Don Wentworth: an Interview, by Christien Gholson

If you'd like to know what it was (& continues to be) like to edit a small press poetry magazine (Lilliput Review) for 22 years and then publish your first book at age, well, old ... this is the place:

Christien Gholson's noise & silence

Christien, a long time favorite poet and, now, novelist, managed to ask all the right questions that elicited responses which informed me about my own work.  Usually it is the interviewer that is grateful; in this case it is the interviewee. 

To complement the interview, here's a review of William Hart's Home to Ballygunge: Kolkota Tanka I did recently for simply haiku.

all of a sudden
he shuts up...
crow

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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On The Acorn Book of Contemporary Haiku

In perusing my poetry shelves to see what was what, it occurred to me that, as a semi-regular feature, I could delve into the items found there and share a thought or two. So, the first couple of shelves consists of anthologies of Eastern or Eastern influenced verse, haiku, tanka, and traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Indian verse. In addition there are some modern anthologies of English and American verse in traditional forms, which brings us to the first item on the shelf, The Acorn Book of Contemporary Haiku, edited by Lucien Stryk and Kevin Bailey.

The first thing I realized about this book is that I must have purchased it on a London trip because it is going for ridiculous sums via amazon and has evidently never been published in the States. I bought it for 4.5 pounds, probably as a remainder at the Ulysses Bookshop near the British Museum.

I'm over halfway through the volume (so it goes for perusing part of this "project") and I have to say it is as fine a collection of contemporary haiku as I've run across. The hint of regret (have to say) I believe betrays the fact that I'm recommending something that is costly and difficult to get a hold of.

The volume's selection and tone bears all the earmarks of Stryk: poems stark, precise, and imagistic in nature. Stripped to the bone, the bones boiled, and placed out on large leaves, gleaming as they dry in the sun. Imagine my surprise when I ran smack into three poems that have graced past issues of Lilliput Review. Here they are:

Spring

The earth bears
everything,
even your sadness.

David Lindley

ancient headstones
the name and numbers
worn to murmurs.

William Hart

Summer

When the page was blank
no one thought, suddenly
a flower would appear.

David Lindley

One of the things that surprised me a bit was the lack of acknowledgment, a pet peeve of mine. Don't get me wrong; I don't think it is something a press or poet is obligated to do, it's just a courtesy. I explain to folks that it is akin to being accepted for publication for a poet/writer. It is a great lift and, most importantly, recognition of quality in the editorial process. This is not a gripe with this particular press or either poet, just me talking out loud. In my estimation, these are great examples of the finest work in haiku form and I'm proud to have helped them see the light of day. As far as I'm concerned, it is the poet who owns the work, from inception through publication and in any further incarnations, unless they explicitly sign that right away. And they'll never do that here at Lillie.

So, no harm, no foul ... just a little boy griping.

But I digress (and feel the better for it). Here's a selection of a few items that grabbed my attention and held it.

in the corpse's
half-closed eyes
the flame of a candle

Vasile Spinei

one word
but so many varieties
of rain

David Findley

Another robin in my mousetrap:
few of us fail to give
humanity a bad name.

Anthony Weir

The old barn
--looks more like a tree
----each year.

Hannah Mitte

late afternoon sun
the shadow of the gravestone
slants towards my feet

Brian Tasker

Works Gloves

On the garden gate
left here with me --
Shape of her hands

Bob Arnold

The white kitten
playing and playing
with the faded cherry petal

Vincent Tripi

Still in my garden
--------I bend to pluck a weed but
----------------see its smiling face.

Harold Morland

In the garden of Saleh
The silence is soothed
By the whispered lisp of leaves.

David Gascoyne

sunrise
the fisherman's shadow stretches
across the river

George Swede

A moorhen dives
Ripples spread
To the ends of the earth

Aasha Hanley

I hear the magpies
and you you have give me
this sense of longing.

Paul Finn

I was equally delighted to see a number of poets whose work has appeared in Lilliput featured in Acorn. From this selection alone are the fine poets George Swede, Vincent Tripi, and Bob Arnold. What is most amazing, really, is I've just dug through to the first layer of this exemplary volume. If I have the time and space, perhaps I'll highlight a few more poems from the 2nd half of this work sometime soon.

For an additional insightful, theoretical review (with a large selection of poems) of The Acorn Book of Contemporary Haiku, see Lynx Book Reviews (last review toward the bottom of the page - and from this review which I read after completing this post, I discovered another Lillie poem in the volume, from the 2nd half I haven't gotten to, this one by Gary Hotham).

****************************************

In the Bashô Haiku Challenge update, I can say that I've narrowed down the nearly 500 haiku received to somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 to 70 poems after two complete read-throughs. Lots of decisions still to made, one big one being exactly how long will this year's chapbook be. I believe I'll let content dictate form in this instance, so living with the poems for another two weeks or so should help answer that question very well.

****************************************

This week's featured issue is #152, from November 2006. Hope something grabs you here:

After Basho

Chrysanthemums bloom
in a gap between the silence
of the stonecutter's yard.

Michael Wurster

trumpet vine
still waiting
for you

David Gross

in the park
--struck
by a falling leaf

Peggy Heinrich

Four ancient rocks rose from the earth:
Grief, Rope, Axe, and Sparrow

Gail Ivy Berlin

And, before I flit off, one more:

baby sparrow--
even when people come
opening its mouth

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Resonance & Revelation

Last year I was asked, along with 13 other small press editors, if I would like to contribute an essay to the 20th anniversary issue of The Café Review, which was scheduled to appear the beginning of 2009. I was honored and, since it was also the 20th anniversary year of Lilliput Review, it seemed a good time to take a look at what I had done, was doing, and hoped to continue to do for some bit longer. The parameters were specific enough to be interesting to the reader and broad enough to give an expansive horizon to the writer. Basically, the question to be addressed was how you, the editor, choose the poetry you select and why. Also, speak to the current state of American poetry, which I felt distinctly unqualified to address, so I chose to speak to the state of poetry itself, perpetually, as I experience it and how that affects my approach to selecting work for Lilliput. Since The Café Review's latest issue is just out, I thought I'd share the essay, which appeared in their Spring 2009 issue.


******************************************************


- -Resonance & Revelation - The Café Review Essay

Poetry, in its creation as well as its appreciation, is first and
foremost visceral. It is almost precognitive: the moment of
seeing, close-up and in the wild, a peregrine falcon, or a pair
of mating garter snakes, or a painting before intellectualization
begins.

It is revelation.

Even though this is the single most important part of the
process, involving something beyond words, what follows is
almost as important: taking in the falcon, the snakes, the
Klimt, processing the images, the intent, and the resonance.
For these reasons, rarely do I accept or reject any poem on
first reading. Every poem is carefully considered two, three,
four times, and ones that spark a lyrical quandary are often
read many, many more.

Above my desk there is a note: “Clarity and resonance, not
necessarily in that order” and when I am queried about
what I look for in a poem, I pass this statement on (it has
been part of the entry for Lilliput Review in the Poet’s
Market for most of Lillie’s 20 year run). If you equate this
statement to the process described above, I’d have to admit
that it would be missing that single most important element.

Revelation.

In my mind, without revelation there is no poetry. Clarity
is specific to execution, but it also applies to vision, and so
we are back to the visceral and how it might best be
described. And really it is beyond description. Perhaps there
can be an approximation. There is, however, no definitive
answer or this selection of essays would be unnecessary.
One would have sufficed.

All great poetry mirrors life, in its entirety or in some aspect.
There is no definitive answer concerning life because, if there
was one, all the different religions, like these essays, would
be unnecessary. Good poetry rarely posits an answer: it is a
restating of the question. Good poems are a constant
rephrasing of the one unanswerable question. Ah, theory,
theory! But how is it done, how are poems selected, what
makes a poem worth including in Lilliput Review?

Emily Dickinson’s definition of poetry provides a glimmer of
an answer. “If I read a book of poetry and it makes my whole
body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.
If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I
know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is
there any other way? ”

This certainly is what I have in mind when I speak of
revelation and, frankly, this is no theory.

Lillie is a magazine of the short poem. It is diminutive in size
by design, for a number reasons, but suffice it to say that
form reflects content. Guidelines ask for 3 poems, with a
maximum of ten lines each. These are the only rules. If
somebody has a 10 line sonnet, I’m ready. I receive nearly
a thousand batches of poems and publish on average 8
issues a year, generally 16 pages in length. On average,
there are 2 poems per page, occasionally one or three. I
use artwork so that reduces the page number to 13.
That’s 26 poems per issue, approximately 200 poems
per year out of a pot of 3,000.

Now comes the tricky part; Lillie is a one person operation
and has been for 20 years. So, really, how are the poems
chosen? Well, aside from what is noted above (and if my
colleagues are honest, they know the following to be true),
work is chosen that I personally like. In fact, I can look
back over the full run and see something of a mirror,
reflecting a body of selected work. It isn’t a poet’s
complete poems, but it is something like that. It is
something like a personal journal, a written artifact of a
life’s journey. In all its honesty, foolishness, pettiness,
courage … the full gambit of humanness. Folks often
comment on how issues seem themed but nothing is
pre-planned, though sometimes an issue taps into
something (insert “z” word here). Putting together an
issue is actually a creative act; this is where it all comes
together and this almost singly makes the endless hours
of detail work worth every single second.

So, er, what do you like, Don?

Well, I have a dedication to the short poem. In tone and
flavor, I’d say I have an Eastern predilection. I like
clarity, plain speaking, but I also like something that
resonates, and not necessarily etc., something that
suggests the many realms of possibility. I love Dickinson,
Whitman, Ginsberg, Olds, Issa, Oliver, Shakespeare,
Yosano Akiko, Franz and James Wright, Sexton … I could
go on, but you get the idea.

An example of the perfect Lilliput poem might be The
Jewel by James Wright. It does everything I’ve described
above and much more. Here’s a poem from a very early
issue of Lillie that is emblematic of the kind of work I look
for:

in a fold of
Balzac’s coat
spider eggs

William Hart

This poem, comprised of 8 simple words in 3 truncated
lines, says it all. What really is going on? Is it a Balzac
statue or an imagined episode in his life? It seems to
contain all the stories Balzac ever wrote and writer’s
block wasn’t an issue. There is something ominous,
possibly. Or it’s simply a naturalistic expression of an
imagined or seen event.

And it resonates like hell.

And that is precisely the point. It is all those things,
drawing the reader in and forcing her to participate
in the creation. It is the perfect melding of Eastern
sensibility and Western mind.

And, oh, did I mention – it’s under 10 lines.


******************************************************

This week's selection from the Back Issue Archive arrives at #10, from February 1990. Here's two poems from that issue that still retain their sting. Enjoy.

Status Quo

My father, the stone,
rests in my heart
awaiting his completion
with a dry persistence.

I let him wait.
As all stones must,
he is learning patience.

Albert Huffstickler

Mercy?
Do you ask for mercy?

You will be given a toad
and a bucket of salt,
and nothing more.

Do not ask for more.
There is none.

David Castleman

humidity--
from beneath a stone
wildflowers

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Forthcoming Issues and Joanne Kyger

Click image to enlarge

I'm currently working on, among other things, the new issues of Lilliput Review, #'s 169 and 170. Above is a sneak preview of the covers, by regulars Guy Beining, on the left, and Wayne Hogan, on the right. In a one person operation, the process can be quite drawn out. I hope to begin to get the contributor copies out first, in about two weeks or so, followed by the regular subscriber issues, coming out in waves beginning around the first of July. These days it takes me about 6 or so weeks to get the full run in the mail.

Why, you may ask? I often ask myself the same question.

The reason is I generally am replying to correspondence, poems and letters and all, and I always try to communicate in some normal, human way, as opposed to speaking editorese. I'm not always successful, in these as in many things in life, but I keep on trying. Simultaneously, I'm replying to the poetry batches I received, otherwise my 90 day turnaround would balloon to unconscionable lengths. And then there is that pesky full-time job.

Just so ya know.

My proofer remarked how this time round there was lots that grabbed her attention, going beyond her normal dispassionate demeanor (and the usual by-the-way-there's-about-a-thousand-typos-this-time, bonehead ... I added the bonehead, she's too discrete for that, but it is how I feel). So, hopefully, there's lots of good stuff to look forward to.

Ed Baker, always on the prowl for new, interesting items, passed along a link to new, free online poetry publications from ungovernable press: specifically, to Joanne Kyger's new poem, Permission by the Horns (this is a .pdf file). For those of you unfamiliar with Kyger, her work has been associated with the Beats and the general San Francisco poetry revival, strongly reflecting her Buddhist predelictions. Here is a photo of Kyger with Gary Snyder and Peter Orlovsky from a pilgrimage to India in the early 60's (photograph by Allen Ginsberg).


In addition to Permission by the Horns, which shows her unique balance, both literally and stylistically, of the personal, the political, and the natural, you may also read 10 (More) Lovely New Poems by Kyger at Michael Mcclure and Ray Manzarek's website (yes, that, Michael McClure and that Ray Manzarek).

This week's featured back issue of Lilliput Review is #26, from November 1991. It was a themed issue in that it had no theme; titled Poems Without Segues 1, it was a larger than usual issue (8.5 x 4", 8 pages total, jam packed with 45 poems), in a somewhat desperate attempt to deal with a back log. The "without segues" part was me throwing my hands in the air and just fitting everything in I could with a crowbar. Here's some samples, beginning with what may be may favorite Lilliput poem of the 1st 20 years, followed by one of Steve Richmond's demon haunted "gagaku" poems:

in a fold
of Balzac's coat
spider eggs

William Hart

-----------------------gagaku

-------accused of
---------------self indulgent narcissism
--------------------I
------------------admit it

demons clap
they like me honest

Steve Richmond

fall from grace

long way
to the bottom
I'll hold
your hand

Michael R. Battram

after the demons
have all gone...
bright moon

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

best,
Don

"Youth's Sweet-Scented Manuscript:" The Rubáiyát, Part III:

This is part 3 of a look at the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. To see where all this started, here's part 1 and part 2.

The response up to this point has been, well, nil, but sometimes you just have to do what you've have to do. Mercifully, this post will wrap up this recent fixation: some things you just have to get out of your system. Just as with Japanese and Chinese poetry, I will always have an affinity for the Rubáiyát. The lyric tone and style is antiquated, to be sure. The philosophy, though, is close to my lapsed agnostic heart.

Spill that wine, take that pearl ...

53
But in vain down on the stubborn floor
Of Earth, and up to Heav'n's unopening Door
---You gaze To-day while You are You—how then
Tomorrow, when You shall be You no more?

56
For "Is" and "Is-Not" though with Rule and Line
And "Up-and-Down" by Logic I define,
---Of all that shall care to fathom, I
Was never deep in anything but—Wine.

63
Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing is certain—This Life flies;
---One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever Dies.

64
Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who
Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through,
---Not one returns to tell us of the Road
Which to discover we must travel too.

65
The Revelations of Devout and Learn'd
Who rose before us, and as the Prophets burn'd,
---Are all but stories, which, awoke from Sleep
They told their comrades and to Sleep return'd.

66
I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of the After—life to spell:
---And by and by my Soul return'd to me,
And answered "I myself are Heav'n and Hell:"

67
Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire,
And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire,
---Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves,
So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.

71
The Moving Finger writes and having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
---Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

72
And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die,
---Lift not your hands to It for help—for It
As impotently moves as you or I.

74
Yesterday This day's madness did prepare;
Tomorrow's Silence, Triumph, or Despair:
---Drink, for you know not whence you came, nor why:
Drink for you know not why you go, nor where.

96
Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript shall close!
---The Nightingale that in the branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown, who knows?

Cover by David Shabee

This week's trip to the Back Issue Archive of Lilliput Review continues to go way down the alley: August 1993. Here are a few select nuggets from back then: enjoy.

brow to brow
mountain
and thunderhead

William Hart

You Taught

You taught
me woman things
with your smooth words and way;
how is it you taught me how to
leave you?

Terria Tucker Smith

Heads Or Tales

We live in a time where
childhood is a lie
tomorrow is a fantasy
and today is duck duck
goose

Cheryl Townsend

Elegiac Feast
-----"ramma ramma, katzenjamma"

---------------rise up gypsies, dancers, mountebanks,
troubadours, lost souls, poets, painters, ghost
of starving, teeth-gnashing Van Gogh, penniless
and drunk, staring at the stars in the rain,
actors, itinerant players, the irregulars, feast
in a world out of joint and biting our ass, drink
up rogue gypsy gala, dance till morning, oh Judy,
Judy, Judy, sing on, sing on, the singing soul
of our crying hearts.

T. Kilgore Splake

Oh, and one little last something, live, because we can:

best,
Don

Robert Bly's Silence in the Snowy Fields and More

The book by Robert Bly chosen for the Near Perfect Book of Poetry list is Silence in the Snowy Fields. The book was written largely at the same time and in the same location as much of The Branch Will Not Break by James Wright. In fact, Bly is the friend referred to in The Blessing, which was featured in last Thursday's post.

As you know if you are a regular around here, the Near Perfect list is reader nominated and remains an ongoing project. As such, I don't necessarily have to agree with the choices; this is a communal thing. I hope to be featuring a poem or three from each of the nominated books by way of sharing the work valued by regular readers of poetry.

Which brings us back to Silence in the Snowy Fields. I'm a fan of Robert Bly, I think he has written more than his share of very good poems and has done more promoting the art of poetry than many of our laureates ever have. That being said, I've read Silence through twice over the past couple of months and, well, it didn't really grab me in a big way. So, this is by way of saying I'm not the final arbiter in this. I featured one poem from Silence back in July. Here are two more that stood out for me:

Watering The Horse

How strange to think of giving up all ambition!
Suddenly I see with such clear eyes
The white flake of snow
That has just fallen in the horse's mane!

Where We Must Look For Help

The dove returns: it found no resting place:
It was in flight all night above the shaken seas;
Beneath ark eaves
The dove shall magnify the tiger's bed;
Give the dove peace.
The split-tail swallows leave the sill at dawn;
At dusk, blue swallows shall return.
On the third day the crow shall fly;
The crow, the crow, the spider-colored crow,
The crow shall find new mud to walk upon.

The horses on Bly's farm played a large part in American poetry it would seem. The second poem feels pretty average until you hit the last two lines; suddenly the language rises to the image, transmutes to archetypal myth, and we are forced to see the cliche of a familiar story in a very different way.

Silence was Bly's first book and it is considered groundbreaking for its time, clearing out some of the cobwebs of what had been for many years a fairly staid American poetry scene. I'll be sharing one more poem from Silence in the coming days. For a very sizable preview of Silence in the Snowy Fields, check it out in google books.

This week's featured back issue of Lilliput Review is #60, a little different in layout and approach. It even comes with a title: "Poems Without Segues II." The whole idea was a matter of expediency; I had more poems on hand than I could, at that time, deal with, and so threw nuance to the wind and simply printed them. #60 was originally published in August 1994.

Artwork by Harland Ristau

Since the scan actually includes 6 poems from the cover (click on the image above for a readable version), I'll be featuring more poems than usual. What follows are some selections from the other 7 jam-packed pages.



breezy--
the spider's thread
warps a sunbeam

William Hart

waves break
on the cusp
of our bed--
I cradle
her moans,
moonlit
between my
crescent thighs

Janet Mason

from Rainy Day Sweetish Bakery

I think the rain
is falling
on my mother's
grave I think
it falls
very quietly.
I think there
is a tree there
and it catches
the drops
and sifts them
down
silently.

Albert Huffstickler

Ely Cathedral

Seeing you from a distance
I knew at once
O Ship of the Fens
How right it was
to make you metaphor

Hugh Hennedy

There is me
and this tree
and that bird

and there is morning.
Suzanne Bowers

trumpet curves stagelight -
the rainy street outside

christien gholson

Self Aggrandizing Poet
The head of the dead window box
flower bows away from
the grimy window in
the town with
your name.

K. Shabee

And a Brobdingnag poem from Huff:

Laundromat

This is how Hopper would have painted it:
the line of yellow dryers
catching the sunlight from the broad window.
Man with his hand reached up to the coin slot,
head turned to the side as though reflecting,
woman bent over the wide table
intent on sorting,
another standing hands at her side, looking off -
as though visiting another country;
each thing as it is,
not reaching beyond the scene for his symbols,
saying merely, "On such and such a day,
it was just as I show you."
Each person, each object, static
but the light a pilgrim.

Albert Huffstickler

best,
Don

Gary Snyder, Alan Watts, and Five Poets with Staying Power

Cover by Oberc

As noted on today's Writer's Almanac, it is the poet Gary Snyder's birthday (in addition, don't miss Patrick Phillips's sad and beautiful poem "Matinee" on today's WA posting). Recent winner of the 2008 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement, Snyder, along with poet, novelist and activist Wendell Berry, is one of our finest living writers; both celebrate and advocate for the earth from which we come and to which we return. As Alan Watts used to say, we are not born "into" the world, we are born "out" of it.

Rus Bowden's Poetic Ticker pointed me to the following Gary Snyder video on YouTube. I'm linking directly to part 1 for convenience. Click here for parts 2 through 4.






As part of the reorganization of the sidebar (look right) on this site, I've put together a group of links to the work of Issa, patron of all things small. Lots of interest may be found there.

There are two other notes before getting to this week's selection from the Lilliput archive. The Washington Post recently had a posting on their "Short Stack" blog entitled "Five Poets With Staying Power." There are at least two on the list I agree with. The comments that follow the posting are even more interesting than the choices. Any thoughts on your 5 poets with staying power (I'll take Whitman, Dickinson, Sexton, Shakespeare, and cummings - Frost would be 6th)? And, for those who might have missed it here, my review of Mary Oliver's new book, "Red Bird," has been posted at the library blog "Eleventh Stack."

This week's issue of Lilliput is #93, from December 1997. Here are three tiny highlights:



Before the wake ...
the eldest daughter helps
with her mother's make-up.

Patrick Sweeney

at the zoo
not a single
human face

George Ralph

ancient headstones
the names and numbers
worn to mutters

William Hart

And one to lighten the day:



Another Contributor's Notes
"I learned at the Iowa
Writers' Workshop that if you don't
jiggle the toilet's knob two or three
times, it won't ever stop flushing."

Wayne Hogan

Today is the last day for the free 6 issue gift subscription offer to Lilliput Review. Details at the link.


best,
Don

Kooser's Valentines, Franz Wright, and Charles Simic

Had email from a local friend recommending some recent work by some of my current favorite poets. There is a new poem in the current New Yorker by the always interesting, deeply resonant Franz Wright, entitled The World of the Senses. The current Virginia Quarterly Review has 4 poems by Charles Simic featured, as well as an archive of things they have published by him, 3 of which grabbed me: An Address With Exclamation Points, Meditation in the Gutter, and House of Cards. All of them are well worth a look.

Someone I haven't connected with yet, until this month, is Ted Kooser. I'm not sure why; perhaps I had typecast him as a typical Midwestern poet, someone whose subjects and sensibilities are not things that often show up on my radar. In some recent reviews, I read about his latest collection, Valentines, and was intrigued. So when a copy came in for our "International Poetry Collection" at the library, I grabbed it. As he explains in his author's note, Kooser tells how he began sending out annual Valentine poems in 1986 to at first a select group of 50 women, the poems being printed on standard postcards. 21 years later, his list had burgeoned to 2600 and, he implies, all the printing and postage was getting to be a bit much. So the last card went out in 2007 and this book collects all the poems together, with one last one written especially for his wife.

The work in Valentines at once celebrates and transcends the genre of occasional verse. The poems are, of course, all relatively short since they were originally published on postcards and I have the feeling that different poems here will appeal to different people. I thought these two were quite good:



For You, Friend

this Valentine's Day, I intend to stand
for as long as I can on a kitchen stool
and hold back the hands of the clock,
so that wherever you are, you may walk
even more lightly in your loveliness;
so that the weak, mid-February sun
(whose chill I will feel from the face
of the clock) cannot in any way
lessen the lights in your hair, and the wind
(whose subtle insistence I will feel
in the minute hand) cannot tighten
the corners of your smiles. People
drearily walking the winter streets
will long remember this day:
how they glanced up to see you
there in a storefront window, glorious,
strolling along on the outside of time.




A Map Of The World

One of the ancient maps of the world
is heart-shaped, carefully drawn
and once washed with bright colors,
though the colors have faded
as you might expect feelings to fade
from a fragile old heart, the brown map
of a life. But feeling is indelible,
and longing infinite, a starburst compass
pointing in all the directions
two lovers might go, a fresh breeze
swelling their sails, the future uncharted,
still far from the edge
where the sea pours into the stars.



Needless to say, my sensibilities have been duly corrected and expanded. This delightful volume from the University of Nebraska Press is marvelously illustrated by Robert Hanna. If you are a Kooser fan, it is a must. If not, check it out and you might soon be.

Once again congratulations, go out to Jay Leeming; this morning The Writer's Almanac featured a wonderful reading of one of Jay's poems, Man Writes Poem. As noted previously, Jay has had 3 poems published in past issues of Lilliput Review.

Seems there is lot of poetry info this week, so here's one last note. Well worth reading is Robert Pinsky's column in Slate entitled Why Don't Modern Poems Rhyme Etc., in which he tersely answers typical questions about poetry with poems by William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, Edgar Guest, Allen Ginsberg and more: no clunky exegesis for Robert! This will definitely strike a chord with (and perhaps provide a few ideas for) anyone who has taught a poetry appreciation class.

On to our tour of back issues of Lilliput. I've been struggling all morning with Blogger to get this post done and, at the moment, I can't seem to upload images so I'll eschew posting the cover right now (ah, finally got it: covers may be seen below) and go right to the featured issue, #95. #96 is a broadside by Albert Huffstickler entitled Pre-Dawn Cycle and, as such, not excerpt-able, hence the need to skip back to #95. This issue was originally published in April 1998, ten years ago this month. Here's a little taste of what was happening then:

from Poems to Eat and Say (from Octavio Paz)

Glowing butterflies:
one dreaming, one awake; all
of us tossed by wind.

Leonard Cirino

when the treetop sways
a thousand butterflies
stampede in me

William Hart

Quatrain

This moth fluttering against
the window screen. I could go on
killing 'til the end of time
and never be satisfied.

Greg Watson

And this final note from the incomparable Albert Huffstickler:

from Interim Notes

Those beautiful moments
I've sculpted from the past,
chiseling away the rubble
of conflict and sorrow.




best till next Thursday,
Don