Poem of the Week: "Remembrance" by Kim Bridgford

The VPR Poem of the Week is Kim Bridgford’s “Remembrance,” which appeared in the Spring/Summer 2003 issue (Volume IV, Number 2) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Kim Bridgford directs the writing program at Fairfield University, where she is a professor of English and editor of Dogwood. Her works of poetry and fiction have appeared in Christian Science Monitor, Iowa Review, Massachusetts Review, North American Review, Redbook, Witness, and many other journals She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Connecticut Commission on the Arts. Bridgford’s books of poetry are Undone (David Robert Books, 2003), Instead of Maps (David Robert Books, 2005), and In the Extreme: Sonnets about World Records (Story Line Press, 2007).

Tuesday of each week “One Poet’s Notes” highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers revisit it. Please check the sidebar to view the list of poets and works that have been past “Poem of the Week” selections. Additionally, readers are reminded that VPR pages are best read with the browser font preference in which they were set, 12 pt. Times New Roman, in order to guarantee the stanza alignment and the breaks of longer lines are preserved.

Bob Dylan on Poets and Poets on Bob Dylan

Last night my wife reminded me that today is Bob Dylan’s birth date (born May 24, 1941), and I thought of Bob Dylan Revisited, the recent book containing graphic interpretations of some Bob Dylan lyrics that was included on the recommended reading list in the last post at “One Poet’s Notes.” However, I also felt this would be an opportunity to revisit the following excerpts from posts I’d presented about Dylan as a songwriter and as a poet.

Bob Dylan has proven to be an enduring and formidable figure in American culture, perhaps the most influential singer-songwriter in the nation’s musical history. Indeed, I frequently have heard fellow poets in the past remark upon the subtle way in which language or rhythm in Dylan’s lyrics has swayed them somewhat in their own writings.

Furthermore, as I have written previously, when I offered in 1999 an “Inaugural Lecture” at my university, a speech traditionally delivered to the community upon attaining full academic rank (and later published as an article titled “Writing Poetry: Art, Artifacts, and Articles of Faith”), I commented in one part of my presentation: “Three writers who have greatly influenced my writing of poetry are Robert Frost, Robert Penn Warren, and Robert Lowell—my literary trinity. The three ‘Bobs’ I like to call them. (My wife insists that if I were complete in my list, I would add Bob Dylan as well.)”

I remember how Bob Dylan’s presence, musically and physically, could be felt during his early years in New York City. Indeed, when in high school, a few friends and I spent much of our time in Greenwich Village, often sitting in a café on one corner of the block where Dylan lived, watching for him on days he might step inside or just walk by our window table. Later, as a graduate student and apprentice poet I would sometimes attend parties, book signings, or gallery openings where literary celebrities or visual artists and musicians could be found, at times including folks like Andy Warhol, Allen Ginsberg, and even Bob Dylan.

Certainly, Dylan regarded poets as significant reflections of the American voice and some seemed to exert influence on the texture in his voice. In fact, Allen Ginsberg occasionally accompanied Dylan on stage during touring and famously appeared in the “Subterranean Homesick Blues” music video. In Chronicles, Dylan’s book of memoirs, he begins one of his chapters with the following observations: “I had just returned to Woodstock from the Midwest—from my father’s funeral. There was a letter from Archibald MacLeish waiting for me on the table. MacLeish, Poet Laureate of America—one of them. Carl Sandburg, poet of the prairie and the city, and Robert Frost, the poet of dark meditations were the others. MacLeish was the poet of night stones and the quick earth. These three, the Yeats, Browning and Shelley of the New World, were gigantic figures, had defined the landscape of twentieth-century America. They put everything in perspective.”

Some have suggested Bob Dylan should be regarded as a poet as well. In fact, as British Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion expressed his fondness for Dylan’s poetic language, with “Visions of Johanna” containing his favorite lyrics. Dylan is quoted as considering himself “a poet first and a musician second.” Literary critic and scholar Christopher Ricks has written that he considers Bob Dylan one of the finest poets of all time, even placing him alongside such great figures as Milton and Keats.

I don’t go so far as to label Dylan a poet because of his song writing. I consider the words in his lyrics already as valuable as any poems when regarded simply as sensational songs, each one existing just as Dylan designed it for his listeners. Moreover, since he often changes the ways he presents the songs in concert and sometimes alters the lyrics, one might contend the songs are meant to be experienced differently every time they are performed, and the static words on a page would not fully represent them. The power and the persuasion of his language can best be experienced with the rhythm and melody contributed by his music, as well as the unique cadence and phrasing placed upon the words by Dylan’s singing.

In the introduction to Hollywood Foto-Rhetoric, a book containing some of Dylan’s poetry, Billy Collins, a former Poet Laureate of the United States, addresses questions concerning Bob Dylan’s status as a “poet.” Initially, Collins explains why songwriters rarely produce lyrics that achieve the criteria to qualify as lines of poetry: “Whenever the question comes up—and it does nearly every term—of whether or not rock lyrics qualify as poetry, I offer my students a simple but heartless test. Ask all the musicians to please leave the stage and take their instruments with them—yes, that goes for the backup singers in the tight satin dresses, and the drummer—and then have the lead singer stand alone by the microphone and read the lyrics from that piece of paper he is holding in his hand. What you will hear can leave only one impression: the lyrics in almost every case are not poetry, they are lyrics.”

Nevertheless, Collins continues his commentary to suggest Bob Dylan could be categorized among “the few exceptions”; indeed, Collins reports, “the top spot on that short list is perennially reserved for Bob Dylan.” Billy Collins characterizes Dylan’s poetry in the book as works that “sound familiar because of the ways in which they resemble his lyrics.” Collins writes about the appearance of Bob Dylan’s poems on the page: “printed words marked by Dylan’s quirky abbreviations as well as the shape of the poems, usually as skinny as a teetering column of poker chips stacked on the page in tightly sawed-off lines.”

The Academy of American Poets includes Bob Dylan among its listed authors: “Bob Dylan: ‘I’m a poet and I know It.’” This piece once again raises a familiar issue: “While Dylan's place in the pantheon of American musicians is cemented, there is one question that has confounded music and literary critics for the entirety of Dylan's career: Should Bob Dylan be considered a songwriter or a poet? Dylan was asked that very question at a press conference in 1965, when he famously said, ‘I think of myself more as a song-and-dance man.’”

Nevertheless, the article concludes with an apt suggestion: “the best, most straightforward answer may have appeared in the liner notes of his second album, 1963’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, where Dylan said, simply: ‘Anything I can sing, I call a song. Anything I can't sing, I call a poem.’”

VPR Summer Reading List, 2010

Like the figure above in Pablo Picasso’s Young Girl Reading a Book on the Beach, many soon will be dipping into their summer reading. Therefore, as the spring semester of classes has now concluded and many have begun thinking of books for the upcoming months, I thought this might be a good time to remind everyone each issue of Valparaiso Poetry Review contains a “Recent and Recommended Books” page for suggestions of poetry collections and volumes containing prose about poets or poetics.

Below readers will find those books that were listed with the current Spring/Summer 2010 issue (Volume XI, Number 2). Perhaps some of them will provide apt suggestions for addition to your summer reading.

MICHAEL ABELSON:
Clubbing in Rio: Selected Poems, Outskirts Press
KIM ADDONIZIO:
Lucifer at the Starlite, W.W. Norton
SAMUEL AMADON:
Like a Sea, University of Iowa Press
DAVID BAKER:
Never-Ending Birds, W.W. Norton
NED BALBO:
Something Must Happen, Finishing Line Press
NEELANJANA BANERJEE, SUMMI KAIPA, & PIREENI SUNDARALINGAM (Eds.):
Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry, University of Arkansas Press
ALIKI BARNSTONE:
Dear God, Dear Dr. Heartbreak: New and Selected Poems, Sheep Meadow Press
SANDRA BEASLEY:
I Was the Jukebox, W.W. Norton
TARA BETTS:
Arc & Hue, Aquarius Press
DEBORAH BOGEN:
Let Me Open You a Swan, Elixir Press
MOLLY BRODAK:
A Little Middle of the Night, University of Iowa Press
CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY:
Rolling the Bones, University of Tampa Press
EDWARD BYRNE:
Seeded Light, Turning Point Books
MARY MARGARET CARLISLE:
Toss Me to the Waiting Sky, Poetry in the Arts
CHRISTOPHER CESSAC:
Eros Among the Americans, Main Street Rag Publishing
JEROME CHARYN:
The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson: a novel, W.W. Norton
PATRICIA CLARK:
She Walks into the Sea, Michigan State University Press
PETER CONSTANTINE, RACHEL HADAS, EDMUND KEELEY, & KAREN VAN DYCK (Eds.):
The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present, W.W. Norton
ALFRED CORN:
Atlas: Selected Essays, 1989-2007, University of Michigan Press
E.E. CUMMINGS:
Erotic Poems, W.W. Norton
TODD DAVIS AND ERIN MURPHY (Eds.):
Making Poems: Forty Poems with Commentary by the Poets, State University of New York Press
MARK DEFOE:
Weekend Update, Main Street Rag Publishing
DANIEL DONAGHY:
Start with the Trouble, University of Arkansas Press
BOB DYLAN:
Bob Dylan Revisited: 13 Graphic Interpretations of Bob Dylan's Songs, W.W. Norton
CORNELIUS EADY:
Hardheaded Weather, Putnam
LYNN EMANUEL:
Noose and Hook, University of Pittsburgh Press
PATRICIA FARGNOLI:
Then, Something, Tupelo Press
REBECCA FOUST:
All That Gorgeous Pitiless Song, Many Mountains Moving Press
JOEL FRIEDERICH:
Blue to Fill the Empty Heaven, Silverfish Review Press
CAROL FRITH:
Two for a Journey, David Robert Books
HELEN FROST:
Crossing Stones, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
LUCIA GALLOWAY:
Venus and Other Losses, Plain View Press
PAMELA GEMIN:
Another Creature, University of Arkansas Press
ROBERT L. GIRON (Ed.):
Poetic Voices Without Borders 2, Gival Press
KATE GLEASON:
Measuring the Dark, Zone 3 Press
MARILYN HACKER:
Names, W.W. Norton
KIMIKO HAHN:
Toxic Flora, W.W.Norton
JUDY HALEBSKY:
Sky=Empty, New Issues Press
H. PALMER HALL:
Foreign and Domestic, Turning Point Books
NATHALIE HANDAL:
Love and Strange Horses, University of Pittsburgh Press
ARLO HASKELL:
Joker, Sand Paper Press
JAMES HAUG:
Legend of the Recent Past, National Poetry Review Press
TOM HEALY:
What the Right Hand Knows, Four Way Books
TIM Z. HERNANDEZ:
Breathing, In Dust, Texas Tech University Press
BOB HICOK:
Words for Empty and Words for Full, University of Pittsburgh Press
CYNTHIA HOGUE:
Or Consequence, Red Hen Press
JOAN HOULIHAN:
The Us, Tupelo Press
MARIE HOWE:
The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, W.W. Norton
MARY KATHRYN JABLONSKI:
To the Husband I Have Not Yet Met, A.P.D. Press
MARK JACKLEY:
Lank, Beak & Bumpy, Iota Press
CLIVE JAMES:
Opal Sunset: Selected Poems 1958-2008, W.W. Norton
ADRIANNE KALFOPOULOU:
Passion Maps, Red Hen Press
JULIE KANE:
Jazz Funeral, Story Line Press
CLAUDIA KEELAN:
Missing Her, New Issues Press
BURT KIMMELMAN:
As If Free, Talisman House
TRACY KORETSKY:
Even Before My Own Name, Ragged Bottom Press
STUART KRIMKO:
The Sweetness of Herbert, Sand Paper Press
MAXINE KUMIN:
Where I Live: New & Selected Poems 1990-2010, W.W. Norton
EDWARD CONNERY LATHEM (Ed.):
Robert Frost: Speaking on Campus, W.W. Norton
LI-YOUNG LEE:
Behind My Eyes, W.W. Norton
ERIC LEIGH:
Harm's Way, University of Arkansas Press
GARY LEMONS:
Bristol Bay & Other Poems, Red Hen Press
MICHAEL LEONG
E.S.P., Silenced Press
PHILIP LEVINE:
News of the World, Knopf
D.W. LICHTENBERG:
The Ancient Book of Hip, Fourteen Hills Press
FRANNIE LINDSAY:
Mayweed, The Word Works
WILLIAM LOGAN:
Our Savage Art: Poetry and the Civil Tongue, Columbia University Press
ALEXANDER LONG:
Light Here, Light There, C & R Press
JOANIE MACKOWSKI:
View from a Temporary Window, University of Pittsburgh Press
MARK MANSFIELD:
Strangers Like You, Van der Decken Press
MALINDA MARKHAM:
Having Cut the Sparrow's Heart, New Issues Press
KHALED MATTAWA:
Tocqueville, New Issues Press
HELENA MESA:
Horse Dance Underwater, Cleveland State University Poetry Center
DEENA METZGER:
Ruin and Beauty: New and Selected Poems, Red Hen Press
JOHN MINCZESKI:
A Letter to Serafin, University of Akron Press
TREY MOORE:
Some Will Play the Cello, Pecan Grove Press
STANLEY MOSS:
Rejoicing: New and Collected Poems, Anvil Press
RICH MURPHY:
Voyeur, Gival Press
PAUL E. NELSON:
A Time Before Slaughter, Apprentice House
RENEE NORMAN:
Martha in the Mirror, Inanna Publications
WILLIAM NOTTER:
Holding Everything Down, Southern Illinois University Press
JANE ORMEROD:
Recreational Vehicles on Fire, Three Rooms Press
MOLLY PEACOCK:
The Second Blush, W.W. Norton
JIM PERLMAN, DEBORAH COOPER, MARA HART AND PAMELA MITTLEFEHLDT (Eds.):
Beloved on the Earth: 150 Poems of Grief and Gratitude, Holy Cow! Press
LOUIS PHILLIPS:
Pitchblende, Prologue Press
KEVIN PILKINGTON:
In the Eyes of a Dog, New York Quarterly Books
MELISSA RANGE:
Horse and Rider, Texas Tech University Press
MICHAEL RATTEE:
Falling Off the Bicycle Forever, Adastra Press
JENDI REITER:
Swallow, Amsterdam Press
CHRISTINE RHEIN:
Wild Flight, Texas Tech University Press
ADRIENNE RICH:
A Human Eye: Essays on Art in Society, 1997-2008, W.W. Norton
SUSAN RICH:
The Alchemist's Kitchen, White Pine Press
SARAH ROSENTHAL:
Manhatten, Spuyten Duyvil
RALPH SALISBURY:
Life from a Bullet Hole: Poems New and Selected 1950-2008, Silverfish Review Press
DENNIS SAMPSON:
Within the Shadow of a Man, Settlement House
MARY ANN SAMYN:
Beauty Breaks In, New Issues Press
SHEROD SANTOS:
The Intricated Soul: New and Selected Poems, W.W. Norton
JANE SATTERFIELD:
Daughters of Empire: A Memoir of a Year in Britain and Beyond, Demeter Press
JULIE SHEEHAN:
Bar Book: Poems and Otherwise, W.W. Norton
LEO SHELTON:
D'liberate Ramblings, Tugson Press
RITA SIGNORELLI-PAPPAS:
Satyr's Wife, Serving House Books
MICHAEL STEVEN:
Battering Lines, Kilmog Press
MICHAEL STEVEN:
Centreville Springs, Kilmog Press
MATHIAS SVALINA:
Destruction Myth, Cleveland State University Poetry Center
TERESE SVOBODA:
Weapons Grade, University of Arkansas Press
JASON TANDON:
Wee Hour Martyrdom, Sunnyoutside Press
LARRY D. THOMAS:
The Skin of Light, Dalton Publishing
ALLISON TITUS:
Sum of Every Lost Ship, Cleveland State University Poetry Center
EMMA TRELLES:
Little Spells, Goss 183 Press
SHAWN VANDOR:
Fire at the End of the Rainbow, Sand Paper Press
LIZ WALDNER:
Trust, Cleveland State University Poetry Center
MICHAEL WALSH:
The Dirt Riddles, University of Arkansas Press
BRUCE WEBER:
The Breakup of My First Marriage, Rogue Scholars Press
ALLISON BENIS WHITE:
Self-Portrait with Crayon, Cleveland State University Poetry Center
JAMES R. WHITLEY:
The Goddess of Goodbye, Word Press
JAMES R. WHITLEY:
This Is the Red Door, Ironweed Press
MARK VAN AKEN WILLIAMS:
Circus by Moonlight, Lucky Press
CECILIA WOLOCH:
Carpathia, BOA Editions
CHARLES WRIGHT:
Sestets, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ANDREW ZORNOZA:
Where I Stay, Tarpaulin Sky Press

Readers also are invited to visit the archived lists of Recent and Recommended Books from past issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review for hundreds of other suggested readings.

Publishers or authors are encouraged to send review copies of new poetry collections or volumes on poetics to the address below:

Valparaiso Poetry Review
Edward Byrne, Editor
Department of English
Valparaiso University
Valparaiso, IN 46383

Valparaiso Poetry Review also welcomes for consideration submissions of reviews or essays of critical analysis concerning any of the listed books. Those interested in submitting reviews should examine the VPR submission guidelines page.

List of Locations for Literary Criticism Online

I was pleased to learn, through an e-mail I recently received, about an interesting article that had escaped my attention up until now: the editors at the Online University website name “One Poet’s Notes” among their list of “50 Places to Find Literary Criticism Online.” Indeed, it is an honor to be included alongside many blogs or web pages that I admire, such as Publisher’s Weekly, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times blog: “Paper Cuts,” The New Republic’s “The Book,” Powell’s Books blog, Maud Newton, as well as a number of other online locations regularly reporting about writers and reviewing works of literature.

I appreciate the range of subjects and array of viewpoints represented in the sources on the list. As the article explains: “Without exposure to the myriad philosophies associated with the multifaceted field of literary criticism—which includes, but is not limited to, politics, art, culture, psychology, history, sociology, economics, and many other topics—an English student or bibliophile will never fully understand a work of literature.” I recommend readers visit the Online University site to browse through the book reviews, literary criticism, biographical information about authors, and entertaining or educational essays available at the various links displayed there.

Poem of the Week: "A Threat in May" by Lisa Lewis

The VPR Poem of the Week is Lisa Lewis’s “A Threat in May,” which appears in the current issue (Spring/Summer 2010: Volume XI, Number 2) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Lisa Lewis is the author of The Unbeliever (University of Wisconsin Press, 1994), winner of the Brittingham Prize; Silent Treatment (Viking/Penguin, 1998), a National Poetry Series selection; Burned House with Swimming Pool (Dream Horse Press), and Vivisect (New Issues Press), both forthcoming. Her poems have been published widely in literary journals, including American Literary Review, Crab Orchard Review, Kenyon Review, Laurel Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Portland Review. Lewis directs the creative writing program at Oklahoma State University.

Tuesday of each week “One Poet’s Notes” highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers revisit it. Please check the sidebar to view the list of poets and works that have been past “Poem of the Week” selections. Additionally, readers are reminded that VPR pages are best read with the browser font preference in which they were set, 12 pt. Times New Roman, in order to guarantee the stanza alignment and the breaks of longer lines are preserved.

Janet McCann Review: THEN, SOMETHING by Patricia Fargnoli

In the current issue of Valparaiso Poetry Review (Spring/Summer 2010: Volume XI, Number 2) Janet McCann reviews Patricia Fargnoli’s latest collection of poetry, Then, Something.


Then, Something, Patricia Fargnoli. Tupelo Press, 2009. ISBN 978-1-932195-79-8. $16.95

This book makes the reader ache beautifully. Its moving meditations on aging, loss, and sorrow, framed in striking nature imagery, both remind us of our own griefs and enhance our appreciation of the natural world. The poems make me think of Mary Oliver’s recent work, but Patricia Fargnoli’s has a more tentative, more questioning metaphysics. When all comes to an end, the poems ask, what lasts? There are exploratory forays toward answers, but no conclusive affirmation. The title is from Frost, whose “For Once, Then, Something” recounts the experience of someone looking constantly down wells and at last seeing “something” in the clarity of the water–“Truth? A pebble of quartz?” He does not know what he is seeing, but something is there, and the seeker must be satisfied with that. Even the attractive cover suggests this vision, with its photograph of a misty landscape in which an animal—a deer?—can barely be distinguished.

Pat Fargnoli is former Laureate of New Hampshire; her previous collections include Necessary Light, winner of the 1999 May Swenson Poetry Prize and published by the Utah State University Press, and Duties of the Spirit, published by Tupelo Press in 2005, and winner of the Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry. She also has two outstanding chapbooks, Small Sounds of Pain (Pecan Grove Press) and Lives of Others (Oyster River.) Each of her collections has a cohesiveness that maximizes its emotional power—the reader is listening to a distinct, clear voice, and this voice changes as the poet ages and her circumstances alter.

Then, Something is divided into five sections, the first of which establishes the tone with poems of an older woman, looking back at what she has valued, beautiful things and homely . . .

[Visitors are invited to read the rest of Janet McCann’s review of Then, Something and urged to examine all of the works in the current issue of Valparaiso Poetry Review.]

How to Follow "One Poet's Notes"

Readers will notice that a “Followers” feature has recently been included on the blog sidebar. This element was added upon the recommendation of a reader who wanted an easier process to keep up regularly with new posts at “One Poet’s Notes,” the editor’s blog for Valparaiso Poetry Review. Once again, I appreciate such valuable feedback received from readers.

To follow “One Poet’s Notes,” visitors now simply need to click the “Follow This Blog” link. If you are a fellow blogger, you can track this blog by following it right from your Blogger Dashboard or in Google Reader. However, the feature is also designed to make it easier for all readers to keep tabs on each of their favorite blogs through Google Reader. In addition, visitors can easily check out what blogs other readers are writing and following or discover other similar blogs to add to their reading patterns. Please check out this new feature and become a follower of “One Poet’s Notes.”

Remembering Rane Arroyo

As many in the literary community learned during the past weekend and into the beginning of this week through a series of Internet messages and emails, Rane Arroyo died on May 7 from a brain hemorrhage at the age of 55. Arroyo published ten collections of poetry. In addition to his fine poems, he was the author of seven plays and a book of short stories.

I was pleased to initially engage in a correspondence with Arroyo about five years ago when he submitted his poetry to Valparaiso Poetry Review. Moreover, on a couple of occasions, when I had questions or criticisms about aspects of particular decisions or directions taken by the Association for Writers and Writing Programs, for which he served as a board member, Rane sent me friendly emails or informative notes through Facebook acknowledging my concerns, which he sought to allay, as well as explaining his understanding of the situations under discussion.

I had known that Rane recently received the honor of being named a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Toledo, where he had been teaching for more than a dozen years. Indeed, Rane was to begin his appointment to the position in the upcoming fall semester, and like everyone else, I was shocked to hear over the weekend about the news of his untimely death. Furthermore, I was saddened to realize his distinctive poetic voice would be silenced.

An article containing additional details about Rane Arroyo, his life and career, now appears in the Toledo Free Press. Also, readers will find an example of his poetry, “Surviving Utah,” in the Fall/Winter 2006-2007 issue (Volume VIII, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

An Elegant Epigraph: Stanley Kunitz on the Poet and the Poem

“After a certain period, the poem seems to have no maker at all. Poems gather their own momentum and you feel they’re moving on their own. You are part of the world in which they are born and come to maturity, but they have an identity beyond the person to whom they are confiding because the poem doesn’t really belong to anyone, it belongs to a great tradition. The great tradition includes what I think of as the essential spirit of the poem, which belongs to centuries, and not to any single moment in time.

“You cannot know completely what your obligation is in writing the poem. The primary responsibility is to speak the true word and to distill the complexity of sensitivity that enters into any human experience.

“The poem becomes a vehicle of this so-called persona or soul, whatever you want to call it; it is a crystallization of your unconscious life. It carries a big load!

“The poet doesn’t so much disappear into the poem as become the poem. It is a concentration of faculties, of everything you are or hope to be, and at that moment you have a focus not only on your conscious life, but your unconscious world, and it is as much an expression of your whole being as is conceivable.”

—From The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden by Stanley Kunitz with Genine Lentine (W.W. Norton, 2005)

[“An Elegant Epigraph” serves as the recurring title for a continuing series of posts (see sidebar for other notes) with entries containing brief but engaging, eloquent, and elegant excerpts of prose commentary introducing subjects particularly appropriate to discussion of literature, creative writing, or other relevant matters addressing complementary forms of art and music. These apposite extracts usually concern topics specifically relating to poetry or poetics. Each piece is accompanied by a recommendation that readers seek out the original publication to obtain further information and to become familiar with the complete context in which the chosen quotation appeared as well as other views presented by its author.]

Poem of the Week: "I Confess, I Wanted To Be June" by Jeannine Dobbs

The VPR Poem of the Week is Jeannine Dobbs’s “I Confess, I Wanted To Be June,” which appeared in the Spring/Summer 2006 issue (Volume VII, Number 2) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Jeannine Dobbs has had poetry in a number of journals, such as Amicus Journal, Chelsea, Massachusetts Review, Midwest Quarterly, Ohio Review, and Shenandoah. A collection of her work was published by Alice James Books as one-third of Three Some Poems.

Tuesday of each week “One Poet’s Notes” highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers revisit it. Please check the sidebar to view the list of poets and works that have been past “Poem of the Week” selections. Additionally, readers are reminded that VPR pages are best read with the browser font preference in which they were set, 12 pt. Times New Roman, in order to guarantee the stanza alignment and the breaks of longer lines are preserved.

Review of SEEDED LIGHT in POEMELEON

After I announced on Friday that a review of my latest collection of poems, Seeded Light (Turning Point Books, 2010), has been published at Rattle, I was pleased to also learn that another review of Seeded Light appears in the current issue of Poemeleon. I was especially delighted to see that the commentary offered by Zara Raab begins with a note about my first collection of poems, Along the Dark Shore, selected by John Ashbery for a series of books published by BOA Editions. Raab also draws comparison of Seeded Light with my previous collection, Tidal Air, and references an earlier volume, East of Omaha, both published by Pecan Grove Press. Indeed, I appreciate the reviewer’s comments reflecting her knowledge and coverage of my work over the years, as well as indicating an awareness of various transitions that have occurred in the style or focus of my work.

Raab nicely describes the form and effects found in the poetry of Seeded Light, correctly detecting my intentions in the style I have chosen: “Rich, shaded, and subtle in texture, with second lines often bleeding into the next couplet, these open couplets expand meaning, encouraging the reader to follow.” I’m also honored by her complimentary comments connecting my poetry to other poets who have emphasized similar themes to those evident in mine, particularly through the use of natural imagery: “Though his aesthetic shares more akin with Wallace Stevens than Mary Oliver, Byrne has Oliver’s sensitivity to nature, without her need to draw obvious lessons from it.”

Again, I recommend this review to readers as an introduction to the poetry in Seeded Light and perhaps as an invitation for all to purchase the volume. In addition, I remind everyone to view the sidebar of this blog where discounts on Seeded Light and Tidal Air are now available in time for inclusion in summer reading lists.

Mother's Day Poem: "Summer Idyll"

In the previous post displayed yesterday at “One Poet’s Notes” I offered a poem from Tidal Air, “Grace Notes,” a piece that I had written to celebrate the birth of my son. I provided it as an example of the reactions a parent might have when watching the tentative initial movements of a newborn, and I was prompted to share the poetry after learning about the arrival Friday afternoon of twins for my brother and sister-in-law. Indeed, I imagined the joy they must have been experiencing as they gazed for the first time at the two new members of their family, perhaps while both were stirring from sleep in the bassinets.

As I explained yesterday, “Grace Notes” appeared as the opening poem in Tidal Air, and it began an extended sequence of poems filling the first half of the book. Today, in honor of Mother’s Day, I present “Summer Idyll,” which was positioned as the second piece in that sequence of poems at the opening of Tidal Air. This poem is a work that had been inspired by my wife and son soon after his birth.

SUMMER IDYLL

She is still there, sitting in the irregular shadow
. . . . . of a willow tree, holding a slumbering child

some have come to know as her first-born, a son.
. . . . . Strollers pass this woman bent over her bundle

beneath low-sagging limbs; the solitary tree
. . . . . looming beyond vast fields burned brown

by summer sun. Although the warm August
. . . . . winds sifting through the leaves above do not

disturb the two figures below, a few cumulus
. . . . . clouds have begun to drift by, now shifting in

from the south. Their dark, ragged edges graze
. . . . . a distant skyline of spruce and Douglas fir.

Underneath these massive mounds which
. . . . . appear to brush lightly the far-off hills,

offering brief basins of shade to the valleys
. . . . . they cross, momentary relief from midday

heat seems noticed no more than noonday
. . . . . light has been, as mother and child both

continue in their consummate bliss to ignore
. . . . . the brilliant world that whirls around them.


—Edward Byrne

Celebration of Birth: "Grace Notes"

Yesterday afternoon my brother called relatives with the wonderful news we had been eagerly waiting to hear, his wife had given birth to healthy twins—a boy and a girl. Few days in our lives remain indelible, lasting memories from which we will always be able to recall all the details with fascination and fondness. Certainly, the births of one’s children may qualify as such momentous occasions, filled with images we immediately recognize to be permanently fixed in our minds. Indeed, as I imagined the excitement or elation John and Wendy must have been experiencing as they gazed for the first time at the two new members of their family, I reminisced about the joy of observing my son during the initial hours after his birth, and I remembered a poem I wrote that had been inspired by the event. “Grace Notes” appeared as the opening poem of Tidal Air (Pecan Grove Press, 2002), and it served as the beginning work in an extended sequence of poetry:

GRACE NOTES

. . . . . —for Alex

. . . . . . . . We must try
To love so well the world that we may believe, in the end,
. . . . . . . . . . . . in God.
. . . . . —Robert Penn Warren


. . . . . I

This morning the vagrant moon’s white
. . . . . wafer still spots the western sky, and hoary

boughs of pine stand stark against a fire-bright
. . . . . sunrise, all nature seems quiet, as though a sweet

sterility has opened its invisible umbrella
. . . . . over everything. In this time when even early

risers creep from cot coffee pot, and the first
. . . . . few tentative signs of human life have at last

begun to usurp the night-long silence, my son
. . . . . only hours old, carefully curls both hands, high

as his arms will allow, above his head, reaching
. . . . . blindly into the uncharted air around him.


. . . . . II

If he, too, could see the scene outside this window
. . . . . and know the enormity of the lifelong plunge

to which he was now committed, would he
. . . . . also recognize the remarkable effortlessness

with which the world presents itself? There is
. . . . . no way to anticipate the many nameless meadows

incandescent in midday blaze, the wintry heights
. . . . . of mountains snow-whitened and blurred by blizzard

winds, or the motion of steadfast tides that push
. . . . . upon an uneven shoreline broken by centuries

of exposure. Nothing prepares us. Innocence
. . . . . ensures surprise at each grace note nature offers.


. . . . . III

And so I watch my son’s initial movements,
. . . . . hands stretching and the unconscious yawn

of sleep, and I try to imagine what words one
. . . . . could use to tell—should one decide it were right

to confide such things—how it feels to be a father,
. . . . . how, even now, this is just one more unexpected

pleasure of nature. In the years since my own
. . . . . October birth, I’ve come to discover joy in images:

this afternoon, though the sky goes gold in sunlight,
. . . . . all the small stones strewn along the shore sparkle

like gems displayed as gifts until the whole seaside
. . . . . seems to shudder, I know no more the world could give.


. . . . . —Edward Byrne

New Review of SEEDED LIGHT in RATTLE

I am pleased to report that Rattle has posted a review by Barbara Crooker of my current collection of poems, Seeded Light. The commentary includes a number of observations that I appreciate very much, particularly those containing a focus on the continuing presence of images concerning differing degrees of light within the poems, which reflect a theme introduced by the book’s title and an epigraph by Pablo Neruda.

I am grateful for Crooker’s description of the poems throughout the volume as “graceful and flexible couplets which take us on journeys to places far flung.” I am also delighted by the attention given to both the ongoing actions and the evocative atmosphere in Seeded Light, as well as by Crooker’s comment that a “constant awareness of the passage of time and the shifting of relationships give the poems a deeper emotional resonance.” I am thankful for this sensitive look at Seeded Light, and I recommend the review to readers.

Commentary on "Moonlight in the City"

I have been informed that Frank Wilson—the longtime book-review editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer who recently retired—commented this week on “Moonlight in the City,” the opening poem in my new collection, Seeded Light. I was honored to learn the point of view given by Wilson, who writes regularly at his blog, Books, Inq., a highly respected and continually informative site.

Indeed, I was pleased to see the manner in which Wilson’s commentary refers to my work: “‘Moonlight in the City’ is an exquisite poem. It is July 20, 1969, the day of the first moon landing, though the poem really isn't about that—except obliquely. That grand event simply functions the way a perspective figure does in a landscape painting.” Although he appreciates the suggestive details and connotative language in the descriptions offered throughout the poetry, Wilson correctly summarizes the larger picture presented by the poem: “It is not so much that the poem encapsulates a particular time and place so much as it reveals how such a particular time and place can echo so resonantly so many years later.”

In a post I wrote last July on the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo moon landing, I observed, “since that night I have always perceived the lunar expedition as symbolic of new hope and the possibility for a brighter future, as well as other critical elements of emotion. At the same time, I remember considering contrasts discerned between the close-up picture of footprints created by men loping over the pristine lunar surface and some difficult scenery evidenced among the everyday environment of my own urban neighborhood. Consequently, in my poetry I have drawn from memories of that day four decades ago . . . .”

Below I present the poem, correctly formatted, that begins my latest volume and may serve for all as an introduction to the rest of the book’s contents. Also, I remind everyone putting together summer reading lists—as noted in the sidebar of this page—that Seeded Light is currently available for ordering at a discount, as are special signed and numbered copies of the collection.

MOONLIGHT IN THE CITY

One July evening when I was eleven,
. . . . . not a block from the waterfront, the day

yet hot, I waited by myself in the middle
. . . . . of a vacant lot and watched as a fresh wash

of moonlight began to flow over rooftops,
. . . . . and the sky beyond dust-covered billboards

just started to fill with clustered stars.
. . . . . The splintered grids of far-off apartment

fire escapes glittered against their backdrop
. . . . . of red brick as if lit by the flick of a switch.

In this distance, even the paired lines
. . . . . of elevated train tracks, stretching like bars

along the edge of the shore, appeared
. . . . . to shine, and those symmetrical rows

of windows on the warehouses below
. . . . . seemed almost to glow. Warning lights

pulsed all along the span of that great
. . . . . bridge over the river, as hundreds of bright

buds suddenly stippled those rippling
. . . . . waters now deepening to the blue of a new

bruise. Steel supports wound around
. . . . . one another into braided suspension cables

dipping toward either end and glinting
. . . . . beneath that constellation still slowly

showing in the darker corridor overhead.
. . . . . Already, I could see the outlines of lunar

topography, and I thought of that old
. . . . . globe my grandfather had once given me

only days before he died—of how
. . . . . I’d felt its raised beige shapes representing

the seven continents, and of the way
. . . . . he told me he’d been to every one of them.

Somewhere in the city, summertime
. . . . . sounds—the high screams of sirens

and muffled bass thumps of fireworks—
. . . . . played like the muscular backup music

pumping from some local garage band.
. . . . . But I stood listlessly under sharp-angled

shadows cast by street lamps, among
. . . . . an urban wreckage of broken cinder blocks

and glistening shards of shattered panes,
. . . . . and I listened to the wind-clank of chain-link

fencing around that grassless plot of land,
. . . . . knowing that night my father was far away

again, driving deliveries along an interstate,
. . . . . and my mother was sitting alone at home,

as were her neighbors, awaiting the first
. . . . . broadcast of a man walking on the moon.


—Edward Byrne

Poem of the Week: "Heart: Specimen" by Valerie Wohlfeld

The VPR Poem of the Week is Valerie Wohlfeld’s “Heart: Specimen,” which appeared in the Spring/Summer 2007 issue (Volume VIII, Number 2) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Valerie Wohlfeld’s book of poetry, Thinking the World Visible (1994), was chosen for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Antioch Review, Denver Quarterly, The New Criterion, The New Yorker, North American Review, Poetry, Quarterly West, Western Humanities Review, and Yale Review. She also has had work in anthologies, such as Under 35: The New Generation of American Poets (Doubleday/Anchor), A Fine Excess: Contemporary Literature at Play (Sarabande Books), and Poets of the New Century (David R. Godine).

Tuesday of each week “One Poet’s Notes” highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers revisit it. Please check the sidebar to view the list of poets and works that have been past “Poem of the Week” selections. Additionally, readers are reminded that VPR pages are best read with the browser font preference in which they were set, 12 pt. Times New Roman, in order to guarantee the stanza alignment and the breaks of longer lines are preserved.

Pulitzer Prize for a Small Press and a New Poem

When the winners of the 2010 Pulitzer Prizes were announced recently, I was pleased to see Tinkers, a debut novel by Paul Harding, had been chosen for the fiction award. Indeed, many were surprised by the selection: not only was this an initial book for the author, but also a small fledgling nonprofit publisher, Bellevue Literary Press (a project of the New York University School of Medicine), had released the volume.

Indeed, an article that appeared in the New York Times following news of the Pulitzer Prize selections labeled Tinkers as the “one that got away” not just because the major publishing houses missed out on the book, but also because the New York Times hadn’t even bothered to review the novel. As Gregory Cowles explained: “Every now and then a good book completely passes us by: we don’t get a copy, for whatever reason, and we don’t request one because the book’s not on our radar. That’s what happened with Paul Harding’s first novel, Tinkers, which was published at the beginning of 2009 by the Bellevue Literary Press, a small publisher that had only been in business for a couple of years.”

The publisher reports Harding’s Tinkers as a novel chronicling the thoughts and imagination of a dying man. It is a book “about the legacy of consciousness and the porousness of identity from one generation to the next. At once heartbreaking and life affirming, it is an elegiac meditation on love, loss, and the fierce beauty of nature.” Although Harding signed a two-book publication deal with Random House after Tinkers was published, those of us who especially appreciate small presses enjoyed this opportunity to remind everyone of their important role in contemporary American literature.

Likewise, I’d like to remind readers about Bellevue Literary Review, also published by the Department of Medicine at New York University Press. On its website, the journal is described by its editors: “Bellevue Literary Review is a unique literary magazine that examines human existence through the prism of health and healing, illness and disease. Each issue is filled with high quality, easily accessible poetry, short stories, and essays that appeal to a wide audience of readers. Because of the universal themes, many readers feel a personal connection to the BLR and find reflections of their own lives and experiences.” In fact, the journal also carries a descriptive subtitle—A journal of humanity and human experience.

I am particularly proud to note that one of my new poems, “Autism: Hyperlexia,” appears in the Spring 2010 issue of Bellevue Literary Review. The full table of contents for the current issue includes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction by Amanda Auchter, Callista Bachen, Allison Baker, Edward Byrne, Jack Coulehan, Gregg Cusick, M.M. De Voe, Fay Dillof, Albert Dixon, Ron Drummond, Rachel Contreni Flynn, Larry Hill, Mark Holden, Helen Hooper, Joan Kip, Margaret Kogan, Jenifer Browne Lawrence, Kent Leathem, Carol McCarthy, David Milofsky, Anna Mirer, Nancy Carol Moody, Amanda Newell, Ben Orlando, Rebecca B. Rank, Alexa Rose Steinberg, and Virginia Chase Sutton.

I offer a sneak preview of the issue with “Autism: Hyperlexia,” and I urge readers to visit the Bellevue Literary Review website to order a copy or to begin a subscription.

AUTISM: HYPERLEXIA

My son eyed the large and wide print
. . . . . stenciled across an interstate billboard.

At three, he’d already taught himself
. . . . . to read over a year earlier, even before

he could tell anyone how well he knew
. . . . . to spell words we had never heard him

say. My wife and I were surprised
. . . . . once again by the way he spoke terms

learned through no method we know,
. . . . . on this day reciting lines of a highway

advertisement shining under bright
. . . . . summer sunlight, its bold gold and red

lettering—Family accommodations,
. . . . . adventurous activities, and exhilarating

attractions ahead—sending a message
. . . . . to tourists that now seems meant more

to us as a lesson we only discovered
. . . . . somewhere much farther down the road.


—Edward Byrne

Poetry Book Giveaway Winners

I am happy to report the winners of the National Poetry Month Book Giveaway at “One Poet’s Notes,” the editor’s blog for Valparaiso Poetry Review, are Julie L. Moore and Molly C. Spencer. The two were chosen as the result of a random number generator selection, and they have been notified by email of their good fortune. Julie will receive a copy of Maxine Kumin’s Still to Mow, and Molly will receive a copy of Seeded Light, which I will sign.

I salute Kelli Agodon for initiating the book giveaway project to help celebrate April as National Poetry Month and for successfully obtaining participation by authors at more than 50 blogs. Also, I thank all the readers of “One Poet’s Notes” who entered their names in the contest. Congratulations to Julie and Molly!