Cosmic Constructions

The moon’s romance was wasted
on the dust of the first moonwalker’s feet.
Science is its own religion. What the hell
is anti-matter anyway? Likely the origins
of all things polyester.

What happens when we are brave
or stupid enough to measure lightning
with a ruler? Oh Vitruvius.
De architectura. Consider
the ruined columns of the temple.
It’s not easy to be as incorruptible
as stone.

Galileo got it wrong.
Galileo, who in the Dialog of the Ebb
and Flow of the Sea,
called out the moon for folly,
became Galileo, the man in chains.
No one would hear. No one would see.
His terrestrial telescope, broken.

Does revelation have a surface
or a center? Look elsewhere.
Look through.

Tonight, the sky is missing a moon.
Orion inclines over the earth,
his belt buckle rides the horizon.

Photography and Poems by John Sweet

John Sweet 2009

one for j


wake up heavy with the
idea of suicide on some bright
blue july morning and
                  then what?

you need to look in all
directions here

you need to consider hope
                                      vs
      the possibility of hope

your children as a
form of salvation

   salvation as a concept that
                                    might
actually have some meaning

 

ash wilderness
 

the edges of cities
where the bodies are buried

the sides of hills and
the scrubland on either side of
the highways

and it matters that i love you
but not enough

it makes its own grey logic
that the killers need
to be killed

ask any parent
how old their child
would've been and then
look at their hands when
they answer

look at your own

use them to dig out
whatever space you can find
between anger and despair

a forest


growing up quietly,
invisibly,
or this is what you thought

growing up without limitations
and then dying

write your name
         backwards
in the book of crows

hang a cross in
front of every mirror

religion, yes, and then
superstition
and then genocide

all acts
are acts of greed

all apologies are
acts of violence

baby just lies there bleeding
and all you can do
is keep saying i’m sorry

 the village, on fire


my youngest son crying over
the idea of my death and i
have no idea how we’ve
arrived at this point

i have no more reasons
to hate my own father

feel nothing but fear when
i consider the future

five years and then ten and
then twenty tied down by
the need for money.
               for shelter,
               for food,
               for money again

day one in the
age of addiction

white sun in a silver sky

houseful of broken windows,
of leaking pipes and
unread books

my youngest son in tears,
which is suddenly
the source of all pain

              notes on finding religion


We were silent while the
boat sank. I think I’ve
mentioned this. Land in the
distance off to the west, blinding
sunlight, and it wasn’t
enough just to be in love

and it never is

and we never were

and the boat was sinking

miro was dead

Couldn’t understand why none
of the things I had spent my
believing in never really
mattered in the end.

  

on the occasion of giving up completely


wake up after the rain in
the same place you’ve always known
and wait to feel clean

time is not your friend here

you are only loved by those
who get something in return

think about your father here
and then think about
the emptiness he left behind

is it smaller than you expected?

can it be cupped gently
in bleeding hands?

listen

fear is a given in
any equation

the next storm is already forming
just over the horizon

doesn’t take a genius to see
we’re all fucked,
but it feels so good sometimes
to just sit back and
close your eyes 

© John Sweet, 2010

All rights reserved.  The use of any part of this publication transmitted in any form and by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without prior consent of the publisher or author, is an infringement of the copyright law.

Turtles and Kindness

Inspiration Journal 2006
from Cathryn Hankla’s Image and Word course, Hollins University

I think I love turtles because they are green. I once saw a turtle just sitting in the center of the road, neck extended—almost questioning, worshipful, testing the air, defiant even. As the cars passed over top of him he didn’t try to move. He didn’t retreat into his shell. He just stood there, head lifted high, until the road cleared. Then, slowly, methodically he walked across to the bushes on the other side and he was gone.  

I found a turtle in a field near my home. A creek runs outside my house. I couldn’t help but take his appearance to be an invitation of some sort. I picked him up and brought him inside to meet my kids. I let the turtle and the kids get to know each other. The turtle stayed in his shell for a long time while my children touched his leathery feet and smooth shell. He smelled rather funky so Analee kept her distance preferring to just observe. After they were done exploring the outer texture they set the turtle down on the floor. The turtle decided to poke his head out and get a look around. When he discovered he was surrounded by a bunch of faces ogling him, as fast a turtle can possibly run, he ran, hit the bricks, tried to get away.


I wondered what the turtle would take from this strange encounter—what it thought about being poked at and prodded. Oh, he was loved, instantly, and he could have become something cherished—at least for a week or two before they lost their awe, got used to him, and he became something common. Though the children begged to keep him I convinced them to take him back outside, to his real home.

They sent him off with a happy, “Good-bye, turtle, thanks for
visiting!” I think, in this way, Mr. Turtle will never become too easily familiar and there-by, too easily forgotten. I hope they learned to love and respect the creature and by letting him go, felt something of what it means to consider the needs of other above the needs of self.

If I teach my children anything—if they take anything from me—I hope it is this: Kindness is the most important, valuable thing we have that we can give.

Thems the Goodest

"There are only two rules you must obey as a writer: You have to use words, and you have to be interesting. Everything else is wide open."  Richard Bausch (Blatantly Thieved from Facebook.)

So, writing has rules.  I've read several different books about these rules. Robert's Rules for Writing,101 unconventional lessons every writer needs to know, Eats,Shoots, and Leaves, The Bedford Handbook,  just to name a few.  I don't have much to add to all of the blah blah blah other than to say: Them rules is a good idear. All writerly types should foller 'em, and don't never use no double negativers. Ifn' you do, do it in triplication. 

Also, YOUR, YOU'RE  or THEY'RE and THEIR and THERE  should always be replaced with the more eloquent: You-ins and y'all and thems.

 Considering the origins of the English Language...The southern dialect is actually closer to Old English.  If you are the cracker, be the cracker.  Don't be a cracker trying to a cheese puff. 

Anti-academic rants, Anti-Camp rants, Technique vs. Content and blah blah blah

 

 

As of late I've been reading and hearing a lot of disquiet and out and out anger towards specific groups of poetics, or specific "camps"…for example "Academic poetry lacks soul." Another complaint "experimental poetry exists for the sake of the experiment and not the poetry."

The only thing I can come up with is a big SO what? We have wars. We have poverty. We have children starving. How does poetry deal with these issues? Critical discussions are beginning to drive me insane. Two days ago, down the road, a man shot his wife and then shot himself leaving behind two children. Would a soulful poem have saved the lives of these two people? No.

"Intelligence is not a gift it is a cracker jack prize

a wash off tattoo, or likely just the nuts that settle

to the bottom during shipping."

Whilst poets sit around discussing various types of camps and which camp is better than the other camp the whole world goes to hell. What's the point? There is none.

What makes poetry "vital" is its living aspect. Yes, a poem lives. Or it does not. If a poem is not alive it is not worth the paper or pixel wasted on it. Bitching about what is or is not happening in the Po Biz is wasted effort. And here, I've subscribed to that "camp" the camp of eternal bitching… and here I must shut myself up. A poem lives or it dies and the world goes on without noticing. And yet the one poem when it connects to the one reader can save a life.

It has mine. More than once.
Hopefully, in turn, I can use that which poetry has given me to continue to survive in this place, simplistically speaking, not only to survive but to find joy with the hope of blessing others in some small way. Words and poetry bring me joy, a comfort I try to share when I can.
AND...that's really all any human can hope for.

That's enough.

SO:
Here I offer a poem which you may decide to live through, with, or not at all.

Wild Geese

 

You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Mary Oliver


And,

From: Demothenes' Legacy (A book everyone should read.)
Jonathan Munroe

Question

Scattered among passages, choice remains. Exposed to
good measures, they disallowed a higher meaning--"the
better to lie among the stars." That was a choice the
choosing made. What a difference a sound makes. A pass-
ing phrase. In stages the crew disassembled the scaffolding.
Hung from the rafters, the authorities caved.

Metonymy

Inside this tent you'll see again. Wonder of wonders.
Miracles. Some ghosts survive, and thriving, save. Salvation
slaves our very host. A parasitic crowd draws near, resur-
recting old foliage. Blank slates soon follow, whispering
sweet nothings. Diffuse directions storm intentions.
Muttering masters cancel threads.

The White Buffalo

Books vs. E-Books: 8 reasons to love or hate either.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/08/03/back-story-books-vs-e-books.html

Good Things About Books:

1.  They have sexy spines, esp. when they are all lined up against each other in a library.
2.  Marginalia could not exist without them.
3.  You can take a bath with one.
4.  When feeling uncomfortable in a crowd, you can hold them to your chest.  This wards off evil.
5.  When you hold a book you hold the entire history of printing and paper in your hands.
6.  If you leave random piles around your home, when people visit, they can be used as conversation starters, and also end tables.
7.  A backpack full of books makes a good weapon against potential muggers.
8.  If you read books, butterflies will fly out of your brain.

Bad Things About Books:

1. If you carry more than fifteen at a time you will develop a hunchback.
2. They get old and turn yellow.  Like some people.  But that isn't funny.  Not at all.
3. They can be damaged by: dogs, little children with teeth, (little children without teeth too) water, fire, and bookworms (though I've never seen one.)
4. You have to kill trees to make books.  Someday we may need those trees.
5.  Publishers and the politics of publishing.  In general and not specifically.
6.  Unrequited desire. No matter how many you have, you can never have them all.
7.  Sometimes, they smell kinda funny.  Like some people.  But this isn't very funny either.
8.  They can make your head explode. Really. And this is actually disturbing.  There should be studies done.

 Good Things About E-books

1. If you own a kindle or an iPad or a nook you are automatically uber-cool and tech savvy. And there is a possibility you will develop super powers.

2. You don't have to worry about becoming a hunchback because a kindle is not very heavy.

3. You can read in the dark.  (With Super-vision.)  And that's just silly. Silly, but true.

4. You can read as many books at the same time as you want to and never lose your place again.

5. Cheap, fast, easy, instant gratification-book porn, free online books are everywhere.

6. Did I mention that if you own an iPad, nook, or kindle you are awesome?

7. No more danger. Painful and potentially deadly paper cuts are history!

8. Memory capacity almost equal to the Mind of God.  Brings literature to the masses. Very alturistic.

Bad Things about E-books

1.  If you wanted to take a bath with one, you probably could, but you would die to death if you accidentally dropped it, (metaphorically speaking.) Or, okay, maybe literally also. (electricity + water = bad)

2.  If attacked by a mugger, a backpack full of a nook ain'ta gonna do-a you-a mucha good.

3.  Frankly, they are just ugly.  Little aesthetic appeal.

4.  Likely hosts hidden spy software from which the government seeks to implant electrical impulses to control your brain.

5.  If you want to high-light or underline something using an actual writing utensil, well, too bad.

6.  Can not be used to prop up a wobbly table.  And even if you had like a hundred of them, you still could not use them as end tables either.

7.  If you buy a kindle, nook, or iPad this month, by next month they will have a newer, better model.

8.  They are not books.

Book of Hours

(this is a book)

"The Power of Books" photographs by Mladen Penev

Shiva's Arms Book Review and Author Interview

Shiva’s Arms may not a book for everyone as Cheryl Snell’s first novel expects a lot from the reader.  Being  a fan of Cheryl’s poetry for years now, I was familiar with her work and knew to look for a depth of hidden associative meanings. Shiva’s Arms provides that depth as it tackles cultural and gender roles within the construct of intimate family moments. In this book one finds meanings behind meanings.  For example, the relationship between the mother-in-law (Amma) and daughter-in-law ( Alice)  illuminates expectations within a caste system and the conflict when two cultures become entangled within one family.  This relationship, which is a central focus of the book, points towards Hindu beliefs regarding Shiva, the conflict of creation and destruction, light and darkness, male and female forces.  One of the most surprising characters Cheryl constructed was Amma’s biological daughter, Nela.  Nela, a less than perfect woman, serves as a foil to Alice.  As both women strive to live an authentic life, Amma is a force of nature, ever present in the back ground.    Although some of Cheryl’s transitions from chapter to chapter might feel a bit disjointed to readers, this book is well worth a read.   

For more information see: http://shivasarms.blogspot.com/

Interview with the Author Cheryl Snell

Questions:  Shiva’s Arms

For people who have little knowledge of Indian traditions and culture, the book may pose some difficulties, in particular, to fully understanding the complex mother-child relationships, one needs to have a basic understanding of “samsara.”  Could you explain the samsara concept and tell us how you used it develop the characters and the conflict/resolution of the complex inter-cultural relationships?

In a Hindu Brahmin’s life, samsara, or the ‘householder’ stage, is the most chaotic. The word refers to the continuous flow of the cycle of birth and rebirth, and the drowning sea of domesticity. I set my characters in that stage to underscore their conflict, and imply a larger unease –the divided loyalties that come with cultural assimilation.

Let’s talk about the title for a moment.   When one reads the book one might assume the mother-in-law is an embodiment of Shiva’s arms.  How does Alice’s character balance this assumption?  When constructing these two characters what aspects of Shiva did you attempt to attribute to them in their relationship with each other and their family?

I named Amma (Shiva Laxmi Sambashivan) after the god of Creation and Destruction partly to give her something to live up to. She is a symbol of ambiguity. Dualities are carried through the narrative in many ways: siblings Ram and Nela stand in for the male and female aspects of Lord Shiva as avatars of the same god, for instance.

Alice only sees Amma’s destructive qualities, but once she steps back from their tangled relationship and recognizes Amma as a fully human woman in need of help, their relationship changes. Creation! Amma is capable of transformation, after all.

 Like Shiva, whose every footfall is said to be felt across the world, the old girl does throws her weight around, but she truly believes that she is the gatekeeper of sacred tradition. Since Ram and his sibs have been taught to regard their parents as gods, she is hard to argue with!

I happen to know that you write poetry also, so this may be unfair of me to pick your brain this way…But…

 Do you feel you used poetic techniques in constructing this novel?  If so, were you aware of those techniques when you were writing or did it become apparent to you afterwards?  (For example some of the transitions seem abrupt for a prose-flowing book, and seem to be more stylized towards imagery then plot.)  Can you tell us about this choice, and why you made it?

One of the hallmarks of a literary novel is language. As a poet, I appreciate that!  I thought lyrical elements fit in with  lush Indian sensory details. The plot is intimate, played out against a larger backdrop of the momentous act of immigration. I had to restrain myself with the poetic language sometimes, but I did want the imagery to startle. I needed phrases that would contribute to the feeling of choppy samsara seas.

A question unrelated to the story line, but related to your work as a writer.  As your first novel, have you been happy with the publishing process?   Can you share some words of advice to hopeful writers concerning finishing the task of writing and staying inspired?

The road to publishing a novel is hard and long.  I respect the fact that the publisher made a large investment in this book, and I am very pleased with the finished product. Shana Johnson designed a lovely cover, and I’m grateful to have such a well made book.

I’d tell the hopefuls that inspiration is mostly made of effort. Stay connected to your story while you’re doing other things and soon you will stop counting your daily quota of words written, and begin to enter fully into the work. And that’s the real reward.

Calligraphic Art, Margaret Shepard

"Mouse" e.e. cummings

http://www.omniglot.com/gallery/calligraphicart/index.php?start=1

Sewanee Writer's Conference 2010

Here is a letter I sent the Professors who wrote me recommends. Thought it summed up the experience so I'd share it rather than try to repeat the entire thing for those who've been asking: "How'd it go."

Dear (Hollins Folks)

First of all, thank you SO MUCH for taking the time to write recommends to Sewanee for me. I’m sure that had a lot to do with my being awarded the Tennessee Williams Scholarship. Secondly, I thought you might like to hear how it went so I wanted to share with you a few things about my experience, which was completely amazing and life altering. I was in a writing workshop directed by Robert Hass and Claudia Emerson. (I am embarrassed to admit that I didn’t even KNOW Robert Hass or anything about his work before I was accepted into the workshop!)

Also in the workshop were some really first-rate poets. A “goose-bump” moment came when my workshop team-mate, Beth Bachman (an emerging poet who won 2008 Donald Hall prize for her first book Temper) gave a reading. She mentioned that the very book she was holding in her hand had its genesis in the workshops she attended when she was a scholar at Sewanee the previous year. I hope this is not annoying, but I do want to share at least one more class member. They were all remarkable poets, but Jehanne Dubrow made quite an impression on me also. She has three books of poetry out and has also won several awards (her latest book is Stateside and it’s amazing.) So, now you kinda get a glimpse of the quality of work I was surrounded with. Needless to say I arrived on campus and felt as if I were, in this company, something between a garden gnome and a gnat.

The craft lectures were probably one of my favorite things to attend. Jill McCorkle and Padget Powell gave talks about writing which about cooked my brain. In a good way, I mean. Powell spent the first ten minutes of his talk going around in circles and explaining why a talk about craft was simply ridiculous. Which, when one is giving a talk about craft one would think one shouldn’t call one’s own talk ridiculous, but who knows? It seemed to work and turned out to be not quite as ridiculous as he had insisted it was even though he began by saying: “My Jesus wears a pink panther suit” and I’m not sure any context will help you out when considering whatever subtext about exposition he might be implying there.

McCorkle likened the act of writing and revision to the internal parts of the body. My favorite comparison was that of the large intestine to “editor.” Also the statement “we will never be as smart as our subconscious,” made me really stop and think, and then after I stopped to think I realized I had to think about stopping to think or maybe it was exactly the opposite…I had to stop thinking about what I was going to be thinking. Or I had to stop thinking. Or something like that.

It was around this time my brain started to obtain the consistency of oatmeal.

Although I think I loved every minute, the first workshop was rough as the first poem I’d selected (The Bookbinding Lesson…I’m not sure if that was one I wrote in any of y’alls workshop or not…) anyway…no one quite got why I juxtaposed bookmaking terminology with average descriptions of a girl walking in the snow. Many in the entire class seemed befuddled and in some cases…annoyed.

So, I wandered back to the dorm after workshop. (Got lost on the way.) Wandered around until I found the way…went to my room…which luckily was easy enough to find. Cried. Felt really good and sorry for myself. Felt closer to gnat size than gnome size for a while. Then, I got myself up and got over it. Moved on. ..

A few really remarkable people I should mention meeting are David Yezzi, (New Criterion) David Barber (Atlanta Monthly) and Don Share (Poetry.) David and David sat on either side of me on the couch during one of the after parties and took turns playing a guitar and singing. In the midst of breaks from the singing (No, I didn’t sing.) we talked. We discussed the ghost of Emily and the future of publishing. Not sure what one subject has to do with the other but somehow it all made sense. (And no, we were none of us sloshed. Or not completely sloshed anyway.)

This is probably going on a bit too long at this point…with (as my children like to say) TMI.

Moving on…okay, I should probably share the most humbling and yet uplifting experiences at the same time *helped me get over the gnat feeling anyway and move beyond gnomish also.* Anyway, the second poem I picked to workshop was called Loom(ing). When Hass gave his craft lecture “The Roots of Being” (which was brilliant) he had the crowd literally singing at the end…anyway, I digress, back to the point…(he somehow managed to show how rhythm and poetry are genetically related. As in…poetry is not IN the genes…it IS the genes…) I don’t know how he did it, but he did…wait, I digress again.

What was I saying? “Rhythm, out of what music does it spring forth?” OH! Yeah, he was talking about this and (a lot more) then he expressed the thought that poems could usually fall into one of two forms: liturgy or lament.
He quoted (from memory) some passages which expounded the idea of rhythm/form as “lament”
(which I did not write down quickly enough so unfortunately I can’t remember.)
THEN! *knock your socks off moment coming, hold on to them…* All right, maybe not so much for you then, for me…I’ll hold on to mine. This still blows me away.

To give an example of a form of liturgy he read my second workshop poem!
I mean, what? I turned to the girl who was sitting next to me whose face and name I no longer remember and I said. “Holy shit. Robert Hass is reading my poem.”
I wasn’t sure what to do with my face. I think it had fallen completely off.
I have to say that again. Pardon me. I hope this doesn’t seem gloating or crass but, Holy Shit. Robert Hass read my poem in a craft lecture.

AND Here’s where I must remark on the excellent teaching at Hollins and how without all of you, well I simply would never had been able to say *third time* Holy shit. Robert Hass read my poem. Aloud. In front of like, people.
  (TJ Anderson III, Richard Dillard, Cathryn Hankla, Pauline Kaldas, Thorpe Moeckel  and Jeanne Larsen!) How could I forget Jeanne of the Manchu Palaces, Jeanne of the Willow, Wine, Mirror, Moon, Jeanne of the Adv. Studies in Poetry class who had her students create the "Poem without Words"

What’s next? I don’t know. Hass invited me to check out Squaw Valley? I think it is. I know I definitely want to do this writer conference type of thing again!


Speer Morgan, editor of Missouri Review apparently saw me read. He’s invited me to submit a partial manuscript to his magazine.

And…that’s all I can think of.

I’m so glad to be home, but so grateful, humbled, overwhelmed…to have had this experience so I guess I should say this again. THANK YOU. Please give my love to everyone in Swan. Well, give my love but not in a literal way, unless it is a hug, and then you can be literal when you give love from me to everyone.

XXOO
Melanie

PS I DID sing some bluegrass with Claudia and Kent. (Just one song.) I also did a ten second clog routine with her outside the library.

PSS *you are sworn to secrecy on this one.* Jenny Sheridan Pecoraro came to visit me. I took her on a tour of the campus. We went to the library. I got us lost in the basement of the library. I found a long hallway leading to what seemed the only way out of the basement of the library. Neither Jenny nor I noticed the note on the door which read, quite plainly:
Alarm WILL sound if you open the door.

Jenny then gave me this very, very good advice. Which I shall never ever forget.

“If you run, you look guilty.”