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Books, Poems & the Circle of Life

13 Saturday Jan 2018

Posted by BoneSpark Blog in 2sDay Poems, C.A. Explains It All, Odd Bits from a Creative Life

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Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Alexander McCall Smith, Andy Weir, Artemis, Audible, Circle of Life, Connotation Press, Copper Canyon Press, Directions on Dying, Drew Brees, Jessica Chastain, Lion King, Lobison Song, Mardi Gras, Memorials, Molly Bloom, Molly's Game, No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Oceanic, Poetry magazine, Richard Blessing, Saints game, The House of Unexpected Sisters, Who Reads Poetry

 

It’s been awhile. I know. And I’m smooshing together several types of posts here:  #2sdayPoems, Odd Bits from a Creative Life, C.A. Explains It All.  You’ll understand why towards the end.

First of all, thank goodness that the stress of the “official” holidays has passed and Mardi Gras is in full swing here in Louisiana. I’ve just had a slice of King Cake with my lunch and my neighbors have all gone off in truckloads, beer in tow, for the parade streets away.

The dog is not fond of the noise this time of year, but his real nemeses are the possums that always seem to congregate under our shed when the temperatures drop. He will brave the weather for a lick at those furballs, but he’s decided snow is better off left to the plants.

That little dusting we had back in December was toed, tasted, christened, and abandoned for a warm bed in a matter of seconds. Here he is trying to get to the space heater.  My cat, a scrappy ten-year-old “runt”, on the other hand, got into her tiny, red sweater as fast as she could and frolicked until she was almost a popsicle.

What can I say, she enjoys the outdoors, especially when she can scoop up stunned, half- frozen lizards at wholesale. This is her pissed-because-you-made-me-come-inside face.

Even arctic foxes aren’t dumb enough to brave the negative temps like some (crazy!) New Orleanians are doing for the Saints game in Minnesota this weekend. Just to be clear: I don’t care that much about football. Okay, I cared that one time when I had chump change on the Denver Broncos back in the nineties. 

I do follow the Saints some, but only because Drew Brees is literally days ( yes, days) younger than me and my twin.

I look at old man Drew and I wonder how long he can keep up the pace. I wonder what the hell he is doing to keep up the pace. I wonder where the hell I can get some of the gris-gris he’s imbibing. Seriously, that can’t all be discipline? Can it?

Anyway, suffice to say, Baby Brees and I had and are having fantastic b-days this year. Had he lived, my father would have been having a good one too. At least, I like to think so. Hard to believe it’s been three years next week since his passing. It was three days before his birthday and very unexpected.

Meanwhile in Florida, my grandfather’s (his father’s) 90th year did not start out so well. A bad fall landed him in rehab, his favorite dog passed away, and the Seminole responsible for his physical therapy was being too rough (according to him). Just when he’d finally started to like the Seminole, was having lunch with him in fact, Grandpa had a sudden, terminal heart attack, the same as my father.

His last words to me were scribbled in the Christmas card, a brief note about a $150 book on the Tlingit that he had donated to his local library. It stands to his second wife to sort out his complicated life, starting with getting his ashes into the totem pole as he requested.There will be several memorials along the pow-wow trail, with the big dinner next year. RIP Kashka. And Dad.

Odd Bits from a Creative Life/#2sdayPoems

When the news came, I had just picked up a copy of  Who Reads Poetry: 50 Views from Poetry Magazine. It opened randomly to the essay with lines from Richard Blessings’ poem “Directions on Dying”. Very surreal and a little disconcerting.

Later, I was sorting through poems I’d bookmarked for the next round of #2sdayPoems.  The window with Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s “Lobison Song” froze.  It’s a poem about the birth of one of her sons, who oddly enough had come into the world with the same hairy condition as my little brother. Suddenly, it was like the Lion King’s “Circle of Life” was going off in my head. Another Dali-esque feeling.

But these two poems taken together made me feel…better. Somehow.

[FYI, Aimee’s latest Oceanic is available for pre-order on Amazon.]

Eventually, the aforementioned brother, grown and not so hairy, decided my computer was suffering from failed RAM.  He got it all squared away and here I am writing about…everything.

A few more things to say about books before I close.  The audiobook of Molly’s Game was a wild ride during this time and much deeper insight into the evolution of the real woman. I’d seen the movie earlier in the month. Loved it. Jessica Chastain is phenomenal, btw, like when she channeled that weird final vulnerableness in the lawyer’s office with that carpet wobble on her (faux?) Louis Vuitton’s. The real Molly Bloom, as the book proves,  is a tough frickin’ nut, but totally addictably likable, inspiring even.

I also dug into Andy Weir’s Artemis, which is about another tough, smart woman making it in a man’s world, this time a lunar colony. Weir probed the political, social and economic cycles of such a place in a thought-provoking, yet very grounded way. 

The next book is the latest installment of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, The House of Unexpected Sisters. The main character Mma Ramotswe, is dealing with thorny family issues in Botswana, a place that is, putting it lightly, a less than friendly landscape for women in business, or women in general.

I felt very encouraged by the resiliency of the women in each of these books.  So, basically, it’s all going to work out in the end.

 

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Enchanting Ladies (#2sdayPoems)

05 Tuesday Dec 2017

Posted by BoneSpark Blog in 2sDay Poems

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#2sDayPoems, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Alchemy for Cells& Other Beasts, Copper Canyon Press, Empty Mirror, Entre Rios, Fairytale Review, Little Spells, Maya Jewell Zeller, Oceanic, The Woman Who Eats Soil, women poets



Today’s #2sdayPoems brings together selections from Maya Jewell Zeller’s  “little spells” at
Empty Mirror and Aimee Nezhukumatahil’s Hao Fenglas poem from the Green Issue of Fairytale Review. Scroll to the end for a little bonus podcast.

 

LITTLE SPELL WITH CHEST X-RAY

by Maya Jewell Zeller

sweet girl made of dust & water/ please leave
jewelry at home/ wear open, loose clothing/
this will not hurt a bit/ possibly we will ask you
to don this gown/ you are going to experience
a small dose of ionizing radiation/ you will not
feel it at all/ but possibly you will see the way…

 

FULL TEXT HERE

from Alchemy for Cells & Other Beasts (Entre Rios, 2017)

 

 

THE WOMAN WHO EATS SOIL

by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

What can the unfortunate insect do
if it is found wanting in weight?
A pill-bug rolls into a bead of silent news.
The damselfly can bend a petal

back without leaving her mark. Trickster.
There is a woman named Hao Fenglas
who cupped soil to her lips
for over seventy years. In the hem

of her blouse, in the roll of her pant leg,
she brings back a crumble of earth.
Knives stripe a feathered neck
in the kitchen for a thin broth so no one

hears her first….

 

FULL TEXT HERE

forthcoming collection: Oceanic (Copper Canyon)

BONUS: Aimee Nez Live Stream replay at Copper Canyon

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Week Three #readNDN #2sDayPoems

21 Tuesday Nov 2017

Posted by BoneSpark Blog in 2sDay Poems

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#readNDN, #readwomen, Catching Cooper, Copper Canyon Press, Crazy Brave, DiveDapper, Joy Harjo, Mojave, Muscogee, Natalie Diaz, Native American Heritage Month, native american poetry, Native American Women's Poetry, NPR, Patterns in Mudhills, Secrets from the Center of the World, Stephem Strom, University of Arizona Press, When My Brother Was An Aztec, women poets


I am so impressed by Natalie Diaz (Mojave). Not only does her poetry make me feel like I’m falling off a cliff–in a good way, of course–but her work in preserving the Mojave language gives me hope for other endangered Native tongues.

If you don’t have her first collection When My Brother Was an Aztec (Copper Canyon, 2012),get it. And be anticipating the release of her second collection, also with with Copper Canyon, that she teased in this late 2015 interview at DiveDapper. You’ll find links to several of her new poems there.

But the one I wanted to share with you today is “Catching Cooper“. You won’t be the same after you read it.

 

Okay, if you’ve spent any time on this blog, you’ve seen this woman. Joy Harjo (Mvskoke) opened the door to Native American poetry for me and continues to be my poet-hero. Get all her books immediately, seriously, like right now.

The poem I’m sharing today is from Secrets From the Center of the World (Univ. of AZ press), which pairs her poems with the photography of Stephen Strom.

This is “Patterns in Mudhills“.

OMG! So beautiful. Check out her interview at NPR about finding her voice and her memoir Crazy Brave. Oh yeah, she reads a few poems there too.

 

 

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New&Forthcoming Poetry To Drop UR $$$ On

21 Saturday Oct 2017

Posted by BoneSpark Blog in C.A. Explains It All, Thoughts on Poetry

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Tags

Anne Carson, Annemarie Ni Churreain, Argos Books, Barbie Chang, BloodRoot, Copper Canyon Press, David Romtvedt, Dilemnas of the Angels, Doire Press, Educe Press, Ewa Chrusciel, Fanzine, Iron Ardent, Kenyon Review, Kissing Caskets, LSU Press, Mahogany L. Browne, New Releases, Omnidawn, Rain Scald, Rattle, Samantha Zighelboim, Sheila Black, Tacey Atsitty, The Fat Sonnets, University of New Mexico Press, Victoria Chang, Wordgathering, YesYes Books

 

Kissing Caskets by Mahogany L. Browne (coming in Nov. from YesYes Books)

sample poem:

the blk(est) night

 

 


Rain Scald by Tacey M. Atsitty (forthcoming from Univ. of New Mexico Press)

Two Poems w/ audio at Kenyon Review Online

 

 

 

 


The Fat Sonnets by Samantha Zighelboim (forthcoming from Argos Books)

Two Poems at Fanzine

 

 



 

Dilemnas of the Angels by David Romtvedt (available now from LSU Press)

Sample poem (at Rattle):

Dilemnas of the Angels:Intention

 


 

Iron, Ardent by Shelia Black (available now from Educe Press)

Two Poems at Wordgathering

 

 


BloodRoot by Annemarie Ní Churreáin (available now from Doire Press)

*scroll to bottom of purchase page at Doire for sample poems

 

 

 


 

Of Annunciations by Ewa Chrusciel (available now at Omnidawn)

Sample poem:

Migrants’ Annunciation

 


Barbie Chang by Victoria Chang (available Nov. at Copper Canyon Press)

Sample Poem:

Barbie Chang’s Tears

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