Alice-Catherince

Poetry at the Post: Wealth Is Power But Knowledge Is Better

After “The Cheat with the Ace of Clubs” by Alice-Catherine Jennings

Georges de La Tour French (1593–1652) 17th century c. 1630-34 Oil on canvas Kimball Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX — Georges de La Tour
French (1593–1652)
17th century
c. 1630-34
Oil on canvas
Kimball Art Museum,
Fort Worth, TX

Look not upon the wine when it is red. There’s the trick of the eye, the trompe l’oeil. We think it’s one way but is it another? My eyes focus on the red of the courtesan’s hat, then circle to the sheen of the jeweled collar, the gold threads of the young man’s cloth. How light filters through the feathers of his headdress! Tilted. Ah! There’s the cheat dressed in yellow, the color of deceit, eyes level with the maidservant’s breasts, bared at the bodice of her crimson dress. The ruby-colored wine just poured. The glass suspended among the hands of the connivers as the cheat slips the secret card from his belt. We are complicit. We see what the young man cannot. The trick, the one played every day—the Ace of Clubs.

#NaPoWriMo Day 23: Pick a card.

Poetry at the Post: A Pastoral for Earth Day 2015

Pastoral
BY JENNIFER CHANG

Something in the field is
working away. Root-noise.
Twig-noise. Plant…

Photo courtesy of John M. Jennings, 2015

Happy Earth Day! Today’s NaPoWriMo challenge is to write a pastoral poem—a poem that idealizes rural life and landscapes. Its tradition can be traced back to the ancient Greeks and the poet Hesiod.

Later today I plan to walk the land and allow my poem to unfold. In the meantime, here is a “twig-noise” pastoral by Jennifer Chang and some lovely photos by photographer John M. Jennings.

Stem-
and stamen-noise. Can I lime-
flower? Can I chamomile?

Poetry at the Post: Bourbon Chocolate Cake, Oxford, MS & Erasure

Bourbon Chocolate Cake Source: Square Table Wimmer Cookbooks, 2005 Photography by Langdon Clay — Bourbon Chocolate Cake
Source: Square Table
Wimmer Cookbooks, 2005
Photography by Langdon Clay

Today’s NaPoWriMo assignment is to take a text—and via the process of erasure—form a poem. Short on time and feeling hungry, I pulled out one of those little gems from my cookbook bookcase—you know one of those books you received years ago as a gift but you’ve never actually gotten around to using.

Square Table produced by the Yoknapatawpha (sound familiar?) Arts Council in Oxford, MS is full of recipes dripping with Southern hospitality plus plenty of fat-the delicious kind. There is even the recipe for those to-die-for cheese grits from Ajax Diner. (If you’ve ever been in Oxford and had these artery-clogging grits, you are probably already drooling as you read this.)

Square Table is more than a cookbook. It is also a literary journal with the likes of William Faulkner, Willie Morris, John Grisham, Beth Ann Fenley, and Ace Atkins—all writers with ties to Oxford. There are some interesting facts in the side columns as well.

In the late 1930’s, Oxford has an actual rainmaker, Miss Lily Stoate.

Some lovely photography by Langdon Clay and original artwork by local artists sprinkled in make this book a winner.

Tailgating in the Grove Source: Square Table Wimmer Cookbooks, 2005 Photography by Langdon Clay — Tailgating in the Grove
Source: Square Table
Wimmer Cookbooks, 2005
Photography by Langdon Clay

Hotty Toddy Tanka by Alice-Catherine Jennings

Quick yoga, five oms

bourbon w/ some heavy whipped

cream—strong hot coffee

bits of bittersweet chocolate

morning game, the grove

Does Square Table include a tailgating menu? Now, seriously, what do you think?

Are you ready?

Poetry at the Post: #NaPoWriMo Day 20—Just The Facts

"Mururoa lagon" by Georges Martin - Own work. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - — “Mururoa lagon” by Georges Martin – Own work. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons –

Just the Facts (a found poem) by Alice-Catherine Jennings

Texas changed nationality three times between 1821 and 1836.

In September 1995, the French nuclear weapon tests on the Mururoa atoll were launched.

Fairfield Porter was born in 1907 in Hubbard Woods, Illinois.

The Texas Revolution lasted only about six months. The plural of English words are generally formed by the addition of the suffix -s or –es (laws, taxes) but there are exceptions (e.g. children, halves, mice, sons-in-law, and bison).

The Worker-Peasant-Student coalition of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (COCEI) emerged in 1973 and by 1980 was strong enough to ally itself with the Communist Party and run one of its leaders for mayor of Oaxaca’s second largest city, Juchitan.

As a young artist, Donald Judd was impressed by the paintings of Barnett Newman, Clifford Still, Mark Rothko, and Jackson Pollock.

A book with no edition number or name on its title page is usually a first edition.

Maximilian, the only Emperor of the Second Mexican Empire, and his wife, Carlotta, arrived in Mexico in June 1864.

Donald Judd declared in 1993, that material, space, and color were “the three main aspects of visual art.”

Vorrei prenotare un posto sul treno delle dodici per… means I’d like to reserve a seat on the 12 0’clock train to…in Italian.

Poetry at the Post: Landays—The Voice of Afghan Women

How much simpler can love be?
Let’s get engaged now. Text me.

—a landay from the district of Rodar, Afghanistan, as translated by Eliza Griswwald

Afghan women at a textile factory in Kabul

Thank you to NAPOWRIMO for introducing me to the world of “landays’— 2-line poems, generally rhyming, used—sometimes in secret—by the women of Afghanistan.

Looking for something interesting to do this Sunday afternoon? Then read this awesome investigative article on the landays of Afghanistan and then watch “Snake,” a 15-minute documentary by Pulitzer Center grantees Seamus Murphy and Eliza Griswold, which showcases the photography and video behind their Afghanistan landay project. You’ll be moved, delighted, saddened and sickened but ultimately inspired.

Climb to the brow of the hill and sight
where my darling’s caravan will sleep tonight.

Thinking of Afghanistan, I could not stop considering war so here is my landay with a nod to Thucydides and The History of the Peloponnesian War.

Sixteen triremes sit in the harbor.

Men shiver. Their gums are gone.

And, in the words of Thucycides, “So this winter ended, and so ended the fifteenth year of war.”

Poetry at the Post: The Loss of Innocence or The Trans-Pecos Pipeline

INNOCENCE BY LINDA HOGAN

There is nothing more innocent
than the still-unformed creature I find beneath soil,
neither of us knowing what it will become
in the abundance of the planet.

Sundown Over Blue Mountain Photo courtesy of John M. Jennings, 2015 — Sundown Over Blue Mountain
Photo courtesy of John M. Jennings, 2015

It’s Day 18 of NAPOWRIMO and today’s challenge is to write a poem of warning. It could be about something fictional, mythical, historical or real.

I decided to go for the real as there is a real threat right now to the pristine lands of the Big Bend Area of Texas—a natural gas pipeline.

Confused by the who, what, where of it all, instead of writing a poem of warning, I’ve posted some informational links about the pipeline. This is not an exhaustive list—but a start.

San Antonio Express News: Pipeline Bound for Pristine Big Bend

San Antonio Express News: Big Bend ranchers, landowners will fight planned pipeline

Houston Chronicle:Pipeline plan raises hackles in land-loving Big Bend

Marfa Public Radio: Opposition to Trans Pecos Pipeline Gets Underway in the Big Bend

Fox Business: Big Bend ranchers, landowners will fight planned natural gas pipeline to Mexico

Big Bend Now: Opposition grows to the Trans Pecos Pipeline

Texas Standard: New Border Pipeline Creates an Array of Issues

Newswest9.com:Two Natural Gas Pipelines Headed to West Texas

Alpine Avalanche: Residents pack pipeline meeting

Midland Reporter Telegram: Big Bend pipeline proposal has residents riled up

Hudspeth County Reporter:Survey Work Begins for New Natural Gas Pipeline Through Hudspeth County

And check out the Big Bend Conservation Alliance’s FB Page for updated info.

The flip side of the conservation argument is that the pipeline will bring jobs.

“In a fact sheet issued last week, Energy Transfer said the pipeline will provide millions of dollars of financial benefits to local communities in construction jobs, goods and services and taxes.”

I’m skeptical and believe that the damage to our natural lands will be irreversible and will outweigh the financial benefits to our communities. As a consequence, I’ve signed the petition to Reject the Waha-Presidio Texas to Ojinaga-El Encino Mexico Pipeline and I hope you will too. Deadline is May 5, 2015.

Poetry at the Post: Finding Salmon in El Centro

It’s Day 17 of NAPOWRIMO and today’s prompt is to try to write a “social media”-style poem. We were to raid FB, Twitter and blah blah blah. I started with a line from a FB post but then found inspiration reading Octavio Paz.

Finding Salmon in El Centro by Alice-Catherine Jennings

We are in the city without
four rivers, larger than three
yards square, but not endless
like a galaxy. Salmon swim

in the waters of time. We await
their arrival in streets, busses
taxis, pigeon coops, and catacombs,
in the fish markets near Merced,

where time ceases to flow
and so do the four rivers

Poetry at the Post: Terzanelle Thursday with Charles O. Hartman

Terzanelle by Charles O. Hartman

In Pandemonium the vases stand
Blue-venied as breasts, still bloomed as finger bowls,
Ready to hold the orchids of the hand.

"Blue and white vase Jingdezhen Ming Yongle 1403 1424" by World Imaging, 2009. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 — “Blue and white vase Jingdezhen Ming Yongle 1403 1424” by World Imaging, 2009. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

NAPOWRIMO’s prompt for Day 16 of National Poetry Month is to write a terzanelle—a cross between a villanelle and terza rima. Think Dante on steroids. Here’s what I have so far.

Delhi
—After Octavio Paz

Monkeys with red asses scream. Crackling rain,
the clumps of people and animals on the ground.
God, men and beasts eat from the same plate.

Neither here nor there through that frontier of doubt,
I am one. I am not. I walk among the images,
the clumps of people and animals on the ground.

To be continued…

Delhi, India January 2014 — Delhi, India
January 2014

Poetry at the Post: #twitterpoetryclub —A Peak at Chika Sagawa

The Collected Poems of Chika Sagawa,* as translated by Sawako Nakayasu

"1.2.3.4.5" by Chika Sagawa — “1.2.3.4.5” by Chika Sagawa

Today I was stumped so I did not write a poem for NAPOWRIMO—or 30 poems in 30 days. My work around was to participate instead in the Twitter Poetry Club.

“What’s that? Well, it’s a sort of loose project in which, on selected days, people take photos of poems (from books or printouts or what-have-you) and post them to twitter with the hashtag #twitterpoetryclub…if you search twitter for the #twitterpoetryclub tag, you’ll find oodles of new poems.

While in Minneapolis last week for #AWP15, I stopped by Canarium Books’ booth and picked up a copy of The Collected Poems of Chika Sagawa. Chika Sagawa? Who was she? As I learned from the book’s introduction, Sagawa is considered to be Japan’s first female Modernist poet who tragically died in 1936 at the age of 24. As translator Sawako Nakayasu points out, she has been referred to as “everything from a ‘minor Modernist’ to ‘everybody’s favorite unknown poet.'” So, what would I think?

Back from the crush of AWP and settled in my studio outside Marfa, Texas, I have had some quiet time to read and reflect on Sagawa’s poetry. Its sparseness and space complements the full emptiness of this remote area of the country. A lovely and profound work by someone so young—an old soul, perhaps.

Canarium Books is offering The Collected Poems of Chika Sagawa for only $8—now through April 16th. Get your copy today!

Poetry at the Post: Exploring Macaronics

White Knight Syndrome by Antoine Cassar

Ribussa ai miei pensieri un desiderio d’ieri,
chagrin malin d’amour, a cold and burning bliss,
mil noches sin dormir, il sogno in cui non c’eri,
u f’qalbi llejla jriegħed, niftakar f’ħarstek biss …

Translation:
White Knight Syndrome

Knocking on the door of my thoughts comes a desire from yesterday, malign grief of love, a cold and burning bliss, a thousand sleepless nights, the dream where you were not, and in my heart tonight it thunders, as I remember no more than your look…

Copper engraving of Doctor Schnabel [i.e. Dr. Beak] (a plague doctor in 17th-century Rome) with a satirical macaronic poem ("Vos Creditis, als eine Fabel, / quod scribitur vom Doctor Schnabel") — Copper engraving of Doctor Schnabel [i.e. Dr. Beak] (a plague doctor in 17th-century Rome) with a satirical macaronic poem (“Vos Creditis, als eine Fabel, / quod scribitur vom Doctor Schnabel”)

Poetry Month continues and today is Day 14 of NAPOWRIMO—30 poems in 30 days.

Today’s challenge is “to write a poem that takes the form of a dialogue” but I got a bit diverted with the idea of macaronic language, or the mixing of languages within the same conversation. So, here’s my take on a macaronic poem in dialogue.

In Pursuit of an Errant Act by Alice-Catherine Jennings

That is when I understood the magical meaning of the circle. If you go away from the row, you can still come back into it. A row is an open formation. But a circle closes up, and if you go away from it, there is no way back…I left the circle and have not yet stopped falling. (Milan Kundera)

Me parece:

macaronisch marxista mop
macilento mephytic monk

me pareció:

mythopoeic maan
morfien mood

Translation:

Methinks:
macaronic marxist mop
macilent mephytic monk

Methought:
mythopoeic moon
morphine mood

Moonrise over Mano Prieto photo courtesy of John M. Jennings, 2013 — Moonrise over Mano Prieto
photo courtesy of John M. Jennings, 2013

Author: Alice-Catherince