early morning corn

Paulo Leminski

nothing the sun
could not explain

everything the moon
makes glamorous

no rain
fades this flower

—from *Nothing the Sun Could Not Explain: 20 Contemporary Brazilian Poets*

The Next Big Thing: Joshua Ware

The poet Joshua Ware asked me to post his self-interview. Check out his blog, and get his book Homage to Homage to Homage to Creeley, which is great.

What is the working title of the book?

The title of my forthcoming chapbook is Imaginary Portraits.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

The title of this chapbook comes from Walter Pater’s book of the same name. The general concept of the collection stemmed from imaginary explorations of real events and conversations with another poet.

What genre does your book fall under?

Poetry.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Since one of the poems deals directly with the Arthur Miller penned film The Misfits (1961), starring Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, and Montgomery Clift, those three would make sense. But they’re all dead. So maybe James Franco, my brother, and Selma Hayek (my celebrity crush).

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

Imaginary You is a meditation on love, pronouns, the imagination, and the complex relationship between the three.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I wrote the first draft of these poems from April 2011 through May 2011. I’m a chronic revisionist, so I’ve worked on these poems as recently as last week.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Several things acted as inspiration for Imaginary Portraits, most prominently an amazing and beautiful poet I fell in love with at the time. Other sources of inspiration are: Ted Berrigan’s “Red Shift” (specifically, the recording of the poem found on PennSound), the aforementioned film The Misfits and Pater’s Imaginary You, Michael Earl Craig’s “Bluebirds,” Tina Brown Celona’s unpublished chapbook My Cat Jeffrey, Wallace Stevens’ “Snowman” and “The Idea of Order in Key West,” Joanna Klink’s “Lodestar,” and William Carlos Williams’ “The Red Wheelbarrow.”

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Well, individual poems appeared in Country Music, diode, and The Journal; while the collection these poems come from, titled Imaginary You, was named a finalist for last year’s National Poetry Series, Cleveland State Open Book Competition, Akron Poetry Prize, and Coconut Books’ Braddock Prize. If you find these journals and presses interesting and appreciate their editorial tastes and aesthetic choices, then you’ll probably like these poems.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Greying Ghost Press will release Imaginary Portraits soon, probably in the next couple months. Carl puts together great artifacts and possesses a terrific editorial eye, so I’m very happy that he selected these poems. To my mind, Greying Ghost has been one of the best chapbook publishers putting out work over the past several years. I’m pleased with its home.

from Mary Ruefle’s “Topophilia”

I study nature so as not to do foolish things.
For instance, in the worst windstorms
only the most delicate things survive:
a vireo’s nest intact on the lawn next to the roots
of a monstrous tree. Life makes so much sense!

Two Poems by Steve Wilson

COUMEENOLE BEACH / CANCER JOURNAL 6

—Slea Head Grotto, Ireland, August 2010

From hurt the heart unwords itself.
Goes down to dark. Sits silent.

No breaks, I’d thought, were working
there. Then roar. Then seafoam blast:

a wound was waiting. Feeds to grow.
Now alters, rends. That one long strand,

like faith, curves out uncalmed, thinned
to a breath—just so at once I’m done,

I’m lost. Yes, white the waves that scar
the shore. Yes, cold the roiling deep.

EXTRAVAGANCE

—for Robert Creeley

Like a numbing thumb,
the moment dulls until it tastes
complicity. Of worry

then the crawing gnaw—to eat and eat is all,
is all. I’ve stored long
loss upon some kitchen shelf.

A jar that rounds along
the night. Worry words: that works
us sure, the way

a nightbird sures—through shadow sures
its call. At least
this once. This one, at last.

The Next Big Thing

The wonderful poet Nick Courtright tagged me for The Next Big Thing self-interview series that’s going around, so here goes.

What is the working title of the book?

Thought That Nature.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Most of what I write is a reflection of my inability to understand my surroundings, which is true of the poems in this book. Though I didn’t have a premeditated project in mind, after writing and sifting through many individual poems and sequences, some familiar obsessions began to emerge and create a sense of scaffolding.

What genre does your book fall under?

Poetry.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I’d rather consider who might direct it: Gus Van Sant, Paul Thomas Anderson, the Coen brothers, Alexander Payne.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

Thought That Nature attempts to process the complicated layers of place, which is impossible.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

The earliest poem in the book dates back to 2007, and the most recent was written in 2011, the year I began organizing and revising the poems. So it took me about four years to write the first draft.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Weather. Grocery stores. Jennifer. The Midwest. Texas. Buses. Emily Dickinson. Walking. Ghosts. Francis Ponge. Landscapes. Birds. California. Lorine Niedecker. Environmental policy. Trees.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

1) Cole Swenson, whose work I very much admire, selected Thought That Nature for Sarabande Books’ 2012 Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry.

2) Jeff Alessandrelli, Nick Courtright, James Shea, and Joshua Ware—all great poets—helped improve this book by reading and commenting on earlier versions.

3) A few proper nouns found in the book include “God,” “Nebraska,” “Oppen,” “Sam Cooke,” “Susan,” and “Walmarts.”

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Sarabande Books will publish Thought That Nature in early 2014.

My tagged writers for next Wednesday are: Rob Schlegel and Joshua Ware.

Cole Swensen: A Conceptual Introduction

1. Focus your life on the precise point at which perception turns to thought.

2. The base structure of both the city and the poem is the labyrinth…As in any maze, you can only see to the next corner, never around it.

3. One of the things that I’d like to manage to do when I write is to have the texts generate a sort of phenomenon of persistence, (like certain short pieces of music seem to continue to be heard after silence has returned).

4. Unification is another misleading term. It’s a euphemism for conformity even among ourselves. We must continue to differ, even to disagree.

5. The poem becomes a search for the new structures that time makes when memory becomes the living present.

6. I’m always a little puzzled by the fetish for originality, yet participate in it fully.

7. Never paint a moving part.

(via The University of Arizona Poetry Center)

Ernst Meister’s “Winterly” (tr. Michael Hamburger)

I

Here, where the blood-stained
game track ends
the huntsman lies bound
and his dog eats snow,
a black dog,
my eyes have the power to see
crystals of the air.

II

Snow in the mouth
purifies
the word of love.
In the frost glimmer
eyes
of the sea-buckthorn.

There, as of
blue ore,
stars contain it,
is a taste
on the tongue—

scarcely affording
folly.