Poem of the Week: “Labor Day Party” by Floyd Skloot

The VPR Poem of the Week is Floyd Skloot’s “Labor Day Party,” which appeared in the Spring/Summer 2002 issue (Volume III, Number 2) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Floyd Skloot is a nonfiction writer, poet, and novelist whose work has been published widely in periodicals such as American Scholar, Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, New York Times, Poetry, Sewanee Review, Southern Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review. His fifteen books include Selected Poems: 1970-2005 (Tupelo Press, 2008), which won a 2009 Pacific NW Booksellers Association Book Award. His sixth collection of new poems, The Snow’s Music, appeared from LSU Press in 2008. He received the 2004 PEN USA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction for his memoir, In the Shadow of Memory (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). His recent memoir, The Wink of the Zenith: The Shaping of a Writer’s Life, was published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2008.

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.

Walt McDonald: “Advice I Wish I’d Been Told”

As the new school year begins, I will be sharing pointers by various authors with my beginning poetry writing students. Walt McDonald’s “Advice I Wish I’d Been Told” will be one of the readings I recommend. This essay was published in the initial issue of Valparaiso Poetry Review during the fall of 1999.

Among his suggestions to novice poets, McDonald presents the following: “Appeal to the senses; give specifics, details, for intensity. Open our eyes to the splendors of your imagination; delight us. A poem is not an ink blot. Therefore, go beyond first drafts; don’t send off poems that read like general statements, whether rhymed or not. Try to spot in your own writing the clichés, the easy message. Learn well the difference in power between general statements and specific details, between weak abstractions that tell us and vivid images that shake up the senses.”

Much of the counsel McDonald offers seems to contain practical tips usually needed by inexperienced poets, especially those who might lack confidence their detailed imagery and descriptive language will supply readers with enough of a message or will invite a significant degree of interest about the topics explored within the poetry. As McDonald indicates, he believes an imaginative, vivid rendering of actions or objects will almost naturally lead to an accurate intellectual and emotional understanding of the experience depicted in the poem.

Like Captain Barbossa in Pirates of the Caribbean, who declared “the pirate’s code is more what you'd call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules,” McDonald ephasizes: “There are no rules” to writing poetry. Yet, he does give guidelines he has found useful throughout decades of producing poems, and he identifies compelling characteristics he has witnessed in works written by those poets he has admired most.

Poem of the Week: "The Climbers" by Peter Cooley

The VPR Poem of the Week is Peter Cooley’s “The Climbers,” which appeared in the Spring/Summer 2008 issue (Volume IX, Number 2) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Peter Cooley has published eight books of poetry, most recently Divine Margins (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2009). His poems have also appeared widely in literary journals, including Chelsea, Kenyon Review, New Letters, Prairie Schooner, Salmagundi, Southern Review, and Southwest Review. He is Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Tulane 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.

Listening to Brad Mehldau

As I have mentioned a number of times, and as noted in a recent post about Marcus Roberts, I often listen to music when writing. I particularly enjoy a variety of pianists who blend jazz and classical influences. The recordings of Brad Mehldau have frequently been favorite choices for background sounds when composing poems. I appreciate very much the outstanding work he has done over the years with his trio, but I also turn to his more personal solo performances as well.

Mehldau’s Elegiac Cycle, recorded in early 1999, is one of his solo discs I repeatedly play while writing. Appropriately, in his liner notes Mehldau expresses a debt to literary works as inspiration, and he quotes a few of the authors whose writings have moved him to compose his music. Indeed, one of the nine tracks on this album is “Elegy for William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg,” inspired by the lives and literature of the two authors, both of whom died in 1997.

In his comments about the music in Elegiac Cycle, Mehldau remarks upon being attracted to the elegiac strains of art “that mourn so many kinds of loss, from the most profound to the most prosaic of them all—what the French aptly call ‘la petite mort.’” Mehldau especially points toward the works of “writers like Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs” as representative of authors who “mourned—at times, ecstatically—America’s loss of naiveté.”

Brad Mehldau was born on this date (August 23) in 1970. Therefore, I thought today would be a fitting time to present the video above, which offers a good example of Mehldau’s talent as a soloist and as the member of an outstanding trio.

"Beneath Leaf Shadow"

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have created a separate blog site as an open experiment of poetry composition, perhaps a glimpse at an emerging manuscript as it matures. The contents represent portions of an ongoing personal project with a particularly narrow focus intended to eventually develop toward a book-length poem tentatively and simply titled Autism.

The poem will grow as sections are added. The individual pieces are designed so that they may be viewed as independent items; however, I have consciously carried themes, images, and language through the extended sequence with the hope that connectivity and continuity will be preserved among numerous sections of the long poem.

I have now posted a new section, “Beneath Leaf Shadow.”

Readers are asked to regard Autism as a work in progress, a partial draft rather than a finished product (even if a few selected segments previously may have appeared in print), and I request everyone realize various revisions—edits, emendations, or expansion—may be made to the posts at any time in the future.

Poem of the Week: "Grove" by Patricia Clark

The VPR Poem of the Week is Patricia Clark’s “Grove,” which appeared in the Spring/Summer 2005 issue (Volume VI, Number 2) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Patricia Clark is Poet-in-Residence and Professor in the Department of Writing at Grand Valley State University. She is the author of three books of poetry: She Walks Into the Sea, My Father on a Bicycle, and North of Wondering. Her poetry has appeared in magazines such as Atlantic Monthly, Gettysburg Review, Mississippi Review, New England Review, North American Review, Poetry, Seattle Review, and Slate. She has also co-edited an anthology of contemporary women writers called Worlds in Our Words.

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.

Parts of a Whole: Poems and Poetry Books

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

I am pleased to note that one of Sunday’s (8/15/10) book reviews—“Light, Shadow and a Hint of Heartbreak”—in the Arts & Entertainment section of The Philadelphia Inquirer contained commentary on my latest collection of poems, Seeded Light.

Certainly, any poet feels fortunate and celebrates whenever his or her book receives positive attention in a major newspaper; however, I was especially delighted by reviewer Frank Wilson’s focus on likenesses detected in personae or topics threaded throughout the volume’s particular works, as well as his identifying how various poems complement each other from page to page, inviting a larger understanding of the whole book.

Wilson observes that the collection displays a continuing presence by couples in mysterious circumstances, as well as recurring instances in which speakers are reflecting upon various travels, literally or figuratively. In addition, characters involved with arranging images of the world around them, such as a painter or a cartographer, disclose how they alter reality for the sake of their artwork. The review reveals an attention to apparently ongoing scenes constructed in a subtly connected story line, perhaps presenting a number of poems that offer readers variations on a theme or that present multiple perspectives on individuals in similar situations.

I was delighted to find patterns placed within the poems had been identified by this reviewer, since I view such elements as essential in my organization of a poetry book. As I tell my students, although readers might decide upon favorite poems they will revisit frequently, a book of poems often ought to be encountered as a whole in which the separate pieces complement one another and contribute to a distinct, maybe greater, overall impression. When compiling works for a manuscript, like many poets, I not only consciously develop a progression of poems to be read in order, but I am also aware of images or actions, words or phrases, line lengths or stanza forms that might resemble or echo one another from poem to poem.

Sometimes my book’s structure is apparent to all from the beginning. For instance, Tidal Air exhibits an arrangement suggested by its description on the cover as a “book-length diptych.” Likewise, a current work-in-progress, Autism, is labeled as a book-length poem consisting of works I have “designed so that they may be viewed as independent items; however, I have consciously carried themes, images, and similar language through the extended sequence with the hope that connectivity and continuity will be preserved among numerous sections of the long poem.” On other occasions my books have been configured with sections more subtly determined by chronological, geographical, or thematic concerns evident within the poems.

Clearly, none of this is innovative, since poets have frequently presented their poems in sequences or patterns throughout time. In fact, my interest in the complementary nature of poems read together probably began during my days as a student examining Elizabethan sonnet sequences. Many of my favorite books by American poets also have designed sequences or series of poems meant to be read in succession as companion pieces or supplementary works. Indeed, quite a few of the poetry books I have reviewed over the years have interested me precisely because of the power presented by the volumes as a whole rather than by my sole attention to some outstanding poems considered apart from one another.

Perhaps I am especially conscious of this issue because I am afraid such an outlook on addressing a collection of works seems to be slipping away for varying reasons. In fact, a couple of friends who happen to be favorite poets of mine have confided to me that they do not worry very much about the order of poems in their books anymore because they believe most readers likely will not read the volumes from front to back, but instead will dip in and out of the book, sometimes jumping to poems displaying compelling titles in the table of contents.

Additionally, I am reminded daily how experiencing various types of technology or art might be more haphazard nowadays. Indeed, I am guilty as well. Having grown up in an era when I bought record albums—such as The Dark Side of the Moon or Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band—and enjoyed hearing them them as complete entities in which single songs existed as parts of a whole, I am reluctant to admit that I also appreciate the convenience of song mixes on my iPod, to which I listen in shorter sporadic intervals. Moreover, browsing the Internet invites me to participate in random sampling of works from a number of fields, but particularly music and poetry.

Likewise, I feel a bit of guilt when out of practicality I must teach my poetry survey courses from the pages of anthologies that reduce not only well-known poetry books but also entire careers of poets to one or two examples, disparate pieces sometimes composed decades apart from one another. This fragmentation or severance of works seems only to enhance my uneasy feelings of disconnection or dissociation.

Therefore, whether or not readers will necessarily apprehend the unifying elements or complementary features I imagine I have placed within my manuscripts of poetry like identical geometric facets sparkling on a cut gem, I continue to do so with some confidence. Consequently, when any readers or reviewers, as in this case, recognize my efforts, I am particularly pleased. I am grateful for their efforts exerted in careful consideration of the poetry and in discovering hints or deliberate links I have sometimes hidden within the works.

For Pam on Her Birthday: “Spring Afternoon”

As we celebrate my wife Pam today on her birthday, I’d like to revisit a poem I wrote for her. “Spring Afternoon” was the first section of a triptych dedicated to Pam that appeared in Words Spoken, Word Unspoken, a collection published in 1995. This poem recalls the first afternoon Pam and I ever spent together when we visited the Indiana Dunes along Lake Michigan, a location we have cherished as significant to us ever since then.

Composing the poem, I believed the lines described the scenery fairly accurately and closely reflected the atmosphere of the day, and I was delighted that the connotations or symbolism readers might attach to the details worked within the reality of the experience. Indeed, I was pleased suggestions of new beginnings, warmth, or hopefulness appear in a number of items mentioned throughout the poem as well as in the tone of the language selected.

Certainly, especially looking back these many years later on the chosen moments depicted in the poem, the hints foreshadowing an enduring emotional closeness seem even more important. Therefore, as she prepares to open presents on her birthday, I wish to take this chance to thank Pam again for those precious gifts of warmth and affection she has always given to me.

SPRING AFTERNOON

. . . . . . . . . .for Pam


We walk a wooded lane that rises high
above lakeshore dunes, the thin pines reaching
over us almost aimlessly, gathered

together through so many years by wind
and sun. Below us, a few bathers wade
the still-chilled waters of Lake Michigan.

In the distance, others stroll a sandy
neck of land left untouched by winter’s hand.
All around us small beginnings of spring

show themselves: bushes spotted by blossoms,
an irregular fringe of wildflowers,
the slash of a hawk against the high sky.

It is the Easter weekend, and a far-off
church bell echoes from its steeple post, calls
our attention to the late hour.

Descending the darkening ridge, we stop
awhile, huddle in warmth, and watch the soft
lakeside shadows link with one another.


. . . . . —Edward Byrne

Poem of the Week: "The Beach at Moon's Resort" by E.G. Burrows

The VPR Poem of the Week is E.G. Burrows’ “The Beach at Moon’s Resort,” which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2006-2007 issue (Volume VIII, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

E.G. Burrows is the author of four poetry collections, a verse play, and five chapbooks. His poetry has also appeared in many literary journals, including Asheville Review, Comstock Review, Grove Review, Pebble Lake Review, River Oak Review, South Carolina Review, South Dakota Review, and Sulphur River Review.

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.

Perspectives on Faith in Prose and Poetry

Last month, in an entry noting posts by my wife Pam at her new blog, I commented that visitors to One Autism Mom’s Notes would discover that it presents clear, concise prose observations and commentaries frequently complementary to the matters or details viewed in many of my works of poetry. Occasionally, Pam’s perceptive points of view especially seem to mirror those pieces of poetry contained in the new sequence, Autism: A Poem, an ongoing experiment of a work in progress, which I have been sharing with readers recently.

In her current offering, “Faith,” Pam discusses our son Alex’s history of prayers and beliefs, as well as his inquiries about God or heaven as he has grown older. I have been pleased to see perspectives presented in Pam’s prose sometimes intersect with issues additionally addressed in my poetry, and I feel readers sometimes might enjoy viewing such thoughts on similar subjects as enriching companion pieces.

Indeed, I am thankful as I find Pam’s gracefully written compositions revealing glimpses at factual situations also aid me in better understanding the inspiration for my writing of imaginative incidents in my poetry. Therefore, since Pam’s observations in her latest post—on Alex’s curiosity about spirituality and his questions concerning the presence of God in this world—reflect the topic of faith referenced in the draft of a poem, “At the Chapel,” I wrote not long ago, I thought it appropriate that I produce it here with a recommendation visitors also read “Faith.”

AT THE CHAPEL

As late daylight moves through
. . . . . a few stained windowpanes, these walls

take on an appearance of murals,
. . . . . though printed mostly in paler shades

of primary paint. My son slowly
. . . . . guides one hand along the tinted images,

dipping his fingers into that palette
. . . . . of illuminations now brightening white

space before him—as if he is trying
. . . . . to test its temperature or in an attempt

to enter an alternative existence.
. . . . . His wide smile disguises apprehension

when he reaches to touch the green
. . . . . serpent twisting like some vine winding

around the brown bark of a branch
. . . . . toward its ruby fruit. And by the time

Alex grabs at the image—hoping
. . . . . to hold an apple, his whole arm tattooed

with a brilliant glaze—he is sure
. . . . . this world offers more colorful options.


. . . . . —Edward Byrne

Celebrating Marcus Roberts

Marcus Roberts was born on this date (August 7) in 1963, and the delightful video above shows him celebrating with fellow musicians in the Wynton Marsalis Septet on his birthday in 2008.

As I have mentioned in the past, I often enjoy listening to jazz when writing poetry, and I frequently choose the music of Marcus Roberts. A blend of jazz, classical, and gospel influences seems evident in many of the compositions Roberts plays. Blind since five years old, Roberts taught himself on the piano and first performed in a Baptist church as a boy. Later, he received classical training as a student at Florida State University. When he was only 21, Roberts became an important member of the Wynton Marsalis band.

In the liner notes to The Truth Is Spoken Here, the pianist remarks upon the impact Marsalis had on him: “Wynton gave me a lot of crucial philosophical information which helped me consolidate and develop a conception of music. This conception served as a type of blueprint, keeping my thoughts very well focused while still developing. He helped me understand that in order to exhibit true personal identity and character in music, one must have a thorough grasp of the fundamentals and complete history of both the respective instrument and the relationship of that instrument to the overall tradition. In addition to discovering the grave importance of instrument tone (the quality of sound produced), Wynton also introduced me to the concept of using and developing melodic themes in solo and group performance.”

Roberts repeatedly recognizes those great figures of the past that have held sway over his playing, perhaps most notably Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington but also John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Ahmad Jamal, Scott Joplin, and even George Gershwin. Consequently, throughout his career, Roberts has been difficult to define because he appears at ease in various situations—as a soloist, in a trio, in a larger band, accompanied by a symphony orchestra—and when performing a number of diverse styles, whether traditional jazz, ragtime, blues, or improvisation, all of which are reflected in my collection of his recordings.

Poem of the Week: “How She Became a Ziegfeld Girl” by Jill Peláez Baumgaertner

The VPR Poem of the Week is Jill Peláez Baumgaertner’s “How She Became a Ziegfeld Girl,” which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2001-2002 issue (Volume III, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Jill Peláez Baumgaertner is the author of four collections of poetry, including Finding Cuba (Chimney Hill Press). In addition, she has edited a textbook on poetry and written a book of criticism, Flannery O’Connor: A Proper Scaring. Her poems are widely published in literary journals, and she has won numerous awards for her poetry, including the White Eagle Press’s chapbook competition award, the Rock River Poetry Prize, and the Goodman Prize in Poetry. She also received a Fulbright Fellowship to Spain. Baumgaertner is Professor of English at Wheaton College.

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.

Remembering Jerry Garcia

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung,
Would you hear my voice come thru the music,
Would you hold it near as it were your own?

A few days ago I noticed a news broadcast marking the anniversary of a historic music event, the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen in 1973, which featured three groups: the Allman Brothers, the Band, and the Grateful Dead. As the newscast aired vintage film of the outdoor stage surrounded by 600,000 fans, I remembered the spot just in front of the bandstand where about a dozen of my friends and I had positioned ourselves, and I imagined I could see myself among the crowd.

The concert had been scheduled at the Watkins Glen Raceway for July 28; however, like many others, my friends and I arrived from Brooklyn or Long Island a couple of days early to stake our tents in front of the stage. In fact, we were so early that we had an opportunity to drive our cars around the famous racetrack. On the day before the concert, the three bands, whom we had previously seen individually a number of times, arrived to perform a sound check, which turned into a terrific separate concert for those of us already on site. Each of the groups offered more than an hour of music, and the Grateful Dead alone played their impromptu presentation for a couple hours, including an outstanding jam session.

On the day of the official concert, we had to strike our tents as the crowd swelled and the weather threatened; however, the music lasted almost all day, broken up only by the downpour of a thunderstorm. Indeed, the three groups played extended sets for nearly three hours each, and then all the musicians shared the stage for an hour-long encore. We camped at the location one more day. I then left for home a bit muddy and with a painful sunburnt nose; however, I also stored fond memories of one of the finest concerts I’d ever attended.

Therefore, since today happens to be Jerry Garcia’s birth date (born August 1, 1942), I thought this would be the proper time to remember him and to reminisce with a familiar song, “Ripple,” which contains an appropriate line to go along with my memories of so much music so long ago: “Let there be songs to fill the air.”