the living world.
Starvation Ranch Frank Hite, my mother’s father’s mother’s father, named his farm Starvation Ranch, and one July, I balanced high on a ladder to repaint those white letters on the same red barn where they’ve been for a hundred years.
But that summer is a sketch, a note written in the margin of a book I gave away. I shot rabbits and learned to drive and listened to the same Lou Reed tape on loop in the upper bedroom of my family’s farmhouse.
In a closet I found my grandmother’s high school yearbook in which she had crossed out the name of each classmate who had died.
I learned there are three kinds of garbage— the kind that goes in the compost heap to feed the garden that grows the peppers and the corn, the kind that goes in the ditch to feed the coyotes who howl at night, the kind that goes in an old oil drum to burn I learned to love the indentation my grandmother’s pencil left in the paper over a name, like the tally marks I carved into a tree for each rabbit I shot.
I learned that a stone arrowhead, taken from a newly plowed field that has held it for hundreds of years is still sharp enough to cut my palm.
I learned to love the hiss of silence on the tape after a song ended, the sound of time like the susurrus of insects at dusk, like a broom whisking clean the floor of some upper room.
I learned how to walk the perimeter of the house and feel in the grass the edges of the old foundation, a version of house that burned, that disappeared, that was rewritten, and I learned how to walk farther out into the pastures, to spot the earthen mounds left behind by people who remain only in names of rivers and country roads.
That was one summer. Decades later, I learned that the barn I painted was not even the original, which had been replaced, board by beam, years before.
And I learned that barns are red because red paint is cheap because iron is abundant because dying stars sighed iron atoms into space and those atoms gathered here on earth, became the earth, became blood and arrowheads and steel girders holding up towers and the red paint of barns.
Ghost as Naked Man “Gender is a kind of imitation of which there is no original.”—Judith Butler
Take away his beard, his hairy flanks. Lick your thumb and smear off his Adam’s apple. Lift away his penis like a live bomb, and bury it under a mountain. Hide the testicles behind a broad leaf.
But look, he still goes around town pointing at things he wants and moaning, rattling his imaginary chains. Every time he sees his reflection in a shop window, he cuts a thumb and with the blood paints over gaps in his shimmering reflection. Then he takes a brick and breaks the glass. There, he says, look what I made.
On this week’s episode of Slush Pile, the editors consider three poems by John Blair: “Degrees,”“Pink Noise,” and “The Giving Tree.” John Blair has published six books (most recently Playful Song Called Beautiful, University of Iowa Press, 2016) and several articles on the dangers of oak wilt in the Texas hill country. He is a professor…
On this week’s episode of Slush Pile, the editors consider three poems by John Blair: “Degrees,”“Pink Noise,” and “The Giving Tree.” John Blair
John Blair has published six books (most recently Playful Song Called Beautiful, University of Iowa Press, 2016) and several articles on the dangers of oak wilt in the Texas hill country. He is a professor in the English Department at Texas State University, where he directs the undergraduate creative writing program.
With three unique poems by John Blair, we find ourselves in a surprising discussion and rather spirited debate on widely varying topics. While at times syntax and structure left us feeling like we were on a slippery slope with “Degrees,” at others, we were simply impressed with the intellect that a poem could convey. (You can find the episode of Invisibilia, the source of Jason’s and Kathy’s heated debate over perception, here.) The same goes for Blair’s “Pink Noise,” what we read as an accurate portrayal of the frustrating wakefulness of insomnia and the distractions one might face in the pursuit of a peacefulsleep. (Once again, Kathy tells us how much she loves sleeping with Scooter from the Sleep With Me Podcast.) And, perhaps the most different of all, “The Giving Tree” sparked a debate on classic versus contemporary and the platform for paying homage to the former.
Tune in for the conversation and the verdicts. And don’t forget to let us what you think about this episode on Facebook and Twitter using #70Percent!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Tim Fitts
Marion Wrenn
Sharee DeVose
Jason Schneiderman
Engineering Producer:
Amber Ferreira
Degrees They say there are just six
between any two of
anyone for as far
as random can reach which
of course is everywhere
sincere to centigrade
dolor to doctorate
ad to infinitum.
So much of how much is
who’s looking. Here’s a small
slice of lightness to lift
a wave to touch every
other wave wherever
there is water to well
and cool and slide into
green depths where the sunlight
fades in such slow degrees
you have to close your eyes
to even know it’s gone.
Pink Noise Is just white noise with all
the higher frequencies
polished down like mountains
worn to humble or close
enough to count sheer as
wine-stains purpling the skin
of your sleepless going
on—it’s supposed to be
soothing so you listen
like you were good-boy told
to do in the small wees
of waiting for your mind
to go on without you
into dreaming but those
little bumps are voices
and they are breathless with
glee and the best you can
do is listen and try
not to argue about
your better self your good
intentions all the ways
you’ve managed so many
years to sleep easily
and well among the pale
beasts of worry who watch
and wait neither blood nor
snow but a mist of in-
between with teeth ground down
to spindles to gnaw your
nervy edges into
stubborn wakefulness like
a tree you’ve climbed to watch
the other kids play blind
to what’s coming what’s been
what might in some other
when matter and no one
notices your presence
or your lucid absence
or the pastel grumbling
of wind in the treetops
or the boughs beginning
like morning light to break.
The Giving Tree Doesn’t care for your gifts
or your attitude frankly
and wonders why you beg
and grovel boy when all
she wants is to be left
the hell alone because
there are no apples here
only thorns and her wood
is her own and she’s just
fine exactly where she
is and the woods are no
place for the faithless likes
of you anyway which
is why they had to put
up that gate to keep you
out and set a bouncer
with a burning ever-turning
sword to tell you you’re not
welcome in your fig leaves
and weeping wounds. She’s here
for a reason but that
reason isn’t you and
the junk hidden in her
trunk is just squirrels’ nests
and fairy bones and those
birds who loiter love her
in ways you never do
so trust her when she tells
you she has no need for
a needy boy like you.
We review two poems by Alana Folsom: “Anatomy of a Dream” and “Mirroring” and one poem by Sarah Stickney: “Guest.” Alana Folsom would genuinely like to thank The OC for giving her pre-teen self her first taste of poetry a la Death Cab for Cutie (which she will insist is poetry with anyone who wants to argue)…
This week from the slush pile, we review two poems by Alana Folsom: “Anatomy of a Dream” and “Mirroring” and one poem by Sarah Stickney: “Guest.”
Alana Folsom
Alana Folsom would genuinely like to thank The OC for giving her pre-teen self her first taste of poetry a la Death Cab for Cutie (which she will insist is poetry with anyone who wants to argue). If it wasn’t for Seth Cohen, she might be trying to hack it as an accountant. She is currently living in either Boston or rural Oregon, depending on when this podcast is published, and plans to name her next cat “Birthday.”
We start off this this week’s episode with reviewing Alana Folsom’s poem, “Anatomy of a Dream,” leading into a discussion of very uncommon imagery coupled with a dream-like structure and surreal ideas. To simply sum it up in Tim’s words: “There’s a lot of nipples in this poem!” But that’s partly what causes it to be unexpected and super fun to read.
Folsom’s “Mirroring” follows with a lovely premise of ancestry embodied, as it follows the sexual exploration of a girl while treasuring the connection she has to her father. Also really fun for us to discuss, this poem is both brilliant and truly organic. Many thanks to Issa Rae, creator and co-star of Insecure, for giving us the tools we needed to discuss this poem!
Sarah Stickney
Next up is Sarah Stickney, who describes herself as a snail; she does everything you do slower than you. She grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and spends a lot of time thinking about what the sky looks like. She likes fire, foreign languages, and food-shopping, but she agrees with Pindar that water is best.
We move on to review “Guest” by Sarah Stickney, yet another brilliant poem that makes us think (some of us affectionately, others not too much) about the sentimentality of friendship. While channeling the very human experience of love and passion between friends, “Guest” gorgeously gives us much to feel, leaving us to reflect on our own experiences with love so strong that it might even be embarrassing to feel.
What do you think about this episode? Share your thoughts on nipples, romance, and insecurity with us on Facebook and Twitter using #smashing!
Happy reading!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Tim Fitts
Marion Wrenn
Sharee DeVose
Jason Schneiderman
Engineering Producer:
Amber Ferreira
Alana Folsom Anatomy of a Dream
After I send you the picture of my naked body
I dream my nipples are bird beaks
They remain shut small pointed things
then they grow like lying noses
grow like hardening dicks In flight
hummingbirds look like matches
at the base of their long bill a throaty blaze
In flight hummingbirds sound like matches perpetually lighting
Perhaps my nipples are matches
Pink & flaming & waiting to spark
perhaps my nipples are hungry winging matches
Alana Folsom Mirroring
I study myself and find him in the ridge of my nose
in the rungs of my ribcage. Boys who will never meet him
cup and bless my body tug my damp underwear
past the knots
of my knees; they don’t see
him, they don’t see anything else besides me.
And I am sorry for all this sex
so close to my father.
But he is within me
even as he withers away.
Same flat feet, same bone shapes.
As any good daughter would,
I hug my father
goodbye at his red front door, try to mean I love you and not
Don’t die before I learn what love is for.
Sarah Stickney Guest
Staying with friends I felt embarrassed by my love
for them, as if it were a wound that might bleed
onto their pale, hand-knotted carpets. Back home
I filled my kitchen with the first daffodils
that had been lured by the sky’s fetish-blue
into blooming, then nearly ruined by the late snow
that pressed into the windows as if asking
to be let inside. I need the sound of fire
as much as I need its warmth. I know
the loneliness of being among others, a scent
like a waltz at low volume. I suspect
only egomaniacs like this much solitude,
but like me fire never says enough.
Fire my good dog, my work-shirt. Everything living
holds heat, even the long, cool leaves of plants,
their gestures as subtle as hungry guests moving
tentatively in a kitchen. Wind blew in a poem,
and then outside all day as if it were starving flame.
Who knows how the wind feels about its job
of touching everything, how it lives
this omnivorous love and whether it speaks
a word to everything it touches.
Our latest episode of Slush Pile features four poems by Marcia LeBeau titled “Instead of Cornering Jericho Brown by the Wine and Cheese, After His Talk on Racism, I Whisper to Him in My Head,”“Ode to Flossing,” “Letter to Myself at Eighty,” and “After You Tell Me You and Your Wife Have ‘an Agreement.’”
Our latest episode of Slush Pile features four poems by Marcia LeBeau titled “Instead of Cornering Jericho Brown by the Wine and Cheese, After His Talk on Racism, I Whisper to Him in My Head,”“Ode to Flossing,” “Letter to Myself at Eighty,” and “After You Tell Me You and Your Wife Have ‘an Agreement.’”
Marcia LeBeau
Almost 20 years ago, Marcia LeBeau started writing poetry by mistake. She was writing radio ads for Courvoisier Cognac that her creative director called “spoken word.” Who knew? She later wrote “ad poems” for Kahlua, and they chose her to be the voice over. Later, she received an MFA at Vermont College of Fine Arts (when it was called Vermont College) where she learned a lot and made some of the best friends of her life. LeBeau and her husband recently co-founded a studio/art gallery in Orange, New Jersey, called The Rectangle. She has Twitter and Instagram accounts that she never uses (people tell her this has to change), but you can find out more about her on Facebook and her website. LeBeau currently lives in South Orange, New Jersey, with her husband and 5- and 7-year-old sons, where she tries to find time to write poetry.
In discussing LeBeau’s four poems, we find each one unique in style, tone and topic. Their content ranges from a conversation on race and racism to self-affirmation in old age, from an extreme love for flossing to the contemplation of an extramarital affair. The poems are at times serious and bold, funny and wild, gorgeous, elegant, and meaningful. And one thing they all have in common – beautifully crafted imagery and language make them an absolute delight to read and review! Find out which poems had us torn in our decisions and which got unanimous yes’s!
We close out the episode with encouragement from Tim to support our favorite authors and literary publications, especially those threatened by budget cuts to the National Education Association (NEA). It’s important to do what we can to keep authors, publications, and local libraries afloat. Once or twice a year, go buy that new book you’ve been checking out, or even gift them to friends!
Let us know what you think about this episode on Facebook and Twitter with #AgainAgain!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Tim Fitts
Sharee DeVose
Marion Wrenn
Jason Schneiderman
Engineering Producer:
Ryan McDonald
Instead of Cornering Jericho Brown by the Wine and Cheese, After His Talk on Racism, I Whisper to Him in My Head
I tell him:
When my teenage godson cries, there is no sound, just tears sliding down his black cheeks from an invisible faucet while he stares at me, unblinking.
Sometimes when his face is wet and he wipes it with the neck of his bright white t-shirt, I think of how my sons’ t-shirts have never been that white.
At school drop-off, I can’t tell if the black caretaker of a black kid is a nanny or a mom. I always know whether the white caretaker of a white kid is a nanny or a mom.
When my godson’s mother died, we found it buried in a police blotter: “Black female between ages 20-30, found by joggers at Attorney and Houston in East River.”
After years of my brother dating black women, I want him to date someone white. I feel like he is rejecting me, my mom, himself.
The little black girl asks what color my eyes are. “Blue,” I tell her. When she laughs and screams, “Weird!” her mother slaps her across the face.
Jericho looks at me, leans in and whispers:
Slavery was a bad idea.
Ode to Flossing
If there were an award for flossing, I would work toward it. Pull the string from its dainty plastic box every chance I got just to hear its zoop, zoop, snap beneath the silver tooth that razors it useful. I’d work it through my oral crevices until I tasted salt and my spit ran red, reminiscing about how they sewed my best friend’s wedding dress with white floss when her breasts became engorged enough on the big day to bust the strap. I’d wonder why it always lands on the edge of our silver trash can, dangling like a suicide mission. The owner too tired to notice, the next observer too disgusted.
Oh, thin nylon filament of my evening!
Fifty meters of rolled-up joy!
Don’t ever try to tempt me with a floss wand. I’d prefer the magic of cutting off my finger’s circulation with twisted plastic ribbon, thank you. In fact, I’d make floss brownies and eat them until the cops showed up and asked me to come-with-them and why-don’t-nice-girls- like-you-eat-apples.
That’s what I’d do for the flossing award, so just back off, Dr. Smiley. I don’t want your six-month postcard, your fake birthday wishes and your sad bag of toothpaste, toothbrush and dare I say it, floss. If you don’t believe, after all our years together, that I do my best for my incisors, canines, bicuspids, and molars, let me spit in your bowl no more.
Letter to Myself at Eighty
I hope you know you’re still lovely, with a tongue that can knot a maraschino cherry stem, then turn the world straight. Your wrinkled branches remain for you to dance in the wind. Remember, on your most ragdoll-of-days, you are holy.
But why am I telling you this? Surely you know more now than I do. And you would tell me with your gold fusion sarcasm—take it easy, girl. Slow down. Enjoy the ride, because it’s all a midafternoon spin with the top down, the sun spraying you with dynamite.
Remember that day in summer, when your oldest boy was less than one. The way you lay in the crabgrass, legs and arms skyward with him resting on your hands and feet, flying while you hated what your life had become. But you laughed and laughed with that creature, both finding your way in the kingdom. That is how it works. Sucking life into your bones. What the hummingbirds always knew.
After You Tell Me You and Your Wife Have ‘an Agreement’
I want to talk about everything except your agreement, here in my car where you’re taking up too much space. I want to look at your knees knocking my glove box as the branches of the Norwegian Maple vein the moon roof and think about what could have been if you had just kept your lips shut. I’ll make an agreement with you—
Open the door, walk into your house and go lay on your Pottery Barn bed beside your wife. Commune with her hips and lips and toes and moan into the darkness. Be the kind of man who doesn’t have an agreement, so that I wish you did.
We discuss two poems by two authors: “elegy” by Jessica Hudgins and “Daddy Box II” by Rebecca Baggett. Jessica Hudgins is a poet and teacher who has just moved to Ednor Gardens from Charles Village, is working with her roommate on their backyard, and thinking about adopting a dog…
On this week’s episode, we discuss two poems by two authors: “elegy” by Jessica Hudgins and “Daddy Box II” by Rebecca Baggett.
Jessica Hudgins (photo taken from Tinder profile)
Jessica Hudgins is a poet and teacher who has just moved to Ednor Gardens from Charles Village, is working with her roommate on their backyard, and thinking about adopting a dog.
First, we discuss Jessica Hudgins’ “elegy,” an accurate grasp on the complexities of family relationships in which the speaker conjures childhood memories of her father and aunt. The poem depicts moments reflected on in gratitude, and recognizes the love and care in the lessons they taught her throughout her life. Despite how those lessons were initially received as a child, it is clear to us that the speaker expresses appreciation for both figures who helped mold her in very different ways. Hudgins offers a thoughtful comparison between the specific, mundane moments in life and the philosophical questions surrounding a child’s experiences, as well as what they all come to mean later on.
Rebecca Baggett
Rebecca Baggett attributes her life-long loathing of “real” shoes to her childhood at the beach and spends a great deal of time searching for flipflops with good arch support. She lives now in Athens, GA, where she can often find decent watermelons, though none of them are as good as the ones her daddy grew. She still loves to swim under the stars.
In “Daddy Box II” by Rebecca Baggett, we witness the brilliant redemption of the list-style poem! This piece is one that “incantates” with imagery and teaches you how to read it along the way. Going from a list to a narrative, it captured us with a broad portrayal of fatherhood and family life then left us to reflect on one lovely, very specific image of a cherished moment in a childhood.
With just us three Wonder Women at the table for this episode, we close out by talking a bit about the superhero film that recently made box office history!
Share your thoughts about daddies, Wonder Woman, and this episode on Facebook and Twitter with #WonderWomen!
Read on!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Sharee DeVose
Marion Wrenn
Engineering Producer:
Joe Zang
Jessica Hudgins elegy
when my mom and dad were doing the young-married-person thing
my aunt was always single so she babysat
she gave me cheerios
and I ate while she had her breakfast cigarette
and afterward we took walks
and I pointed out all the volunteers
which is what
my dad told me
you call a plant you haven’t planted
that by its own reseeding
appears where it is not needed
and I told her to wash her hair with cold water
another thing she knew
I had learned from my dad
she asked me
what’s so great about your dad you only learn from him
and since then I’ve been thinking
it’s not about greatness as much
as it’s about what sticks
like,
jessie I heard on the radio that sucking it in isn’t healthy you have to fill your belly to breathe well
and other things that are beside the point
which is that my aunt is not old but she’s not well
she didn’t teach me any words about plants
or about how the body should be treated
but she questioned me
as anyone should be questioned
who is like the soil
and takes every small thing that’s offered
Rebecca Baggett Daddy Box II
The locked box contains
a pack of L&M cigarettes,
a gray steel lighter,
a frayed deck of cards,
a brown beer bottle
with a peeling label.
Twist of black pepper,
bottle of BBQ sauce,
cup of dark coffee,
handful of watermelon seed.
A faded green cap,
a black metal lunchbox,
a scattering of wrenches and screws.
Pork rinds in an unopened
cellophane bag, the key
to an old truck, the truck itself,
mud-flecked on the fenders,
the tailgate dropped, loaded
with lumber for the playhouse
he’ll frame in a weekend
with his brother Bill for help,
Uncle Bill, with his crooked
grin, his thin frame leaning
into the wood, the skeleton
playhouse that will stand
unfinished for months, then
gradually fill with lumber ends,
old tires, half-used cans of paint,
the truck in which he will bring home
the two piglets you name
Wonder Woman and Super Girl,
piglets that grow into sows
fenced at the back of the lot
across the alley, sows you watch
while Daddy tosses buckets of scraps
across the fence, the fence where
you perch on a hot August afternoon,
eating watermelons split against
the truck fender, sweet, sticky rivers
of juice pouring down your arms and chin,
and you eat every bite, down to the pink
against the rind, then pitch the rinds
to the snorting pigs, who crunch and mutter
as they feast.
The whole of that summer
is in the box, including the night
you all swam in the little above ground pool
in the backyard, you, your sisters,
your father and mother, the night
he let you pile one after the other
on his back, then rose and fell across
the surface like a dolphin diving over
the ocean’s curve, while your mother
laughed in the darkness and you could
see only the outlines of their faces,
but you knew everyone was smiling.
There is that night, far at the bottom
of the box, the night you could imagine
what a happy family was like.
This week at the editorial table, we discuss three poems by Matthew Kelsey, “Confessions of a Giant,” “Giant Gets Adopted,” and “Giant Loses His Virginity.” Matthew Kelsey, at 6’7”, is something of a giant and, as can be gleaned from his poems, is also his own uncle…
This week at the editorial table, we discuss three poems by Matthew Kelsey, “Confessions of a Giant,” “Giant Gets Adopted,” and “Giant Loses His Virginity.”
Matthew Kelsey
Matthew Kelsey, at 6’7”, is something of a giant and, as can be gleaned from his poems, is also his own uncle. Kelsey has played the cello since he was 8 years old and is in his hometown’s Athletic Hall of Fame. Some of his writings and recordings can be found in Bread Loaf, Pacifica Literary Review, Poetry Northwest, The Monarch Review, The Awesome Sports Project. A huge fan of puns, Kelsey has given lectures on humor and wordplay in poetry and dreams of some day founding an interactive children’s poetry museum.
Kelsey’s giant series is a well-constructed compilation of tall jokes, spot-on language, and imagery that make these poems come to life. Each evokes feelings of sympathy and compassion, leading us into discussion of the brilliant tension between humor and pain. The speaker reflects on growing up, facing complicated, struggling to understand himself, and the dread and thrill of a romantic relationship. We find this giant’s monologue to be surreal, funny, sad, and refreshing all at the same time. Oh, and some of us demand a book-length collection from this giant!
Tune in for the verdict! And let us know what you think about this episode on Facebook and Twitter with #GiraffePorn!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Tim Fitts
Jason Schneiderman
Samantha Neugebauer
Sharee DeVose
Engineering Producer:
Joe Zang
Matthew Kelsey Confessions of a Giant
For years I’ve been told to hold myself up, to stand as tall as I am, but the world I’ve come to know rarely seems fitting. I have to take a knee when I piss, duck when I step in the shower. I swear I’ve tried to adjust, but my limbs cross their signals the farther they are from my brain. My legs jerk catastrophically. Even my love is a violence above you all. In order to see eye-to-eye, I must fold on command—look at that hunch in my shoulders from all the talks we’ve shared. When they say I must play basketball, they mean they like to race horses. But there’s distance even in humor: when 4’10” Alison Dow stood near teenage me and bet she couldn’t lick my nipples from there, we never spoke again. I never speak of the weather up here because you don’t have the language for it, and my own alphabet is beginning to wear me down.
Giant Gets Adopted
The morning I was adopted, I arrived late to school. It was quarter to noon, I was dressed to the nines, I was my own show-and-tell. “What does it mean, you’re abducted?” Daniel asked. “Adopted, not abducted,” I said. “And I’m not really sure.” I had already lived with my adopted parents for years. “Do you have new siblings?” Emily asked. “Sort of,” I said. “I was adopted by my grandparents, so now I’m my own uncle.” “What?!” some exclaimed. “Gross!” cried others. Everyone looked so confused. I wasn’t sure what to say next, so I thought of what my grandma would say and continued, ” It means my dad keeps the child support he owed, and a co-sign fee for a bill. Also, he’s not allowed to visit anymore, which is good, because I’m too big to hide under my bed.” “Wait,” said Nicole, “You mean you were sold?!” At this point, Mrs. Charles frowned, said time was up for show-and-tell. The students returned to their cursive in silence. I asked if I could go to the bathroom. Later that night, I entered Grandma’s room while she was reading and sat at her feet. “Nothing actually changed today, did it?” I inquired. “Oh, honey. Yes, and you’ll grow to understand how.”
Giant Loses His Virginity
I was trying to be romantic. My parents had left the house for the night, so I set a table in the yard. I decked it with flowers, a thank you card, a small branch from my favorite tree, and not just one red cinnamon Yankee candle but three. I stopped just short of fetching flutes for champagne. I was trying to be a gentleman, but wasn’t about to take any chances, so I cooked a five course meal and whipped up two desserts. This was barely enough for me, but tonight was only about my love. Once we put a dent in the food, the time had come. We went to my room. Not having had access to porn, let alone giant porn, and being that I was just too large for the world of birds and bees, I had turned to giraffes for sex ed, for cues on how to begin. “Here,” I said, “please urinate on my bed.” Then I bent down especially low to avoid a heart attack, and brayed, and peeled back my lips. No sooner had my mind begun to wander to the Vegas strip destroyed by 50 Foot Woman Allison Hayes, than it was over. We looked up at glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling. I was trying to be sensitive, so I sweetly whispered nothing into her ear.
This week’s episode features three poems by two authors: “As Snow” by Pam Matz and “Solu-Medrol” and “Words” by Michael Levan. Pam Matz reads poems to get some real news and writes poems to find out what she means. The previous sentence is almost true….
This week’s episode features three poems by two authors: “As Snow” by Pam Matz and “Solu-Medrol” and “Words” by Michael Levan.
Pam Matz
Pam Matz reads poems to get some real news and writes poems to find out what she means. The previous sentence is almost true. She’s spent most of her working life moving words around, as a typist, editor, librarian, and writer. She has a pet rabbit, who is bossy and silent.
We started off our conversation with “As Snow,” a poem about death, dying, and possibly dementia. A poignant account of what we read as an instance of mother-daughter interaction, Matz brought into discussion the impact of death on the survivor and how losing someone close can make us hyper-aware of our own mortality. Images and ideas of snow, cliffs, and death are well-woven elements in this piece and part of what left us anxious to give our votes.
Michael Levan
Michael Levan, unlike previous Slush Pile-r Frank Scozzari, didn’t finish the John Muir Trail because 30 miles into the trek with his future wife, he sprained his MCL. He’s a diehard Clevelander who couldn’t bear going to school the day after Earnest Byner’s fumble versus the Denver Broncos in 1988, which is why he made sure to attend the first major Cleveland sports championship celebration last summer along with 1.3 million other fans. This past Easter night, he and his wife welcomed their third child, Odette, who along with Atticus and Dahlia, have made their world complete, no matter how difficult the pregnancies were.
We move on to discuss the work of Michael Levan, “Solu Medrol” and “Words,” which also affects reflection on life, death, and dealing with illness. Levan’s structural choices for his writing lead us to ask what certain decisions might do – or undo – for the effect of our words. Can form distract from the intent? Can interruptions in pace lead the reader astray? Either way, Levan has a way of sustaining the sentimentality in his writing and making the speaker’s thoughts clear.
Tune in for the results! Let us know what you think about this episode, these poems, and virgules in poetry on Twitter and Facebook with #ScallopsAndVirgules!
Present at the Editorial Table
Kathleen Volk Miller
Tim Fitts
Sharee DeVose
Marion Wrenn
Jason Schneiderman
Engineering Producer:
Joe Zang
Pam Matz As Snow
for P.M., 1920-2007
Until the end, which was sudden
you were dying a long time
and because I’d been casting my mind
toward yours for years
I was afraid I would go with you
slide over the cliff
being tied to you
I haven’t yet arranged for the plaque
next to the pathway under the birches
I think you would say
you will when you’re ready
trying to avoid any sting
of worry or impatience
since you died, I forgive others
keep the anger banked
*
whenever I came to the nursing home
at noon, I saw the man
who proposed marriage to his friend
after her diagnosis
he’d be rubbing ointment on her lips
feeding her lunch
her face straining open-mouthed
his pants ragged at the cuff
he’d be telling her the story that always began
you were a little girl in East Texas
you’d know—what’s the Yiddish word
for someone like him?
*
I could tell you about
the rough wall you built
the stones you gathered
one by one
stopping at roadsides
for a shape, a color
basket-of-gold and lobelia
trailing from crevices
years ago
I couldn’t tell you
whether you and your last man
a kind man
ever slept in the same bed
*
snow falling again
in its own time
snow falling from the branches
that had held it
Michael Levan Solu-Medrol
The man can only find words / to help his wife; he is unaccomplished / in so many ways that are useful to the world. / And sometimes he can’t even do that, but here,maybe, are these words / that stand for his hopes for her, for them, for the boy, / and the boy’s sibling who may come still. Here are these flowers / that stand for the medicine meant to renew her / appetite, to keep her from sickness’s wither. He can’t stand it, / but of course he does. Everything must have meaning, / each thing must stand for something if only / he’d take the time to see it all answered.
He says to the delivery man, / Thank you for the beautiful vials you’ve brought her; she’ll take / a few dozen more, however many gets her to see / the end of all this, which is the only time to make it mean. /He is willing to go down on his knees / before who might have insights and answers,who might / take what’s burning the man inside and quench it. / This is the woman he loves. This is the way / he knows to love her.
Michael Levan Words
As the man falls into sleep, he thinks of all the words / he was told to never use in his writing. Words too big or too abstract / to mean anything specific to the reader, words with baggage, words / that have become cliché. He remembers a professor arguing for the impossibility of soul / to appear in a poem, except for that Zagajewski one /(and maybe a half-dozen others, off the top of his head). / The man believes he understands the reasoning, / though he doesn’t know how much he believes it. / He thinks of how his days with her are broken / into pain and sadness and anger and, yet,/ love too, love most, love in spite and because of this sickness. / How it drives everything he does for her, / and how it hurts him when his effort fails her, / how it’s the last word on his mind before sleep comes, / and the first he must struggle to find when he wakes again / and again for her all through the night.
Due to a miscommunication, we discussed Matthew Perini’s short story, “Martha’s Rule,” without knowing that it had been published by Summerset Review. We had such a great time discussing this piece, and we think the conversation still has value. With the permission of the author and the Review, we share…
Due to a miscommunication, we discussed Matthew Perini’s short story, “Martha’s Rule,” without knowing that it had been published by Summerset Review. We had such a great time discussing this piece, and we think the conversation still has value. With the permission of the author and the Review, we share that conversation with you on this episode.
Matthew Perini
Matthew Perini is thrilled to have his story, “Martha’s Rule” featured in PBQ‘s Slush Pile. Perini feels guilty that he writes slowly, but is confident that given a grant of several million dollars and a retreat along the rocky coast of Southern Maine, he might be able to increase his literary output. The five things Perini loves most in this world are farmer’s markets, Raymond Carver stories, Lorrie Moore stories, John Cheever stories, and going to friends’ houses and drinking all their wine. In his “responsible adult life,” he conducts research, develops instructional strategies, and publishes resources for educators. Perini lives in New Jersey with his wife Kristen, daughters Ella and Alison, 2 dogs, 1 cat, and the overwhelming sense that technology is going to get us all.
You can read more of Perini’s stories in Crack the Spine Literary Magazine and The Tower Journal.
“Martha’s Rule” tells the story of an incredibly strained mother-son relationship that leads to questions about morality, good and bad parenting, and the challenges of early adulthood. Everyone at the editorial table agrees that Perini uses a voice that sustains the entire story and engages the reader all the way through with visceral detail and a depiction that rings true. We also take some time to discuss the significance of time and place in the telling of fiction – whether or not the lack thereof can create a void that needs unvoiding; you can help us decide.
Enjoy, and let us know what you think about this week’s episode on our Facebook event page and on Twitter with #HoldTheKetchup!
Happy reading!
Present at the Editorial Table
Kathleen Volk Miller
Tim Fitts
Sharee DeVose
Jason Schneiderman
Engineering Producer
Joseph Zang
This week, we’re back at the table discussing a fiction piece by Frank Scozzari, titled “In the Valley of the Dry Bones.” Scozzari hobo’ed his way across America at age eighteen, twice trekked the John Muir Trail, backpacked through Europe, camel-backed the ruins of Giza…
This week, we’re back at the table discussing a fiction piece by Frank Scozzari, titled “In the Valley of the Dry Bones.”
Frank Scozzari
Scozzari hobo’ed his way across America at age eighteen, twice trekked the John Muir Trail, backpacked through Europe, camel-backed the ruins of Giza, jeep-trailed the length of the Baja peninsula three times, globe-trotted from Peking to Paris to the White Nights of northern Russia, and once climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro – the highest point in Africa. A four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, his award-winning short stories have been widely anthologized.
“In the Valley of the Dry Bones” creates a discussion that looks at the story’s uses of imagery, characterization, and overall language to engage us from the first page to the very last. Scozzari’s piece gives us Sergeant Dax Garner as the main character, the one remaining soldier on the battlefield after his platoon has been wiped out by the enemy. In reviewing “In the Valley of the Dry Bones,” we shared our ideas on social commentary in fiction, whether or not it is necessary for characters to have psychological depth, and finding the balance between “telling” and “showing” in writing. Scozzari employs altogether excellent writing that leaves us all anxious and exhausted (in the good way), but also impressed with his distraction-free storytelling.
We close out this episode talking about how fiction tends to shape our perceptions of things that we don’t know much about from short stories to TV series like House of Cards and steamy doctor dramas. Tune in to hear our takes on favorites like Big Little Lies, Google for education, and the not-so-genius production of Hamlet.
Share your thoughts about the episode with us on our Facebook event page and on Twitter with #GoogleItUp!
Happy reading!
Present at the Editorial Table
Kathleen Volk Miller
Tim Fitts
Sharee DeVose
Jason Schneiderman
Maureen McVeigh
Engineering Producer
Joseph Zang
Frank Scozzari In the Valley of the Dry Bones
They were killed to the last man despite the ingenious plans of Captain Branson. He had foretold their desperate scramble up the canyon, drawing it out in the sand; how they would make a valiant stand on the flats where they had killed half a dozen Taliban;how they would find refuge in the large rocks above the flats giving them time to regroup and reload; how they would make that heart-thumping scramble up the steep, exposed slope with bullets zinging over their heads, and how, when they reached the small grove of pine trees at the top of the wash there would nothing behind them but high cliffs, and though it would seem they were trapped, they would find cover in the pines and would radio for air support. Then the jets would come in from the north from behind the tall mountains, flying so low they could not be seen until the last second, and the Taliban would be annihilated by their precision-guided missiles.
But they never made it to the pines, and now Sergeant Dax Garner lay alone at the highest outcropping of rocks with a bullet in his thigh, his mouth dry, his leg stiffening,and his gun barrel so hot from all the rounds he had fired that he thought it might jam if he needed to use it again. On a ledge below him, Captain Branson lay next to Corporal Donnelly, the radio not more than a yard away from his outstretched arm—the call for air-support having never been made.
Below Garner could hear the Taliban were shouting back and forth in Pashto. He pulled himself higher against the granite. There was a nice V-shape between two rocks through which he could see clear down to the bottom. Something blue stirred among the white boulders.
Yeah, he’s the one, Garner thought. The one who ruined us. The one with the blue turban who out-flanked us in a place where we could not be out-flanked; who assembled his men against the canyon walls where there was no place to assemble; who made us easy prey for their guns. Garner sighed. That crazy, pack-laden, desperate rush up the slope that ruined us.
He turned and looked skyward, thinking of the jets that would never come. The bright, blue autumn sky was without clouds. He thought it might be the last time he saw such a sky. How was it that they had miscalculated their retreat so badly?
Scattered on the slopes below were several dead Marines. Of the five of them who had made it to this high place in the canyon, four of them now lay in the awkward positions of the dead; some small and crumbled up, others sprawled out with their arms and legs at odd angles.
Retreat was not an option, Captain Branson had said.
The last bravado words of a gung ho leader, Garner thought.
Well, his wish came true.
And now look at him. Of all of the dead, he was the most oddly positioned. His legs seemed to be peddling as if dancing on a roof-top and his head was twisted in the opposite direction, and still, that outstretched arm was reaching for the radio.
In addition to Captain Branson and Private Donnelly, there was Private Toby and Sweeney. Toby had been hit coming up the slope but somehow managed to reach the top,and now he lay sprawled out like a five-pointed star with his arms stretched-out over his head. As Garner looked at him he thought of something he had said just yesterday on the way up the canyon. They had passed some old ruins. There are a lot of old ruins in the mountains of Afghanistan and sometimes they would go inside them and investigate and this time when they did Toby asked the group; “Do you ever think about the ghosts of these ruins? All the people who lived here, loved here, played here over time?”
No one replied but Sweeney.
“The lost and the forsaken,” Sweeney said.
Sweeney now lay some ten yards to the Toby’s right, crumbled-up with knees to and arms tucked to his chest.
So what good was all that religious mumbo jumbo? Garner thought.
Not that Garner had a problem with all Sweeney’s biblical sayings. In a faraway land, being shot at daily, religion was not a bad thing to have. But Sweeney drove it into the earth; quoting this little blue bible he toted around, preaching in a condescending way like the rest of them were nothing but mindless heathens. And when they had begun their climb up this wide valley from Kandahar, he started reciting Ezekiel:
“The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones…. And I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.”
The irony of it made Garner shiver now. It was, and is, a damned dry valley, and now it was to be filled with bones of a dozen Marines and a shit load of Taliban.
“I will make breath enter you,” he recalled Sweeney quoting, “and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin… And as he so prophesied, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them.”
Such volition! Garner thought. He should have been a preacher, not a Marine.
“Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live… and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.”
Garner’s mouth was drier than the driest valley, and as he continued to cerebrally recite Sweeney’s sermon he noticed Sweeney’s canteen lying in the sand next to him, and it made him realize just how damned thirsty he was. It was the wound, he thought, and the heat, and the fear, and that long scramble up the wash, that had dried his mouth out.
The canteen was laying on its side with the cap still on it and Garner thought it had to have water still in it. Sweeney hadn’t the chance to drink from it.
He glanced down the wash. The Taliban with the blue turban hadn’t advanced much. He was keeping his head low, carefully negotiating his way higher through the white boulders.
He was the smart one all right, Garner thought.
Garner began the long arduous journey down toward Sweeney’s canteen.Sweeney was a good ten feet in elevation below him and fifteen yards in distance, and Garner had to slither like a snake along a granite slab and in between two boulders, all the while dragging his rifle behind him. The gravity made it easier, he thought, leaning forward and pulling mightily with his arms. But each time he lurched forward, his leg began to ache again. Blood was oozing from the pant leg where the bullet had ripped it open.
When he reached Sweeney he had to reach over him to grab the canteen. He could not help but look at Sweeney’s dead face.
“Mouthing off all that biblical shit?” Garner said. “A lot of good it did you. A lot of good it did us.” He grabbed the canteen, uncapped it, and guzzled down a mouthful of water.Then he rolled over and lay on his back, looked skyward, and took another long drink from his canteen.
“Where gone all yeah Christian soldiers?”
He held the canteen above his mouth until the last drop trickled down his throat. Then he tossed it to the side.
“Let the four winds come breathe breath into you now,” he said.
It was not long before he heard the Taliban voices again, louder and more confident. One was shouting in English.
“No need to die Marines!” The voice echoed up the canyon.
Garner took hold of his rifle, checked the clip and, seeing he only had a few rounds left, took the spare clips from Sweeney’s utility belt and stuffed them in the pockets of his cargo pants. He wiggled his way back to ledge of the rocks and peered down. The blue turban was higher, flashing bright in the sunlight between the boulders.
Garner lifted his rifle slowly over the top of the rock, aimed down-canyon, and put a bead directly on the blue turban.
Then it disappeared.
“No need to die Marines!” the voice yelled. “Surrender now and you will live.”
“So you can trade me for a thousand of your friends?” Garner mumbled softly to himself. “No thanks.”
Thirty seconds passed and Garner could see the Taliban standing higher, more boldly.
“Come on Americans, there is no place for you to go. Surrender and live!” he shouted confidently.
“Come on you bastard,” was Garner quiet reply. “…just a little higher.”
Then the blue turban came completely out from behind the rocks, fully exposing his torso. Garner looked on surprised.
He thinks we’re all dead, he thought.
It had been some time since there had been any gunfire. The last follies from the bottom of the wash had gone answered. Garner looked over at Toby, who was sprawled on a down-sloping slab of granite, easily seen by those below. The other Marines who did not make it up the slope lay exposed below, and of the five who had made it to the top,all had been hit and staggered before disappearing beyond the top ledge.
“We have food and water,” the Taliban shouted. “You need water, no?”
Garner watched as the blue turban climbed higher. “Come on, just a little more.And bring some of your friends with you.”
“Are you not warriors? You made a good fight but you lost. Realize that and you will live.”
His English is very good, Garner thought. Too good. Bastard was probably educated in the States or England.
“If you are thirsty?” the Taliban yelled. “We have water.”
Wait for the perfect shot. Wait for the others to come out. Then you can take many.
Now the Taliban leader was a good ten yards beyond the cover of the last boulder.
“Come on you Bastard! Come on!” Garner kept his sight centered on the blue turban. “Not too smart now.” Then another turban showed itself, a white one, and another white one. “Come on you Bastards!”
Garner could feel his trigger finger pulling downward. He had to do all he could to keep from pulling it all the way.
I’d love to finish it now, he thought. I’d love to finish him like he finished us. I’d love to put a bullet through that blue-shrouded cranium so that the pain would go away.
Garner glanced skyward.
But what good would that do?
Then what?
Then the parades would begin, that’s what. And a public execution, posted on YouTube for the entire world to see. He had seen how the Taliban handled their dead enemies. There was no honor in it. Their fallen foes were slaughtered like lambs. He had seen dead Marines dragged through the streets and Afghan soldiers beheaded. It was a grisly thought, and he did not want it to happen to him now nor to his fallen comrades.
But it was their fate, he thought, because of their miscalculation, and their bravado, and that feeling of invincibility engrained in them by the Marine Corps.
We are done.
He looked skyward again. The blue sky was silent.
And worse yet, the bartering will begin. He knew he was worth more alive than dead. One Marine was worth many imprisoned combatants.
Unless of course there was an airstrike.
On the flat ledge below by Captain Branson and Private Donnelly the radio lay idle and waiting just beyond the Captain’s outstretched arm. A laser-guided missile from the sky would finish it all, Garner knew. Then there would be no American bodies to be put on parade, no moral victories for the Taliban to celebrate, no high-value American soldier to be offered in a ten-fold trade for Taliban leaders who will wreak a thousand-fold in terror.
Down at the bottom of the wash the Taliban leader climbed wantonly up the talus rocks with several turban-shrouded men following up behind him.
“Yes, a laser guided missile would finish it all nicely,” Garner said to himself.
He checked the clip on his rifle; then swung it over his shoulder. Have to remain quiet, he thought. Have to lure them in close. Have to be certain they are close enough to kill them all.
Garner commenced a slow crawl to the ledge below—toward Captain Branson and the radio, sliding along the rocks. The pain in his leg increased with each long pull,but he did his best to shake it off. His newfound plan gave him strength. There is no pain in death, he thought. And there will be no Taliban victories.
But as pleasing a thought it was to destroy the Taliban, the notion of committing suicide was troublesome. He, who had always applauded life and despised suicide bombers, was about to join the ranks of the martyred dead. This sat uneasily in his gut.
And he thought of the sound of jets too—that glorious, thunderous roar that signaled the might of the virtuous imminently overhead. It was the modern-day equivalent of the cavalry horn; one that could even the odds in a desperate battle. He recalled a time when he had witnessed three hundred Taliban coming down on an isolated American outpost near Kamdesh. His team watched the whole spectacle from an observation post on a distant ridge. The Americans were vastly outnumbered. Every man among them was destined to die, until the Observation Post Commander called in an airstrike. From beyond the hills, streaking in low like black hornets, two jets laid a hailstorm of destruction upon the Taliban, and after the jets passed they heard that beautiful roar of the F-A18s overhead. The tide of the battle was turned that quickly.
Recalling it now caused shivers to run through Garner’s body. He wanted so much to hear that beautiful sound of jets again.
‘Let them come,’ he said, ‘like Ezekiel’s four winds to breathe life back into drybones. We Christian soldiers will rise from the earth to fight again.”
But he knew, this time he would not hear the jets. They would be long past, their ordinances detonated, before the roar of their engines would thunder overhead.
Such a pity, Dax thought.
It’s better that way. Best not to know. Best for it be sudden.
He looked up at the blue sky.
It’s a killer when death becomes the only way to get back home.
He crawled with greater volition toward the bodies of Captain Branson and Private Donnelly, climbing over rocks and dirt, biting his lip each time the pain in his leg became too terrible.
There was a moment he lost track of time. He looked forward and looked back realizing he had blacked-out, but for how long, two seconds or two minutes, he did not know. It was the wound, he thought. The pain of it, and the loss of blood, and the damned heat. This placed a new urgency on his task. He could not loose consciousness again. He had to reach the radio. He tried to swallow, but his mouth had no moisture left in it. He hurried along, favoring his wounded leg and trying to keep focused and conscious.
But again he found himself motionless in the dirt, his cheek pressed against the hot sand. When he awoke this time he heard the sound of Taliban voices, much closer and louder.
Damn it! Stay focused!
By the third time it happened he awoke only a few yards away from Captain Branson. The radio, which was on the opposite side of Captain Branson, laid in the dirt just beyond the reach of the captain’s dead hand. Garner crawled for it, stretching for it as one would stretch for a cup of water after a long desert journey.
But there was blackness again, and that dreadful sense of time-loss—waking and not knowing how many seconds or minutes had passed.
His eyes opened looking up at several gun barrels. Behind the gun barrels were several bearded faces in the center of which stood the Taliban leader with the blue turban.
“Well Marine?” the Taliban leader asked. “You are the only one?”
Garner instinctively grasped for his rifle but it was not by his side. Then he saw it up in the arms of one of the Taliban soldiers. He glanced over to where the radio had been, but it was also gone; already up in the hands of another Taliban who looked at it inquisitively and played with its knobs.
“What is your company?” the Taliban leader asked.
Garner did not reply. His mind was too occupied with thought. He was wondering if he had reached the radio and called in the airstrike? For the life of him, he could not remember. He looked over to where the radio had been. He was still several yards away. If I had made the call, how did I end on the opposite side of Captain Branson? He looked back to the radio, now in the hands of the Taliban. Then the dreaded thought hit him––he never reached the radio; the call for air support was never made.
The blue turban shouted some orders in Pashto to a group of Taliban up by Toby and Sweeney. They promptly gathered the bodies. Having already secured their weapons and gone through their pockets for souvenirs and identifying papers, they dragged their bodies—the real prize, down toward the position of their leader and the other dead Marines. Others did likewise to Captain Branson, dragging him out by his legs, his head racking against the rocks, and Private Donnelly as well, picking his pockets clean,gathering up his rifle and equipment, and dragging him across the granite. They were all heaped into one pile.
Destined for some gruesome cyber display, Garner thought, or some kind of televised mockery.
“What is your company?” the Taliban leader asked again.
Grimacing into the sun, Garner looked up at him. He has the face of a goat, he thought.
When Garner did not answer, the Taliban leader reached down and snapped Garner’s dog tags from his neck.
“Dax Garner?” he said, reading it. “A Sergeant?”
Garner did not reply.
“What’s your company?”
One of the Taliban high up in the canyon began shouting something in Pashto. The Taliban leader acknowledged, shouting something back.
“So you are the only one,” the Taliban leader said. He glanced over at the growing pile of dead Marines. “You will make a great prize nonetheless.”
The blue turban poked at Garner’s wound with the tip of his rifle barrel. Garner
felt the pain radiate up from his leg and into his abdomen.
“Don’t worry, you will live,” the Taliban said. “I’ll make sure of that.”
And as he said it, a crackling noise came from the radio held in the one Taliban’s hand. Garner gazed up at it, dazzlingly. The bastards have me, he thought. The bastards have us. The goddamned radio I never reached, into which I never keyed air-support coordinates.
The grisly image of comrades, disfigured and mocked on international television,flashed through his head. Such a pity; such a travesty; how could have I let them have me? How could have I let them win?
His mind began to wonder; the foggy unconsciousness returned. Then he began to see blackness again.
Vaguely he heard the blue turban speaking; “Hey! I asked you a question. Don’t fall asleep on me now.” And, vaguely, he heard the radio cackle again.
Then the radio spoke; “Inbound five sixty.”
And a different voice acknowledged; “That’s a Roger.”
Then the blue turban glanced skyward.
In a fantastic white flash and grey roar of smoke, the entire earth lifted. In the same ten-thousandth of a second Garner heard it and saw it, it took his light away. Boulders and trees shot skyward, broken and splintered apart. What was once stone andwood was now vaporized dust. Shock waves rocked the forest on the northern mountainside as two tapered-winged birds came streaking out from the smoke clouds. Followed belated in their wake was the roar of jet engines—their afterburners thundered off the canyon walls.
As the debris began their arching descent, the two jets dropped low on the distant horizon and became lost in the afternoon haze.
The End
This week’s episode features special guest Adrian Todd Zuniga, creator and host of the Literary Death Match, in our discussion of art, politics, and the relationship between the two…
This week’s episode features special guest Adrian Todd Zuniga, creator and host of the Literary Death Match, in our discussion of art, politics, and the relationship between the two. Zuniga and the editors discuss whether a heated political climate leads to higher-quality art or simply creates art filled with anger and redundancy.
Check out our thoughts and, after listening in, share your own on our Facebook event page or on Twitter with #ArtandPolitics!
Happy reading!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Jason Schneiderman
Sara Aykit
Special Guest:
Adrian Todd Zuniga
Engineering Producer:
Joe Zang
On this week’s podcast, we review three poems by two authors: “The Riddle of Longing” by Faisal Mohyuddin and “Pyramids” and “American Wedding” by Shayla Lawson. Faisal Mohyuddin teaches English at Highland Park High School in suburban Chicago, is a recent fellow in the U.S. Department of State’s Teachers for Global Classrooms program, and received an MFA…
On this week’s podcast, we review three poems by two authors: “The Riddle of Longing” by Faisal Mohyuddin and “Pyramids” and “American Wedding” by Shayla Lawson.
Faisal Mohyuddin
Faisal Mohyuddin teaches English at Highland Park High School in suburban Chicago, is a recent fellow in the U.S. Department of State’s Teachers for Global Classrooms program, and received an MFA in creative writing from Columbia College Chicago in 2015. Mohyuddin is a lead teacher and advisor for Narrative 4 (narrative4.com), a global not-for-profit organization dedicated to empathy building through the exchange of stories. He is also an experienced visual artist who had the opportunity to participate in his first exhibition in October 2015. Check it out here!
We started off our conversation about “The Riddle of Longing” by discussing the singularity and the universality of the speaker’s circumstances. The poem put into perspective the reality that many immigrants and children of immigrants face in countries around the world. The imagery and language employed by Mohyuddin elicit various emotional responses and enforced the idea that, despite loss, life will continue on; and because everything persists, it may often persist in a broken state.
Shayla Lawson
Following “The Riddle of Longing,” we move on to Shayla Lawson’s first poem, “Pyramids.” Shayla Lawson is, was, or has been at certain times an amateur acrobat, an architect, a Dutch housewife, & dog mother to one irascible small water-hound. Find out more about her here and watch her read here! Then, you’ll want to follow her on Twitter: @blueifiwasnt
After spending some time figuring out what an isosceles triangle is, we examine the motivation and intent behind the poem, look at the challenging social commentary, and consider the beautiful balance of blasphemy and reverence. Whatever the message readers might take away from this piece, we were left wonderfully exhausted by the risk and fearlessness displayed in such strong, honest writing. In our final review, we look at “American Wedding” and acknowledge that an author’s writing can be very strong, but it’s always important to find the happy medium between what adds color to our work and what ultimately distracts and inhibits the reader from experiencing the raw goodness of it. The final poem opens up a relatable discussion about relationships, focus, and potential.
We close out this episode by discussing other podcasts our listeners might enjoy called “Sleep with Me,” a podcast that’ll put you to bed with a smile on your face, and “Dumb People Town.” Turn on and tune in!
Let us know what you think about these three poems and this episode on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook with #riskybusiness! Feel free to also tell us whether you are on Team: “The Earth is Flat” or not!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Jason Schneiderman
Tim Fitts
Sara Aykit
Sharee DeVose
Engineering Producer:
Joe Zang
Faisal Mohyuddin The Riddle of Longing
When to be an immigrant’s
Son is to be a speaker of several
Broken tongues, each day
Leaves you homesick
For a place you’ve never
Touched, nor forgotten, and feel
The ache to know. When there is
No one left, you ask the wind
For directions. Your own
Voice returns your wish with
A map of your mother’s palms
Spoken into threads of blue
Light. Take the long way
Home, through the cemetery.
There, kiss your father’s name,
Bring back an echo of pain,
And a phlox. When years
Later your son finds it crushed
Within a book, he will feel
Against his face a warm puff
Of breath, yours, then
A wink of green wings behind
His eyes. Strange, that I am
Holding two large rocks,
Looking for something else
Sacred to smash open.
Shayla Lawson Pyramids
The
Jesus
I know died
on a pole. He was not
a God—he did not want to
be. He told
the thief hanging
beside him “Welcome
to Paradise,” but all the man
could see were pyramids / cheetahs
thrashing
their wild
tails like an angry
mob. I mean, what’s
the difference between the King
of All
Kings
& the Lord
of Man, & the god
of your Last Will & Testament.
In my
favorite
stripper fantasy,
Cleopatra wears spots
& scaffolds around you like
a vortex. I lick her cheetah paws
& lap
dance into
your arms like
the baddest deity
of your dreams. You enter
me first
with a tail
I have grown
& I am as much
an animal as a diamond: solid
hard
& pure.
The way
you say my name
in bed. You curse
every god you’ve ever met. What’s
the
difference
between a woman
set loose & a loose
woman & a woman who crowns
herself
Pharaoh
of a country
that is not / hers.
The Jesus I know is not
the kind
of insurgent
Jerusalem expects
after all that time building
the pyramids. You are Sampson
when
I pull
your hair.
I blind your eyes
& the pillars of your strength
all
crumble
like a temple. In
this way, I am the god
you hail from champagne
flutes
to bath
-tub baptism.
I wonder why,
if we are gods ourselves, we
revival
—shout the
names of men
we worship only of
necessity. I am only a woman when
I complete
you. I disrobe
of all my God-given
parts. I wake up folded in
the shape of breasts & young
men’s jewelry.
I know why I love
only you & you & me
& working out the pyramid
-scheme of my gold– / toned profanity.
Shayla Lawson American Wedding
I check out / my reflection
laced in bubble
foam on the passenger-side
window of a faded
Mustang I hand-rinse beside
the third bungalow I’ll occupy
as a new bride. The automobile
never gets clean and I still wear
the veil. A tiny diamond
toils around my ring
finger; catches sludge
from the bucket as it wipes
in water. I get very good
at being arranged. I learn more
and more about what you make
when you need / to gain less
and less. Like television
in America, I am wonderful
with beginnings. In the faint
melody before the rewound
cassette, I hear the three
-fold harmony that floated me
down the aisle. I carry a Bible
& a girl who imagines
a marriage like Christ gave
the bride class—I don’t
understand when I am given
away. I ask the first boy
who ever wanted my hand
about our generation
so littered in / tattoo. He
tells me ‘people are tired
of trying to find ways to keep
magic inside them.’ But I have
no use for supernatural forces;
I question the detail in every
ritual. I am terrified
of what might posses
me. A month into my very own
divorce, I have day dreams
of a needle flood with
ink. The permanence :: Imagine
my nostalgia. I crush
a fountain pen: watch my sole
disperse into a deep blue ocean.
This week we look at two poems by two authors, “Drink Like Fish” by Alexa Smith and “pine” by Shabnam Piryaei. Alexa Smith is a poet, actor and visual artist born in Washington, DC and based in South Philadelphia....
This week we look at two poems by two authors, “Drink Like Fish” by Alexa Smith and “pine” by Shabnam Piryaei.
Alexa Smith is a poet, actor and visual artist born in Washington, DC and based in South Philadelphia. A triple Scorpio with nothing to lose, Alexa was once accurately described as "seven cats in a people suit;" she was awarded the college superlative "Most Likely to Lose Control of Her Hands," and, she can lick her own elbow without difficulty. She works for a local medical publisher and serves as the Managing Editor for APIARY Magazine, a free, volunteer-run literary magazine of Philly poetry, prose and visual art. Her poetry has appeared online in Entropy Magazine at entropymag.org, and her photography of Philly's post-election protests was featured by Billy Penn at billypenn.com. You can find out more about APIARY and check for submissions calls at apiarymagazine.com.
As Marion puts it, “Drink Like Fish” is truly a tumble and a roll. With aggressive analogies, “enfished” personifications, and a strong use of language, this poem certainly demands attention from its readers. It opened up discussion about author intent, romanticization of culture, and whether or not literature must have a “takeaway.” Listen for the results of this poem’s vote, which even surprised our editors!
After “Drink Like Fish” we move on to “pine.” This is all Shabnam Piryaei wants you to know about her.
Once we got over the lack of capitalization, we were able to start trying to digest its dense material and determine what it was about. After a lot of back-and-forth dialogue, it looked like we could have multiple interpretations. However, with whichever interpretation the reader perceives, there is a great loneliness and desperation of the speaker that pulls a strong empathy from us. While we couldn’t settle on an interpretation, we know that this multi-faceted reading only enhanced our discussion.
We finished off talking by talking about rejection, and what it means to us. Check out the article written by Roxane Gay that Kathy references. Does a rejection stop you from submitting again? Or do you laugh in the face of rejection? Are you involved in a “rejection game” and don’t you think that would make a great movie title?
Let us know what you think about these poems, and about rejection, on Twitter or Facebook with #glugglug
Always, always, read on!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Jason Schneiderman
Tim Fitts
Sara Aykit
Engineering Producer:
Ryan McDonald
Alexa Smith DRINK LIKE FISH BARMAID MERGIRL:
hungover & strung
along by Fishtown hook-
ups, sighs cigarette-swirled
breath baiting the boys
outside the taqueria,
teal ombre dip-dye
willowing kewpie
cheeks in frizzy
rivulets, silver
nose ring catching
scratch-light from her
sunny zippo striking
for a quick suck of
smoke before she
clocks in & goes
UNDER:
mid-shift, mer-
server darts & dips
to dodge darts sailing gamely
thru the dinner rush, a salty dive's
Friday night sweat-swell stuffed to gills w/
oil-slick sardine pack sleazes, schools of bloated
blowfish bros, hip loud clowns doused in lager spouting
flotsam for first FinDr dates wishing they’d swished left, while
on the edge of the din sit lone, grim, grizzled marlins, w/blood-
shot eyes & briny drinks & cheeks as rough as rusting
swords, fish w/ trashed & tattered past mystique
like in-theory-cheery boardwalks
turned gray & drizzly
in the rain
the crowd so many
fathoms deep, our intrepid
merkid gets weeded, yet she winnows
through – serves swift & swerves her
sway away from ocular octopi tracing
her tail, quiet guys whose eyes
snake after supple shapes
like groping sucking
hentai vines
she hides
& curls herself
into the side of kitchen
stairwell, coves herself in
cellar shadow - stowed, savors
time slowing as her tongue skirts
a salted rim, lime stinging dry
lips, midori mellowing edge
of eyeglass frames like
green bottle shards
worn smooth
by sea
Shabman Piryaei pine I spy you on a rock at the edge
of a cliff. a tiny figure
hunched against heaven. the stupid
expanse of a building-less sky.
I fear dropping you because I can.
above you an angle of birds
know precisely how to navigate.
distance is like this.
leaving me excess space to play
with my weapons. I hum
uncertain
beyond the provocation of your back.
strands of me dangle from my shirt unwilling
to be discarded. no god laughs
while slitting the throats of his children, I think.
you will stay at the edge of a cloud-rivered abyss.
in another expanse, clouds
convene over the raft of a survivor, lip-split
and issuing confessions.
here crickets have convened. shuddering
at the scrape of evening’s tongue
I lull
for your shadow to stand.
For the first time ever, we review a piece of nonfiction, “The Art of Fishing” by Keith Rebec. Keith has been backpacking around the world since October 2015. He is the editor-in-chief of Pithead Chapel, an online literary journal of gutsy narratives and small print press, and he’s currently working on a novel…
For the first time ever, we review a piece of nonfiction, “The Art of Fishing” by Keith Rebec.
Rebec has been backpacking around the world since October 2015. He is the editor-in-chief of Pithead Chapel, an online literary journal of gutsy narratives and small print press, and he’s currently working on a novel. You can visit him, even as he travels, at keithrebec.com.
“Art of Fishing” creates a riveting discussion on genre, racism, voice, and identity. The editors in this episode all appreciate Rebec’s craft and point of view of an underrepresented culture. He presents a non-judgemental depiction of grotesque and brutal acts of exclusion. Our editorial table had a great time discussing the difference between resiliency and rationalization, and the merits of nonfiction in a piece that is, as Jason puts it, “muscular, gorgeous and direct with a lot of sentiment.”
Let us know what you think on our Facebook event page and on Twitter with #nextbabewinkelman
Read on!
Present at the Editorial Table
Marion Wrenn
Jason Schneiderman
Tim Fitts
Sara Aykit
Samantha Neugebauer
Engineering Producer
Joe Zang
This is a special podcast episode with some help from the folks over at One Book, a signature program of the Free Library of Philadelphia that promotes literacy, library usage, and citywide conversation by encouraging the Philadelphia area to come together through reading and discussing…
This is a special podcast episode with some help from the folks over at One Book, a signature program of the Free Library of Philadelphia that promotes literacy, library usage, and citywide conversation by encouraging the Philadelphia area to come together through reading and discussing a single book. This year’s book is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.
We started the evening with a round of Slam, Bam, Thank you, Mam, or improv reading game. Listen in and see what we created in 5 minutes!
The writers came at the themes of the book from so many angles, but the one they each had in common was they blew us away.If you’re old enough, imagine the dude (and his martini glass) getting blown away by the sound from his Maxell tape (if you’re too young to remember that iconic image, Goolge it)—it was like that. Or, just look at this:
via Flickr
And then listen to the podcast and feel the same way!
Let us know what you think on our Facebook event page or on Twitter with #OneBook
Read on!
Kalela Williams is a fiction writer whose most recent work appears in Calyx: A Journal of Art & Literature by Women, and Drunken Boat. She also directs One Book, One Philadelphia, a Free Library of Philadelphia program with the goal of promoting citywide conversation around the themes in a single book. She is currently working on a novel.
Cindy Arrieu-King is an associate professor of creative writing at Stockton University and a former Kundiman fellow. Her books include People are Tiny in Paintings of China (Octopus 2010), Manifest (Switchback 2013) and a collaboration with the late Hillary Gravendyk (1913 Press 2016). Find her at cynthiaarrieuking.blogspot.com.
Thomas Devaney is a poet and lives in Philadelphia. His books include Runaway Goat Cart (Hanging Loose, 2015), Calamity Jane (Furniture Press, 2014), and The Picture that Remains (The Print Center, 2014). His nonfiction book Letters to Ernesto Neto (2005) was published by Germ Folios. He is the 2104 recipient of a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. His collaborations with the Institute of Contemporary Art include “The Empty House,” for The Big Nothing, and “Tales from the 215” for Zoe Strauss’s “Philadelphia Freedom.”
Patrick Rosal is the author of four full-length collections of poetry, including his latest, Brooklyn Antediluvian. A former Senior Fulbright Research Fellow, his work has appeared in The New York Times, Grantland, Harvard Review, Tin House, The Best American Poetry and dozens of other magazines and anthologies. He has been a featured performer in Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean and hundreds of venues throughout the United States, including the Whitney Museum and Lincoln Center. He is currently an Associate Professor at the MFA Program of Rutgers University-Camden.
Julia Bloch grew up in Northern California and Sydney, Australia. She is the author of two books of poetry—Letters to Kelly Clarkson, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, and Valley Fever, both from Sidebrow Books, and of the recent chapbook Like Fur, from Essay Press. She lives in Philadelphia, coedits Jacket2, and directs the creative writing program at the University of Pennsylvania.
M.C. Extraordinaire:
Paul Siegell
The Lineup:
Kalela Williams
Cindy Arrieu-King
Thomas Devaney
Patrick Rosal
Julia Bloch
Engineering Producer:
Joe Zang
Last week, Painted Bride Quarterly made its way down to the 2017 Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference in Washington D.C along with an estimated 12,000 individuals and 800 presses, journals, and literary organizations. AWP is always the highlight of our year…
Last week, Painted Bride Quarterly made its way down to the 2017 Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference in Washington D.C along with an estimated 12,000 individuals and 800 presses, journals, and literary organizations. AWP is always the highlight of our year as we release our latest Print Annual to the public and more importantly, get to meet so many of our talented and diligent writers and readers. Each time we handed a book to one of the authors we got to be as excited and thrilled as they were. Check out our Instagram feed if you want to see for yourself.
No matter where AWP is, it’s more than amazing to surround ourselves with like-minded, lovely people. The AWP lifestyle is not one we can sustain for too long, but we’d still like to start a movement to hold two conferences a year!
Check out the thoughts of our editors, Marion and Kathy, in this episode. Listen in on conversations they had at their booth with busy and brilliant authors.
Tell us about your AWP experience on our facebook event page or on Twitter with #AWP17
Read on!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Engineering Producer:
Joe Zang
In the midst of excitedly preparing for AWP 2017, we record this episode in which we discuss two poems by Rita Banerjee, “The Suicide Rag” and “Georgia Brown”. Rita Banerjee is the Creative Director of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop and is currently working on a futuristic dystopian novel…
In the midst of excitedly preparing for AWP 2017, we record this episode in which we discuss two poems by Rita Banerjee, “The Suicide Rag” and “Georgia Brown”
Rita Banerjee is the Creative Director of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop and is currently working on a futuristic dystopian novel about Mel Cassin, a half-Tamil, half-Jewish girl stuck in the middle of a familial crisis and an epic political meltdown, and a collection of essays on race, sex, politics, and everything cool. A jet-setter at heart, she spends her time between Munich, Germany and the United States.
This week’s discussion both took us back and made sure that none of us would see the world the same way again. With images of breakdancing, gospel choir, and the not-so-innocent Georgia Brown, we were in it. Whether we’re distinguishing jazz from jazz or figuring out what a clapper is, this episode is filled with risky moves.
Join us in the campaign to have your local library carry lesser-known authors and small presses. Let us know what books you’ll be requesting with #getsomebooks! Let’s support libraries, small presses, and the authors who write for them.
Make sure you follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and let us know what you think of this episode with #longandskinny! Stay tuned to hear about our AWP 2017 experience–we hope to see you there! And of course, most importantly, read on!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Jason Schneiderman
Tim Fitts
Sara Aykit
Engineering Producer:
Ryan McDonald
The Suicide Rag
Billy played ragtime
on the church
organ but we
lunch hour kids,
kept time by another
name. Behind St. Augustine’s
we learned to hit
the pavement, sound
like an anvil
crack
hammers hitting
steel, Billy playing
skeletons
on the fifth,
we arpeggioed
haloed, froze
on the black
top. Learning
to cakewalk
This was our
battle—
tar-mat babies
doing handsprung
suicides
for the girls
standing ’round
with knife-like eyes
That’s all
we needed—
a rolling
beat, a firing squad
and schoolyard
skirts
scouring the lot
as we fell
face forward
hands locked
& stiff, the only
thing
that could’ve
come between
us was a kiss.
Georgia Brown
Harlem had yet to be born,
the globe had not been spun,
but we knew how to whistle,
how to call clappers and skirts on cue:
That summer, we first met Georgia,
she was an echo in four beats,
we learned to hum her story.
Mike played her with a licked reed
but she was all brass, sharp
like an abandoned railroad cutting through
wild wood, and when she took stage,
she made those trombone boys whisper,
“Sweet Georgia, Sweet.”
In this episode, our lovely and larger-than-usual editorial table discusses “Vultures,” a work of fiction written by Alex Pickett. In the winter of 2010, Alex Pickett volunteered for six months at a state park in Alaska, which is where he got most of the information for this story...
When Tim reads! (via Wikimedia)
In this episode, our lovely and larger-than-usual editorial table discusses “Vultures,” a work of fiction written by Alex Pickett.
In the winter of 2010, Alex Pickett volunteered for six months at a state park in Alaska, which is where he got most of the information for this story. Think cold: as in the characters, the stark landscape, the miles of snow.
As our podcast newbie Maureen puts it, “Vultures” fosters a great discussion among our team. We all agree that the characters were natural, and created a gripping tension that made us keep reading. Despite the hopeful and heroic (?) ending, we were left contemplating self-awareness, desperation, and a darker view of people as both predators and prey.
Does “Vultures” get a thumbs up from PBQ? Listen and find out. One thing’s for sure, this one was a “Tuffy!”
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to let us know what you think with #woodengravestones
As always, read on!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Jason Schneiderman
Marion Wrenn
Tim Fitts
Denise Guerin
Sara Aykit
Maureen McVeigh
Engineering Producer:
Joe Zang
PBQ is back with the first episode of 2017! In this episode we talk about two poems by Taylor Altman and one by Heather Sagar. First, we discussed Taylor Altman’s poems, “How to Break Without Falling Apart,” and “Contra Mundum.”
PBQ is back with the first episode of 2017! In this episode we talk about two poems by Taylor Altman and one by Heather Sagar.
First, we discussed Taylor Altman’s poems, “How to Break Without Falling Apart,” and “Contra Mundum.”
Taylor Altman taught herself how to juggle while studying for a calculus exam in college.
She won her school district's spelling bee in 4th grade (the youngest student ever to do so) and was excused from spelling homework for the rest of the year.
She has synesthesia, so she sees letters and numbers as being different colors; for example, "D" is green and "7" is purple.
Find her on LinkedIn, Medium, or Blackbird.
Next, we read Heather Sager’s poem, “Green.” Heather Sager finds happiness in reading the Russian Symbolists and in spending time with her outgoing son. Feeling mildly adventurous, she might wander out to snap a too-close photo of an ornery snapping turtle, an oversized praying mantis, or a suspiciously quiet pigeon. You can find her poems or stories in places like Bear Review, Fourth & Sycamore, Naugatuck River Review, BlazeVOX, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, NEAT., Minetta Review, Untoward (forthcoming), Jet Fuel Review, and elsewhere.
From the global to the personal, from surviving terrorist attacks to kissing frogs as a child, this conversation had all of us thinking critically about the relationship of a writer to the world around them, or, the world against them.
Were these poems accepted or rejected? Did Kathy ever kiss a frog? Listen and find out!
See Tim’s novel, The Soju Club, here.
Check us out on Facebook and Twitter and let us know what you think with the #kissingfrogs
Thank you for listening, and read on!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Jason Schneiderman
Tim Fitts
Sara Aykit
Miranda Reinberg
Engineering Producer:
Joe Zang
Taylor Altman
How to Break Without Falling Apart
She trades in antiques
at the end of Adeline Street.
Her shop is like the inside of a dream,
with carpets and African masks
and rings and earrings
encased in glass
as though within a tide pool.
From the armoire of her mouth
all sorts of things come out
in the Kentish accent thirty years in California
hasn’t shaken—
what lives she has led,
what other people she has been,
how she learned to break
without falling apart.
A cool breeze comes
through the back door, from the alleyway,
and she says she works as a nurse for the elderly
to afford a new passport
with her maiden name,
and to fix her teeth,
small spans of darkness between gold.
Taylor Altman Contra Mundum
Under the burnt-out tree
where the nightingale sings,
where a magpie made its nest
of wedding rings, the singed olive trees
that once bore waxy fruits,
where are you?
John Walker Lindh, now called Sulayman,
rocks back and forth,
reading his Quran
in Terra Haute.
The tile halls of the madrassa are empty,
the fountain stopped. Somewhere
you are just waking up, in some other city,
someone else’s skin. Our house
was filled with books, corners of pages
torn off for gum, small surface wounds
that bloomed like carnations.
Everything is
complicit. A bird goes up
the scale, notes like glass beads
crushed underfoot. It’s you and me
against the world. In the bazaar,
we passed the birds in cages,
seedcovered, shitcovered, the white bars
scratched to copper. Clocks going off
in every direction, faces faded
and filled with sand. You read the papers
every morning; the news was neither good
nor bad; you had been
in Srebrenica. IEDs exploded
in the streets, bombs full of nails. A little boy
was breathing blood. There was nothing
we could do for him,
his lungs expanding like balloons.
You proposed that night, gave me the ring
from the magpie’s nest,
then disappeared. So many nights
I watched you fight sleep. So many nights
you woke up drenched in sweat
as the imam’s cry flew over the rooftops
and minarets. You said, Lindh’s father
visits him in prison. He believes
in his innocence. I watched your hips
grow wider, the age spots appear
on the backs of your hands.
I painted and painted this fragment
of window. Finally,
the urgency of lovemaking
left us. But our names remain
on the lapels of your books, hybrids
of our names, Punnett squares.
Heather Sager GREEN
After staring down
those amphibious creatures,
their sad-mute eyes
dimly reflecting my own,
I picked one up, and smacked him on the lips.
Into woods, ponds I’d chase,
collecting and admiring
tone of skin, angling of protuberances,
the feel of shifty, leggy treasures. Nearby,
Hard-shelled soldiers rose,
showing dilapidated orange mouths.
My father ran at me with a shovel,
once, to free a pinched limb—
I wiggled free, he tapped
the large shell.
Still, there I remained—
watching my parade,
sentient, croaking, green.
This week, we have a holiday special for you all! Just a few months ago, we had the privilege of hosting an event for Philalalia, a small press festival. We had a great reading at the Pen and Pencil Club in Philadelphia with a superbly talented group of writers, and we know you’re gonna love them as much as we did!
This week, we have a holiday special for you all! Just a few months ago, we had the privilege of hosting an event for Philalalia, a small press festival. We had a great reading at the Pen and Pencil Club in Philadelphia with a superbly talented group of writers, and we know you’re gonna love them as much as we did!
Let us know what you think on our event page or on Twitter with #holidayextravaganza
Interested in learning more about (or participating in) our Slam, Bam, Thank You, Ma’am? Sign up for our newsletter and join us on January 26!
Happy holidays, and read on!
Emma Brown Sanders is a queer Philly poet originally from Chicago. she co-hosts POETRY JAWNS: A PODCAST with Alina Pleskova. She recently put out a chap called RELEASE FANTASY that will be available at philalalia. You can find her work at full stop, fungiculture, bedfellows and recreation league.
David Olimpio grew up in Texas, but currently lives and writes in Northern New Jersey. He believes that we create ourselves through the stories we tell, and that is what he aims to do every day. Usually, you can find him driving his truck around the Garden State with his dogs. He has been published in Barrelhouse, The Nervous Breakdown, The Austin Review, Rappahannock Review, Crate, and others. He is the author of THIS IS NOT A CONFESSION (Awst Press, 2016). You can find more about him at davidolimpio.com, including links to his writing and photography. He Tweets, Instagrams, and Tumbles as @notsolinear and would love for you to join him.
Kathryn (Katie) Ionata is the author of the chapbook Yield Signs Don't Exist (PS Books, 2016). Her writing has appeared in or is forthcoming from The Toast, The Best of Philadelphia Stories, Cleaver Magazine, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Hawai'i Review, U.S. 1 Worksheets, and other publications. She has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and has been a finalist for the Sandy Crimmins National Poetry Prize and the Bucks County Poet Laureate Competition. She teaches writing and literature at Temple University and The College of New Jersey.
Sevé Torres is a poet, father, and college professor. His work has appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Mead: The Magazine of Literature and Libations, and Dismantle: The Vona Anthology. He currently teaches at Rowan University and Rutgers-Camden.
Mai Schwartz is a poet, a storyteller, a sometime-beekeeper, an unofficial historian, and a native of New Jersey with lots of opinions about diners and malls. Based in west Philly for the past six years, Mai spends their time growing plants, teaching others to do the same, and editing Apiary Magazine.
7 Things about the current version of Kirwyn Sutherland
- I luh God
- I'm cool peeps
- Trying to get my self-care on
- Editor of Poetry for Public Pool and APIARY Issue 8: Soft Targets
- Media Director for The Philadelphia Poetry Collab group
- Deep breathing helps
- Slam poet always and not ashamed
Alina Pleskova lives in Philly & strives to maintain optimum chill. She is coeditor (with Jackee Sadicaro) of bedfellows, a literary magazine focused on sex/desire/intimacy, & cohost (with Emma Sanders) of Poetry Jawns, a podcast. Recent work can be found in Queen Mob's Tea House, Public Pool, and Sea Foam Mag.
MC Extraordinaire:
Paul Siegell
On The Stage:
Emma Brown Sanders
David Olimpio
Katie Ionata
Sevé Torres
Mai Schwartz
Kirwyn Sutherland
Alina Pleskova
Engineering Producer:
Joe Zang
Today we talk about “White,” fiction by Aggie Zivaljevic! Aggie Zivaljevic’s fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Literary Review, Cosmonauts Avenue, Narrative Magazine, Joyland, Crab Orchard Review and Speakeasy…
Today we talk about “White,” fiction by Aggie Zivaljevic!
Aggie Zivaljevic’s fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Literary Review, Cosmonauts Avenue, Narrative Magazine, Joyland, Crab Orchard Review and Speakeasy. She lives in California and curates Story Is the Thing, a quarterly reading series at Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park.
On her desk, Aggie keeps a framed writing advice given to her by Simon Van Booy,“Write as you garden — with passion, awe, intent, and openness.” You can check her San Jose garden (she gets lots of help from her dog Sundance) board on Pinterest.
This week’s piece led to a lot of great discussion! While we analyzed our favorite and not-so-favorite moments in this story, our table discussed fiction as a genre: its purpose and the functions it must serve for its readers. With lingering depictions of artwork and thoughts on the process of grief, this story certainly provided conversation. However, did “White” do it for us? Listen and find out!
We end this episode by talking about a few of the things that make us happy: like the Korean release of The Soju Club, The Band Joseph, Heather Birrell’s Mad Hope, roommates, and donuts!
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter and let us know what you think, and what makes you happy, with #dreamroom!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Tim Fitts
Sara Aykit
Denise Guerin
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
For this episode, we look at three poems by Laura Sobbott Ross. She’s taught English to students from dozens of countries, and has two poetry chapbooks: A Tiny Hunger (YellowJacket Press) and My Mississippi (Anchor & Plume Press.)
For this episode, we look at three poems by Laura Sobbott Ross.
Laura Sobbott Ross lives in a rural, hilly part of inland Florida where horses and hothouses of orchids abound. She loves to take pictures on long drives through the open land, and to sing to the radio with the windows wide, which conjures threats from her teenagers, but her dogs don’t seem to mind. You will find paint on her clothes at any given time. She’s taught English to students from dozens of countries, and has two poetry chapbooks: A Tiny Hunger (YellowJacket Press) and My Mississippi (Anchor & Plume Press.)
First, we’re transported to the sunny beaches of “Bora Bora,” where we find ourselves with some trouble in paradise. We follow that off trying to decipher “The Walrus in the Tea Leaves,” where we’re left with more questions than answers. And finally, we throwback to The Eagles’ “Hotel California” with “Déjà Vu.” Even though we do check in, we’re not so sure if we ever want to leave!
Let us know what you think of these poems on Facebook and Twitter with #squeegeeboy!
Don’t forget to read on!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Tim Fitts
Sara Aykit
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
PBQ Box Score: 3=0
Bora Bora
1996
A shaft of blue splintered into a thousand
nuances, shed them into the sea beneath our tiki hut—
wedged on stilts into hunger clouds of shimmery fish,
oysters lipping black pearls. We married there,
on the shore between the neon chakra of sky & water,
a handful of drowsy natives shaking New Year’s Eve from
the folds of their pareos. Dancing, a tide etched in sand.
Later, petal-strung in whites already sighing into sepia,
from our balcony we sought those old stars from home.
Palm trees swaying festively in dark silhouette across
the unadorned horizon of the Pacific. Love, a sugared rim
we shared in sips, cowry shells strung and whispering
at our throats, every edge garnished in hibiscus, sunburn,
pineapple. In the shallows, the moray eel we’d spotted earlier—
prehistoric face bobbling from his pulpit of stone. Before
the ceremony, we’d tossed in our pockets of foreign coins—
wishes aimed at his blind scowl. Later, moonlight uprooted
the slippery ribbon of his tail, while the current floated him,
floorboard by floorboard, across you & me; a benediction
in a sleeve of sea water, the round polyp mouths of the reef
opening in the dark like a choir.
The Walrus in the Tea Leaves
For Doug
Darling, it wasn’t the news you’d expected.
And when you told me about it, I’d giggled,
conjured images of broken symmetries—
kaleidoscope and compass, magnetic poles
and mirrors gone random. I knew what
you were hoping for, how you’d tilted your
throat back and swallowed down the void.
The psychic parsing through the wrack line
for messages left in seaweedy clots of Chamomile
or Earl Gray. Speckle and flack— dark nebula
splat against a bone-colored sky. You said
she’d seemed baffled by the walrus—
awkward animal, all teeth and tail. You
told me he’d risen twice from the wet ashes
that morning, buoyant and robust in his
island cup, nosing through the diorama of dregs
like a seafloor of mollusk shells pursed shut;
his mouth, an insistent imprint on the rim.
Déjà Vu
—1979
There has to be darkness and a highway.
Beyond the shoulders of the road,
a topography, splayed and lit in street lamps.
You’re seventeen, and Hotel California
is playing on the radio. If you look close
enough, you can see the silhouette of
mountains beyond your own reflection
in the car window. To the right, an anchor
store in a strip mall. To the left,
the gas station where high school boys work—
the good looking ones who sweep the silk
of their long bangs from their eyes
with puppy-soft hands, and ask if you want
regular or unleaded. Watching them comb
your windshield clean beneath
the squeegee’s wide, forgiving blade,
you might imagine whispering: Save me,
and wonder, does anyone do that anymore?—
the windshield washing, you mean, of course,
and you know that if you slid your fingers
inside the thick baffles of their goose-down
vests, down into the warmth beneath
their soft-as-ash flannel shirts, your palms
would smell like gasoline and their father’s
Old Spice, and that in the star bristled night,
every imagined kiss was a curfew, exquisitely unfair,
and a promise you had made in a fever to return
home what you’d borrowed just the way you found it.
In reaction to the events of November 8, this week’s episode begins with local Philly poet Cynthia Dewi Oka reading “Post-Election Song of Myself.” We first heard it at our Reading at the Black Sheep Pub on Monday, November 12, and we were so moved we had to ask her to share it with you.
In reaction to the events of November 8, this week’s episode begins with local Philly poet Cynthia Dewi Oka reading “Post-Election Song of Myself.” We first heard it at our Reading at the Black Sheep Pub on Monday, November 12, and we were so moved we had to ask her to share it with you.
In Episode 21 of Slush Pile, we discuss two poems by Harold Whit Williams.
Harold Whit Williams goes by the name Whit to family, friends, and acquaintances, but thinks that using his full name for poetry gives him that much-needed literary gravitas to get his “little scribblings” published. He catalogs maps, atlases, and journals for UT Austin Libraries. His guitar heroics have been much lauded around the world. He and his wife enjoy birdwatching, wine tastings, modern art exhibits, monster truck rallies (mostly for the cuisine), and trying to find a place to park. Once he dreamt a poem in its entirety, then awakened and wrote it down verbatim. That poem, "The Best of Intentions," was published in The Great American Wise Ass Poetry Anthology 2016. The poem is not very good, but it is most definitely wise-ass.
Our small group of three begin the episode with “Hawk Pride Mountain Nocturne,” a piece that Marion feels, “breaks [her] heart from line one.” With an incantatory and rhythmic tone, we are swept back in time to a liminal spot of dreams and melodrama. Our vote was unanimous, but we are requesting a few “gentle” edits.
We were not as quick to love the next poem, “Alabama Field Holler.” However, after discussing the historical significance of the field holler and the musicality of phrases, we started to change our minds…
Of course, let us know what you think about these poems, and Cotton Mather’s “Lily Dreams On” with the hashtag #lampshadesofdesire!
Follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and, most importantly, read on!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Sara Aykit
Marion Wrenn
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
PBQ Box Score: 2=0
Harold Whit Williams Hawk Pride Mountain Nocturne
The deceased leave behind their voices.
Some in shoeboxes
Stacked in the back closet of the mind,
Others under creaking steps,
In leafwhisper, water murmur, highway hum.
Most, middle of the night, seek us out
With their quick-and-dead singsong.
Disembodied, tremulous,
Gusting down
Off the pine-sided hill.
An uncle's high tenor; an aunt's thick alto.
A whole ragtag church choir from beyond the beyond.
Voices pure as light, Light as breath.
We breathe in these voices In our sleep,
Taste these voices in the bittersweet
Draught of dreams. Voices
In the shapes of clouds, voices raining
Down the old mudtrodden hymns. Horse-and-buggy us
Back to that little white church In the woods.
Lay roses on those headstones carved with our names.
Sing out, brethren, in voices
Long-silenced, but still heard, harried
By a north wind from the past.
Let your praises pillow our slumber
And greet us like morning mist.
Hearken us back from our dreams, brethren,
And forward into the light.
Harold Whit Williams Alabama Field Holler
I have decided to blame no one for my life.
– Robert Bly
Winter morning all hollowed-out,
Whistling its one-note ballad.
Morning bark-stripped, sanded-down,
Held over a flame. A woodsmoke
Morning piping clear across
back pastures of my childhood.
Let me wake early to cop the riffs
Of this bygone morning song.
Let me stomp out with snare drum
Past granddaddy's electric fence.
I'll get in tune with morning, root
Myself down into the hard red clay.
I'll call a blues to myself in 4/4 time,
Stand back and await the response.
In Episode 017, we spoke to Jim Hanas about the value and perhaps impracticality of today’s slush piles. This week, M. Rachel Branwen, editor of Slush Pile Magazine, was happy to talk about her thoughts on what the slush pile is really about, disagreeing with Hanas unapologetically.
Welcome, welcome, welcome to Episode TWENTY of Slush Pile! We thank all of our listeners, writers, and guest speakers for supporting this podcast and its mission.
We first launched Slush Pile at the end of March at the 2016 AWP Conference. We were thrilled with the enthusiastic response, yet confused athow many times people asked if we were related to Slush Pile Magazine, also debuting at 2016 AWP! We had never heard of this publication, so we hunted down their booth and were blown away by the ladder and a very tall stack of papers.
Author Jonathan Weinert at Slush Pile Magazine's AWP booth
We had the pleasure of meeting M. Rachel Branwen, Slush Pile Magazine’s founder and editor, and we invited her back to our booth for some boxed wine and great conversation! Then, we convinced her to come on air.
M.Rachel Branwen is the editor of Slush Pile Magazine, the longtime senior reader of fiction at Harvard Review, and the former fiction editor of DigBoston. Her work has appeared in The Missouri Review, The Adirondack Review, The Millions, and elsewhere. She is fond of: bougainvillea, red wine, mashed potatoes, unexpected conversations with oversharing strangers, long road trips, learning new languages, walking up hills for exercise, the thesaurus, her dog (Nigel, a pug), and the movie "When Harry Met Sally." She dislikes:headaches, mosquitoes, and the sounds people make when they're chewing. Feel free to look her up on Facebook here, here, or on Twitter: @slushpilemag.
In Episode 017, we spoke to Jim Hanas about the value and perhaps impracticality of today’s slush piles. This week, M. Rachel Branwen was happy to talk about her thoughts on what the slush pile is really about, disagreeing with Hanas unapologetically. Branwen tells us about the history of Slush Pile Magazine, “championing” and “curating” works that Branwen believes deserve the world’s attention.
After explaining her magazine’s history, Branwen probed us for the history and executions of Painted Bride Quarterly. Kathy and Marion reminisce about their introduction to a group of people who work on magazines like Painted Bride Quarterly and Slush Pile Magazine simply for the love of literature. Then, we have veteran reader Tim Fitts and brand-new reader Sara Aykit discuss the democratic nature of PBQ’s voting that not only empowers young readers, but keeps the perspectives of older readers fresh.
M. Rachel Branwen embodies the pleasure of reading poetry and short stories like they are the only thing that matters. We had a great time discussing her more optimistic views on slush piles and the “staggeringly interesting” Slush Pile Magazine.
Check out the Issues Marion raves about here and here!
We would love to know how you feel about slush piles: are you Team Hanas or Team Branwen? Let us know on our Facebook page or @PaintedBrideQ with #TeamHanas or #TeamBranwen!
Thank you for listening and read on!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Tim Fitts
Sara Aykit
M. Rachel Branwen
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
For this episode, we have two “creepy” poems submitted for our Monsters Issue by Sarah Kain Gutowski.
Welcome to Episode 19 of Slush Pile! For this episode, we have two “creepy” poems submitted for our Monsters Issue by Sarah Kain Gutowski.
Sarah Kain Gutowski can't keep succulents alive and is easily distracted by all things blue and shiny. Find her on Instagram @sarahkaingutowski to follow her annual #domesticviolenceawareness project during the month of October, or at her blog, Mimsy and Outgrabe, where she keeps a messy, irregular, sometimes profanity-laced record of her life as a writer, academic, and mother of three.
While these poems, part of a suite, did not get unanimous votes, we all felt they enveloped us into a universe of magical realism. True to the tradition of scary stories, these poems demand to be read slowly, deliberately, and out loud. Additionally, Gutowski’s work is more than simply scary. Like Kathy says, “Sometimes freaky shit happens,” and these poems force our team to consider the ambiguities of life, or pre-death, as Tim puts it. Listen to the outcome, but one thing is for sure: these poems are stronger together.
Comment on our Facebook event page or on Twitter with #frogtongue and sign for our email list if you’re in the area, and even if you’re not! Read on!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Lauren Patterson
Tim Fitts
Caitlin McLaughlin
Jason Schneiderman
Marion Wrenn
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
PBQ Box Score: 2=0
Chapter VI: The Children Have a Request
The season stretched itself thin, weakened by storms and heat.
Inside the damp, shadowy space of the children’s fort,
the woman with the frog tongue wove baskets and bowls
with tight, interlocked laces, while her silk stitches
began to fray and lengthen. The gap between her lips
widened to where the children could see the white of her teeth.
They stared at her, sometimes; she saw them clench their jaws
and try to speak to each other without moving their mouths.
Before long they’d begin to laugh, and she’d shake with relief at the sound.
Then one day, when the trees broke into glittering shards
of gold and red and green, and light spun pinwheels above
their heads as they walked together between the falling leaves,
the girl looked at the woman and asked if she had a name.
At this, the woman jerked to a stop. The old surge,
the impulse to speak that rose within her belly and chest,
overwhelmed. She wanted the girl and boy to know her name.
Her tongue, rolled tightly and barred from moving inside its cage,
strained against her teeth and cheeks, contorting her face with its rage.
The boy stepped back when he saw the change on the woman’s face.
The girl moved closer, though, to pat the hand she held
like she might a frightened kitten or skittish, fallen bird.
Let’s guess your name, she said. The woman’s jaw fell slack,
as much as the stitches allowed. Her panic passed away.
The boy saw her relax and began to hop around.
A game, a game, he chanted. Across her eyes the sun
sliced its blade, and though her vision bled with its light,
she felt cheered by the girl’s hand and the boy’s excitement.
Aurora. Jezebel. Serafina, guessed the girl.
Her brother laughed and grabbed a fallen branch, whacking
the moss-covered roots of the trees surrounding them.
The woman laughed, too, short bursts of air through her nose.
Her happiness shocked them all. The boy laughed again,
a raucous sound, and she looked the little girl in the eye.
A curve tested her mouth’s seams, more grimace than grin,
but the girl smiled back and sighed with some relief. Then she reached
toward the woman and pulled her close, until they were cheek to cheek.
The girl’s face, cold and smooth, smelled of the moss and earth
her brother lashed and whipped with vigor into the air.
The woman with the frog tongue hugged the girl loosely,
as if those little shoulder blades were planes of cloud,
a shifting mist she could see and feel between her arms
but couldn’t collect, or hold, or keep for her very own.
The girl stepped back yet kept her hands by the woman’s face.
Her small, thin fingers hovered before the fraying threads.
Why don’t you take these out? she asked, as she touched each ragged end.
At this the boy stopped his joyful assault of the trees
and ran to see for himself what they discussed each night
when walking home: her muffled, choked murmurings,
the gray lattice unraveling across her mouth.
He peered closely at each loose stitch, searching beyond
her lips for whatever monster she’d locked so poorly inside.
He found no monster, just a hint of pink tongue.
So he shrugged, said Yes, and spun on his heel to resume his game.
The girl jumped up and down, shouting: And then you’ll tell us your name!
The woman watched the boy whip tree roots free of moss,
the tufts spinning into the air and separating,
becoming dust, the dark green spores like beaks of birds
that plummet toward the rocky earth without fear.
She watched the girl’s hair lift and fly away from her head,
the wind dividing its strands, the way it hung, suspended
like dust in the sun, then sank like spores: a sudden drop.
She worked her mouth from side to side, and by degrees
opened her lips enough to burble a sound that said: Maybe.
Chapter VII: She Grows a Second Heart
That night she woke to find another oddity:
during sleep her heart had split or twinned itself,
and where one muscle pumped before, now beat two.
Her blood coursed through her veins twice as fast as before,
and over those paths her skin buzzed and stammered, like wire
strung tautly between two poles and charged with load.
As if she’d run for miles across rolling hills,
as if inside her chest two fists beat time all day,
beneath the bone she sped at death in the most alive way.
The day crawled while her two hearts raced. Above the fire
she set a series of clocks to ticking. She watched the flames,
sometimes leaning close enough to feel the heat
singe her stitches a deeper shade, their fibers scorching
until they curled, like dark froth spilling from her mouth.
But when her hearts began to flicker more, and faster
than she could stand, she turned her eyes to the clocks’ marked faces
and drew comfort from the second hands’ neurotic twitch.
Every minute witnessed meant another minute lived.
Beneath her breastbone her strange second heart pulsed harder.
She sensed the muscle, like her tongue, would leap and fly
away from her body if her body let it go.
She took the silver-handled knife and incised a cross
above the cavity where her hearts ballooned together,
jostling for room and dominance. The flaps of skin,
pale as egg shell, trembled slightly. A head appeared.
A bird with obsidian eyes emerged wet with her blood,
shook to shed its burden, and leapt toward the rafters above.
She watched the bird and felt air seep into the space
it left behind, her single heart unrivaled but lonely
in its great room. The wound bled slowly, healing fast
to a pale silver scar, flaps falling back to close
neatly over the bone, which laid itself again
like lines of track or scaffolding across her chest.
The bird flew to the window’s sill, and ticked its head
to look back at the woman. A slight breeze, cool and calm,
caressed its dark wings, and it leapt for the steady branch of that arm.
This episode is extra special because we had Erika Meitner, winner of the National Poetry Series and professor at Virginia Tech. She is currently working on a “documentary poetry project” on the 2016 Republican National Convention...
Welcome to Episode 18 of the PBQ’s Slush Pile! This episode is extra special because we had guest, Erika Meitner, winner of the National Poetry Series and professor at Virginia Tech. She is currently working on a “documentary poetry project” on the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland for Virginia Quarterly Review.
All of the poems we’ll consider on today’s episode were submitted by Maureen Seaton: "West Ho," "West Ho 2," & "Love in the Time of Snow." Maureen Seaton currently lives in three states of art—Florida, New Mexico, and Colorado (ocean, desert, mountain range)—all bordering on our next-door neighbors, the world.
We start with the “West Ho,” and Tim points out that the poet’s use of specific facts ultimately aids the piece. The wonderful descriptions of sunshine from Jersey to Colorado warms us up to this poem.
We go on to discuss “West Ho 2,” a seeming counterpart. This poem brings nods to the Jersey accent, and leaves us wondering who Lizzy Tish is. The “constellation of places” keeps us “tawlking” about this one for a bit longer than “West Ho.”
We were all a little intimidated by the French in “Love in the Time of Snow,” but Erika reads for us using her “Jersey French.” We love the historical allusions in this poem, and Jason, who grew up in a military family, recounts for us the story of Lafayette in the Revolutionary War.
You can listen to Maureen read her poem “Hybrid” at the University of Miami here, and at a POG reading with collaborator Sam Ace here.
Listen to find out which poems we accepted and comment on our Facebook event page or on Twitter with #WestHo!
Sign for our email list if you’re in the area, and even if you’re not!
Send us a self-addressed stamped envelope, and we’ll send you a PBQ Podcast Slushpile sticker!
Read on!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Erika Meitner
Marion Wrenn
Jason Schneiderman
Miriam Haier
Tim Fitts
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
PBQ Box Score: 3=0
West Ho
Colorado ties with Texas for 6th sunniest
state in the USA. Who cares? The sun’s
not racing against itself, why should it?
I will not be buried in Elizabethport nor
one of the Oranges like the rest of my clan.
My body will not be flown home in a crate
to be clucked over by who knows which
Irish relatives. The way the sun rises here,
clanging its huge cowbell, easing the East
right out of you, you’d think everybody’d
be tinted silt and rouge and worshipping
The Bright Solar Prince of the Solar Palace.
(Who?) I’m but one who recently drifted
from old New Jersey, the 27th sunniest state
where the sun shines 56% of the time. Don’t
underestimate the operatic trill and maw
of this western sun as it blazes over you
and laughs behind the Rockies. It will draw
you to it and sear you like a steak, Jersey
girl, Golden Guernsey, little pail of milk.
West Ho 2
I also live in the state of New Mexico, the second sunniest state, and in Florida, the eighth. I live in three places but I don’t have three faces. This is not exactly a metaphor, yet I can see the metaphor coming at me, a satellite in the hard dark sky.
Deputy Azevedo placed Dexter’s head in an evidence bag and took it out to his cruiser:
the last words I read as I fell asleep last night.
Here in Colorado everyone skis obsessively on Sunday. People break their legs and arms and sometimes their necks.
I’m feeling a little Jersey today.
Don’t get me talking about dogs or coffee.
There are no real characters in this poem, only those who have escaped from Totawa.
Lizzy Tish, for example.
Lizzy will not be buried in Totowa nor Newark nor Hoboken. Her musical body will be laid to rest somewhere on the plains of Colorado.
Personally, I both do and don’t believe in the efficacy of death and dying.
Eggcream, potsy, stoop, stickball.
These are some of the words a Jersey girl might remember while under the influence of the Colorado sun.
Her musical body will be buried in Boulder Valley under the lid of a baby grand piano, her soul accompanied into the afterlife by a flashmob of multigenerational percussionists.
Love in the Time of Snow Poem
Lafayette, Colorado
People who live here
speak very little French.
Lafayette, nous voilà!
they sometimes say.
Although Lafayette,
famous Hero of Two
Worlds, (our world et
le monde de Lafayette)
never skied much past
the bunny slope and
few remember him slip-
ping bourbon in cocoa
after snowboarding—
in fact, few remember
him at all—it’s still
historical as hell here,
a veritable winter love-
fest de la révolution,
hippies and nobles lug-
ing down the Rockies.
Instead of discussing submissions from our own slush pile, we talked about whether a “slush pile” is even the best way to find writing and writers at all! Joining us is Jim Hanas, author of the essay “Let’s Kill the Slush Pile”...
Today we have a very different episode; instead of discussing submissions from our own slush pile, we talk about whether a “slush pile” is even the best way to find writing and writers at all! Joining us is Jim Hanas, author of the essay “Let’s Kill the Slush Pile,” which details how open submissions really work, under what premises, and the advantages of scouting for work over open submissions. In a world where Facebook and Wordpress have made sharing writing easier than ever, does a slush pile still have the value that it once had? Are Editors who strictly pick from submissions nothing more than literary Gatekeepers? We sit down for this episode ready to defend our democratic slush pile as the obvious way to go, but Jim’s arguments left us questioning our own methods (unless you’re Jason).
Jim Hanas is certainly not a new face to the publishing world. Currently, he works for HarperCollins as the Senior Director of Audience Development and Insight but he’s done it all, from freelance writer, to professor, to editor. He no longer submits to the slush and is trying to conquer the full-length novel. Look for his collection of short stories titled Why They Cried: a surreal look into the strange and beautiful present in everyday life.
We here at PBQ aren’t slashing our slush pile any time soon, but Jim leaves us contemplating the function of the slush pile and with an uncertainty of its future in the ever-changing world of publishing.
What do you think? Do you agree with Jim? What are your experiences with slush piles?
Don't forget to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes!
Let us know on our Facebook event page or tweet us@PaintedBrideQ.
Thank you for listening and read on!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Jim Hanas
Jason Schneiderman
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Caitlin McLaughlin
Tim Fitts
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
Today we discussed fiction for the second time: Hunger by Kerry Donoghue. You can read the story before or after you listen to the podcast, but: SPOILER ALERT; you will hear us discuss all of the major plot points!
Hello and welcome to Episode 16 of our podcast! Today we discussed fiction for the second time: Hunger by Kerry Donoghue. You can read the story before or after you listen to the podcast, but: SPOILER ALERT; you will hear us discuss all of the major plot points!
Kerry Donoghue once launched a falcon from her arm so it could snatch a pigeon head in mid-air, which seems really random to mention to you right now, but when you’ll read the story you’ll see: she’s obsessed with consumption: what we put in our mouths, all the different infidelities we allow. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, her little girl, and a distressing capacity for cheese (See? It’s all connected.) We know you’ll want more of Donoghue, so we’ve made it easy–The Pinch, The Louisville Review, The South Carolina Review, Potomac Review, and Harpur Palate.
We loved the way that Donoghue was able to paint such misguided, inept characters without judgement. From Buick’s competitive eating to Glory’s obsession with childbearing, the story held enough elements of reality for us to believe in and truly care about these characters. Sex, food, beauty salons, brothers, baby shampoo, and tricep dips–the visceral details here drive this piece. If you read it, you will immediately want to share it–just like us!
We then decided to fully rip off one our favorite podcast’s, (Pop Culture Happy Hour) and Kathy asked each of us what’s been making us happy. Tim mentioned that he’s re-reading George Orwell, while Caitlin brought up the Spider Man/Deadpool Marvel comic, and so her happiness dealt with anticipation. (Once again making us love the diversity of our staff’s minds.)
Jason is loving former PBQ author Kristen Dombek’s book, “The Selfishness of Others: An Essay on the Fear of Narcissism,” and admits that his currect gulity pleasure is the Netflix series, Stranger Things. (“Reason to watch=Winona Ryder.)
Kathleen ended the podcast with a call for memoirs written by people under 30 who are not celebrities and have not suffered huge life tragedies. Do any exist? Let us know on our event page!
As always, let us know what you think—of the story, our conversation, or the podcast in general, on our Facebook page! Don’t forget to rate and subscribe if you like what we’re doing!
Read on!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Tim Fitts
Jason Schneiderman
Caitlin McLaughlin
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
On today’s podcast we discussed four poems, all part of a “polyvalent” poetry series by Jayson Iwen. These poems were unique because they could be read two different ways, horizontally and vertically.
Hi and welcome to Episode 15 of the PBQ’s Slush pile. On today’s podcast we discussed four poems, all part of a “polyvalent” poetry series by Jayson Iwen. These poems were unique because they could be read two different ways, horizontally and vertically.
Jayson lived in Beirut, Lebanon for four years where he served as the “Hare-Raiser” for the Beirut Tarboush Hash House Harriers (yeah, we had to look it up, too). He wrote his first two books on a Smith Corona WS250 when he was in high school, and dropped out of pre-med to become a writer. In college he played Petruchio in an S&M, black box version of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew (eat your heart out E.L. James).
You can check out Jayson’s website here; you’ll want to, after your hear and read these poems.
We started with “.1.4.1,” which was the first in the series of “polyvalent” poetry. We started by reading the poem vertically and then moved on to horizontally. We were impressed with the way in which the meaning of the poem became clearer when we read the poem horizontally, like magic. Tim was able to connect with the feelings associated with new parenthood, while Jason questioned our ability to trust such an unconventional voice.
We decided to move on and read all of the poems before we voted, so it was on to “.1.4.2.” We found again that the horizontal version was more accessible to us, and admired the strong images the author’s language conjured.
Next was “.1.4.3,” and we really dug the “creepy” tone that progressed through the first two poems to this one, and when we moved on to “.1.4.4,” we looked forward to seeing where the story that was woven through the first three poems went.
You’ll have to listen to see which poems we ultimately accepted from the series!
Don’t forget to rate and subscribe on our iTunes, then let us know what you thought on our podcast Facebook page.
Read on!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Tim Fitts
Jason Schneiderman
Caitlin McLaughlin
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
PBQ Box Score: 3:4
.1.4.1
You have descended from animals Who descended from angels
Who alone have descended From the darkness of their own choice
Where nothing holds its shape for long Hold out your hand
And feel for rain The pain of sex
My great grandmother taught my grand With a knife
My grandfather taught my uncle Respect with a pitch fork
No one arrives at insanity alone It’s a social conclusion
Like finding the baby Waiving goodbye from the top of the stairs
.1.4.2
In the night you lean Over the baby, to make sure it’s okay
The baby wakes terrified A dark animal shape looms
From the fear within you Modeling itself in the child
The only way out of possession To dispossess your thought, you remember
You’ve been so baked you couldn’t stand No one ever mentioned the crystal THC
With which they’d laced the pot Those nights were long affairs
Watching the submarine calm of the ceiling In the extra bedroom
Watching fire light flicker on the tent flap Listening to everything speak your name
.1.4.3
You might dream of a poolside party Where you bump into an old classmate
You thought had died years before With whom you’d never spoken
Our military was so strong It would break its own neck
She said I’ll be in the last room on the left
And left You might wake to find the baby
Sitting up in the dark Staring at a shape in the moonlight
Why did you never come to me It says
You might have found me The high & holy center of the Earth
.1.4.4
I was my mother’s will Sent out into the world
For bread or cheese or meat A vapor trail unforming
Against the morning light The sound of a struck bell
Slipping into the background To live beyond scrutiny
Your glorious brain, my little humon Is a globule of fat
Dangling from the nerve tree We call universe
That’s right, son Daddy’s drinking again
His life is a dead end That tastes like mother’s cup
Welcome to Episode 14! We’re having so much nerdy fun with these and hope you are, too. This week we discussed one poem a piece by Hilary Jacqmin, Keith Woodruff, and Kierstin Bridger, each submitted for different issues. Another Slush Pile first!
Welcome to Episode 14 of our podcast! We’re having so much nerdy fun with these and hope you are, too. This week we discussed one poem a piece by Hilary Jacqmin, Keith Woodruff, and Kierstin Bridger, each submitted for different issues. Another Slush Pile first!
First up was “Private Lives” by Hilary Jacqmin.
Hilary S. Jacqmin earned her MA from Johns Hopkins University and her MFA from the University of Florida. Inspired by Baltimore performance art group Fluid Movement's elaborate water ballets, Hilary aspires to learn synchronized swimming. This summer, Hilary has kept busy by going to entirely too many concerts (including Beyoncé, Weezer, and Jason Isbell), baking a sour cherry pie in honor of her Door County, Wisconsin family heritage, and seeing Hamilton on Broadway
Her work has appeared in Best New Poets 2011, edited by D.A. Powell, The Awl, Pank, Subtropics, Passages North, AGNI, and elsewhere. You can also read her article on "killing your darlings" here!
This poem struck a chord with everyone at the table. It’s hard to write a poem about boredom that isn’t, well, boring! We were right there with her in her grandparent’s house, trying to pass the time.
Next we discussed Keith Woodruff’s “Bride of Frankenstein Blues,” submitted for our Monsters issue.
Keith “from the Black Lagoon” Woodruff has a Masters in creative writing from Purdue University, and lives with his wife Michelle and son Whitman in Akron, Ohio. His work recently appeared in The Journal, Quarter After Eight, American Literary Review, and is forthcoming in Wigleaf. His haiku have appeared in Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Mayfly, Acorn, A Hundred Gourds, and in Big Sky: the Red Moon anthology.
We all sympathized with poor Frankenstein trying to find love in the modern dating world, but this poem also sparked discussion of “pick-up” artists. We wondered what Frankenstein’s Bride would say about his pick-up methods? Regardless, the poem was accessible to all of us.
Last, we read “To the Girl From the Reformatory Town” by Kierstin Bridger, submitted for our Locals issue!
Kierstin is a Colorado writer and winner of the Mark Fischer Prize, the ACC Studio award and was shortlisted for the 2015 Manchester Poetry Prize in the UK. Western Colorado is full of incredible writers, and for the past several years they’ve been performing Literary Burlesque! This year they pulled a switch-a-roo on Oh Brother Where Art Thou. They changed it to Oh Sister and combined themes with The Odyssey. Kirsten says, “It was a smash, and so very collaborative.”
You can listen to Kierstin read from her book, Demimonde, here.
We were intrigued by the imagery in Kierstin’s poem. Although none of us grew up in a “reformatory town” the emotional language put us in the mindset of the “girl.”
Over the years, PBQ often accepts work, contacts the authors, and then gets told there’s been a revision. Almost always, the original is better than the revision. We discussed why this might happen, and how difficult it is to know when your own work is “finished.” Let us know what you think—do you continue to work with your work once you’ve sent it out?
You can find PBQ on Twitter @paintedbrideq or on our Facebook.
Don’t forget to visit our Facebook event page to discuss this episode, and subscribe to our iTunes account!
Read on!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Tim Fitts
Jason Schneiderman
Caitlin McLaughlin
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
PBQ Box Score: 3:0
Hilary Jacqmin Private Lives
They have retired
to lost pines
and BurgerTime.
When our tan Malibu
grinds up
the switchback
to their mock-
Tahitian Village
in the Texas hills,
the grandparents
can barely stand to touch us.
But “Little David,”
they cry out, until
my father blushes.
Kindness is cold
champagne coupes
at 5 and 6 o’clock,
then Jeopardy. A walk
through bull pine,
clearing brush.
Whatever can be done
with us? My sister’s
fist is purpling
with cactus spines;
my mother’s stomach
bites; this week, I will not bathe.
The grandparents shy
from our commotion. Secretly, we flip
through The Handmaid’s Tale.
Our shared air mattress
crackles like a seed. We’re trapped:
now that we’ve come,
they won’t let us go out
past the dry creek bed.
Next year, they’ll never
even leave the house.
Why is their clubhouse
impermeable,
a miniature Pentagon?
And why can’t we order malteds
at Lock Drug? Mother says
“We can’t ask why.”
Inside, we play
endless Rummikub.
Uno, uno.
“There ought
to be a religion
for people who don’t know
what to believe,”
grandmother frets,
her bad eye winking
like a cut-up moon.
Outside, a loop
of fire ants
works a burnt-out
stump, persistent
as pump jacks,
and night’s an oil field.
We are too young
to know what granddad did
with catalytic crackers
at Shell, too dumb
to talk duplicate bridge hands,
Gravity’s Rainbow,
or split stock,
but we think hard
about the hardwood
in the Lockhart
smokehouse
and how granddad’s
bread machine vibrates
like a Gravitron.
Sometimes, they notice me.
They say, “What are you writing?
Are you writing about us?”
They say, “That makes me
so nervous.” I want to tell them
there is so little
that I can write. Almost nothing.
Perfume like propane. A tickless clock.
How quickly they both turn away.
Keith Woodruff Bride of Frankenstein Blues
Consider the moon, my friend,
how its absence conjures this unromantic air.
Here in the bar, smoke unwinds like bolts
of slow lightning across the gauzy light;
everywhere you look
mouths, small dark graves, chew on drinks.
Now the music gropes its way
through the crowd looking for phone numbers, drags
itself onto the wooden dance floor.
This is no night for finding brides.
Still, you try, touch her wrist during “talk”
& spring the classic recoil. Her black eyes, twitch like nerves,
the head cocks bird-like,
spindly arms jerk back from your touch & clasp up
her breast sacs as the goose hiss splits
her blue lips.
These damn castles are cold.
Some nights, alone again, arms outstretched on the stairs,
you think you might prefer
the murderous torches. Anything to light you up.
Kierstin Bridger To the Girl From the Reformatory Town
You wrestled against the clutches of brothers and cousins, etched lessons
in your muscle, broke tendencies, rerouted synapse with unwritten
chapters entitled, Risk, Pain, and Tolerance. Though pale and tender as
your own, you clawed your way into their flesh; red scratches and waning
moons of bruise. You carved a language of ferocious prey and warning but
more startling than the DNA that curled from under your nails was the
power which made you surge, the breathless current of survival that ran
like a lightning rod through the center of your axis as you spun in and out
of years knowing blood tracks would either catch up with you or become
abandoned to faster byways and untranslatable modes. So you walk, never
looking over your shoulder, one step in front of the other, past the
fermenting bumper crop yard-fruit. Never mind the dirty shoelace untied,
the frayed, grey string dangling over the trestle bridge track. You need this
grip of heat, the hot rail under your feet. It's like the static warmth the
addicts wear like skullcaps, the chokecherry buzz after needle pierce and
plunge. Keep your hair blown back, baby, and charged with the horizon
line. Ignore the periphery of prison men in orange. Their 40 ounce cans
and spent shells are their business not yours. Disregard the jackrabbit
carcass and its fur which still clings but will sail away soon like dandelion
seeds. Remember it's not a charm and their sentence is not your sentence;
you can't do that kind of time. Keep going, never say, it'll all blow over
someday because lies like that scatter, fade, sink back to soil. They'll
transform into fragments so sparse, so swallow-drunk, the next generation
will skip the deciphering stone, misspell the story of you, digitize and
archive it on some pixelated and odorless, dot com.
Today we discussed three poems by Dana Sonnenschein, all submitted for our Monsters issue! Dana is a professor of English at Southern Connecticut State University. Her manuscript, Bear Country was selected as winner of the 2008 Stevens Poetry Book Manuscript Competition.
On this episode we discussed three poems by Dana Sonnenschein, all submitted for our Monsters issue!
Dana is a professor of English at Southern Connecticut State University. Her manuscript, Bear Country was selected as winner of the 2008 Stevens Poetry Book Manuscript Competition. Her writing can also be found in Pith Journal and Poemeleon.
Dana love wolves, ravens, black cats, Universal horror films, folklore from around the world, and the kind of cookbooks that feature ingredients like mummy and shavings from human skulls. And yes, she does wear white glove when she handles manuscripts!
You can ‘like’ Dana’s author page on Facebook.
These poems were part of a series that put a twist on old horror stories. First up was “The Secret” and we were seriously scared. From eyeballs in hands to some Shining-esque twins, we knew that we were in for some creepy stuff in the best way.
We moved on to discuss “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” a prose poem. This poem particularly resonated with editor Tim Fitts, causing him to recall a neighbor he had with serious boundary issues.
Last, Sonnenschein took us to Egypt with her poem “The Return of the Mummy.” Somehow, this poem related the mummies we all fear with another fear we all have--in relationships.
Although the authors we’ve asked to participate in our podcast have been overwhelmingly supportive, we have had a few authors who declined to be a part of Slush Pile.
We discussed some of the emotional responses we received so far, and some of the reasons our podcast might scare authors, even when we’re not talking about the Creature from the Black Lagoon!
You can find PBQ on Twitter @paintedbrideq or on our Facebook.
Don’t forget to visit our Facebook event page to discuss this episode, and subscribe to our iTunes account!
Read on!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Tim Fitts
Jason Schneiderman
Caitlin McLaughlin
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
PBQ Box Score: 1:2
The Secret Two boys of nine or ten in yellow slickers. The first time I saw them, one stood high on the bank, watching the water, hands in his pockets; the other ran down the hill, holding his eyes out in his palms. Drops ringing. Grass shining wet with rain, rock dark like a rook. A broken oar split the surface of the river. The next night they came down from their stone keep and sang sweetly, holding hands, We are the eyes from the Eye Tower. Then the river flowed under and the road gave in one sweeping curve. I had to know. So I took a whirlpool down, cool and smooth as metal. Came up spiraling, my mouth full of blood. I spit on the causeway, put my fingers where my teeth had been, and told no one what I’d seen. But you know the river I mean.
Creature from the Black Lagoon My neighbor leads a life of fiction and once in a while invites me in—to make believe she's got a spotless apartment, a couple kids, religion. It's hard to keep up with the plot. The radiator hisses like a cast-iron snake. Or the kitchen faucet drips, and a roach slips out from under a plate. She changes her age like her clothes, every few days. Sometimes she stares where water scales the wall and says she'll give up booze. One night the building’s old pipes ring and then my phone—I heard you typing. I'm writing a novel, too, she says, about some people I know. I sigh and lean on the wall we share. Soon she’s breathing into my ear, So you think it's your honey, forgot his keys, no, drops the keys, he knocks and calls, louder, because you were in the shower, yeah, and you let him in, but he's not your honey. He’s a man in flippers and a black rubber suit. Universal Studios, 1954.I roll my eyes. But then I think of her, hunched over, listening behind her door, as keys jangle onto hardwood, as this thing between a man and beast slithers in. I say, Sorry, I left the water running. You'll have to stop by tomorrow and tell me how it ends. When I hear her slippers in the hall, I shiver and pretend there's no one home.
The Return of the Mummy At midnight, it's Kharis, clutching his heart
and game leg trailing: he needs a good start,
but he won't stand still for his priestess's goods
being touched. Her ghost returns to girlhood
or a handful of dust, but he remains, cursed,
rag-wrapped, limping through reels without words
*
Once we swore, Cross my heart and hope to die,
and stared into glass cases where mummies lie,
holding hands, our monstrous fascination
taking in needles, death, and devotion,
a toe dark as a raisin, the Rosetta Stone,
eternal pyramids, copulating oxen.
*
When we unlocked dead tongues and tombs,
it was because we knew the future loomed
beyond chill doors. We held onto love like a balm.
We didn't want to be left alone after all
and couldn't quite believe in sky-blue heaven
or living on without our flesh and bones.
Hello and welcome to Episode #12! For the first time on our podcast, we are discussing fiction! Today, we will talk about a short story, “Prufrock” by Terry Dubow. We were nervous about discussing this longer format, but super excited to try it out.
Hello and welcome to Episode #12 of PBQ’s Slush Pile! For the first time on our podcast, we are discussing fiction! Today, we will talk about a short story, “Prufrock” by Terry Dubow. We were nervous about discussing this longer format, but super excited to try it out.
]
Dubow has been writing fiction for twenty years or so—it’s his secret identity without exciting parts. No super powers. No spy stories. No second family in Idaho.
In addition to writing 250 words a day, he works at an independent school in Cleveland and does his best to help his two daughters and his one lovely wife stay happy, healthy and fed. A story collection was a finalist for the Autumn House Fiction Prize in 2011. Currently, he’s working on his third novel. We want more, and after reading this story, we have a feeling you will, too. Read another story, “Wyoming” in Witness.
We advised our listeners to go read Prufrock first, but of course, we can’t know that they did--it’s all an experiment, right? We dove right in: raccoons and a cat and teenagers and mother-in-laws, oh my!!!
This story packs so much into thirteen pages; we laughed at moments, and while we may not have cried, we winced at all the right parts. This story made us think about fatherhood, T.S. Eliot, incapacitation, indecision, and whether we should be paid by the hour. Once again, Tim schooled us on the real habits of the wildlife of North America, and we could have discussed the story for another hour.
We had some dissension about how the piece ends and even more about what happened to Prufrock; please read, listen to this show, and cast your vote!
Marion suggested that we might provide a synopsis of the story at the beginning of episodes that discuss fiction, which sparked a discussion of recap podcasts and the ways we consume longform media. With such an overwhelming amount of media coming at us in so many ways---how do you consume? You can let us know on our Facebook event page and our twitter @PaintedBrideQ. Don't forget to subscribe and rate us on our iTunes page!
As always, thank you for listening, and read on!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Tim Fitts
Denise Guerin
Alexa Josaphouitch
Caitlin McLaughlin
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
PBQ Box Score: 1:1
In this podcast, we discuss three of Laura McCullough’s poems. The box score above is the spoiler alert: though today’s podcast crew spanned from the east coast to Iowa, included an undergrad and people who’ve done this work of editing for more than two decades, we were unanimously enamored of all three poems.
Welcome to Episode 11 of PBQ’s Slush Pile! In this podcast, we discuss three of Laura McCullough’s poems. The box score above is the spoiler alert: though today’s podcast crew spanned from the east coast to Iowa, included an undergrad and people who’ve done this work of editing for more than two decades, we were unanimously enamored of all three poems.
“Leafless” moved us and took us on a journey that also spanned decades. “Reclaimed Wood” told a tale we only want even more of, and “Maggot Therapy” simply left us thunderstruck. Read along and listen in—these poems are even more breathtaking aloud. .
She hates the word feminist and she’s no stranger to PBQ! Laura McCullough is an award-winning poet with six (!) poetry collections which include her most recent, Jersey Mercy, which narrates the lives of two people affected by Hurricane Sandy. Watch a brief interview after her first book or watch part of a reading from this past spring.Check out more of her work on her website.
The fact that we were going to discuss Laura’s work and we’ve known her for years, spurred us to invite Jennifer L. Knox to join us for this episode, as Jennifer fits a similar profile: she’s a poet whose work we admire and the added bonus—we can call her a friend.
We discussed the conundrum many of us find ourselves in—how difficult is it to be a poet who wants to send work to journals she loves and respects, but whose editors she knows well. No one wants to be published out of obligation or to put her friend in an awkward position. The flip side is just as bad: no editor takes pleasure out of rejecting anyone, let alone a friend. Our discussion focused on social ties and aesthetic taste—or, as Jennifer put it, discerning the “heart-to-brains-to-balls ratio” of any given magazine or press in order to find the right home for your work. Listen in as we explore our practices, then chime in on our FB event page and share your own.
Sign for our email list if you’re in the area, and even if you’re not!
Send us a self-addressed stamped envelope, and we’ll send you a PBQ Podcast sticker.
Follow us on Twitter @PaintedBrideQ and Instagram @paintedbridequarterly. Don't forget to subscribe and rate us on our iTunes page!
Read on!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Jason Schneiderman
Alexa Josaphouitch
Tim Fitts
Jennifer Knox
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
PBQ Box Score: 3:0
Laura McCullough Leafless
In the end, my mother’s shoulders, barely covered and quivering,
were like birds.
Once, I made a dress
for her, the fabric creamy white, the print a single brown tree
spanning the width, with stark branches.
It was 1974. I was fourteen. Each night,
I taught myself to sew, feeding
the fabric through the foot, thinking
how surprised she would be. I remember
seeing her in it, how we’d both loved the gesture, the achievement,
and though it fit poorly, the print
was enough for us. She wore it once and never again, let me see
her walk out the door in it.
Maybe
love’s architecture is exposed when we try and fail at what we mean.
Outside the hospital, winter had flayed everything, the trees
charcoaled against the sky, their shadows
thumb smudges on the institutional snow hid lawn, and inside the air
was redolent of shit, flowers, and chlorine.
The first time I changed her clothes, peeling back from her shoulders
the blue flecked cotton gown,
then sliding a clean pink one up her arms, we held each other
in the oily light, spent.
Reclaimed Wood I confess now I have begun to henna
my red hair gone dull
in parts and penny bright in others.
And I always tried to subdue
its wildness. But when the hull of our
marriage busted rock
and began to leak, we both thought
it was a good idea to renovate
the kitchen, together, by ourselves.
We closed up the hall
to the back rooms to create more
privacy and took down a load-
bearing wall in hoped of opening
the “flow.” My husband looked
like Christ hauling the salvaged
timbers from a warehouse deep
in the Piney woods one by one
up the front stoop, laying
them in our suburban living room,
posing as a Brooklyn loft.
We framed the new wide space:
one as header, two as column braces,
then sat on the floor cross-legged
looking at our work in progress,
the way the wood had aged,
the colors and striations, notches
and hammered pegs. We felt our
fifties ranch had a new story now,
something with weight, and we
held hands a little while before
getting up, heading to the shower,
falling back into our routine.
Maggot Therapy
Near death, sometimes the hands curve
into themselves like claws.
I held my mother’s open, smoothing
the fingers, trimming the wild nails.
Once, years before, my husband and I awoke
to a fawn caught in the family compost,
a hole on its back end festering with worms,
and he pinched each one out
swiping his little finger in the bowl
of the wound, then coating it
with antibiotic salve. I loved him,
and how he saved this small thing.
It’s a story I have told over and over.
Today though, I’m thinking of the medical uses
for maggots: biodebridement and extracorporeal
digestion, their enzymes liquefying
dead tissue in wounds, and wonder,
do I feed off the dead
who live inside me? When my mother was dying,
she had a vision of her non-corporeal
father, brothers, sisters. Her last words,
Why have you left me alone?
She never opened her eyes again,
her chest a drowning well.
The bodily signs of death:
the skin mottling as blood flow slows;
breathing, open mouthed; jaw, unhinged.
I won’t recount the signs of a dying marriage,
but he left two days after her funeral. Physically,
he returned but told me he’d fallen
in love with someone else,
that his love for me had passed.
Above my mother’s body, orange mist
had exhaled and dispersed, a light bulb
busted open, its luminescent gas escaping.
The word fluorescent is so similar
to the word florescence, meaning flowering,
and somewhere between these two,
there is a splendor I can barely stand.
Inflorescence refers to flowers clustering
on one branch, each a separate floret,
but if they are tightly clustered
as in the dandelion seed head, they look incomplete
alone, though the whole is an illusion.
The word for this—pseudanthium—means “false
flower.” Infrutescence, its fruiting stage,
gives us grapes, ears of corn, stalks of wheat,
so many of the berries we love.
This morning my hands ache
as though in the night I’d been trying
to claw my way out of a hole
I am down in, having lost the body
I came into this world through, and my husband’s
as well. It’s almost as if my body
had come to believe his was a part of its own,
a connection he would have to break or die.
Medical experts say it takes two moltings
for maggots to do the job well,
to feed enough to clean a wound. I do not feel
clean at all, though in our shower,
my husband and I still huddle some days,
hunched into the spray. We call it watering.
When we do, we scrub each other, grateful
for the living, dying flesh, but trying to get clean
of each other. That fawn he saved way back
when we were new in love
was released into the wild. Surely, it had a scar
identifying it, evidence of what flesh
my husband was willing to enter
in order to keep something alive. Lately,
he seems more clear-eyed, and it is as if a cicatrix husk
is cracking. Neither of us know who
will emerge, but he seems luminescent,
a kind of light created by the excitation
of the smallest elements, and not giving off warmth,
but a cold glow that at least illuminates.
Welcome to Episode 10 of the PBQ’s Slush pile! Episode 10!!!! Can you believe it? Thus far, we have released 10 episodes of our podcast. We’d like to say thank you to our listeners, supporters, authors and editorial board!
Welcome to Episode 10 of the PBQ’s Slush pile! Episode 10!!!! Can you believe it? Thus far, we have released 10 episodes of our podcast. We’d like to say thank you to our listeners, supporters, authors and editorial board!
First up is Jen Karetnick, who submitted the poem “The Physics of Falling Mangoes” for the Locals issue. When we asked her if we could discuss the poem she said, “I love the idea of the podcast editorial meeting, although it might prove to be a little nerve-wracking. But I'm sure my students, who get put through the workshop wringer all year long, will consider it more than just! So for their sake alone, I am delighted to say yes.”
Side note: It’s mango season, so we thought what better time to discuss this poem than now! Perplexed at first by a few “scientific” words, we grew to appreciate the intimacy of the vocabulary. Karetnick beautifully and authentically captured the atmosphere where mango trees grow; it’s as if she lives among the trees that she describes. In fact, Jen Karetnick lives in Miami Shores on the last acre of a historic plantation with her husband, two teenagers, three dogs, three cats and fourteen mango trees. This poem will make you want a mango, and to read more of her Jen Karetnick’s work: she released the poetry collection American Sentencing (Winter Goose Publications, May 2016). You can also see more @ TheAtlantic.com, Guernica and her website.
The next poem was submitted to our Monsters issue, but you probably would have guessed that. When we first asked Tria Wood she said she was “excited and intrigued” also a “little nervous.”Keep up the bravery poets!
Immediately, we noticed the contrast between Godzilla’s graceful swan-like nature and his belly collapsing like a flat tire. The imagery in the third and fourth stanzas also had us close to speechless—which loyal listeners know takes a lot! Every detail had us captivated (even Godzilla's cocktail)! A pleasant surprise for all, we quickly fell in love with this re-imagined Godzilla.
Make sure to watch Tria read “Godzilla Walks Into a Bar” herself!
Tria Wood’s poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in Rattle, Literary Mama and other publications. Check out one of the public art projects in Houston that features her work.
In this podcast, we also clarify some things that have been happening in our podcasts. Even after our tenth episode, we can still be surprised by the outcomes. We’re sorry to learn that “Brazillian” was accepted elsewhere, but we are glad we still got to discuss it in Episode 8.
We also discuss a few questions that arose due to Episode 9: Do you consider the work posted here as published? Is there a difference between posting and publishing work? Listen and then chime in!
We’d love to know what you think; let us know on our FB page!
Sign for our email list if you’re in the area, and even if you’re not!
Send us a self-addressed stamped envelope, and we’ll send you a PBQ Podcast sticker.
Follow us on Twitter @PaintedBrideQ and Instagram @paintedbridequarterly.
Don't forget to subscribe and rate us on our iTunes page!
Read on!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Jason Schneiderman
Miriam Haier
Tim Fitts
Isabella Fidanza
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
PBQ Box Score: 2=0
Jen Karetnick The Physics of Falling Mangoes
If a Haden mango, full with sun,
and an ovoid Irwin, that ornament
of dawn, drop at the same time from
panicles equivalent in height,
will they accelerate identically
despite degrees of heft, of maturity,
the knowledge of their own ripeness?
Physics says yes, despite mass, even
if it’s a late-season Beverly, still green,
set upon too early by a squirrel
sitting on its stem, or an Indian mango
five pounds large, swaying all summer,
too big for the basket of the tool
I wield like lightning to strike
a singular fruit. The damage, then:
That should be equal, too. But all things
considered, there is no free fall. Air,
on a humid whim, can change
its resistance, and there is no formula
to adjust for the destructive means
of a mango during descent, helicoptering
sap through the day’s work of spiderwebs,
a season of boat-shaped leaves that bear
those burns until they themselves release,
and the twigs it breaks without discrimination,
whether they are ready to reach like hands
or be struck down to ground. And the ground,
which could be oolite or limestone, grass
or a brother mango, the driveway
or the chemical buffer of pool water,
my shoulder or arm or skull, willing to take
the aromatic knock. I know the parts
of the equation: limb, fruit, gravity. But not
the sum, upon landing. Wholly bruised? Flesh
protected by deflection? Or a split that, turned
every possible way, simply, dumbly smiles?
Tria Wood Godzilla Walks into a Bar
Godzilla walks into a bar.
He’s much smaller
than you’d expect, really.
Scaly, dark, and haggard.
He’s been sleeping it off
for centuries, all that rage,
dust and ashes washed out
of the cracks in his suit
by the surging Pacific.
He’s graceful, surprisingly
so. Swanlike, even.
He will not look at you.
When he sits, his forearms pool
on the bar like crayons in the sun.
His belly is a flat tire
collapsing into his crotch
and whatever may be there
is hidden. He’ll order
something tropical, all rum
and fruit and fire,
incinerate the paper umbrella
with a tiny burst
that could have been a laugh.
He swivels his head
to watch it burn, left,
right, then pokes its charred
skeleton down into the tumbler
and gives it a feeble stir
with stubbed fingers. One dark claw
etches delicate architecture
into the condensation on the glass.
And when he turns, half-smiles
at you, at last you understand
love at first sight.
All 3 of the poems on today’s episode were submitted by poet Brittney Scott.* The Abu Dhabi editors flagged Scott’s previous submissions—we wanted to publish them!—but we moved too slowly. Other publications nabbed them. So Scott sent us another batch of poems to consider and we discussed them on this special edition of “The Slush Pile,” the “all Abu Dhabi all the time edition,” featuring members of our Abu Dhabi editorial board.
All 3 of the poems on today’s episode were submitted by poet Brittney Scott.* The Abu Dhabi editors flagged Scott’s previous submissions—we wanted to publish them!—but we moved too slowly. Other publications nabbed them. So Scott sent us another batch of poems to consider and we discussed them on this special edition of “The Slush Pile,” the “all Abu Dhabi all the time edition,” featuring members of our Abu Dhabi editorial board.
These poems set out to both delight and appall. We were transfixed by a dismembered body mauled by dogs in “After the Hunt”; fascinated by the relationship between a daughter and her mother, an “unstable gardener,” in “Daughter of Wild Lettuce.”
Plus, Scott’s work stuck an inadvertent chord with our PBQ ex-pat crew. Listen as Scott’s poems help the Abu Dhabi editors make sense of being far flung, of being mildly Dazed & Confused.
Brittney Scott received an MFA from Hollins University in Virginia. A finalist in the 2013 Narrative 30 Below Contest, she is also the 2012 recipient of the Joy Harjo Prize for Poetry and the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize. She teaches creative writing to adults, Girl Scouts, and high-risk youth at Richmond’s Visual Arts Center.
Tell us what you think about Brittney Scott’s poems or anything else you’d like to share with us on our Facebook page event, Episode 9.
Sign up for our e-mail list if you are in the area and even if you, too, are far flung!
Send us a SASE and we’ll send you a podcast sticker!
Follow us on Twitter @PaintedBrideQ and Instagram @paintedbridequarterly.
Read on!
--MW
- You might notice that we posted only 2 of the 3 poems we discussed in this week’s episode in our show notes. This is the first time in 9 episodes we’ve had a poet ask us not to post anything we reject. You’ll have to listen to hear more!
Don't forget to subscribe and rate us on our iTunes page!
Present at the Editorial Table:
Marion Wrenn
Anna Pedersen
Ben Hackenberger
Samantha Neugebauer
Production Engineer:
Richard Lennon
PBQ Box Score: 2=3
After the Hunt
Here’s the body the dogs robbed—
the limbs strewn around the field like prophecy.
She won’t make it,
they say. They say
the body found in her bed
was eaten right through to the floral mattress.
They had to shut her eyes
because she would not stop
blinking up at a bone marrow colored sky,
enjoying her party, the confetti
of her flayed body.
The dogs got sick on her form,
the remains of her last meal of steamed artichoke
grapes, mercy, and rejection.
Don’t they know
What’s good for one
will poison another? So
they say. They say
the dogs died in a circle
and she rose the next day
to bury them and bring flowers
to their graves.
Daughter of Wild Lettuce
My mother plants snow peas behind the garage.
She works around the sink hole that takes
dry leaves and garbage all summer.
In her memory, I am an almost abortion.
She plants marigolds with the tomatoes,
symbiotic bright suns
bursting between the rows.
Sometimes she knows, love
abounding, sometimes she overlooks
an entire season’s glut, and rot
carries us through winter.
In the cellar, plastic roses, night crawlers,
unfinished half-hearted projects,
the potatoes’ all seeing eyes and me
damp through my nightshirt.
No natural light filters in,
so I only know the earth’s eternal hour.
My mother, an unstable gardener,
tosses spare seeds into barren patches
of the backyard. We won’t know until spring.
Sometimes new buds shoot up
in the most unusual places,
but more often, they don’t.
First up in this episode is Todd Pierce, with “If Only You Could Remember” which had us both as lost as the speaker (in a good way) and mesmerized. Todd is currently rereading War Music: An Account of Homer's Iliad, by Christopher Logue and the chapbook Weird Vocation, by Art Zilleruelo.
First up in this episode is Todd Pierce, with “If Only You Could Remember” which had us both as lost as the speaker (in a good way) and mesmerized. Todd is currently rereading War Music: An Account of Homer's Iliad, by Christopher Logue and the chapbook Weird Vocation, by Art Zilleruelo. He hopes that 2016 is the year that he finishes Don Quixote. Other facts: he once flew a plane without crashing it, and once crashed a bicycle without riding it.
Todd Pierce has been published in Opium Magazine, Annapolis Underground, and Poet Lore. Stay tuned to see if he can add Painted Bride Quarterly to that growing list! Until then, we are honored to publish his first ever selfie!
You really have to scroll down or click here and check out the format of “Brazilian”—it’s one of the best executions of this difficult format that we’ve seen.
We had so much fun discussing this one, and were very happy we could finally educate Jason Schneiderman on SOMETHING. But to be even more mysterious, though (spoiler alert) we loved the poem, we found out some bad news after this podcast, which we will discuss in Episode 9!
Beau Boudreaux is New Orleans born and raised, and he uses his deep, southern roots for inspiration in his writing. Read more in Louisiana Literature and Southern Poetry Anthology, buy Running Red, Running Redder (Cherry Grove Collections, 2012) and see even more here.
Tell us what you think on our Facebook Event page for this episode!
Sign for our email list if you’re in the area, and even if you’re not!
If you haven’t yet, follow us on Twitter @PaintedBrideQ and Instagram @paintedbridequarterly.
Don't forget to subscribe and rate us on our iTunes page!
Send us a self-addressed stamped envelope, and we’ll send you a PBQ Podcast Slushpile sticker!
Read on!
KVM
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Jason Schneiderman
Tim Fitts
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
PBQ Box Score: 2=0
Todd Pierce If Only You Could Remember
When we came upon the muddy river
between the mountains I realize
now were not there, our dog crawling
out of the lungs of the mysterious beast he found
ahead of us, lost as much but more at home,
we learned to distinguish dream from wish, surrounded
by the forest’s tired breath chilling the sky, our noses
bunched up against the scent of something not quite death,
as I plucked a bloated tick off your nape
and popped it under the rolling clouds,
fine raindrops running red down the dog’s white sides.
Beau Boudreaux Brazilian
She leans in towards my ear
overwhelmed, awash shock of perfume
zoo stench, sniff an old Easter lily
no, I really do admire the cut of her
hemline, zebra skin bangs on the brow
oh commando Ms. Orlando
information I don’t need a cheat, she’s the only one
smoking, cocktailed touching my arm.
Both of the poems we discussed in Episode 7 were submitted for our “Monsters” Issue and both poems, Coyote and Coyotes, were written by Paul Nelson. Tantalizing and intriguing, we were “seduced into loving this animal that will eat your face,” as Tim pointed out....
Both of the poems we discussed in Episode 7 were submitted for our “Monsters” Issue and both poems, Coyote and Coyotes, were written by Paul Nelson. Tantalizing and intriguing, we were “seduced into loving this animal that will eat your face,” as Tim pointed out. We now love coyotes and the unanimous “yes” votes prove we love these poems too!
Paul Nelson has authored eight books and was Ohio University’s Director of the Creative Writing program for many years. Nelson has bounced around the Northeast United States but currently resides in O’ahu, Hawaii where he is a member of the editorial board for Kaimina, a Hawaiian literary magazine.
After our unanimous votes for Paul Nelson’s poetry, Tim brought to the table a rising trend among new writers: using crowd funding websites such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or even the artist-centered Patreon to raise funds for future projects, books in the making. How does crowd funding affect content? Should it be a viable form of self-publishing? What do editors feel about it? You’ll have to listen to Episode 7 to hear our answers to these questions and more, of course.
We at Painted Bride Quarterly are more than excited to endorse our own Jason Schneiderman’s latest book, Primary Source (Red Hen Press, 2016) which is now available for purchase!
Tell us what you think about Paul Nelson, the use of crowd funding for writers, or anything you’d like to share with us on our Facebook page event, Episode 7.
Sign up for our email list if you’re in the area and even if you’re not!
Send us a SASE and we’ll send you a podcast sticker!
Follow us on Twitter @PaintedBrideQ and Instagram
@paintedbridequarterly.
Don't forget to subscribe and rate us on our iTunes page!
Read on!
-KVM
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Jason Schneiderman
Miriam Haier
Tim Fitts
Production Engineer:
Ryan McDonald
PBQ Box Score: 2=2
Paul Nelson Coyote
Last December, just beyond the windows
where we stand with wine, she clawed
for frozen apples in her new coat
beneath the tree the children climbed.
Just bred we guessed.
I wanted to caress her muzzle and ears,
lower my face to her eyes,
say something as if she were a dog,
something fatuous and loving.
You laughed because I said
I would take anything she offered,
teeth or tongue.
Coyotes
In a shaft of brass light
down through spruce, a big
chocolate male, done for the year,
pads across moss, dissolves in shadow.
The tattered blond bitch stands in bright
spring grass edging the woods.
Hanks drag from her molting flanks,
ears alert for mice and voles.
Two pale kits dive after each other.
Shorter ears and heavier bodied
than western cartoons; “coy-dog” some say.
Her heavy rotting tail drapes,
eyes generous and frank.
This morning on three legs another bitch
crabs across Nebraska’s 1-90 in a whiteout,
men standing down at truck stops,
diesels thrumming and clacking in the lots.
Shaky behind the slapping wipers, I barely see her
hop South through the barbed wire
onto stubbled acres of ice and drifting snow
where men set traps to kill “vermin”
that will freeze, coiled down on steel and chain,
get skinned and nailed to a shed with others,
or thaw come spring to feed the ravens.
She chewed her own leg off.
A sixteen wheeler passes like a war.
I draft in its wake as it shelves the storm
over and by me, watching for its tail lights
to blink …muzzle flash, signals
to follow in the blur.
As we prepared for Episode 6, something new happened: a poet whose work we wanted to read and discuss on our podcast said, “No.” It was bound to happen some time and it did---a month and a half in.
As we prepared for Episode 6, something new happened: a poet whose work we wanted to read and discuss on our podcast said, “No.” It was bound to happen some time and it did---a month and a half in. We talked about it and acknowledged that some people are simply not going to be ready, some people are going to let fear win over curiosity, and some people are simply not going to ever want their work discussed in such a public manner---a recorded manner that will always exist.
We were disappointed to receive our first “No,” but it caused us to revisit the vulnerability of what we are doing here: taking a writer’s work and picking it apart, separating the juicy poetic goodness from the bone. For most writers, they never get to hear what editors think of their poems, regardless of whether they were accepted or denied. The feedback we are getting uses the word transparency a lot, with that term directed at the transparency of our editorial conversation, but whoa—the writers who are brave for sharing--for writing in the first place—have to peel another layer back to submit to a podcast.
We are grateful that the people we asked so far said, Yes, even though they were scared. Their bravery makes us feel brave, too, and like we’re doing the right thing with this project. Tell us what you think on our FB Episode 6 event page.
We will be looking at two poets today, and the first poet up is Carlos Gomez.
We discussed, Morning, Rikers Island, Black Hair, and Interracial in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Gomez is a renaissance man with too many skills and too many awards for us to reiterate here! Poet, actor, essayist—it seems wherever he directs his attention, great things happen. After you read these poems we know you’ll want more, so we suggest you start here.
Let us tell you his last three accomplishments, just so you get the idea: the cover story on of Brass Magazine. He was ONLY voted Best Diversity Artist in Campus Activities Magazine’s 2016 Reader’s Choice Awards. And oh, year, he is featured in The New York Times documentary short film A Conversation with Latinos on Race! So that’s what he’s been up to in just the last few months! Check out his performance schedule—practically no matter where you are he’ll be there this spring and summer.
None of Gomez’s poems were unanimous acceptances, but all three were accepted. From the first line, the light in Morning, Rikers Island resonated with us, and we applauded the craft and elegance of this poem. Interracial in Flatbush, Brooklyn has such specific narrative imagery that we all felt immersed in this scene, and a final moment that resonates. Black Hair had a very different tone, voice, and format from the other two, and our editors were simply engaged in the story just under the surface.
We discussed Adam Day a bit in Episode 5—take a look and listen back to see how these poems ended up in our podcast at all! We discussed The Quiet Life, My Telemachus, and Openango.
Anyone who has been reading literary magazines for a while has seen work by Adam Day. His latest book is Model of a City in Civil War (Sarabande Books), and his latest awards are a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship for Badger, Apocrypha, a PEN Emerging Writers Award, and an Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council. It’s hard to keep up with this author. If you need to catch up, visit. If you miss him, watch this video.
You’ll have to listen to find out which of the three poems we accepted, but know this: we had a great time discussing them! Tell us what you think at our FB event page. We enjoyed the passion behind The Quiet Life, and the humor of both My Telemachus and Openango; we’re betting you will, too.
Thank you for your patience as we’re learning as we go here in the podcast world, we’d love to know what you think – let us know on our Facebook page!
Sign up for our email list if you’re in the Philadelphia area and even if you’re not!
Follow us on Twitter @PaintedBrideQ and Instagram @paintedbridequarterly.
Read on!
-KVM
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Jason Schneiderman
Miriam Haier
Tim Fitts
Melody Nielson
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
PBQ Box Score: 4=2
Carlos Gomez Morning, Rikers Island
Physics and light pierce the hollow stench of the forgotten gymnasium stripped naked of clocks.
All the boys stopped. Offered their grief to each other like water, glancing out the only window they all shared. A single ray unfolds its warmth across the dusty belly of the thudded parquet; and here’s the miracle— another day had come.
Interracial in Flatbush, Brooklyn
We watch them do this, expand from all directions like lungs abruptly filling with water, as we hold hands and walk through the eye of another storm. A man grabs his crotch, offering it to my wife, flings a mouthful of spit and epithets towards us.
Each pupil is a dim swamp flooding, silence blanketing a shallow body in Neshoba County, dusk shedding its absence across the congealed oven grease beneath a rusted burner.
A woman’s neck swivels when we pass, wraps a hard vowel around her tongue like lighter fluid choking a glass bottle holding a fuse.
On this corner, scored by dancehall and soca, there is nothing more novel than me and my love’s contrasting hues—it ignites a rush of color from these strangers’ faces. They ring us a violence familiar as February weather, mine our skin for metaphors, demand we offer answers to questions they are still forming like infants from their throats.
I have watched my body’s primal wisdom flicker dark as a fist-concealed palm, ache so volatile it screams for release. Rage is a language I unlearn on the corner of Ocean Avenue and Church, no shoreline or cathedrals in sight, only fractured things decorating a broken sidewalk like littered snow.
A new voice pierces the air, a flood of sound that hits me like a wall of ice, louder and higher pitched than those before, this time a small child with brown skin and green eyes, writhing in her flimsy stroller, pointing towards the dimpled oval bootprints I leave behind in the hazel-colored slush, squealing: Papi! Papi! Papi!
Black Hair
I made her a vow that I always would, so I join two fresh clusters in my clumsy and careful hands as I cradle her slumbering nape. I am submerged in the calculus of it all, as though concentration is where I took my misstep. As though I am not three decades behind in my practice. As though it is just about finding the pattern (too late). I’m too late, I think, or maybe it’s something else: his hands never knew how to fix my sister’s hair. I tend each thick, onyx strand like I’m mending her favorite blanket, as though my calloused digits might coax and shape anything into an ordered grace. I layer another braid into the tidy maze crowning her scalp. I can feel, with each pull and twist, the newly assembled crib watching.
Adam Day The Quiet Life
You is a pricy practical joke, a missed appointment, termination that didn't take, doctor without depth, military march,
intolerant of mystery; a dinner party grope and stock exchange, growing aroused in the shadow of compromise, in the pantry's
smell of lessening, of whatever comes along. You'll have him- you can't have anything dripping
and no one to see, and should you be feared to share him your shrunk breasted enthusiasm, and shaven
gape, like a mouth ajar, an over worn loafer, you'll liptongue and hand him, poor spunk, half-screwed, like moth larva
rolling in a rice jar. To make nothing out of nothing but a backbend and take three quarters of an hour over it.
No one ever captured the insanity of monologue like you did, vulgarizing anger into irritation and a plaster
of panic, grinding fists into your eyes, like our child. So quiet now it scrapes the calm from bones,
punctuated with involuntary exonerations, the house in weed, shingles steaming, all fog
and submission, a celibate brothel (if nuns carried their duties as you sexed all saints they'd be.)
No, no solicitation in a street urinal, no sodomizing the duck on account of its down, no slush
of thrushes in the rain gutter, no train of dangers, or snoring next door, eyes unlit, half the sun and twice the rent.
My Telemachus
"The dog drinking water sounds like a horse trotting," my five-year-old says. Well, look at you, brilliant little oedipal bastard, trying to steal my crown (and he is illegitimate; ask his mother if you can find her) but Patton was too and look what he achieved.
"Openango"
Openango After Sherman Alexie
I had just begun ice-fishing. A walleye
taught me how. A fish
with a headdress. He called me
white man. Man, I'm tired
of that racist shit. It's like
if I didn't vacation at your ice hole
you wouldn't have that casino. And
don't look at me like that, lying
on your side, a vein of blood
skating the black plate of your eye.
AWP 2016 (the conference for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs) in Los Angeles was la-la lovely. Marion and I flew out together, for the first time in all of these years of traveling to different cities. Our first bit of business? We discussed what our podcast from AWP would be about.
Literary Death Match? Could we ever have an experience close to the awesomeness of Mark Doty in Chicago? Tony Hoagland in Boston? Abraham Smith in Seattle? How about Chris Abani, Susan Orlean, Danez Smith, and Kirsten Valdez Quade in L.A.? And since it’s LA, let’s throw in some celebrities like, I dunno, Martin Starr, Lena Waithe, Michaela Watkins, and Zach Woods.
The Stars at the Literary Death Match
Sure, hot enough, but basically, we wanted to sit back and enjoy the show, and then immediately have umbrella drinks on the rooftop, so…what else could we talk about?
How crowded it was? Negative and boring.
How expensive it was? Negative and boring.
AWP Ladies and Gentlemen!
Should we interview our Uber drivers? Not a bad idea. But, when we thought just that much longer, probably about when we were flying over Wyoming, we thought about the AWP conference and everyone’s expectations, how overwhelming it can be to have so many choices, how undone one can become even when all of those choices are great, we thought about the bookfair.
We thought about how much we enjoy “camping out” at the bookfair, letting the attendees and our far-flung friends come to us, doing laps ourselves when we need to stretch. Yes. We’d hang out and the boofair and talk to people about…
Writing. What else? Tune in and hear what people are working on when they’re not swimming in the riches of the AWP conference.
John-Michael Peter Bloomquis, the founder and director of Poetry for Trash talked to us about his organization. Poetry for Trash goes to public parks and forests, installing stations where passerby can read a poem. The reader decides how much trash the poem is worth, and places the litter they find inside a trash bag. Poetry really is making the world a better place!
Tell us what you think about AWP (and anything else) on our Facebook event page.
Sign up for our email list if you’re in the area and even if you’re not!
Follow us on Twitter @PaintedBrideQ and Instagram @paintedbridequarterly.
Read on!
-KVM
Kathy Graber and Kazim Ali
When we asked Maggie Queeney for permission to discuss her work in this podcast, her response was “this sounds fascinating and terrifying!” We’re considering that as our tag line (and a life philosophy).
When we asked Maggie Queeney for permission to discuss her work in this podcast, her response was “this sounds fascinating and terrifying!” We’re considering that as our tag line (and a life philosophy).
We discussed Queeney’s pieces, "Last Case on the Murder Task Force,” and to be honest, we didn’t want to stop, even when all of the editors’ comments clearly illustrated how the vote would go! This poem’s craft is so beautiful to linger in, even though the images are heart wrenching and tragic.
"Nox” was a little less accessible for us, more difficult to simply understand, but that didn’t deter our enthusiasm for the piece—not with this many arresting images.
"Cry Wolf” takes the classic fable, expounds upon it, and changes it for you forever.
We meant to discuss three poems from Adam Day, but we had such a good time discussing Maggie’s poems that we didn’t feel we had enough time to really get into the discussion, so we thought we’d “reveal” another issue that comes up when culling through work for PBQ.
Adam Day’s work came in via Submittable and was assigned to our Abu Dhabi staff. Two editors there liked a few of his pieces, but alas, before the work could come to the editorial table for a vote, the pieces we had interest in were accepted elsewhere!
Listen to us discuss the “notes” in Submittable. Adam was about to get a straight up boiler plate rejection and she realized he would never know he had fans at PBQ. So, she took action…
Tell us what you think about simultaneous submissions (and anything else) on our Facebook page event, Episode 5.
Sign up for our email list if you’re in the area and even if you’re not!
Follow us on Twitter @PaintedBrideQ and Instagram @paintedbridequarterly.
Read on!
-KVM
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Jason Schneiderman
Miriam Haier
Tim Fitts
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
PBQ Box Score: 3=2
Maggie Queeney Last Case on the Murder Task Force
A telephone splices the night—lit nerve ending or lightning strike—and the child rises all lung, all mouth
and howl. The man rises from inside the mother, rises from the casts of his fingers clutched into the sheets
and separates the boy’s head from his chest. He runs, knife in hand, body in arms, floor to floor,
beating on doors as the thin limbs jog at his sides. He palms the boy’s head, guides the jaw back
to the neck, but blood leaks and blacks his bared chest in the stills taken later that night.
The state assigns my father to the defense. He twists the tinny, stripped facts into a cast outlining a life.
He tells the jury the man grew up a thing burnt by his grandfather, his mother, that his thin body smoked
and scabbed taut. And then the foster homes and the beatings and the drugs and the howl and the boy and the knife.
The state threads a new heart into the man’s chest. He is kept living. He is sentenced to death. Nights on trial,
my father walks the floor with my infant brother, crouped up and wailing the mucus out of his lungs, his mouth with a howl.
My mother sleeps, buried tight as a drawered knife, gleaming through what beauty her children had left.
Nox
A child teethes. Through the door, a loop of scream and whimper
traces the length of the porch. Morning, I find the blood
left by the raw gums rubbed like a hand along the rail,
the floor, the frame and lock to the front door. At night,
I stay inside, listen to the tap somnolent in the pipes, the house drafts,
the moon pushing to perfect circle. The birds curl into their fists
of nest, their small breasts hot hulls above the shriek of owl-torn mice.
Animals take a human voice in dying. Their wet tunnels of throat,
slick and holy as the inside of a flute, bottom into the black running under.
Cry Wolf
What difference between crying and calling, cursing and summoning, the frantic limbs of a lamb and the bared legs of a boy.
What difference between the desire to laugh at the adults running, spades and rakes in hand, and the need to know they would run at his call.
Remember most do not know the name of what they want, even as they are wanting— the body incandesces, numb and ecstatic, as it is destroyed.
Remember the wolf, drawn only by gut and jaws, insistent as divining rods— heart stilling at its name called, finally, between the trees.
In this episode we read three poems from Kathleen Sheeder Bonnano’s poetry. Though they were originally submitted for an unthemed issue, they felt more suited to our Locals theme, one of two themes for Print 8. We expected reading submissions for Locals to expand our horizons, to help us to see different pockets of the world in a new way, but these poems helped us appreciate the every-day right in our backyard of Philadelphia.
Welcome to Episode 4 of the PBQ’s Slushpile. We take more time than other editorial boards, but we stand behind our methodology, so much so that we’re going to share our process with you through this podcast. Welcome to the editorial table. In this episode we read three poems from Kathleen Sheeder Bonnano’s poetry. Though they were originally submitted for an unthemed issue, they felt more suited to our Locals theme, one of two themes for Print 8. We expected reading submissions for Locals to expand our horizons, to help us to see different pockets of the world in a new way, but these poems helped us appreciate the every-day right in our backyard of Philadelphia.
Kathleen Sheeder Bonnano is a poet, professor, and co-editor of the American Review. She is the author of Slamming Open the Door (Alice James Books, 2009), which was the 2008 Beatrice Hawley Award winner, and also received a positive, full-page review in The New York Times, while Library Journal praised it as "A stunning first book."
We were honored to read “30th Street Station,” “The Pool,” and “Jerzee’s Bar.” Reveal: Many of our editorial staff know Kathy well, and in fact, love her. We did what we always do when reading work of those we know; simply tried to remain as objective as possible; and made sure there were people at the editorial table who do not have a personal connection. These poems made us laugh and made our hearts hurt a bit. They gracefully walk the line between the specific and the universal.
And now for one of our occasional segments: “Something random I saw in a literary magazine this week.”
-
This week, I visited Carve magazine’s site. It’s run out of Texas, publishes only fiction, and derives its name and ideology from Raymond Carver. On the submit page, they make an offer—if you become a subscriber at the time of submission, they promise to get you a response on your work faster, within two weeks.
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This flipped me out a bit and I didn’t even have time to process and think about what that does to the editor/author relationship, what it means, and then, I looked at Cleaver magazine (I guess I was on a cutlery theme) and they have this super complicated process----their free submissions are currently closed, but if you pay them $5 you could still submit now. PLUS: In all genres, a voluntary $10.00 "tip-jar" fee will guarantee an expedited answer within two weeks.For fiction, flash, and nonfiction, a voluntary $25.00 "tip-jar" donation, which guarantees a two-week expedited answer plus a detailed personal response from one of our chief editors. We are not able to offer critiques for poetry at this time.
So---crazy genius or mercenary? This is a “thing?” Listen to what we had to say, but chime in on our Facebook page event, Episode 4.
Sign up for our email list if you’re in the area and even if you’re not!
Follow us on Twitter @PaintedBrideQ and Instagram @paintedbridequarterly.
Read on!
-KVM
Present at the Editorial Table:
SPECIAL GUEST: Major Jackson
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Jason Schneiderman
Miriam Haier
Isabella Fidanza
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
PBQ Box Score: 2=1
Kathleen Sheeder Bonnano 30th Street Station
Sweet old man in a tweed cap
soft shoes, soft brown skin,
says, Do you need a cab?
Yes I say and my heart is laughing;
this is how I get sometimes.
You look like my second grade teacher
Mrs. Richmond, I always loved
Mrs. Richmond, he says.
He ushers me to a silver Lexus.
This is not a cab. This is a bait and switch.
Behind the wheel, the driver,
300 pounds of muscle
arms like hams
a diamond ring on each pinky
a diamond in each earlobe
a red baseball cap backward.
I think a piece of his ear is missing.
I think he has a tattoo on his face.
Our eyes meet in the rear view mirror
Clang, clang, goes my danger meter
Don’t get in the car! says everyone.
So…I get in the car.
By 45th and Locust,
turns out his name is Steve.
Turns out he buried his younger sister this year
and his mom, the year before.
She was way too easy on his
brother with cerebral palsy—
51 years old and doesn’t like
to get out of bed!
I read him a poem
about my daughter, from my book.
And then he wants to remember my name,
and gets out a tiny pencil
to write it down.
The Pool
My fifteen-year old son,
adopted from Chile,
pedals his bike back from the pool,
says some boys just called him a Spic,
and my brain explodes—
Ping, ping, says my brain.
Wait! says Louey.
I get in the car,
gun the gas pedal,
stomp past two
teenage lifeguards at the gate,
on my way to the deep end.
Did you call my son a Name?
I call across the water
to two skinny white boys
no older than twelve,
their goose-pimpled arms
hugging their concave chests.
They nod. Any minute they
might cry and their
their mothers might come over.
Listen, you! Words hurt!
I am yelling,
Don’t ever say that word again, do you
understand? Or I'll come back here
and beat the shit out of you, do you understand?
Open-mouthed, they nod.
Maybe I didn't make that threat aloud.
But we all heard it.
At home,
Louey says he was holding their
heads underwater
for fun,
which is why they got mad
in the first place.
Jerzee’s Bar
I love my rum and coke;
I love everybody tonight,
even the young roofer who has
drunk himself shit-faced on Budweiser.
He stands very still,
tries not to wobble when he, whoa,
sees his reflection in the mirror
behind the bar.
Seems I’ve known this guy all my life.
Tomorrow morning he’ll show up
at his mom’s house
all scraped up with a chipped tooth
and a story about some
asshole in the bar.
Should I take his keys?
Should I save him from
himself?
Should I call somebody
who loves him?
I sip my drink.
I smile at the band.
Tap, tap tap goes my foot.
We discussed three poems by Clara Changxin Fang and two poems by Roger Camp. While we walked away with an impressive box score, we were more than impressed by the quality of poems we’ve received for our Locals issue! Just like our Monsters, Locals was broadly interpreted by submitters and we were not left disappointed...
In this episode of Painted Bride Quarterly’s Slush Pile, we discussed three poems by Clara Changxin Fang, and two poems by Roger Camp. While we walked away with an impressive box score, we were more than impressed by the quality of poems we’ve received for our Locals issue! Just like our Monsters, Locals was broadly interpreted by submitters and we were not left disappointed. Sigh. We love our job.
Clara Changxin Fang’s poems draw heavily on the theme of the foreigner in a strange land. The poems we discussed, “Lost Colony”, “Don’t Go Away,” and “The Other Side of Night,” though so different in format and execution, centered around the theme of getting lost (figuratively and literally) in a new reality, and conveyed a sense of longing and homesickness. One of our editors pulled this batch right to the top of the slush pile, and we are so grateful, When we realized we were just going to gush, we decided to go ahead and vote!
Clara channels her thoughtful observations of the world around her into her poetry, as well as her blog Residence on Earth, which delves into her thoughts on ecology, climate change, sustainable living, education, social justice, and love. Read more about her work on planet earth here: earthdeeds.org
Roger Camp is no stranger to Painted Bride Quarterly’s slush pile. In fact, we published his poem “Motion Assignnment, La Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas, Madrid” in Issue 90! While we ultimately decided to pass on the poems he sent us for Locals, “Riding Your Aura” and “Cape Cod”, one can’t deny that Roger Camp’s poetry evokes strong imagery of beautiful moments in ordinary surroundings. I have to admit I’m still thinking about that bank guard…
He lives in Seal Beach, CA where he tends several hundred plants, walks the streets of his beloved Paris yearly, is apprenticed to a master mason, naps in a hammock under an avocado tree, plays blues piano evenings and kayak fishes, weather permitting. He is an identical twin whose twin does none of these things. (I’m not sure what to believe…)
Thank you for your patience as we’re learning as we go here in the podcast world, we’d love to know what you think - let us know on our Facebook page!
Sign up for our email list if you’re in the area and even if you’re not!
Follow us on Twitter @PaintedBrideQ and Instagram @paintedbridequarterly.
Read on!
-KVM
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Jason Schneiderman
Miriam Haier
Tim Fitts
Lauren Patterson
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
PBQ Box Score: 3=2
Clara Changxin Fang Lost Colony
Settled in the Spring of 1584, Roanoke was the first English colony in North America. We built two story houses
with stone walls on dry mud,
the island a crumbling sandbar
pummeled by wind and waves.
We erected fences and fence posts,
laid claim to a patch of wilderness
like Ptolemy mapping the heavens,
giving titles to congregations of stars.
We found a bay with oysters
more numerous than pebbles
and a seashore bright with starfish
and sand dollars. What we didn't find
was gold to fill our ships
or rain to coax our harvest.
For three years no sails appeared
on the horizon. (The way I waited for you,
love, absent on the horizon.)
Only the blinding clarity of a cloudless sky
ushering us towards winter.
Disaster is the absence of events.
The sun wheeled the heavens like a flour mill,
everlasting waves lashed at the shore;
no boats in sight, the sea
rolled back our memories of home—
The reek of urine in the streets of London,
the towers of Parliament spearing the sky
like a row of bayonets above a river of blood. The hulls
of abandoned vessels lurking beyond sight.
2.
CRO – Letters carved into a tree stump at Roanoke before the colony’s disappearance in 1590.
Nothing remained of what we owned.
No pottery, no tools, not even our own bones.
What we brought with us was filched
by the fingers of the ocean and the shadow of the moon.
Not even a dream in which you appear,
a shadow behind a wall of water.
Beloved, did I imagine us walking hand in hand
in the city of cathedrals, your hands
smelling of baked bread, the afternoon sun
glazing rooftops and sidewalks with gold.
I hold on to evidence—
a pebble plucked from the Rue Monge,
a sprig of lavender from the apothecary,
the dress I wore the last night.
On the island, the letters CRO,
a bird with a golden beak and black wings,
all that’s left to tell of our departure.
No violence had been done.
We simply gave up waiting for salvation to appear
like a chalice falling out of the heavens
or the waters parting to reveal a road.
I gave birth to a child.
Even without news of you, we are happy.
How bright the moon shines without city lights!
I remain ever your loving,
Eleanor
3.
500—The number of mountains destroyed by mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia, including Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
We named her Virginia—
land of blue ridged mountains,
fish chocked rivers and timber stands
vast enough to build all the battleships of Europe.
After centuries we are still after
what brought us here:
timber, fur, coal, the exhumed remains
of ancient forests we burn to light our homes.
Today asphalt cuts through
this valley like a ribbon of steel
and explosions shave the scalp
off of tree covered mountains.
Rocks shatter like fragments of a skull.
Men excavate hillsides, blast
through rock, bringing down avalanches
of boulders, mud, and branches, bodies
tumble down like logs, the women
buried them in their coal stained clothes
with the children they miscarried.
Some abandoned this place,
let mud and rain pull their houses
back into the earth. Most stayed,
subsisting from the mountains
they helped to destroy.
This gutted Appalachia
is a war zone, but one
we still call home.
4.
Arlington, Virginia
June 1992
Dear Chen Ying,
Virginia is a beautiful. I walk to the Potomac River with mother every evening, and we watch the sun go down over the mountains, orange slices on the water, geese gliding over the surface like the airplanes landing at Reagan airport. Everything here is bigger and faster, we ride in dragons shaped like cars. Here we play with Barbie dolls instead of silk worms, and in the autumn the leaves turn red like the lanterns during the Spring Festival, and we light candles inside pumpkins carved with hideous faces; unlike our friendly family ghosts, they have no names and confer no blessings. I am learning new words: crow, cloud, kite. You must speak here in order to survive. In social studies, we learned about a group of English people who sailed here in a tiny ship, built a settlement on an island, and disappeared a few years later. Eleanor’s father came back to look for them, but he never found his daughter or his grandchild. I am thinking of her today, the family she abandoned, or who abandoned her, the beach extinguished of stars, the country’s interior so vast and full of terrors, the night rustling with strange sounds. Sometimes you don’t know enough to be afraid. You only know: the air is clean here, it smells like daffodils. The children have yellow hair like the tassels of corn, and like scarecrows, it’s hard to tell if they are real, but when they fall they cry like we do. While I still remember how to form these characters, tell your mother thank you for taking care of me before I came. Maybe I’ll send you the flowers I’m growing, heliotrope and nasturtiums, pressed into dictionaries we should study but use as weights. Until then I subsist on the memory of your smiles, the sticky buns we ate together on festival days.
I miss you,
Chang Xin
Don’t Go Away The night shakes its wings and the sky
hasn't folded its whitewashed lawn chairs.
Hyacinths in the garden gleam like pale fire,
the forests are crammed with shadowy fish.
I heard you say: I don’t know
when I’m coming back.
Once, I lost my car in a strange city
while we circled the streets searching
for a way home. All was dark except
where we glimpsed ballroom dancers
flickering like moths through a window.
At dinner, we spoke to each other
one or two words only. Yet here we are,
alone in your car while I cast my net
for something to say.
Stay. Take me with you.
If you go, I will see your eyes
looking back in every corner.
I won’t have to listen
to hear you call my name.
If you go, you must come back quickly.
Or else clouds will sweep the rooms with rain.
The Other Side of Night
The Buddhist monk instructs us to pay attention to our breathing but all I can think of is the way you touched me before I left for Utah, like oil splattered on the wrist, like snow falling on bare shoulders. For the next two years the great bowl of the Salt Lake valley was cleft by a chasm I could not close. The mountains are taller than I imagined. The Great Plains is vast like the Pacific Ocean. The distance between one who loves and one who doesn't. Not able to turn back, the people who lost everything built a city praising God on the snow white shores of that inland sea, and all who came to it admired its ship like tabernacle, its broad avenues, and its temples without windows. At the bottom of my suffering there is a door. The latch opened and I sank. I breathed in water and breathed out love. So much of it that it filled the oceans and the air, the fish grew wings and the birds grew gills, the eyes of the people were opened and no one killed or hurt one another because they saw the wound they carried in themselves in each other.
Roger Camp Riding Your Aura
In front of the Bank of America,
a bank protection officer
lays hands on the newspaper stand
like a man who knows his way
around an altar.
There’s no mistaking him
for the bank guard
of my youth, the greying,
pot-bellied, retired cop
well laundered in blue
dozing inside the doorway. A New Age version,
this man is outside,
swathed in black like SWAT,
protective vest and automatic in hand.
Shooting your way out of a bank
is one thing, but shooting your way in?
Seeing Isaac, patriarch
of the sidewalk,
would turn my tail
if I were a robber of banks. Friendly, he has earned
Main Street’s affection,
every pedestrian watching
his back.
When I wear a lid he likes
I get a fist bump.
Hidden in his casual demeanor
is no slouch. Behind those shades,
a warrior, Iraq
or maybe Afghanistan.
At peace with himself
he is adept at reading others.
Greeting him after returning
from six sunny days in Alaska
he said to me
that was you, riding your aura.
Cape Cod
The Cape itself is like a snake at its serpentine end.
Beyond a place the charts call Long Point is an echo
of the Cape, a final coil within a coil.
Walking in Beech Forest, I saw two snakes
their chocolate colored bellies and tri-lateral yellow
stripes entwined, age and youth combined.
The older, larger one sensing me, held still
while his younger, slimmer companion slid its body
along side, contour unfolding contour.
In my effort to follow I lost focus, lost the snakes,
unable to define a coil within a coil,
unable to tell beginning from end,
lost my way as well, wending tail to tail.
In our second episode, we stuck with a theme: monsters! One of two themes for Print 8, reading the submissions for Monsters has been anything but a nightmare, and the four poems we discussed on this podcast are examples of how broadly the theme was interpreted, just like we hoped...
"Cloisters" by Kristin Bock
In our second episode, we stuck with a theme: monsters! One of two themes for Print 8, reading the submissions for Monsters has been anything but a nightmare, and the four poems we discussed on this podcast are examples of how broadly the theme was interpreted, just like we hoped.
Kristin Bock’s “Compound” and “Matchmakers” alone are great examples of diverse submissions. We had a hard time unpacking “Compound,” its densely mysterious and complicated, but we really enjoy work that doesn’t feel like work. And “Matchmakers” is simply--a blast. Her first book was winner of the Tupelo Press First Book Award; we’ll be watching to see what she does next.
Cristina Baptista's “Monster” has imagery that called us in and called us back. Listen to us read and talk about it, but then—trust us--listen to Cristina read it—you’re going to want to experience this poem at least twice. And then, trust us, you’ll want to follow her on Twitter @Herds_of_Words
But wait until you hear this: Cristina recently created a collection of poetry about her experience as a 38th Voyager—one of 85 people in the world selected to travel (in Summer 2014) on the 38th Voyage of the Charles W. Morgan, an 1841 wooden whaleship that is the last remaining one in the world. She also served as a documenter of the Portuguese immigrant experience aboard whaleships, during this Voyage. See, told you you’d want to follow her!
Jennie Malboeuf’s “The Part of My Father Will be Played by Jack Nicholson” calls up the always-fun classic, “The Shining.” With brothers, bear suits, and blood, how could we say, No. We’re betting you won’t either, and that you’ll want more. Jennie’s poems can be found all over the web, but here’s two pick’s for you: the very cool anthology that is the Montreal International Poetry Prize (warning: you’ll stay on their site for awhile), and these two (plus audio!) at The Cortland Review.
We’d love to know what you think - let us know on our Facebook page!
Sign up for our email list if you’re in the area and even if you’re not!
Follow us on Twitter @PaintedBrideQ and Instagram @paintedbridequarterly.
Read on!
-KVM
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Jason Schneiderman
Miriam Haier
Michelle Johnson
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
PBQ Box Score: 4=0
Kristin Bock Compound
Come stand in the garden. Let the soft rain rinse you. Line up with the others. Hold hands. Now, kiss. Imagine your mind is a blue rose, a blue rose rinsed clean. Hide in the bushes. Wait for the little black stars to squeak by. Step on them. Stamp on them. Some will feel like urchins and under your feet. They will whisper terrible things. Step on them harder. They will cry out. They will have your mother’s voice. Run. Catch the stars and squeeze until they burst. They will be slippery. Their black oil will leak into the earth. Now your hands are dirty. They’re filthy. Go back to your spot in the garden and stand like a flower. Do not move until your skin becomes blue and clean and cold. Take off your dress. You are dirty inside. Open your legs to the rain. Your mind unfolds like a blue rose. Hold hands. Now you’ve been bad. Very bad. Today you will not eat. Today you will stamp on the little black stars until your feet are raw. The stars will squirt and whimper. They will sound like your father crying in the shed. Step on him. Make him cry harder. He is dirty. Your mother is dirty. Come to me. Come to us. Open your legs. Let us rinse you. My brain is as big as a car. My brain is as big as mountain range. I will bend my fat red brain over you like a blood-soaked rose. I will sing to you and wash you and starve you and love you like no other. Now go back to the garden and plant yourself where you belong.
Kristin Bock Matchmakers
Where does your monster sleep?
In a cage too small for him.
What does your monster's heart look like?
Like a child's teacup, small and full of blood.
What color is he?
Green, of course.
What does he eat?
Basically, nose to tail.
Cataracts?
Installed.
Fins?
Cauterized.
Fangs?
Restored.
Good. He's healthy then?
Yes, he takes ratfish liver oil—from a 300 million year old chimeric fish, half-skate half-shark. It lives at the very bottom of the sea and has a face like a rat. Legend has it Norwegian Vikings would hang a ratfish up by the head and the liver oil would drip from its long tail. They named the elixir “Gold of the Ocean” and considered it to be a very rare and precious gift. There are many other fish oils on the market, but he prefers this one.
Excellent! He should make some fine little monsters. One last question—does he have any issues?
Well, only if you count his fear of snow globes.
Oh c’mon, snow globes?
Yes. They remind him of his childhood. His father was a snowman and his mother was an icicle. It snowed each and every day. His father cried tears of fire for they begat a daughter named Wendy, who, after fifteen years of unforgivable acts of kindness, was sent to live among the moose.
Forget it. My monster's not like that at all.
Cristina Baptista Monster
Where the cut has dried over,
you find red crystals in your hair;
like colored sugar from a child’s cupcake,
lost Valentine glitter, crushed
stained glass beneath your heel
in the monastery. I first saw
you outlined against that window, triptych,
you blotting out San Sebastian’s image
all mass and shadow, an absorbent dark sponge,
stealing his wings for your own.
Jennie Malboeuf The Part of my Father Will Be Played by Jack Nicholson
Big white teeth. My brother
reminds me he isn’t Irish.
But the brows are the same.
Horned and intense, he’ll do
a plum job.
In this scene, something isn’t
right. The lighting is strange;
the furniture that was there
is now here. Or gone entirely.
Someone is standing in
the background that wasn’t
just before. And that yawn sounds
like a door closing (or opening).
Everything looks normal but
one thing has blood on it.
I didn’t mention the scariest
part jumpcut!
a man in a bear suit.
You can’t help but like him,
he commands attention
with broad arms or bright eyes
when seated. His face looks
crooked in the wrong direction
when you glance together in the mirror.
In our inaugural episode, we discussed four poems from Emily Corwin, and three poems from Leah Falk. I don’t think it was just our happy-to-launch mood that caused such an impressive box score...
In our inaugural episode, we discussed four poems from Emily Corwin, and three poems from Leah Falk. I don’t think it was just our happy-to-launch mood that caused such an impressive box score.
Emily’s poems were all submitted for the Monsters issue, and with their very Grimm/grim fairy-tale qualities juxtaposed against their embrace of fun with language, we were smitten. Poems up for discussion were “pink girl takes a tumble,” “thwack,” “out like a lamb,” and “pink girl kicks the bucket.” Thank goodness some of us are at the editorial table remotely--we might have come to fisticuffs over who got to read these poems. (Listen to Emily read a poem at Split Rock Review!)
Leah Falk’s “Visiting,” “Commonest in Nature,” and “Islands,” can’t really be categorized as of a particular “type.” Each of these had us wanting to linger and didn’t disappoint when we did. Haunting (listen--you’ll get it) and redolent with history, unpacking these poems was nothing but pleasure.
Read Leah’s ideas on “Why…some poets perform as though they had just come to in a bad dream?” at The Millions. Watch a video of a performance of her song cycles. You gotta Google this gal for more and more and more.
We’d love to know what you think--let us know on our Facebook page!
Sign up for our email list if you’re in the area and even if you’re not!
Follow us on Twitter @PaintedBrideQ and Instagram @paintedbridequarterly.
Read on!
-KVM
----more----
Present at the Editorial Table:
Kathleen Volk Miller
Marion Wrenn
Tim Fitts
Isabella Fidanza
Production Engineer:
Joe Zang
PBQ Box Score: 5=2
Emily Corwin pink girl takes a tumble
squish squash she walks
she dreams of woods trees hankering for child meat.
The way is wet and terrible what can she do boo hoo
spreads her mouth real big, dry lips doesn’t like water and she crackles.
feels so crumbly, she do too gimped up too scaredy cat
to skate across the river bone so skinny brittle
oh fiddlesticks.
she slips downhill like jack, like jill curls, rolly polly to the pit
she pulls the bad hip out and chews on it
Emily Corwin thwack
leg buckles and boom down she goes
into snow powder good for packing.
she tucks and rolls like a cold boulder glob crashes to his windowsill
ferocious little she hunger-filled
her mouth frothing like half-starved pack of wolves—
all teeth and velvet.
Emily Corwin out like a lamb
into the carrot patch into the april pussy-willow wildness
she makes a mud cake shakes her pretty rhododendron hips and dips into the dirt clod smooshy.
she sinks and sags—a screaming seed into the planet rock
oh how it eats, it leaves the bone she comes up pushing daisies.
Emily Corwin pink girl kicks the bucket
sprinkle her with fruit punch, sugar powder, glitter glue she’s tickled pink she’s sitting real pretty all the way to the crushed velvet coffin box.
girl with broken armholes girl with a heart spattered—strawberry pulp mushy under her blouse.
goodnight pink girl, back you go into crinoline into creepy crawlies your nose smothered with a calla lily
the bed bugs want a bite.
Leah Falk Visiting
When her only boy first felt his throat crowd, she thought of her father’s boyhood fever which washed over his heart
like an ocean over sand. Sand: maybe a window once, in a house the ocean also claimed. Which is to say the body is for some
a kind of furniture: in hard times hauled out to the yard and split for kindling.
The color of her son’s hair: red, her father’s offering at the pool of cells once huddled in her abdomen.
And their skin: pale, pink at cheeks and temples, a flush suggesting blood was only visiting the body.
When the fever spread from throat to chest to joints, crumpling her child like rotted wood,
she saw again her father close the bathroom door, heard the water soften what had gripped his heart.
How else explain the rhythm of their home: irregular and buzzing, like a strummed guitar,
the strings held down with insufficient pressure. Little clot of air
between rosewood and steel. And here he was visiting again just like she’d always wished,
sitting upright in her grown boy’s only body. As if it were a chair. His chair—the one he’d waited patiently for her to offer.
Leah Falk Commonest in Nature
Sara Turing
Seeds with plumes and wings. Bone, mostly lime. Fresh eggs so soft they hardly hold together. New-born babies growing old. Our bodies’ tiny bricks.
You said: I always seem to want to make things from the thing that’s commonest in nature. Then,
out of air, you made a machine.
What commonness you’d find if you were here – what shapes and colors would repeat, and at what wild,
silent rhythms. Come back, I want the worlds you would have found hiding in this one.
The brain’s loop and resistance. Blood, mostly water. Air and electricity. The birch in the yard, dead parts holding living ones together.
What would you make out of this now commonest thing: your face, still a child’s, reading
the amoeba crawls by changing shape, like a drop of water down a windowpane
swimming round to me each morning like the chorus of a hymn.
Leah Falk Islands
Brooklyn, July 2014
We cycle toward the Verrazano Narrows through a strand of sabbath islands.
Teenage girls in black skirts go visiting like their mothers.
Fridays, sirens sing at dusk, reminding us to divide our bodies from the calendar.
Yesterday we woke to video of a man gasping his last rites.
Machado at a friend’s grave wrote y tu, sin sombra ya: how soon you are without shadow.
Where the river dams, glass bottles gather.
Somebody mutters: blessed is the fire-maker, holds a bouquet of wicks above his daughter.
Frame of twilights where we built our little cottages: we can’t live there still.
The sun a stern guard before the door to dusk.
A girl pedals toward the rail between her and the ocean, tumbles as if out of orbit.
Somebody says, happy is the one who can divide the light from darkness.
Whitecaps turn their backs on one another in the bay.