issue 106 www.versewisconsin.org July 2011 Verse WISCONSIN

Founded by linda Aschbrenner AS FREE VERSE 1998

“I think I became Features funny by mistake.” My Barefoot Rank by David Graham —Denise Duhamel Revising Your Poems by Michael Kriesel

Karla Huston Interviews “The truth is that oblivion Denise Duhamel is not just commonplace for poets, but practically Poetry by Erum Ahmed % Idella Anacker % Antler % Christopher Austin % Suzanne Bergen % Gerald Bertsch the rule. To harbor % Amy Billone %David Blackey % John L. Campbell % ambitions for any other Antonia Clark % Cathryn Cofell % Barb Cranford % CX Dillhunt % Denise Duhamel % P.R. Dyjak % R. Virgil Ellis fate is almost by definition % Thomas J. Erickson % Casey Francis % Jim Giese % Sara to be deluded.” Greenslit % John Grey % Kenneth P. Gurney % Richard Hedderman % Charles Hughes % Clint Jensen % Henk —David Graham Joubert % Claire Keyes % Jackie Langetieg % Estella Lauter % John Lehman % Quincy Lehr % David Lurie % Amit Majmudar% Jesse Manser % Linda Back McKay % Rick McMonagle % Mary Mercier % Richard Merelman % Richard Moyer % normal % Maurice Oliver % Helen Padway “In my brain’s basement, % Nancy Petulla % Charles Portolano % Ester Prudlo a reference librarian sits at % Casey Quinn % Christine Redman-Waldeyer % James Reitter % Harlan Richards % Charles Ries % Marybeth a gray, metal, government Rua-Larsen % Chuck Rybak % Jane Satterfield % G. A. desk. When I’m writing, Scheinoha % Judith Sepsey % John Sime % Kate Sontag % Barry Spacks % Marc Swan % Richard Swanson % Timothy she hands me whatever old Walsh % Marie Sheppard Williams % Marilyn Windau % image or line I need, when I need it. ” —Michael Kriesel $8 ? ? Thanks to these donors! Up to $100 Editors’ Notes Antler Writing is, at heart, a solitary act. And yet, community is essential for writers in so many ways. We find a group of Books Received September-December 2010 readers to give feedback on the early drafts. We seek out reading series and open mics, conferences and retreats. We Submission guidelines can be found at Mary Jo Balistreri Publisher & author links available online versewisconsin.org. Please send us a Michael Belongie build friendships and support networks that cross vast distances through Facebook and listservs. Recently, we asked our friends how they chose where to submit their work, and the majority of them responded that they look for venues Elizabeth Alexander, Crave Radiance, New and Berywn Moore O Body Swayed review copy of your recently published Gerald Bertsch , , Cherry Grove where they feel a connection—to the editor or the other poets published. As editors, we’re very aware of the fact book or chapbook! Join us on Facebook for B.J. Best Selected Poems 1990-2010, Graywolf Press, Collections, 2010 that neither of us would take on Verse Wisconsin alone—and if we did, what a changed and different venture it would & David Blackey 2010 Ralph Murre, The Price of Gravity, Auk Ward announcements news. be. Not only do we both read and discuss every single submission we receive, we consult each other on almost every Elizabeth Austen, Andrea Bates, Carol Stevens Editions, 2010 Joan English detail, right down to selecting the color for the cover of each issue. Jane Ewens Kaer & Sarah Suzor, Sightline, Toadlily Charles Nevsimal (ed), Now Hear This: Voices K. P. Gurney We like to think we also work with our contributors to build relationships that are meaningful. We keep in touch, Press, 2010 of Urban Youth, Vol. Two, Centennial Press Claire Keyes sending out news and calling for submissions by email, writing personal notes as often as possible, suggesting changes James Babbs, Another Beautiful Night, Lulu (in cooperation with Lad Lake), 2010 Books Reviewed Online Norman Leer or offering encouragement as we respond to submissions, and then making sure we give our writers a chance to Publishing, 2010 Georgia Ressmeyer, Today I Threw My Watch B.J. Best, Birds of Wisconsin, New Rivers Richard Moyer comment or adjust the way their poems look on the page before we go to publication. James Babbs, things that aren’t important happen Away, Finishing Line Press, 2010 Press , 2011 by Amanda Brzenk C.J. Muchhala all the time, Interior Noise Press, 2010 Liz Rhodebeck, What I Learned in Kansas, Port Sue Chenette, Slender Human Weight, Christina Norcross We’re also learning—and celebrating—the power of partnerships on a larger scale. This year we’ve partnered with Julie Carr, Sarah—Of Fragments and Lines, Yonder Press, 2010 Anvil O’Malley Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf, a Madison-based program run by poet Shoshauna Shy that puts poetry in surprising Guernica Editions, 2009 by Lou Roach Coffee House Press, 2010 W.R. Rodriguez, Concrete Pastures of the Beautiful Lou Roach places in order to reach new audiences. Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf partners with organizations around the state. Karl Elder, The Houdini Monologues, Seems 43 – 44 Rebecca Dunham, The Flight Cage, Tupelo Press, Bronx, zeugpress, 2008 Jean C. Ross You can learn more at www.poetryjumpsofftheshelf.com. Verse Wisconsin and PJOS ran a joint call for submissions / Word of Mouth Books 2010 by Michael Kriesel G.A. Scheinoha around the theme “Luck of the Draw.” Shoshauna read all the submissions (over 800) and selected 30 poems which 2010 Lynn Shoemaker, A Catch in the Throat of Allah, Joseph Farley, Looking for the Mother Tongue, Peter Sherrill now fill the Verse-O-Matic poetry vending machine, each folded into its little purple-topped capsule along with a Thomas Sayers Ellis, Skin, Inc., Identity Repair Parallel Press, 2010 March Street Press, 2010 by Karla Huston Thomas R. Smith piece of candy and—if you’re lucky—maybe a free year of Verse Wisconsin. These Luck of the Draw poems comprise Poems, Graywolf Press, 2010 Robert Sonkowsky, Unsound Science, Xlibris, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Carta Marina, Wings our summer online poetry issue, and we’re thankful to Shoshauna for serving as guest editor. Meanwhile, the Verse- Len Tews Miriam Hall, Dreams of Movement, Finishing 2010 Press, 2009 by Moira Richards M. Robert Warden o-Matic is making its way around to various businesses and institutions in Wisconsin. It’s shiny silver and red, sits Line Press, 2010 Sandy Stark, Counting on Birds, Fireweed Press, happily on a table or countertop, and vends poems and candy for free (if you’re interested in housing it for a while, Barbara L. Greenberg, Late Life Happiness, Ed Werstein Derrick Harriell, Cotton, Willow Books/ 2010 or know someone who might be, contact us). Parallel Press, 2010 by Lou Roach Marilyn Windau Aquarius Press, 2010 Alex Stolis, Li Po Comes to America, Parallel Press, Miriam Hall, Dreams of Movement, Finishing At Verse Wisconsin, we look forward to more partnerships with other organizations in the future. This fall, we’ll be Steve Healey, 10 Mississippi, Coffee House Press, 2010 $100-499 Line Press, 2010 by Russell Gardner, Jr. working with the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, editing their Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar for 2013. Again, a 2010 David Young, Field of Light and Shadow, Selected Derrick Harriell, Cotton, Willow/Aquarius Cathryn Cofell selection of the calendar poems will be featured at VWOnline, in Summer 2012. More information on that project Tim Hunt, Fault Lines, The Backwaters Press, and New Poems, Alfred Knopf, 2010 Books, 2010 by Sarah Busse Mike Kriesel is at www.wfop.org. 2010 Richard Swanson Terrance Hayes, Lighthead, 2010 by Fabu Deborah Jackman-Wilson, Walking Between James P. Lenfestey Janet Taliaferro To bring it back home… we partner with each of you to make Verse Wisconsin a meaningful project. Without writers Advertise in VW (ed.), Low Down and Coming On: Raindrops, Xlibris, 2010 A Feast of Delicious and Dangerous Poems About Pigs, Timothy Walsh sending us poems, book reviews, essays and more, there would be no magazine at all. Just as important, though not (Single Issue Rates) Mary Wehner always stated, without readers, the magazine would be a futile waste of our energies. As it is now, we feel these issues Gary Jackson, Missing You, Metropolis, Graywolf Red Dragonfly Press, 2010 by Athena Kildegaard of VW that arrive in your mailbox three times a year represent something much more meaningful than any single Press, 2010 [Winner of the Cave Canem Business card $35 Dimitris Lyacos, trans. by Shorsha Sullivan, Poena $500-$1000 issue can contain: we’re a community of readers and writers who engage with each other, each contributing attention, Poetry Prize] 1/4 page $75 Damni Z213: Exit, Shoestring Press, 2010, Richard Roe time, and an open mind to what these pages contain. The magazine, larger than any one of us, changes and evolves Shane McCrae, In Canaan, Rescue Press, 2010 1/2 page $125 Two Reviews: by Manos Georginis and by Judith Swann Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets over time. We both feel profoundly moved by this truth, as well as—yes—lucky, to be involved. 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Member of Member Poets Laureate, Ice Cube Books, 2011 Infinity Publishing, 2010 2 Verse wisconsin #106 July 2011 Council of Literary Magazines & Presses VerseWISCONSIN.org 3 What Becomes of the Deported? You Get Used To It What Boys Do

I ask myself. The hardest thing about death curling up Coney Island Redux Do they disperse like is the first night. inside an empty child-blown bubbles? After the first night garbage can Coney Island this drab summer day Or linger beneath saguaros and deliquesce? you get used to it I rolled down gives us slippery oysters to eat. Do their bones merge into the desert detritus? Like kids at summer camp the warm We slide them down, then homesick their first night flowing hill spit them back up. I picture them as Cry themselves to sleep jeans torn The ghost of The Steeple Chase hangs in the mist ghost choruses crossing but the next day hair short with screams from gleeful riders, undulating lines. Make new friends wind-blown jilted laughter, a ruckus of lights. and get used to it my gym shoes I doubt they huddle around And go swimming and canoeing blue and gray Today the Ferris Wheel is still. Sonoran campfires and reminisce and fishing and hiking thinking A few lost people speak Russian about butchered chickens in Iowa. And do beadwork and dress up this is what near the shipwrecked hotdog stand. like Indians and roast boys do On washed up beaches I suspect they languish in Marshmallows and wieners and sing they tumble tufts of children build sand castles. songs round the campfire sun-baked shanties on rations through All the campers’ and counselors’ faces of derision. summer green —Suzanne Bergen, Madison, WI illuminated like babies And at night the counselor Or, incognito, in rank cantinas, in the hard dark who loves the campers over warm cerveza, spaces where Wanders the dark silent cabin do they slur stories of how cold rubbish was with lit candle observing Question for You they were up north? The dreamy faces —Amy Billone, Knoxville, TN of the sleeping campers Don’t, he shouted, please don’t. The crayon made —David Blackey, La Crosse, WI And feels happy looking down at them a crazy web of violet triangles and intersecting and when camp ends and it’s time to go home lines. Later I heard my mother on the telephone— ? I said I didn’t know The youngsters don’t want to go and cry The Evening of the Fourth of July She will be severely punished. Confined ? saying goodbye to new friends they love who did it—I never saw. At the roadside I pocketed They’ll never see again lavender flowers and shoved them into sewers. You think you’re immune and their favorite counselor hugs them close. For years, I pressed my confession into sandboxes, Why the white picket fence? in this landscape: a nephew’s backyard, You get used to being dead erased one letter at a time—I-d-i-d-i-t. Lake Michigan’s burgers on the grill, amused children shrinking mouth swallowed all my words—I-t-w-a-s-m-e. No bigger than the same way. You get used to being dead forever Everything I wore was purple. At twenty-two, I forgot half a parking space, chasing the bubbles you fling into the air and don’t want to go home. how to speak. As soon as I got better, I admitted within no-man’s land. from your wand. You’re so sure of yourself, Where you are is your home now forever to my parents—I drew on Jason McClellan’s wall. on earth, on your feet. although there’s one thing you never forget They had forgotten even who his family was. Now What lies inside Or you tell yourself you’ll never forget my favorite color is crimson, darker than fresh blood. can no longer leave. Go ahead and play badminton as you forget it forever— I have no amethyst jewelry, only garnet. My clothes with the little girls you call granddaughters, Singing the old camp song round the campfire have turned bright scarlet. Still, look closer. Is it to keep out those that want in? your son-in-law with his new titanium knee your arm round your best friend under the stars. I promise you’ll find purple patterns where you

least expect them—When my mind leaps and spills, Which, popping the birdie towards you. —Antler, Milwaukee, WI drunken, wild; in every angle of my vision, letters considering the weathered But please remember as you lie flat on your back, hide—Huckleberries, wine—I tap them with my Gentile form found within both wrists fractured Gatekeeper of the kingdom feet, dawn colored, queen colored, savage unholy and the grave locale designs. I hold my breath. I jump from trees. I tie across the solitude, in the attempt to break your fall As the gatekeeper of the kingdom my hair in jagged knots. Even if at first you can’t that this is what you wanted: to feel more intensely alive, I have always looked upon you as a giant detect my secret, look closer—In the mad sea would appear someone kneeling by your side urging you Views a gnat there’s nothing you can do I have told foam, the wind-blown sand, my clean hands to be very few, You we don’t have vacancies this season try your luck and ferocious, closing teeth. Do you see it? if any at all. to inhale deeply, exhale slowly. In Hades there’s plenty of room for your family and friends And it’s free for the poor and needy like you free lodging free food Ice, you implore, bring more ice, the good earth —Amy Billone, Knoxville, TN —Jim Giese, Plymouth, WI cushioning your body. All you can eat —Claire Keyes, Marblehead, MA —Erum Ahmed, Karachi, Pakistan visit VW Online for audio by this author 4 Verse wisconsin #106 July 2011 VerseWISCONSIN.org 5 Used Book My Barefoot Rank In 1862, an unknown and unpublished young New England poet publishing writer. (I put the term “career” in quotation marks because after Elizabeth Bishop wrote to a prominent literary figure, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, I am well aware that I never have had, or will enjoy, anything close inquiring of this learned gentleman whether, as she put it, her to Eberhart’s degree of reputation, despite publishing my work in a I bought a tremendous book by David Graham poems were “alive.” Higginson’s baffled condescension toward the variety of places for decades now.) In a sense I suppose I am trying and brought it home to bed, unconventional poems of Emily Dickinson has made his name a to convince myself that my utter obscurity as a poet—my “failure” where, the day dead, —to the memory of Donald Sheehan Richard Eberhart was one whose name really footnote of a less admirable kind. But to his credit, he did know that to achieve the fame I once yearned for in my deep heart’s core—is was writ in water. When my generation I lay with my fingers unfolding In college I took a course or two with the she was a remarkable woman, even if he had no idea her fame as a poet a good thing, not just a realistic adjustment to the conditions that dies, I expect he’ll turn permanently into a the frayed corners of the cover. Poet in Residence on our campus, who would one day eclipse that of every other prevail, but ultimately a healthy way to be. footnote, one of those minor figures showing happened to be Richard Eberhart. Though single American poet who was considered I will never let this book go. up occasionally in the biographies of others, I was young and determinedly unimpressed great in 1862. He became a friend and What I am groping toward I have no advice to give or answers to The body, blemished with stickers, only noted in the most exhaustive critical by such matters, Eberhart came into my life pen pal, someone she playfully referred to the big questions. But I can offer some wears rectangles and squares histories of his era. Looking back, I realize here, tentatively and with many trailing a rather impressive list of honors. He as her teacher. You and I might fancy that testimony from my own experience in this in all the colors that his brand of highly wrought Romantic was a winner of most accolades the poetry we would not be so obtuse as to miss the patches of self-doubt and personal strange enterprise. In my writing life, as of well-intentioned rainbows formalism was passing out of fashion even establishment could bestow, including The true genius of an Emily Dickinson, but bewilderment, is a stance toward the years passed and it gradually became bleeding into broken covenant as far back as the 1960s. A young poet Pulitzer Prize, The National Book Award, we’d be wrong. Smarter people than us obvious that the prize committees were today who took Eberhart as a model would poetic vocation different from the upon broken covenant. the Bollingen Prize, and a stint as national considered her a minor oddball writer for never going to give me a call, the major be a curiosity at best. His handful of best There is pain in peeling the yellow “used” Poet Laureate and Consultant to the decades, until in the twentieth century more or less conventional ambitions critics would not be gushing about my known poems have gradually but relentlessly from the length of spine, Librarian of Congress. He was a founding her reputation slowly grew to be what it work, and my face would never appear been vanishing from the main anthologies. that guided me through college, another green “used” under that, member of the renowned Poets’ Theatre in is today. on the cover of American Poetry Review, I He rarely appears on course syllabi or in until Elizabeth Bishop appears at last, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Scholarly books graduate school, and my early reacted by gradually cutting back on my anything but the most specialized journal finally free to breathe in were written about his career. In his years In one of their exchanges, Higginson “career” as a publishing writer. attempts to gain publication, win prizes, articles anymore, and I can’t recall the last as a professor he taught at many leading suggested, no doubt kindly and and generally push myself forward in the beautiful oxygen. time I heard his name mentioned at any universities, including Columbia, Tufts, diplomatically, that Dickinson’s work the maelstrom of Po-Biz. To be honest Merchants must be pulled from the cover gathering of poets. I seriously doubt there Brown, Swarthmore, Princeton, and finally was not ready for publication. In her letter of reply she disavowed this was as much a matter of temperament and sloth as principle, with care—no rush, no tear. will be any more scholarly works about him Dartmouth. His poems appeared in every any ambition of that outward kind, focusing entirely on the inward at least in the beginning. I have often felt like the world’s worst Half Price Books. Book Barn. to come. A mere half decade after his death, major anthology, where he was frequently ambition that any serious poet must cultivate: schmoozer and hustler, no doubt largely because it’s distasteful to me. University Books. Eberhart essentially has no fame anymore. featured as one of our chief poets of World If on a given day I had to choose between promoting my career and A last sticker from a store War II. In fact, his poem “The Fury of I smile when you suggest that I delay “to publish,” that being foreign promoting poetry, I more often chose the latter. Most days I focused So what happened? The short answer is that I have never explored. Aerial Bombardment” was, even to my to my thought as firmament to fin. on the work itself, forming and sticking to a daily writing regimen— what happened to him is what will happen With a pencil I erase prematurely jaded undergraduate eyes, a in fact, I haven’t missed a day in nineteen years and counting. to every other poet now breathing, with so If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her; if she did not, the the jot of a student— pretty terrific accomplishment, along with few and such unpredictable exceptions that longest day would pass me on the chase, and the approbation of my these poems seeding his life “The Groundhog,” “The Cancer Cells,” At the same time I also resolved to do more of what Dickinson had it nearly doesn’t matter. For a few decades dog would forsake me then. My barefoot rank is better. for a syllabus week, “Cover me over, clover,” and others. In done, reaching out to like-minded souls in a variety of ways. Unlike Eberhart enjoyed an uncommon degree of meaning Tuesday and Thursday— short, anyone who knew anything about the Dickinson, I was fairly sociable about it, comfortable enough leaving renown, it’s true, but quite rapidly the natural Some critics and biographers have assumed that Dickinson was poetry scene knew and respected Eberhart. my house to meet other poets. I went to writers’ conferences, became clean the title page order of things re-established itself, so he has being disingenuous, seeking advice from a leading literary light while active in online discussion groups, and attended as many readings infested with tiny class notes. been, by and large, forgotten. The truth is pretending not to be interested in his help toward publication. I Even better, to my way of thinking back and open mics as I could. I participated in informal workshops both Then the archeology that oblivion is not just commonplace for probably thought so, too, if I gave the matter any thought when then, Eberhart knew, or had met, everyone. online and in person, wrote fan letters to poets I admired, did a bit of cost, the legend of the cover price poets, but practically the rule. To harbor starting out as a poet. But what if she meant what she wrote? What if, I was not too cynical to enjoy sitting in his of book reviewing for her complete works— ambitions for any other fate is almost by in fact, she really was inquiring of a well-known expert his opinion of Late in life living room in one of his workshop sessions, and essay writing, I paid fifty-five cents for what definition to be deluded, and, as the example the quality of her poems, without expectation of a “career” in the art where he would lean back in his chair, puff connected with other of Eberhart nicely illustrates, honors and or even publication? What if she just wanted an informed evaluation, She saw it had been pointless I would bail an ocean for. on his pipe, and recount firsthand anecdotes writers on Facebook, attention during one’s life are no guarantee or wished to reach out to a possibly kindred soul? We know from to try to direct her tricycle, One dollar, then two dollars of everyone from Yeats and Dylan Thomas and so forth. I met on smaller stickers like those of posthumous reputation. biographical research, reinforced by everything Dickinson wrote, that or her pet hamster, to Allen Ginsberg. We all knew, as well, she was fully capable of fiercely held and against-the-grain opinions. more than a few fellow found in grocery stores, that he had once been the teacher of the poets online, and or her skis on the expert slope, Of course, the ambition to write a great Why must we suspect that she was necessarily, if secretly, eager for which you must scrape from the skin most famous poet of the era, Robert Lowell. maintain a friendly or the varsity tackle poem is not the same thing as a desire to ordinary publication? As far as we know, she never made the slightest section by tiny-pieced section. Moreover, he was reputed to be the first correspondence with who saw her in such a rosy light win the Pulitzer Prize. We all know that, move in this direction, and the handful of poems that appeared in academic, establishment poet to take the a fair number of that she married him; The stakes were higher in the past. or say that we do. Yet many of us devote print during her lifetime were submitted by friends. There is a great Beat poets seriously, which was a further them. Few of these which editor would select her work, Finally, its bandages enormous amounts of time, energy, and deal of speculation among Dickinson scholars, but to my knowledge shorn, I hold the cover feather in his cap from my perspective. there is not much evidence that she was ever unhappy with her were new activities for or which of her thoughts precious hope seeking honors, reputation, me, of course; what to my cheek, mouth prestigious publications, and all the rest of barefoot ranking. her best friend would finish this time. . . He lived out his extremely long life (finally was different was that close enough to whisper those things that we know, or should know, and later still she eased up dying in 2005 at age 101) about as richly more and more I put “all better now,” will evaporate rapidly even if we are lucky More importantly, what if she not only meant what she wrote, but striving at all. honored and respected as a poet can be. what if she was right? Is there a sense in which a “barefoot” ranking the energy and time begin with the poem enough to achieve them in our lifetimes. I used to devote to She unbuckled, unlaced, Much more likely we won’t even reach a is, actually, better than fame and a public career in the art of poetry? where floating lanterns filled with flame But well before his death I realized that my submitting work and leaned back fraction of the renown of an Eberhart who, Well, of course it depends on what one means by “better.” What I illuminate a pretty paradise famous former professor was not so famous promoting myself and let it flow. even at the peak of his career, was seldom am groping toward here, tentatively and with many patches of self- before setting it ablaze. anymore. It seems increasingly obvious into more “barefoot” spoken of in the same breath as a Yeats or doubt and personal bewilderment, is a stance toward poetic vocation that, despite his accomplishments and high different from the more or less conventional ambitions that guided or grassroots action. I —Barb Cranford, Hancock, WI —Chuck Rybak, Oneida, WI Frost. And now isn’t spoken of at all. reputation, lasting for decades, the poet me through college, graduate school, and my early “career” as a happily submitted my 6 Verse wisconsin #106 July 2011 VerseWISCONSIN.org 7 Picasso’s Studio own work for publication when solicited, but not often otherwise. It’s not been a smooth road, I should add. Nor do I imagine I will Upon Finding a Nude of My Grandmother When I published something new it felt good, naturally, but it ever achieve the perfect writerly bliss of non-ambition. As Donald didn’t feel as though I had “won” anything. This seemed a fair price Hall once noted in an essay, “nothing is learned once that does not At the daycare, Thirst was something for not feeling like a loser when rejected or ignored. need learning again”—nothing important, anyway, I believe. The pigs with distorted faces old corrosive and envy-laden sense of ambition does appear in my line the walls, my grandfather knew Interestingly enough, this laissez-faire attitude toward the outward soul on a regular basis, despite my best intentions. But I know spiders appear when he took charcoal, rewards of Po-Biz has had unexpected side benefits. For one thing, what to do about it, at least. I send a poem I love to some friends. I like black suns, pressed it to paper, I found myself being solicited more frequently than ever before, attend an open mic and recite a poem by someone else. Every year probably because of all my online visibility. I haven’t published more I introduce my students to great poets of the past and cheer them pumpkins whose grins forgave Gladys, himself— than before, necessarily, but I certainly have been rejected less often. in their own attempts to master the art. I swap new drafts with happen upon the face left art school For another thing, I gradually widened my circle of poetry pals and fellow poets. I write an essay like this one when asked, and hope any which way to marry her, acquaintances considerably, and thus found my taste and knowledge in return to receive some comments, not from posterity but from have been taken down, dragged the lead in poetry also evolving accordingly. But most of all, I grew happier you, Gentle Reader. I re-read Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman and happier as both poet and person. I discovered the old demons as needed, and remind myself how delicious it can feel to walk over and over, of envy and unhealthy, unrealistic ambition becoming weaker and barefoot through this world. replaced with turkeys weaker in me year by year. I am more content with my barefoot rank whose legs grow broke the points than I ever was while running hard on ambition’s treadmill. from their heads. on his pencils to know her on paper. At the daycare, Visit VW Online to read more articles you won’t want to miss including… toddler’s portraits —Christine Redman-Waldeyer, Manasquan, NJ are snapped into place by laundry pins Jessica Nelson North: Recalling the Reaches of Silence & Sound on a line My Mother Looked at Photographs

by LaMoine MacLaughlin as if to dry, My mother looked at photographs. Among children’s literature, everyone considers Sterling North’s her youth…competed successfully with other young poets, including are circles, That’s how I knew Aunt Emma smiled Rascal a classic. He also wrote other books which have delighted Edna St. Vincent Millay, in the contests conducted by Mary Mapes a doodling And Uncle Jim had been a child readers everywhere–and justly so. His hometown of Edgerton, Dodge, editor of St. Nicholas Magazine.” Jessica received a bachelor’s of self-examination. Who’d take big chances just for laughs— Wisconsin annually celebrates the Sterling North Book Fair and Film degree from Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin and went on Festival, gathering authors and fans from far and wide in his honor. to graduate school at the University of Chicago, where she presided Walking the halls At ten, he posed, all nonchalance, His family home in Edgerton (the setting of Rascal), now open as a over the University of Chicago Poetry Club and edited the Adelphean of this studio, On the garage, umbrella raised museum, has been restored to its 1917 setting. One of the major and the History of Alpha Delta Pi. In 1912 she published a little I nod at nonsense, (“To balance”—she’d remain unfazed— characters in Rascal is Sterling’s older sister Jessica, portrayed when children’s poem entitled “Three Guests” inSt. Nicholas: An Illustrated nod at numbers, “He’s an accountant, it’s what he wants”); she was twenty-five years old. A couple of years ago I asked one of the Magazine for Young Folks. The poem has been widely distributed, nod at need. Edgerton promoters of the Sterling North celebration about Jessica often with no attribution. ... How I found out life has its hells Nelson North, and the person did not know that Sterling even had Even for grandfathers—white hair, a sister. Sterling’s daughter Arielle, also an author, has remembered Why Being an Obscure Poet —Christine Redman-Waldeyer, Manasquan, NJ Jessica as “…my favorite aunt, enthusiastic and very bright. I can Thin metal glasses, debonair ? remember her reciting (by heart) reams and reams of poetry, old and Isn’t Such a Bad Life After All Night Vision, 1968 In paisley tie and wide lapels, new, even into her nineties. She wrote fine poetry herself, for a broad audience from small children to thoughtful adults. She was like a by Charles P. Ries Mine dressed his up in “confident clothes” That summer, back from Vietnam, Gene bossed second mother to my dad, Sterling North, …and he adored her. As (Which hadn’t kept her from seeing through). I awoke at midnight in a confused sweat. Racked again by a poet’s adults, they had lively discussions about the literary world, agreeing Our crew, part-timers still in high school. We’d ultimate existential dilemma; no, not a new and more powerful I’d search her eyes, as children do, or disagreeing about various authors and literary styles. Both were Wait in the seedy balcony—legs crossed, metaphor, but is it better to be a famous poet or an obscure poet? For signs of how deep down grief goes. so knowledgeable and quick witted, it was fun listening to them.” Slouched deep in red plush seats—for him to end Some would argue this is actually a distinction without a difference, While Sterling North’s work completely justifies his popularity, it has The evening’s show, turn up the lights to send but not me. It was a choice. I would make it. It would become my This was especially true when she’d completely and unjustly eclipsed the achievement of his sister, Jessica A blinking audience home, and then proceed self-delusional, self-fulfilling prophecy. Hit Edythe. Then her voice would fall Nelson North. To point us to our putty knives and paint. For emphasis: “We had a ball.” With only the neon light of Ray’s Romper Room Bar across the “How come you never talk?” Long afterward, Jessica Nelson North, born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1891, grew up More friends than sisters, they’d agreed, street to illuminate my garret, my poet’s soul screamed, “What is Told of his suicide, I glimpsed the ice on the shore of picturesque Lake Koshkonong. Her father, David it you want for me–fame or obscurity?” Much to my amazement a His eyes became, how differently the dice Willard North, farmed with his wife, Sarah Elizabeth (Nelson) North, But all those times, she didn’t cry. clear voice responded, “Are you nuts! Obscure baby–be obscure!” Can roll. It wasn’t—isn’t—true: I’ve heard near Edgerton. Sarah died while Sterling was very young, and he She talked. She touched that teenage face. The clarity of this audio hallucination gave me pause. I pray for survived polio in his teens under the care of his sister Jessica. Lucy M. Repeatedly his measured, soft complaint. all kinds of things and God never replies, but now, to this simple A discipline, I guess. A grace. Freibert, a Women’s Studies pioneer at the University of Louisville, Last credits scrolled off-screen, the house again request, I get a voice in the dimness of night. It made me wonder Some deaths are hard to satisfy. has described Jessica Nelson North as “a precocious child (who) Dark, bathed in night, he counts slowly to ten. if God was a frustrated poet? ... memorized and recited poetry from the time she could speak. By the —Charles Hughes, Park Ridge, IL age of five, she read the newspaper and composed rhymes…(and) in —Charles Hughes, Park Ridge, IL Read the complete articles at VW Online. 8 Verse wisconsin #106 July 2011 VerseWISCONSIN.org 9 Depression Memories of Cousin Stanley

One day we were down—this is true, My novelist cousin Stanley died to lend his name to a punk garage band I am not making this up for the story’s of MS, contracted late in life, out of Meadville, PA. And in my own writings sake, or for pity’s sake— leaving me with regrets, for we’d had sometimes I’d name a character “Stanley,” Shelves to our last potato. Standing a “somewhat competitive relationship” give him a walk-on part. But mainly in the kitchen, my mother (so Harry his friend had summed it up I wanted to tell how we yakked on that trip Today, I put in shelves and barely thought held that spud up, and we all the time we drove, all three eighteen, word after rapid meaningless word of anything but books and compact discs, looked at it like Christ out of Chicago to Canada). unlistening to each other down of space and symmetry and all the things might have looked at those measly the miles of the dark Wisconsin night. I hadn’t read or listened to in years. loaves and fishes. How could a woman The revealing bit about me and Stanley feed a family of five comes from this trip, not from his visit —Barry Spacks, Santa Barbara, CA 1957 I still haven’t. I like to know they’re there, on one potato? We were sent out, the with Joan his wife to us in England, not just in memory, but in my hall three of us, to forage—for he reading at length from his first, best novel: Back in 1957 and living room, like reunited teams dandelion greens maybe, or to beg “The lock...the lock was in my hands!” my major concern was my sex life posed for a photograph, in which each face a lettuce head or a carrot while in Tulsa, Oklahoma, grown by Mr. Dow down the street. But that time, too, is part of the story, will show up elsewhere in a different snap, My brother Earl, six years old then, for when he’d finished, flushed, I gave him they buried a time-capsule not to be opened a part of a collection, but itself came running back into the house only a nod. “Got it,” I said: till fifty years later, containing choice items if moved or lost. Rearrangement’s glib— waving a five-dollar bill “The lock...the lock was in your hands.” including a new Chevy Belvedere just custody. Each story stays the same. over his head. He’d found it on the sidewalk. More than “somewhat competitive.” with gasoline supplied in case —Quincy Lehr, Brooklyn, NY My mother made us all that fuel might no longer be known in our world kneel down on the kitchen floor I took him out through the rain that evening when they dug the car up in 2007, and thank God for the miracle. to tour the Cambridge Colleges; he had to see this stuff, I insisted. the Chevy having no need for fuel, Another day my baby brother Donny came He might have preferred reading more of his novel. destroyed by water seepage. That fall up from the basement, covered with a Yankee rookie named Kubek twice

? coal dust and cobwebs, his eyes Once, at a party in Cambridge, Mass., Mouras Encantadas shining. He put a glass button into he asked how I’d liked his 5th and I said hit homers, third game of the World Series,

my mother’s hand. I found a diamond, Mama. I’d wait for the paperback. Not nice. Kubek named Rookie of the Year, was the family joke No man would have her he said. We don’t ever have to be Not cousinly. and lest we forget, on Oct.4th as Great Aunt Alice sat and scowled. She’d forge poor again. Driving Wisconsin, a smile to criticize: The vinho d`alhos? Harry grew tired of our bickering, the Soviets scared us by launching Sputnik, When eyeballs rolled, she’d soon invoke Too strong! Donny’s a grown man now, proposed a contest: we’d fight it out, starting an overdrive of strive

and rich. He still fixes his own cars, the first exhausted from non-stop-talking that continues to this very day. her chicken-less plight, how she’d been forced to kill though he hates doing it. His wife the loser. He must have figured our babble their hens for lunch, to chop off heads and pluck says he doesn’t understand would keep him awake down the moonless highway. Albert Camus won the Nobel Prize, and gut, and then she’d watched her father suck that he has money. And Earl And so we talked, on and on, me and Stanley, Liz Taylor exchanged one marriage for another; the bones – and ate no more. She’d lost her will can make a dollar go farther miles and miles. Who knows what we said. a brave little black girl and eight of her friends

than anyone else I know. Words. Kindly Harry declared it a tie. until my brother’s wake. She walked the long faced down bigots in Little Rock, condolence line to slap my mother’s face: Me? I admit I Later, afflicted, Stanley labored and Mario A. Gianini died she said, then tottered from pinch pennies. Save string. Get over it, with canes, a wheelchair, before he died. (inventor of the maraschino cherry). our reach to sit. She hummed a cradlesong Recycle. Scrimp. Then save I sent a sympathy letter to Joan, while pulling out her hook and tatting case, some more. Look every but truly we’d failed to love one another I noted such matters in ‘57, then waited for the piercing that would not come. gift horse in the mouth as cousins should, as all of us should. like everyone else opined, even marched, for resale possibilities. But but really my prime concern was my sex life,

—Marybeth Rua-Larsen, Somerset, MA Sad. What else? When my friend Kirk also had need of a name for his new punk band should I be ashamed of that? -- not

I suggested “Cousin Stanley,” and so Sputnik, Kubek, the Nobel prize, I see miracles lying on the sidewalk, it was called. Stanley would have been pleased jewels in glass. not Liz nor the Chevy Belvedere.

—Barry Spacks, Santa Barbara, CA —Marie Sheppard Williams, Minneapolis, MN 10 Verse wisconsin #106 July 2011 VerseWISCONSIN.org 11 Not Kansas Moving Back Home

Circa 1969 Move backwards, through the pane of glass. I rang New York If the glass scratches or cuts you, second. She wasn’t sufficiently My 1956 Mercury was not much of a car, enough outdoorsy, but Bought in Chico, California for $75 it will be healed on the other side. A Summer Evening Walk after California flat out By a 15-year-old runaway, None of this has happened yet. told me no I had to try. It took me down the coast I walk my grandpa’s dog in the middle of dormant Main Street, ‘Til drowsiness led me to The split tomato drips its life’s blood. fluorescent lights glare out from a storefront, I couldn’t believe A closed gas station where Weeds thrive with wicked abandon. a stubborn orange sky is stubbornly setting. the pinch I was in— My sleep was interrupted by Two cars sit parked on the heaving brick road—client and beautician, Florida was busy and A zealous county sheriff’s deputy. Wrinkled-faced apples rot sweetly. engulfed in the stern light, are framed by the window announcing, a flake anyway. Jersey, Busted on weapons charges, lying The potent herbs are dried and aged. Linda’s Shear Impressions well, I didn’t want anyone My ass off, no one to tell them 402-687-2267 I couldn’t tell mom about. Who I really was, or that I was After you have eaten all this, step up Wrapped in a black cape, Sandy meets Only 15 and far from home. through the glass again. Linda’s eyes in the mirror until a good piece of gossip So I dialed her up, My Mercury faithfully waited the 15 days prompts Sandy to shift her shoulders, turn her head, despite saying I never It took me to serve my sentence You have no home. There is nowhere to look back and up as if the reflection hides would, never could after For the knife, the chain, my smart mouth. to live except within your skin. some portion of the story. The dog tugs west she smothered me, but Back on the road south, always south, away from the two ladies in the window, but know there she was. To beautiful Fresno and my Jehovah —Linda Back McKay, Minneapolis, MN (because Linda cannot say no) Witnessing cousins, where I hid out we will see her late night show again this evening A little older, more Until my father, fearful I’d be converted, with another guest sitting in the chair, sharing stout and plain than Flew out and dragged me back to ? The Runaway from their life or their children’s lives or their neighbor’s. I remember, but there she was, Face the destiny I tried so hard to escape. Midwest—willing to remember Decades later, over half my life in prison, Strapped sublimely at the teat of God, I can only see August— rain, corn, heat. when I was there, ignoring when I left. I still remember my 1956 Mercury and the bringing it out warm and whole, Stars have risen by the time the dog pulls back east 15 year old runaway who couldn’t get away. wet molecules of ecstatic precision— under the streetlight’s orange glow. The sky now black, —Casey Francis, Quincy, IL I swaddled emptily, sky-naked, the First National sign flashes in red lights: —Harlan Richards, Gordon, WI beneath the shocked wood 9:47 87° of the barn decked out in disrepair, then does it again

? where the threshing floor of my brains directed 9:48 87° and Old Address me to abandon my family and run off. 9:49 87° and 9:50 86°. My address book is the crossed out ? And the course of nations lumbers where it will, Illinois Summer numbers of my life. Where my kids and the lives of bullet-ploughed men line up A Mercury Grand Marquis glides past with its low tires have lived. Old girl friends, places in the press-fresh shimmer of the Brand New Testament, humming on the street until it slows where Twilight fell I worked where I needed to connect, slouching bland and googly-eyed toward the world— the Main Street brick ends and becomes the shoulderless and skinned its knee and sometimes did. My parent’s birth yet none of this concerns me in the least, blacktop leading away from town. and Delphi dates, along with others, are jotted who dirtied my ephemera with hay-dust, The car creaks, the steering wheel whines, brought it inside in the back. They moved to Chicago and slung and slashed in God’s shallow puddles then heads back up the street to the medicine cabinet in 1919. My mom with her mother until a thousand mothers’ voices announced warm pies to park in front of Linda’s window. and taped and sisters, my father alone. I call and woven blankets, for my piddled cry. A question mark emerges slowly from the car an antiseptic gauze their old telephone number and wait. as Linda opens the door, back straight and tall, on the wound I picture an ancient, dial-up phone All of these were the chalkboard visions followed by Sandy in the cape. and the blood turned on a party line, mother saying aloud, strung across my sight, like a child’s click-clack eye-toy, The question mark navigates the curb the white gauze “My, my, now who can that be?” But grudging my view of the world of itself, with the help of an exclamation point and a billowing black cloud. a wonderful pink tint the woman who answers is younger. leavening the white sheet of my soul All three figures wave and pause when the dog barks. with hints of blue-grey It’s 1941 and I have just been born. to pound in secret on its useless board. We walk up to hear the exclamation point explain and peach. “Is this really you?” she asks, “Is this to the cloud, then louder for the question mark, my son?” —David Lurie, Milwaukee, WI “That’s Gordon’s grandboy, back probably for just the summer.” —Kenneth P. Gurney, Albuquerque, NM

—John Lehman, Rockdale, WI —Casey Francis, Quincy, IL

12 Verse wisconsin #106 July 2011 VerseWISCONSIN.org 13 By the Numbers Present Perfect Once Upon a Dime Dear Tom, Edmund sprinkled the twenty-third psalm on his eggs and hash browns A new eatery called La Croissant You were already gone at the greasy spoon opened up, the owner, a tall, dark when I got there, whose front door resides Turk, runs the place, coffee served 11/14/06, not ten feet from the bus stop. in cups on saucers, every hot refill Room 114, poured as though it’s his blood. I sat with you till He spreads Isaiah forty-thirty-one 4:11 pm CST, on his toast My wife took me there, a women’s Central Shiva Time. and knows Matthew twenty-two hang out, elegant ambiance, gossip Wire-To-Wire thirty-seven to thirty-nine floating like dust motes-- where I The same numbers are encapsulated in the vitamins wanted to say to my wife--tell me, pile up, You’d scan the text on yellow he swallows with his orange juice. is your old man out on bail yet? some unexplained order paper, the vital wire from the untangling that a boy from Western Union Edmund feels ready to face the world His morning Happy Hour features of your life, delivered. Uncle Vic now that his fortified breakfast dollar-a-cup-coffee, nothing terrific second by second, would promise a platinum Bulova is completely consumed for geezers like me, who recall thread by thread. for graduation. Perhaps and energizes his heart and body, when a dime bought coffee with there’d be a late acceptance so he stands at the bus stop free refills and no added sales tax. Your number is up, from the rare school newspaper under his arm, when it’s up, that didn’t think you stupid. briefcase in hand. Forget this dollar-a-cup cookie shop, 1’s and 4’s You’ve even kept the ones give me Gyros West, the din of early a chugging train, you’d rather forget: Vic Good-bye, 1935 That night, after supper, blue-collar crowds, where coffee mugs rolling boxcars, dead STOP Come Edmund rereads are always full, where you can relax cat’s eyes. among folks with mud on their shoes. now STOP Funeral I sit straight, eyes ahead, hands folded, the Song of Solomon in Ramapo STOP wishing I were somewhere else; in Lisa’s lithe fingers The roll of the dice— I miss mornings with my old writing maybe out on the playground, and the kisses they share. One is a die pal, whose critiques began by asking, He loved you STOP Fifty pushing the merry-go-round Two is a dice what the hell is this story about, amidst years, and wires are rubberized. around and around its slow circle. —Kenneth P. Gurney, Albuquerque, NM Four is a life— the wiggle-jiggle of tattooed waitresses, These are the lines that bind Miss Groethe calls our names: a fortification of family, and clinky clatter of heavy plates, or dribble from breast pockets “Robert.” The boy next to me, ? friends, food, fun, to set the user twittering. who has been Bobby all week, Go Figure a diehard delicious dance of destiny, where kitchen aromas are a mix of After your visiting son steps to the front of the room. good odds for everything. bacon and eggs, biscuits ‘n gravy, Googles a virtual friend We line up, march forward The moon is cut in half. Zero stars. wafting the air with greasy vapors, you face him nose to nose, as Miss Groethe leans to each child, My headlights cover 75% of the wide road orders shouted in Greek and Spanish, —Rick McMonagle, Eugene, OR hear his stomach gurgle. scans each face intently. until I right angle onto my street yesterday’s stains on today’s aprons. You notice his new mole, “Good-bye, Robert. Good-bye, John. and they spill 10% into the drain gullies muss his graying hair, Good-bye, Nina. Good-bye, Barbara. on either side. My garage door takes 30% inhale the onions and peppers Good-bye. Good-bye.” longer to rise on cold nights. The mail box —John L. Campbell, Brookfield, WI from his fajita lunch, Her gray eyes are very bright. squeaks a loud 95% protest remind him to suck mints. For a long time the clock ticks. as it is opened and I pull out 75% ads Suddenly I am afraid. and 25% bills which add up to a 100% A Father’s Regret —Richard Merelman, Madison, WI I am not a child safe disappointment. Dinner costs 10% in a first grade classroom, of my week’s budget but there is only 25% While we scuba dive on a coral reef but . . . what? of the week left so I am ok. The play was not five miles out in the Gulf of Mexico, Bobby drops his pencil; 100% perfect but it was good enough for a jelly fish, like a gigantic, unrolled Nina sniffles. We march out. me to get my money’s worth. So I figure I am condom, attaches itself to my son’s Dimly I understand that on the plus side for the evening. shaved head. Damn, I never got to do the world has changed. shit like this with my dad. But what have I done? —Helen Padway, Milwaukee, WI —John Lehman, Rockdale, WI —Barb Cranford, Hancock, WI

14 Verse wisconsin #106 July 2011 VerseWISCONSIN.org 15 The Killers Stonecarver The killers come and go. The victims (the alleged victims) He fancies himself blend together. Almost always A brother to pirates and corsairs. black males either in or on And he sits in the village tavern the periphery of drug dealing. On the Meaning Of Sporting a beret he bought on a drunken spree In Madison, the week he sold his tombstone works. I write my client’s name This is what life does. Now, he sits and smokes and coughs and swears. on the file in black marker, Wondering After Carmen It wakes you in the morning before He says he does not know read the complaint, go to the jail, the morning glories open and gives you What to make of young people like me. look over the police reports, try Past the ball field behind Nana’s, on the hill the sound of your mother’s voice. All I know is that he is no advertisement for stone carving. to get him out on bail, by the airport fence, we find a mini shrine: Life spreads itself across the ceiling You don’t spend years plowing stone plains with a chisel plea bargain, or go to trial. to make you think you are penned in, Without getting stone farmer’s lung. At sentencing, a rock painted Carmen, a photo of an old but that is just another gift. Talk about beholding fear in a handful of dust. the victim’s family crying woman holding a hairless dog. Dead dog? Life takes what you thought you couldn’t the same things over and over-- live without and gives you a heron instead. —John Sime, Readstown, WI He is missed. He was loved. He loved. Dead mom? A Happy Mother’s Day Or a dragonfly, stitching its way through the milkweed. balloon, nearly dead, creeps us out cold Life contains all of your tears in a vessel The killers come and go. shaped like hands in prayer. Life is shape and touch So do the rapists, so we run like the devil is chasing us, and sound and bone. It whispers and sings and touches the armed robbers, and the burglars. last one home a dead Chihuahua. you all over and you almost never feel it. You push But the child molesters. your way from phase to phase. You are a horse with blinders. I remember them all. Porch safe, we wonder Carmen’s death. You think you are pulling forward but you are being driven. Accomplice How they look Foul ball? Low plane? Maybe vanished. While going about your solitary life, one hoof in front into my eyes out of some dark of the other, real life is turning the stars, like mirrors, I’m the nondescript one in the heavy coat animal terror; how the creepy I imagine an empty wash of tears, that hill in your direction. and the black mood, pockets emptied fidgeting accompanies every lie; a mere solid slope for grief to lean into. of keys and coins, water bottle confiscated. how the reverie of their terrible —Linda Back McKay, Minneapolis, MN pleasures turns a scowl Nana says we’re crazy, no Carmen lives I’m listening to the announcements, one delay into a smile on a dime. here and that’s no way to bury the dead, after another. It’s the way we fly now, drained and edgy, as if we hadn’t slept for a week. How the steel doors, the electric yet tells us not to eat Mr. Hahn’s rhubarb locks, the barbed wire since he sprinkled the patch with his Mrs. At security, an armed guard removes hold us, a Makita drill from someone’s duffel, waves it ? bind us. This is how I learn the truth about faith: Finding a Poem like a weapon-—which perhaps it is-— Nana feeds us veggies born of compost —Thomas J. Erickson, Milwaukee, WI A cat has jumped up on my chair, and scans the rest of us, all implicated. and crap but won’t dare taste the neighbor, is there a verse there? I have seen this same cat everyday We shrink into our suddenly insufficient skins, No One Ever Asked Me… believes more in a living God in heaven for eight years, we have grown a bit older together avert our eyes and study our guilty hands. and all the poems residing in his night-dark fur have ... a decorated Vietnam vet, if I killed than a dead Carmen in her own backyard. been spoken. He’ll have to wait today. I’m earbudded, buzzed with caffeine anyone. Not my son, my dad, my Look, I say, but she won’t, ever. Not even and fluorescence, the one in the last row, grandkids nor my wife. My answer The other one lies sleeping considering varieties of weather, whether is Steven Craven, an Army sergeant. when I threaten to dig, not when I lash out and there is nothing new about a sleeping cat, is there? the flight will go, whether there’s a code-word,

that even Jesus unearthed himself as proof. His tail curls around his body like a snake; his eyes are closed some inside information I should know. Of an almost three-hundred battalion but his ears are alert waiting for a breath of excitement men, he’s the one who didn’t return. Instead, she says enough. It’s getting dark, I had asked for volunteers to build —Antonia Clark, Winooski, VT and it’s my turn to tend the garden. or perhaps a poem of his own, but he is probably sick of writing a school. His rifle rested against a tree visit VW Online for audio by this author about his people and how they sit for hours in front of a computer when he was shot. But you are not staring at him and tapping away expectantly. responsible for that, you might object. —Cathryn Cofell, Appleton, WI And I’d look you in the eye and say, Oh yes we are. —Jackie Langetieg, Verona, WI visit VW Online for audio by this author —John Lehman, Rockdale, WI 16 Verse wisconsin #106 July 2011 VerseWISCONSIN.org 17 ? ? Revising Your Poems found a poem worthy of them. Sometimes it’s what carried over to my free verse and improved my we’re not poems. It tightened the writing, resulting in by Michael Kriesel But if memory isn’t that helpful, keep these that matters most. richer musicality. So many planets have to line up for a poet to Otherwise we’d all like echoes waiting for a sound. gems in a folder, a journal, or even just save reach full potential. Revision is one of them. still be in Egypt Mutely my shoes lead me all the various drafts of your poems, combing (published in Verse Wisconsin) These days half my poems are forms and half Not Jupiter, but maybe Mercury. You wouldn’t raising pyramids to a lobby, then an elevator, through them periodically for new ways of are written in free verse. I’ve also gone back write poems if you didn’t like playing with finally a penthouse office. approaching the ideas / material. These can 6. Leftover Lines and revised many older poems, some written words. So why not develop that playfulness and I’d be sitting Floor-to-ceiling windows sing also be the seeds for future poems. several years ago. further…via revision? at that wooden table with exclamation points of light! Sometimes a line you’ve cut from an earlier dicing onions with No one’s sitting at the desk 5. Haiku Titles draft makes an interesting title. That’s what I On average I spend 10-40 hours on a poem, 1. Last Line First / Best Line First a pretty servant girl. big as four pool tables. did in this one: 2-3 hours each morning. First drafts are usually Veins of pink and yellow For years my titles sucked. Some mightily. Most easy, flowing out in an hour or two. With Got a lackluster poem? Take the last line (or If not for death squiggle in the marble. often they were barely competent, content to Steering from the Passenger Side the second draft, the poem’s 90% done. The the best line) and throw out everything else. I’d still be drowning I see a vacancy and fill it. label things: Sailor on a Greyhound, Communion, majority of time for me is spent fine tuning via Start over with that one line as the opening of in her slender river, The universe runs itself. Country Garage. You get the picture. Somewhere near the county line drafts #3 on, getting that last 10% of the poem a whole new poem. Use the process to reboot clutching my bronze A black chrysanthemum closes my piece of shit Dodge dies. as perfect as possible. your brain. continuously, deflowering Then about a year ago, I loosened up. I belonged The sun melts my jeans paring knife with creation at the end of time. to an online critique group, and one day I and black t-shirt like I’ll often return to a poem months later. 2. Saving What Works its bone handle, sent out a poem entitled Phantosmia (a term biodegradable trash bags. Sometimes years go by between revisions (or instead of waking up 4. Start A Salvage Yard for olfactory hallucinations). But I was a little A mile later, my cock drops off. versions), as with Drinking With Your Ghost… Often more than just one line needs to be with a wet pillow tired that day, maybe a little punchy, and in the A crow snags it, tumbling up extracted and expanded on. Here’s a failed Start a salvage yard of images, ideas, and lines subject line I wrote Though I Detest Incense, Still like a birthday balloon Drinking With Your Ghost After The Funeral Abecedarium of mine that contained an idea half hypnotized by saved from broken poems. Some lines of mine I Smell God. or a shingle torn off hell’s roof worth salvaging. The germ of a separate poem yellow serpents have taken years to find their final resting in a windstorm. Sitting in a pickup in the middle of a field, is in boldface. swimming on her place. Here’s an extreme example, composed A few of my critique group members said they the engine ticking down to nothing, dark blue dress. mostly of old lines, which I’ve boldfaced. liked the subject line a lot better than the title. No other cars. windows filled with rows Where Light Goes So I used it. Since I didn’t think the subject line My flat feet slap the yellow line. of corn stalking into shadow, In the case of “Old Flame,” revision helped Like Sunglasses You Can’t Take Off “counted” or mattered, I had allowed myself to Blacktop burns my soles. I drink until you’re sitting next to me Zombie Christ rises like a B movie. me follow the vein in the marble—more of be more creative with it. I kept doing this…and I’m dangling my legs in the ditch, though we both know Yet be not deceived. None return from death. a hands-off approach, allowing the poem How the hand’s a planchette for the soul then began incorporating a lesson I’d learned staring at a thistle’s ultraviolet you’re really at the cemetery, X is the true cross of man, marks the spot to develop the way it wanted to, and not from writing haiku. In haiku you pair two crown when my eyes fall out. what was left of you after the accident concealed where light goes, leaving images behind. according to my preconceptions. This doesn’t and religion’s like ice cream: images that aren’t obviously connected, but that Two bushes sprout and I see clearly by oak and bronze and varnish and miraculously Vivid an instant. Gone but permanent. happen often, but when it does, I end up Peanut Butter Buddha, Key Lime Christ. have a kind of subconscious resonance between through a hundred yellow berries, healed Understand, like light, we die. Otherwise with something I wouldn’t have otherwise, them, like the invisible sparks between magnets. in all directions like a fly— in everybody’s memory. time would stop. We’d all still be in Egypt, something different from what I’d normally So many beautiful lies about time I began writing titles that didn’t have a literal the road ahead, the way back home, Still the whiskey still building pyramids, still watching the write. Sometimes that leads my writing in a our memories sieve from our lives. connection to their poems, but that somehow the flyspeck of that crow, lurches back and forth between us in the river of snakes swimming the dress of that new direction. complemented them. Here’s one example: my body by the road. muddy cute Egyptian girl dicing onions, a Tint all the graveyards you want with light until the bottle’s dry paring knife in her hand. My eyes are wet 3. Follow Through stained glass Like a Raspberry Seed Between My Teeth One of my titles was even a recycled one-line and dark as that smoked glass on waking, face numb from loss. Her face still haiku (there are such things) that had been we used to watch eclipses through, no less real than mine. Or that pair of eyes— Sometimes I get off to a good start…and just no one comes back from the dead Across the road published in a leading haiku journal: A whale though tonight magician’s eyes—from fifteen years ago. stop. “Atheist Heaven” was originally five lines. except in zombie movies. a white screen door slaps. of stars swallows me. there’s just a wobbly moon Lord of Illusions, The Great Sandini Redwing blackbirds scatter. and a few raccoons knifed my soul, staring from a 10-foot tall The crow in my throat says goodbye— Even my label titles got better: Bat Boy Finds stealing corn like no one’s there. jet-black poster. An ephemera shop Atheist Heaven black boomerang that gave me gravity. Cattails’ slow explosions Love, Friday Night at the Haiku A Go-Go, (1985) in Pike Place Market. Like twin eclipses fill the ditch. Viral Savior, Popeye Murders Me, Superboy his eyes burned through the decades between us, There’s an empty church in heaven, I say ah, tasting smoke as it goes. I crack a beer and watch. Robots, Dead Poets in Hell. Loosening what I drinking with your ghost glowed like fire opals. Grew white hot as road a spray of stars I don’t believe in. thought was acceptable as a title also allowed raccoons steal corn flares. Gazed on the essential dead, bricks in I walk for hours staring at my feet. I’d rather say zebras sport unicorn horns Last night at the Badger Tap me to expand my range of topics, and vice like no one’s there ethereal pyramids. Agnostic, Dark houses crowd the street orange as traffic cones someone asked me why versa. Some of these “looser” poems have been (2010) dad gets a Christian burial. Some small like echoes waiting for a sound. I came back to Wisconsin. accepted by Alaska Quarterly, Antioch Review, (published in Modern Haiku 42.2 Summer 2011) comfort to mom. We drive through sloppy snow. but halos dissolve here Crab Creek Review, and Rattle. Below, toads hibernate. And I curse time’s More than a year later, I finally followed like wintergreen Life Savers. Even in peacetime Revision won’t magically make a bad poem architect for being right, forever. through on the idea. ten years in the navy 7. My Road To Revision good, or a good poem great. But if there are In my brain’s basement, a reference librarian was killing me. seeds of goodness, uniqueness, or greatness Here’s what I developed from the above: Atheist Heaven sits at a gray, metal, government desk. When Until five years ago I only wrote free verse, currently in your work, adding revision to the I’m writing, she hands me whatever old image An east-to-west airliner revising very little. Then I started working in equation will give your poetry a much better Old Flame There’s an empty church in heaven, or line I need, when I need it. It’s a blessing slowly flies over. forms, and revising more, getting the poem to chance of developing its full potential. a spray of stars I don’t believe in. in this line of work, to be sure. Often these Its contrail spreads. flow better within the constraints of whatever I’m glad we die. Dark houses crowd the streets phrases are years (or decades) old, but never form I was working in. This revision habit 18 Verse wisconsin #106 July 2011 VerseWISCONSIN.org 19 This Book of Signal Spell and Secret Sigil Sigil 4: The Incantation Was found in the armoire of Raz Durose, Amit Majmudar Physician to the King and Queen of Jordan. for commanding the twenty-six Succubi; Commentary on the Second Table, or the Table of the Variables: to be spoken with a Marble under the tongue. Its Hebrew was Englished by one Emmet Siegel, The Pricklypear Grimoire The hamlet, a fish possessing both Male and Female organs of Whose agent told him he should stick to prose. A generation, knows the act of Union from both perspectives, Triangle on serif legs, But how it got here’s hardly that important— B like the Greek mage, Tiresias (though he was first male, then Squat and lay a twinning Egg. C female, then male again, never both simultaneously). This is Single-horseshoed, halfbreed Mare, Only the Spirit matters, only the Spell is binding, D the rare, sexual wisdom of the androgynous Archmage (whom Wag your tongue at me no more. Only the Hidden will reward the Finding. and holds Creation still for contemplation in the Web of his E some call , and others, ) transcending the mere Leave the shortest leg unnamed, connections, every line of his a high wire between precipices, Jesus Maddalena F sexual which is the Seducer’s, that is, Satan’s. The Break my right, I’m still not lame. Only the Unseen is worth rewinding. traversing which would otherwise take a leap of faith. The knowledge G true Magus, like the indecisive hamlet, opts for both, his eyes Evil is a cul-de-sac, Spider reproduces the Mind of the Maker at the time of the H his ovaries. The fertility of self-love is infinite; it is always in the Push the Pillars, hear them crack; Act. The Magus must become a Spider-man, growing eight I One’s left standing, roof and foot, Sigil 1: The Double Helix mood. arms—and writing with them all. J Till the Stone has snaked a Root.

K Hedgehog on the Norman strand, Four letters climb the winding stair, Sigil 2: The x and y Axes Sigil 3: The $eptapartite $erpent L Pistol in a dead man’s hand, The Tree, the Cat, the Grin, the Air; M Buckle, ceiling, in the middle, Two strands must braid to make the ladder, Here is the highest Sigil, that commands Two straight lines, Level and Upright, N Draw a slash across the riddle. Live Wire linked to Lethal Adder; Demonic spirits like so many hands, The x and y, the Breadth and Height, O Mahu’s mouth is but a Hole Four letters stepwise spiral higher, The Leaf that’s green at the same time it’s gold, The Collarbones athwart the Spine, P When the Flag is on the Pole; The Tomb, the Ant, the Ground, the Choir. As hard to grow as it is to hold. Rafters of longing, pillar of pine: Q When the Splinter’s Gouged the Ball, Temptation, figured as the S beginning Before they made the Crucifix, these R Recess ends, and Britain falls; Draw a grid, 4 x 4. The words for Simper, Summer, Simmer, Sinning, Four right angles formed two Axes; S For the Serpent has not lost Chant aloud: “Elsinore, And then the parallels that sever it Four nineties, when the math was squared, T Till the Ropes have stood the Cross; Dunsinane, Blackamoor, In seven bits. Equalled one Intelligible Sphere. U Till he fill the inkwell Grail, Heathen rain.” Then insert V Hammering will crook the Nail, These occult characters, When Xenophon weds Yourcenar Lucky number 7 x 7, W Icicles will tooth the gutter, Cross the top, down the left, To music yoking the effects Prime like 3, but not in heaven— X Error red-pen all we utter. From old Rome’s alephbeth. Of Xylophones and Yodelers, Not the holy, the high roller. Y Blossom, Tree, and fruit with Fig:

Then his XY and her XX Mater dolorosa? Dollarous dollar— Z Zag shall be restored to Zig. A C T G Shall yes and more and yes and yes The higher the priest, the whiter the collar.

C Metaphor Rhythm Image And with two letters spell all texts.

T Spider Cicada Scarab [Raz Durose’s Doggerel Marginalia to the Foregoing: S E R P E N T G Shakespeare Swinburne Pound Hajji Yusuf swung a U E Carbon Glucose Sweetness Your The Whole Pie Someone And ended up in Xanadu Piece of Else’s Amit Majmudar’s first book, 0°,0° Commentary on the First Table, or the Table of the So did a serious Syrian come the Pie Pie, with [Zero Degrees, Zero Degrees], Deoxyribonucleotides: To the pleasure-domes of heathendom] Whipped (Northwestern University Press/ Cream TriQuarterly Books, 2009) was a Graph a grid 2 x 2, From the al-Qur’an, and the various traditions surrounding R Oxygen Air Breath National Strictly Militarization finalist for the Norma Farber First One for me, one for you, the Prophet Mahomet, the true Magus learns that the making Airspace Enforced No- of Space Book Award. His second manuscript, Abel, Cain, intertwined, of images is forbidden, or haraam. The mind that multiplies Fly Zones Heaven and Earth, won the 2011 reality does so by feeding on Thought, as reflected back to it Twin intents, single Mind, Donald Justice Award. His first novella, in Perception (which is reality without Thought); and by doing Vulpine y, death and growth, P Nickel Dime Savings Expense Golden Toilet Golden Azazil, was serialized recently in The so feeds, as it were, upon a body without soul, as the scarab Vervet x, love them both. Account Account Parachute Kenyon Review over three issues. His thrives on the corse of Pharaoh. Just so the cicada will clack its E Helium Levity Levitation Flight Lunar Landing Overpriced first novel, Partitions, was published by Henry Holt/Metropolitan in 2011. timbrals, but the sound is out of proportion to the Insect making Lunar Real X Y His poetry has been featured on Poetry it. The attempt to turn language into music is to shuck words of Estate Daily several times and has appeared in their meaning, and hence the Original Word (as spoken of in X Hamlet N Lead Lead Lead Psychosis Development Gold Poetry Magazine and The Best American Genesis) of its Divine Meaning; to throw away the silent kernel of Pipes Poisoning of Alchemy Poetry 2007. He lives in Dublin, Ohio. Creation, and treasure the percussive husk. The supreme Weaver is the Spider, who spins out gossamer Metaphor from his belly, T Hydrogen Hydro Plant Life Crude Oil Fusion Bikini Atoll carbons Reaction

20 Verse wisconsin #106 July 2011 VerseWISCONSIN.org 21 Three Card Monte Confession

I haven’t been since eighth grade. 1. Poet as Dealer In high school once,

I followed a girl Ménage-a-card is what I play post-poetry – words (then hands) Selected Animal Cracker Stories into the girl’s lavatory. will find-the-lady, leave their mark Her marching orders 1. Congress votes on the upper class baggy pants The girl’s name was Caroline.

interviews dyed blonde during a four hundred dollar My brother once had a Golden Retriever; in clever dedications. I’ll mark The soft incessant hum hair cut green beans farm bill. And before you can her book with scotch rings, stretch the play of the refrigerator whistle Dixie Chicks a seeing eye dog serves in three I liked that dog more from bar to bed. Which one? My hands was playing in her head different wars then retires in a hula skirt. than most people I know. all afternoon, until I never liked . first brush black’s wrist, and then my hands The Canterbury Tales finally she opened 2. A brothel riding in the back of a van spots Girl Scout Momentum run zig-zag down red’s back. I play the back door, cookies on an oil rig of rocket-propelled grenades fired I think that French fries the poems, read my queens and mark – grabbing her pocketbook, into the toilet stall where a senator caught a line drive are a vegetable and country I. and walked out ball playing against her sister Serena in the US tennis is the Special Olympics I mark to win, or play more hands. of the kitchen, shoes, airborne with the no-smoking sign on. On the Friday night we did not go leaving the door open; of music. I have a short to San Francisco I went to a poetry 2. Queen of Hearts she didn’t look back 3. The unidentified man used only barbed wire to cut an attention span. I hold grudges, reading and you were in the hospital on the piles of dishes identity card out of crowds of young Iraqis with landmines and have more regrets because you weren’t you. Devoted to his art, his hands stacked up in the sink blooming in Baghdad. Later, the mugger runs through the punch air with gestures, leave a mark or that she had left park in her car under a streetlight swatting asphyxia on than you could shake a stick at. You asked me to bring you back that fades, won’t last beyond what’s played the water running, a skateboard speeding downhill in the pouring rain. I repeat myself. My French a present so I wrote you a poem she just turned is nowhere near as fluent about not going to San Francisco for laughs or tears, seductions played the corner of the house 4. Or in the mind of magnolias as neighbors talk over a while you stayed in your room to raise the stakes. He slides his hands and walked out fence of boundless AK-47s to capitulate. Voluptuous lips. as when I lived in France and read Anna Karenina. around my waist in jest, a mark to the street; Phenomenal hips. This interconnection of single lawn 27 years ago. I like to play with matches. the never ending mowers. O swinging suburbia, with a post office in Safeway, I’m usually the only person On Saturday night, I played cribbage to make me his. He thinks this mark humming still ringing wearing flip-flop Jacuzzi, grows in my organic garden. at the bar with the old-timers. You is easy, weak for rhyme, that hands in her head in the room who thinks I’m funny. made popcorn and tried to get this fast get everything but played, down to her heart; I couldn’t tell you the other patients to dance. —Maurice Oliver, Portland, OR she walked whether I have life insurance. yet played he is. My hands mark red. down the block, On Sunday, you washed your hair waited at the bus stop, I prefer my hammock and waited for me to come so 3. Queen of Spades got on the first bus Shuffling Through The Evening News to work or church. we could talk. with no clear idea I go to the movies by myself It’s poetry that leaves the mark, of where or why Dinner time kerosene heart burn of fluids in the swine II. not him – the words, the beat, the play she was going; dish curled as if it were a ram’s head of sweetbread cork and I love it. of rhyme. I want the flaming hand, she just knew The mums--the ones you got she had to make a move opener wine glass from five and dime or a fetus-fired from your dad when you were the muse divine and not the hand —Richard Hedderman, Wauwatosa, WI before she went crazy, napkin holder with lint in a pocket book of time based in the hospital in April-- he’s inching toward my thigh. No mark she just knew are opening again. he makes on me takes flight. No play she wouldn’t be missed on the hierarchy of supply line border patrols of an until dinner time. incestuous nature a sisterhood of road rage stuffed in It’s too late, though. that vows he’ll read my work or play The freeze is coming tonight the go-between will make me mark —Charles Portolano, a dumpster smells like old gym shoes now fast forward and by tomorrow their yellow lids his bed. This queen unmans the hand, Fountain Hills, AZ to a truncheon interviewing the windsurfer about higher will be permanently peeking out.

a hand in play without a mark. tuition or poppy fields of the open-minded with the exception At the grass turning brown always being drew when he sees women suckling in public. the wilted stalks falling —Marybeth Rua-Larsen, Somerset, MA the flitting of the sparrows.

—Maurice Oliver, Portland, OR —Thomas J. Erickson, Milwaukee, WI

22 Verse wisconsin #106 July 2011 VerseWISCONSIN.org 23 testing my worth weekly Arabella’s Birthday What One Has

wednesday At the piano, scrunching her pecan toes I’m having lunch with a friend mornings The Average Couple in their little boats of shoes, she says and I hear the pleasure i bring the garbage she presses the compliant pedal, allowing the vibrations in her voice. It’s her birthday after around I no longer know what is true and what is untrue. to linger longer in the wood and in the air— all and my best wish is for her to be from the back The lies fly back and forth. Our tongues become us. the case of mahogany, the soundboard happy, perhaps having a glass of of tight-grained spruce. of the house And what do I see in the mirror but the man who said, fine wine in a small bistro in Chelsea to the front “As it is now it will always be.” with someone new and interesting Lately, it is the scent of cedar and the resonance And you must have the same delusions. who may be more than a friend of brass-wound strings i sit myself down or not, the moment is the essence The glass gives back what you want to believe. that lift her spirit, grant momentary wings next to two vanishing as the scent dissipates or sound dies. of this transaction in my head. Today trash-filled cans But we’ve been at this a lifetime. I had lunch with three friends as I do and a blue How many times did we meet by the bandstand? In the rocking chair, she sharpens pencils on most days, but today we didn’t talk container A thousand, maybe ten. with a little sharpener made of brass. of the vagaries of dark rooms as we of recyclables Sleep Cycle And what about those walks through the park? The cedar shavings that curl on her fingers call corporate amerika. We talked to see if Even my solitary strolls include you now. she saves in a muslin sack. of travel and sports and may have they would Dark thoughts tumble. The first lie was who else would have me. touched on a book or two but mostly take me A laundry list of niggles, Maybe that was the first truth as well. For her birthday, there was a frosted, candled cake, it was about anything except the day along doubts and regrets. a little choir of flames on spiraling stalks, to day that tends to consume with the rest of it Throw in a sneaker But isn’t life built on lies. her name in florid, sugar-ice script, all of us and turn our winning smiles to balance the load It’s the glue that holds the monotony together. frosting flowers frozen forever on the verge. into those parenthetic frowns popular —Casey Quinn, and then it’s thump Let candor have its way on twitter these days. My daughter They sang, she wished, she blew, Charlotte, NC & thud all night long. and the whole thing could collapse into hatred. is 24. It seems like only yesterday Well, indifference anyway. extinguishing the flickering motes of mystery. she was born between two blizzards —Antonia Clark, Winooski, VT on Cape Cod, snow so high, wind visit VW Online for audio by this author And yet, we do have a lovely house. They ate the wedges of cake, dismembering it so strong, I spent her first night with slice by slice, We’ve been convinced since the day we bought it. her and her mother in a hospital bed

? the angle of emptiness left by the vanishing cake And two cars that are, according to the cramped but safe and dry; the energy Not Sleep widening like clock hands flying farther apart. advertisement, better than every other car. and love I felt from those tiny fingers There’s even a kid on the way. The nights I scream I have no dreams. clutching the blanket and finally And wombs don’t lie. People walked wineglasses around the house, Wake early. Tired. sat on the back deck where torches spewed my fingers was more than a weak

The nights I dream I dread to wake citronella smoke, hearted man could ever endure. Sometimes, I need to get away from it all, to obligations, silence. spoke about work, the weather, and what go fishing with the guys. The nights that sleep keeps vigil they’d one day do. —Marc Swan, Portland, ME Surprisingly, the lies don’t fester in my absence, with the sweaters in my dresser drawers They ferment into a kind of wine, in fact. are nights ignored with novels. Arabella slides into her shoes—little canvas canoes— You can sip it while you go about your business, bound The times that migraines knock me to the floor and glides along the hall. feel its warmth all the way down. are neither sleep nor waking: She sits on the bottom stair, curls her cashew toes, Call it love. The actors on TV do. each word in this poem is stolen I close down to darkness, open late to clumsiness scratches her walnut nose, from the books that sit surrounding me d i s s i p a t e. her body an assemblage of things that might one day Love. Now that’s one hell of a lie. sprout into trees. It’s like the trout I caught the last time, i’m not ashamed to say i’m drunk on irish whiskey They say that cells have memories. Perhaps a giant in the telling but, in reality, She leaves the house, walks up the hill, or my lover lies waiting in a bed steps away each cell sings its own desire -- flight, swimming, relocate? had it been any tinier sits beneath the gingko tree— near the window where Perhaps each cell remembers ocean: the small, wet plankton and the screaming fish. Perhaps I’d have had to throw it back. its scimitar leaves hanging like earrings snowflakes now fall when cells feel safe they weep and shake, And yet, how good it tasted. or axe heads pelting out metaphors rage against the blood-deep hate At least, we said it did. along the upswept branches. pattern pressing on their walls, piling, piling that the body, wisely, wipes from its last nerve —John Grey, Johnston, RI She thinks of the cake and sees a clock— to serve the greater good the cake a clock, the clock a face— up to our spines faces pierced in seven places to allow the air, and wake. the light, sounds, scent, and food —Jesse Manser, Milwaukee, WI to reach us in our lonely house of bone. visit VW Online for audio by this author —P.R. Dyjak, Stevens Point, WI —Timothy Walsh, Madison, WI 24 Verse wisconsin #106 July 2011 VerseWISCONSIN.org 25 Formula One Indianapolis Ailings American Idol This is road racing where they Sore - Uncle Dom dropping in, a little short this month. Other echoes changed the Indy 500 oval– not just muscle cars roaring round Abscess - Dom back, still as charming. Just a little more, Mary? inhabit the garden. Shall we follow? crap it’s almost christmas Blood poisoning - Dom skippedy-do; your wallet’s twenties too. —Eliot, “Burnt Norton” and round, but made into this tricky track, curvy chicanery. kmart layaway commercials Ache – your husband, lounge chair lumpen specimen, Far from the icy air of Plato’s forms The announcer over rock ‘n roll setting new records for TV catatonia. they float like lesser gods, fluid, at this “citadel of speed” are on the tv Throb - Melanie, next cubicle over, everyone’s therapist ephemeral through this, our world pumps the crowd, some waving

phone drone. I’m here for you. Blah, blah, blah. of vistaed screens, 25-ounce Foster’s cans, concession one year when we were poor Spasm - your sister, family reunion, 80 decibels: each celebrity du jour stands and giant signs everywhere. my mom bought me luke skywalker You hate me, you always did! voted in then voted off— on layaway Fans wave Ferrari flags. Ulcer - the town’s only factory gone, its sludge pool —As if it’s a show, reality, The Swan, Hell’s Kitchen, On the tightest curves camera buffs but he was on backorder a tourist attraction. Project Runway, another stab at the mappa mundi, expansion crowd the woven fence. and christmas day came and went Amputation - Main Street stores lopped away, one by one. westward, atomic trail— Beer and brats, lucky cool May day. Paralysis – your job gone, your house in foreclosure; Giant screens at strategic spots my friend graham got han solo you, its pillar, in its shadowed center. Here’s the passkey I need to get preview the drivers the cars and I felt bad for han connected, the tunes loaded, the hours to go. This is how from Spain, Germany, Italy, having to take on the dark side all on his own —Richard Swanson, Madison, WI I know I’m American, no dizzy drive India, Canada, none American yet through minefields; no hot pursuit graham let me know when han by angered kings— but plenty of Yanks in the stands, was about to go on a mission nations united for speed! and I’d go over to his place and here they come nineteen ? Here’s trying to keep my image up, thousand five hundred rpm Waiting stylist at work while I track a hundred channels. million dollar engines’ mosquito come to think of it Here’s Posh & Becks, our latest whine and million dollar tires. graham let me know about “I wouldn’t call it a time bomb,” he says. immigrants. No live-in help since When drivers let up on the gas every mission that winter I would. they like to wander naked, lounge backfiring like wartime you can’t I kick him in the foot. in stylish dishabille. hear yourself think or even graham also knew I kept that page The cancer on my kidney, my only kidney, is inside me, not him. feel yourself tingling just the cars! from the jc penney catalogue This young surgeon looks 18, must be 30, 35. With a knockout figure like mine, the stylist says, with luke’s picture He has the power to decide. angling for a better tip, I, too, could sport The crowd ecstatic at last in my pocket I have to wait. a posh bob, I could go that blonde. for this they flew oceans fought Four months, since June. snarls of traffic walked miles —Jesse Manser, Milwaukee, WI —Jane Satterfield, Baltimore, MD to this tightly controlled and safe visit VW Online for audio by this author I’m not a whiner. I don’t have panic attacks or headaches. violence, such innocence, nations At least I didn’t used to. united in the mystique of speed Now I shake and skill 220 miles an hour where In the middle of the night, or when I’m sitting at the dinner table. are we speeding the earth 67,068 ? My husband holds me and we wait. Partners miles an hour around the sun the sun 44,712 miles an hour Heart come(s) closer. Years of vertigo Now we parry and thrust with this doctor, asking our questions. My surgeon ran over me with a robot, around the galaxy the further expose an inner tide: Cannot stay put— Starting at my belly button, punched six holes for cameras and the galaxies are the faster inhale sends torso forward, exhale, back. I ask for one more test. probes. they move apart the farthest Underneath, heartbeat pushes to and fro— “All right,” he says, and I get a new scan, right then. After an interval he calls me back into his office. He drives that thing like a racecar, Catch shadow on wall, moving. quasar 15 billion light-years away “This is good,” he says. “I see it better now. Enjoys driving his robot, zapping tumors. I admire his skill. any galaxy with a redshift greater Lose a breast and heart’s right there, right I can take that off.” We are confederates he and I. than 1.4 is moving away from us under palm, its steady muscle pushing against rib faster than the speed of light We share a laugh together two days later in my hospital room. and intercostal muscles to muscles of hand— I get on the surgery schedule for December. where is it going where are we going I have six holes in my gut, Feel pulse from heart as well as pulse on this lucky cool June day? But the cancer is all gone. in palm, from blood thrust against skin. —Ester Prudlo, Montgomery,AL & Fitchburg, WI Slowly after every race they vacuum the old brickyard blacktopped now. ster rudlo ontgomery itchburg —Sara Greenslit, Madison, WI —E P , M ,AL & F , WI —R. Virgil Ellis, Cambridge, WI 26 Verse wisconsin #106 July 2011 VerseWISCONSIN.org 27 Something Writing with My Left Hand Skyscape

I’m writing this with my left hand Prague is called the city of a hundred towers, When he said asparagus he meant perpendicular. When he said concentrating on every word, every letter noted for the many spires and basilicas which chair he meant singular. When he went crazy he took no one with there is no flow here—no grace to these words dot a picture postcard perfect horizon. him. When he came back from wherever he was he wasn’t happy with I am writing this with my left hand whomever it was he returned with. Not that Ancient streets he didn’t recognize who it was more he wasn’t in the mood. For mood as my right hand twitches with anxiety golden enchantments he meant something else and for something else he meant to say the muscle use is different, the thoughts unfamiliar Old World lure Can you give me directions to the nearest grocery store? When he said am I the person still writing or is this the grocery store he meant The Statue of Liberty. When he said voice of shadow-shell of self Still—the capital of the crossroads of statue he meant whomever. Europe, residence of mad monarchs, visited I used to be this person, spinning the world on by musical geniuses, ma vlast to many more Whenever he said he meant and whenever he said has nothing on his local terrain. tree tree My Fault a separate axis; my right hand needs to hold water he meant water. When he said spring he meant almost here. the page down, to stop the world from spinning When he said he did not know what he meant so he stood there No alchemy sky The sun was hot, the wind calm. away and falling off the desk for hours in the side yard confusing the roof of his garage with the here: tourists crowd I wanted a few minutes of quiet conversation I’m writing this with my left hand and it’s tiresome neighbor’s chimney nearby. When he thought he wanted to medieval sites nearby with the friends who had joined us on the sailboat mean but really it didn’t. Instead it meant now. sky while our kids explored the island of Poros. my left hand is stronger and has more scars the arthritis hurts more, the fingers more crooked To the north, St. Louis’ minaret steeple on We knew about the meltemme, how the wind Once in the middle of the night in the middle of a dream while he the left and St. Patrick’s dome on the right whips up most summer afternoons in the Aegean, for some reason my teeth are clenched slept in the middle of the bed he remembered the word as I’m writing this with my left hand form the vertical arms of a massive goalpost but it hadn’t happened to us. So I left the dock lines that frames the moment, waits on a hasty Hail morning. When he woke he said morning but really he meant on deck to be coiled later, after we had rested awhile. Mary play. tomorrow. And when tomorrow came he said nothing. my right hand is laughing at me—not so godly after all Suddenly, the foresail filled and split. Midtown the Ramada shoots eight stories towards Of course he meant something but nothing very specific. this is starting to cramp but I have more to say In our rush to get it down, the stars, its plush burgundy carpet interior maybe it is the right hand who writes in shadow someone kicked a line overboard. and matching awnings outside anchor the seat maybe this is who I was meant to be: The stiff main would not go up. of misplaced Midwestern wealth. —CX Dillhunt, Madison, WI graceless, unrefined, sincere. It is difficult to write this way. The propeller gagged on the line. On the southern outskirts, St. Peter’s posits There we were in the midst a squat, square turret like a solid, righteous of a fullblown meltemme —James Reitter, Sheboygan, WI thumb, architectural embodiment of Luther’s with no power, headed hymn, a might fortress indeed… straight to a rocky shore. Lake View ? Never used a sea anchor Look upward angel, but soon learned to mount it home seen from We often hear of the shimmering diamonds strewn and steer the boat before the wind the ground floor across the surface of a grand body of water while at a headlong pace into the harbor we had left. the sharp white peaks of sailboats cut through the air. They Lower San Biagio Blessing Children into My Arms —G. A. Scheinoha, Eden, WI Anchor- stopped in thirty feet. Usually overlooked is the intrusive angling Over the side to cut the line. La chiesa di San Biagio, Gerfalco, Toscana, Italia of the breakwater, dark and corroded The prop worked, thank the gods, by years of overuse, the tug and the barge and we motored sheepishly to shore. The small wooden church pew has been turned around below the high, single back window looking out onto the castle as boards lean trailing thick trains of smoke. That evening, taking turns into the gap between the seat and the back pointing upward along the massive entrance doors, wood clamps holding this ready-made with a heavy needle to mend the sail, saintly slide, the ropes attached above his shoulders where Massimo our Maestro Vetratista has carefully removed two pieces of glass We are familiar with the young lovers we talked in hushed tones. (one on the right and one on the left from the top corners of the middle section) where Césare our blacksmith today agrees his iron watching clouds floating by in each other’s eyes, The image we never fail to see frame is strong enough and I am told if anything goes wrong get out of the way save yourself after all Biagio is huge and heavy and as we tell this story is the look on the face a half empty bottle of wine and a wicker picnic basket mostly glass and we can fix him put him back together, make a newone and if we are lucky he will mostly stay together even though of our least-experienced sailor as she said holding down the corners of a windblown blanket. some of his pieces are bulging, his lead is weak, and chunks of his glass have already fallen with the old cement during his careful five- while we were struggling with the sails, hour removal from the hole in the wall above. Forgotten is the specter standing What do you mean, keep it into the wind? at water’s edge, hands neatly clasped When the blacksmith and the master window maker ask if I am ready, I can feel the sun pouring through into the early afternoon, behind his back as he searches —Estella Lauter, Fish Creek, WI still-cold church, San Biagio hanging there waiting, and standing firm above them all, holding one of the ropes, is The Father of the the dusk-colored vastness for a memory. Priest, who introduced himself that way, smiling.

I look up. Shield my eyes. Say, Yes, yes, I am. —Christopher Austin, Milwaukee, WI

28 Verse wisconsin #106 July 2011 —C X Dillhunt, Madison, WI VerseWISCONSIN.org 29 Aftermath Always Inside This House Dog Bite

1. Always inside this house another house I thought there would be warning signs This memory begins at the unlocked door the turnoff to your street without longs to be built, gorgeously reconstructed (like the hiss from my cat or the whine of a hinge). with my anxious call. seeing a brightly-colored doll. from the raw island ruins of accidental fire I glance at your cat sleeping in the next room and flawed faraway lives, its near-naked I thought that moving furniture then my eyes rest on a lifesize doll 5. rooms exposing sheet rock & nails, sooty sails was a good way to be useful, to belong. in a beautiful orange caftan. A secret festered, destroyed one life of wallpaper adrift over bunk beds, You hang suspended threatened others. I even thought that choices all in the dining area of your kitchen. The afternoon before you left us, windows painted shut to loving beds belonged to me including I don’t know how long. I saw you framed at the end of our office hall. of bulb lilies in the shore-yard, this house The sound of my sustained howl is shocking You sat so still, like sculpted stone. a reminder that all architecture is a sail the one we never talk about– as I run upstairs to the phone in your study When your friends called that night unfurling the past, a deconstruction who gets to die, who lives forever. where I can barely speak. In the minutes you put us off, would not let us under fog, flammable and stark naked before help arrives, I stumble sobbing pass through that door. form anyone’s predawn drowsy fire I didn’t think a small white dog to your bedroom, where you have not slept, could catch me unaware, and yet see the notes you laid out on the bed. —Estella Lauter, Fish Creek, WI might spark and catch hold of, the word “Fire” I hear the coroner say your organs a smoldered headline flaring up to bed the real surprise was that, can still be used. Your friend is sure down with us while we navigate nakedness when his furious teeth found my hand, you wanted to be found when I describe together in this doused summerhouse how your arms were crossed, hands on Do-It-Yourself Home Improvements rising daily out of its own reconstructed he would not let go. the shoulders, fingers under the taut cord. driftwood and ashy seascape, For Sale And my own barnacled hold ON is not always on. is not hot. 2. HOT signs dotting the cove, ospreys sailing on that great red chair Often hot is not cold either, That was May. across The Narrows where sapphire did nothing to dissuade him. That’s instead a low-rising steam, a gargle, Everyone told me not to drive tides carry Friendship Sloops and construct an unsteady belch of empty. until my autopilot returned. heavenly views as we swim in the bedding what I’ll remember most–

But of course I did of our current well-being, vacant as any house though his teeth sank to the knuckle, Tool belts perpetually loaded. and found myself backing over curbs boarded up at each season’s close, nakedly The Land of Oz getting lost in intersections. A hammer needed here, though the pain grew wild as fire, a screw loose there, posed against pointed firs and half-naked Someone throw a brick at my head. though my free hand waited in the wings duct tape in stacks where 3. ledges, huddled here, a scarred sailor’s Be brave. Aim. framed photos should be. Suddenly your life was more important shelter one winter, till smoke unhoused Pitch it with vigor. to hide and thus diminish

than my own. I called your friends him, a kettle left on the stove flame, firing Then, please, have a heart. the results. This was our house. A structure that always hoped for more, from elsewhere, everyone for whom him from the haze of his drunken bed, Kneel down to my prostrate body that knew money could buy love but wasn’t a price we’d pay. I found a number, and slowly transients ourselves trying to reconstruct there in the road It’s none of those pieced together a history leaking red on the gold, I’ll be taking to the future– So torn apart at times I hadn’t even begun to imagine. his frostbitten story, a construct spreading life fluid we’d have to stay away. A troubled brother’s early advances. of nightmare, hearsay, and buck naked on the weeds between just that sturdy bond With a friend or at the Ramada, A family’s refusal to see. confession, our usual rumpled bed- the cracks of shiny. between us as he bit and held, those neatly wrapped soap marvels, Three attempts at suicide. sheets moonlit tonight, taut as sails Take me home sheer order and tuck. A father whose depression was so deep rigged toward the future, our fiery emerald country road, when letting go no longer

he lay in a hospital unable to speak. visitor vanished from the house, where ruby shoes are nailed was an option. A decision never to pass on those genes. Back at that house, to the kitchen floor months with planks the word “house” a mere construction, and Aunt Em, —Mary Mercier, Madison, WI for floors, holes where 4. a blaze of letters like “naked” and “fire” though careworn, visit VW Online for audio by this author beds should be, possessions Friends offered shelter. for the one who sailed asleep in our bed. turns not away My son came home from his lab. in heaps, rooms dark. the encyclopedia salesman,

I called my husband back from Russia —Kate Sontag, Ripon, WI who shows her volume 19, My doctor said go to the woods As if someone was supposed to stay but wasn’t sure they should, page 287: Utopia, as if someone else was trying to leave and not come back. for the summer and do nothing. as Toto bites his leg, No travel. Nothing dangerous. courageous dog that he is. No decisions. A life on hold. —Cathryn Cofell, Appleton, WI For the next year, I could not pass —Marilyn Windau, Sheboygan Falls, WI 30 Verse wisconsin #106 July 2011 VerseWISCONSIN.org 31 Set Wing to Wind Attune A butterfly with a broken wing clung silently to the lattice gate I Danced with Rose The tuner deftly tapped - like a flower on a broken stem The clear, translucent tone for me to form. twirling in the summer wind. Her kitchen is like an herb garden. Then pressed against you, deep, and warm... It smells of cut oregano and basil. It fanned the air as if satisfied A small aged man sits at her table A quarter, no a half key round, to leave seeds of life waiting, hidden eating fresh baked Italian bread. The sure and skillful task safely in the growth below among The Big Black Bird She stands at the old white stove. To make us, once, blossoms in the fading summer sun. One pure, perfected sound. in the green maple tree Her simple dress is apron wrapped. sings a doleful tune, —Gerald Bertsch, Sheboygan, WI Lightly her hand moves a long spoon —Henk Joubert, Whitefish Bay, WI sitting in the shade stirring thick red tomato sauce. on a sunny day. I touch her gently on the shoulder. She smiles at me, and takes my hand. —Richard Moyer, Berwyn, PA ? I say, “Dance with me, Rose.” Without You ? We dance in her delicious kitchen. Grandma Shoes I’d sit in half a world, the rooms I breathe in the richness of her spices beige instead of red, aqua, gold. as we glide around the wooden table. My great grandma had one pair There’d be no music-track of dogs The old man looks up at us smiling, of shoes, black leather. howling or incessant vacuuming. Rose softly hums a little tune. Chunky heels, black laces. Serviceable, I’d re-read books, watch TV, drive the catalog labeled them. myself crazy. I’d miss your smile, They lasted forever —Nancy Petulla, Merrill, WI the song of your voice, the warmth and her feet hurt. of your body next to mine, the way you care for kids, dogs and cats. The Blue Time The style was basically Like searching for my missing unchanged for my grandma. glasses, without you I wouldn’t see Twilight is the worst time. Black, serviceable, what I need in order to see. Though you are gone ten years now, go-with-everything shoes. the blue time still brings to mind Her feet hurt. —John Lehman, Rockdale, WI your favorite phrase, a child’s misspeak Dance Me Down ? that took your fancy 50 years ago My mother’s generation and became your mantra–– I just don’t know caught a break. murmured to me with goodbyes, or what to do Hundreds of syles, colors, from the driver’s seat; on getting up So dance me down shapes. Leather softened

? or presenting a gift; when you broke a cup a bit, styled for comfort Then and Now the avenue or interrupted my poem-making. Be soft and and good looks. How I yearn to hear it now: But her feet hurt. For forty years he left his shoes in the dining room, be sweet you, handing me a glass of sherry thought empty milk cartons went in the fridge, And be light while we settle to watch Now it’s my turn. would not read Mailer or Updike, on your feet the shadows gather Age-appropriate shoes, put Mahler on the turntable–loud, Be kind and in this place you made for us–– cushioned insides over thick and didn’t respond to poetry. take care I, hearing again, at this blue time, And remember rubber soles, designed you murmur “Whom loves you.” for walking. These days she shovels snow, cleans the chimney, I’m there I can stand despairs over a new knock in the engine, —Barb Cranford, Hancock, WI a little longer, work shoots predatory woodchucks herself, —Clint Jensen, Tomah, WI a little longer, and shivers under many blankets . . . did I ask for that? night after chilly night. I’m tired, and my feet hurt.

—Barb Cranford, Hancock, WI —Judith Sepsey, New Berlin, WI

32 Verse wisconsin #106 July 2011 VerseWISCONSIN.org 33 From my 2004 interview, Duhamel’s poetry A streak of terror went Kindergarten Boyfriend Denise Duhamel’s most recent books of Karla Huston Interviews has been described as “stunning, suggestive, through me when I first heard and startling. Her poems speak with a it was banned, but now I wear poetry include Ka-ching!, Two and Two My kindergarten boyfriend (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009 and wild irreverence. Not afraid of critics and it as a badge of honor and in solidarity with all the other said his mother had taught him to waltz, 2005), Mille et Un Sentiments, a limited naysayers, Duhamel experiments with form Denise Duhamel and subject, creating poetry that challenges banned writers. so I told my mother about how he’d taught me, edition chapbook (Firewheel Editions, the reader’s notion of what poetry should be. how we glided around the schoolyard during recess. 2005), Queen for a Day (University of and our expectations, Denise suggested. As Proposal She presents what poetry could be as she fully KH: The first time we met How all the other kids dropped their balls Pittsburgh Press, 2001) and The Star the preambles began, I had a creepy feeling engages pop culture, the joys and horrors of was in a class in Iowa City ten Spangled Banner (Southern Illinois that I was somehow in the wrong room. First and abandoned their jump ropes to watch us. I became a reverend it, while maintaining the ability to poke fun years ago. You teach at Florida University Press, 1999). Saints of Hysteria: there was the woman, a twin, who admitted at our foibles—and make us think.” International University and in My mother said, Really? like she didn’t believe me, A Half-Century of Collaborative Poetry (an she suffered from bulimia and was ritually online so that I could marry a low-residency MFA program which made me angry even though my story anthology which Duhamel edited with abused by her grandparents. The next my niece and her fiancé To experience a Duhamel poem is to take a at Converse College in South was totally untrue. I liked to color with the boy, woman confessed to being schizophrenic but Maureen Seaton and David Trinidad) from who didn’t want wild or sometimes harrowing ride. Maybe Carolina as well as summer who was quiet like I was. One day, after biting Soft Skull Press was published in 2006. on medication; and the next, a man named a traditional wedding she’s gotten a bit crazy about money (Ka- workshops around the country. Bob, said he liked writing poems about ching!), or more than terrifying as she recounts How long have you been into a cracker, he spat out his front tooth women’s body parts and proved it, often I became a reverend which looked like a tiny ice cube Born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, and the moments of September 11, 2001, or her teaching? What does teaching referring to alabaster orbs and the golden, shortly after my divorce own parents’ horrifying fall down an escalator give you as a writer that working on the pad of his finger. The teacher educated at Emerson College (BFA) and netted curtain. Another was a young woman as the Universal Life Church in Atlantic City. Duhumel has something to as an insurance agent or a nurse made a fuss and wrapped his tooth in tissue. Sarah Lawrence College (MFA), Duhamel who’d never written a poem before (wasn’t doesn’t care about a cleric’s say. doesn’t? During naptime, he slept on a plastic mat by my side. has read on National Public Radio’s All this an advanced class?). Then, there was marital status and neither did Things Considered and Bill Moyer’s PBS Penny from Australia, who walked barefoot I stayed awake trying to will him to give the tooth to me, my niece I had the chance to ask her a few questions via DD: The old joke is: What television special Fooling with Words. She has everywhere, her long, Gypsy skirts swirling. email recently. are the three main reasons but when I asked him his plans, he told me been awarded writing residency fellowships She said she was lesbian, a social worker, when I told her to become a teacher? June, he was going to take it home to put under his pillow. both in the United States and Europe. daughter of an unnamed famous Australian I was afraid to bring her Karla Huston: One of your books, The Woman July, and August. I do I flung puzzle pieces and started to cry. psychiatrist, and into sadomasochism. Her poems have been anthologized in Best bad luck she would have with Two Vaginas (Salmon Run Press, 1995), think that teaching gives me Even then, my expectations were too high. American Poetry in 1998, 1994, and 1993. none of that and besides a poetic retelling of Inuit myths, has been more free writing time than When the table-talk came round to us, A winner of a 2001 National Endowment who better to officiate banned in Canada for years. I’m guessing you other occupations. I also Cathryn confessed to being Catholic. But like teaching because I am —Denise Duhamel, Hollywood, FL for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, she is a don’t believe in censorship. As a writer, how I had no such terrifying admission. I was than someone who knew does this make you feel? constantly getting to talk professor at Florida International University Lutheran with no encroaching guilt issues, the pitfalls of relationships about writing and books I than a regular class. Poetry invites in Miami. and like Mary Poppins, a life that was and I could keep an eye Denise Duhamel: The Woman with Two love. I have been teaching (gulp) since students to write about their feelings more “practically perfect” in every way. We were on the new couple Vaginas is out of print, so I guess it’s a moot 1985. than they might do in prose. Students Friendships can begin in strange and both there, we’d confessed, to learn to write and they could come to me point as to whether or not it is still banned. sometimes reveal more about themselves wonderful ways. One good way to connect good poems. Over the course of the week, we KH: Yes, than they realize they are revealing and is by taking a class. I’ve done this often, got to know each other. Bob tried to seduce and I’d know I agree. then feel embarrassed. It’s much harder traveling as far as Vermont or as close as Iowa. us after his third martini at the banquet. The the warning signs I’d missed Fourth Grade Boyfriend Teaching to grade a poem than an essay. It’s much In fact the Iowa Summer Writing Festival is Australian invited us to visit but warned that in my own home and my niece gave me harder to critique creative work. Still, I a good choice for Wisconsinites because it’s someone had a “hit” out on her, so she’d be believed in marriage Then, in fourth grade, the fattest boy in class wrote me a love letter permission am comfortable now doing workshops. I close; and the Iowa program offers weekend hard to find. Sadly, the bulimic was often and me regardless that read, Welcome to this new school. (I had just moved.) to talk enjoy sitting in a circle with people rather workshops, a boon for those who don’t want heard retching in the bathroom across the You are very pretty. I want to be your boyfriend. I didn’t like his plaid shirt poetry and than standing in front of a classroom with to commit an entire week. hall after lunch. of my failures and her fiancé a piece of chalk. or his big melon head, so I crumpled up the note and ignored him. to buy nodded b o o k s — Commit an entire week, I did, in 2000 Duhamel, however, was gracious and patient and I told all this Soon though I realized how hard it was to be the new girl which I KH: When I was teaching, some days I’d have when, with Cathryn Cofell, I took a class and encouraging, providing enough good to my friend Bruce when the other girls had sleepovers to which I wasn’t invited did, both, rather graded an essay. At least there were with Denise Duhamel. We’d registered for prompts to keep Cathryn and me busy typing who was getting divorced himself and the other boys were mean and spit in the water fountain. in copious specific criteria for an essay. But there was an advanced poetry class entitled, “Writing most mornings. I wrote more new work that A few days later I wrote the boy back, Sorry it’s taken me so long to answer. amounts. something about creative work that I enjoyed. Beyond Taboo.” This seemed like the perfect week than any class before or since. And I was at the beginning OK. I’ll be your girlfriend. He walked me home, showing me the shortcut Is there a I think I just loved teaching poetry. I’m trying fit for two wild Appleton women who wanted since, Denise and I have remained friends; she of one marriage (as a reverend) d i f f e re n t to imagine you with a piece of chalk in your to push the limit, press more than a few contributed significantly to my MA thesis: and at the end of another through the woods, the “umbrella graveyard” where kids abandoned d y n a m i c hand! So many of your poems use humor or buttons. We were ready. We’d brought our www.margiereview.com/CHAUTAUQUAS/ (as a spouse) perfectly poised anything they were too ashamed to carry to school—out-of-date b e t w e e n irony. Were you always funny? You say you Rollerblades to get back and forth to class. huston.html . As well, she and I have done to let him know lunchboxes, shirts and coats no longer in style. Umbrellas teaching a started writing fiction. Was your fiction filled We’d brought laptops and a printer, plenty two interviews which were published in print which, he explained, were really uncool, no matter what. workshop with humor, too? of red wine. We’d even considered a visit to and online: http://www.smartishpace.com/ it was all going to be OK Sometimes a girl would change shoes on the path, v e r s u s the tattoo parlor. And wasn’t this the time interviews/denise_duhamel/. when he said I bet you can’t wait t e a c h i n g DD: I think I became funny by mistake. I when Omar and Oscar, two agri-business to marry someone now that you can leaving the ugly ones she had to wear at home hanging a regular tended to be melodramatic and gloom students at UA, hit on us in the Deadwood If you missed her at the fall (2009) Wisconsin I said you must be kidding from their laces on a tree branch. The fat boy huffed and puffed class? and doom when I was younger and people Tavern, where we’d gone to copy the graffiti Fellowship of Poets’ conference, you missed a laughed at me. So I hammed it up, I guess, I’ll never get married again up the tiniest inclines. I did too because it was fall off the bathroom walls for “found poetry”? special experience indeed. In not one, but and that’s when my asthma flared up because I was allergic D D : and at some point tried to be funny with Unfortunately, the stalls had been repainted, two presentations, Duhamel spoke about and he said what I mean is a purpose. Yes, I did try to write funny to the changing seasons. One time my nose started to bleed Students so our plans for collaboration with the likes collaboration and using humor in poetry. I bet you can’t wait are much fiction. of Elvis and Margo from Fargo who seemed She is an expert on both. In fact, after to marry another couple. and, because I didn’t have any tissues, the fat boy gave me m o r e to do everyone were dashed. listening to a presentation at that same Iowa his science worksheet, then a big maple leaf, to catch the blood. vulnerable KH: You’ve recently published a collaboration conference, Cathryn and I began writing —Denise Duhamel, Hollywood, FL So what if he couldn’t dance? That was love. in a with Amy Lemmon called ABBA the Poems. At our first class meeting, introductions were collaboratively, too. workshop (Coconut Books, 2010. www.coconutbooks. made. Give a bit of personal background —Denise Duhamel, Hollywood, FL situation org) According to your process notes, the 34 Verse wisconsin #106 July 2011 VerseWISCONSIN.org 35 poems use an ABBA rhyme scheme in eight a new generation and cultural norms, inspiration was from a rumor that when It’s the Meds quatrains, and must include a reference to the and the way they buck against those the famous linguist William Jacobsen was Woman with a Guy and a Motorcycle musical group ABBA. Amazing! And what norms is fascinating to me. I love the struck by a car, he shouted, “Help!” in 47 across from Heather’s Saturday Night fun! You add bridge between languages. “I wish my hair was thick.” that the poems childhood and “It’s the meds,” they say. From a distance she looks good: short blonde were written via adulthood. KH: As the author of numerous books and If my current project doesn’t “I wish my legs were thin.” hair, leathers, a comfortable stance. He stoops email, one line chapbooks of poetry on your own and in “It’s the meds,” they say. at a time. How work out, I can always KH: Interesting collaboration, do you have a favorite? by the engine, adjusting something. That’s me, long did each that some of “I wish food tasted better.” two motorcycles and three Ford Mustangs ago poem take to write another poem about these authors DD: No favorites. It’s kind of like “It’s the meds,” they say. before Vietnam, bankruptcy and divorce. write? How did (Glatt, Koertge, admitting you have a favorite kid. “I wish I could lose weight.” you revise? my failure. Hernandez) are “It’s the meds,” they say. also poets. Do KH: Once when I asked if you were bothered Now I walk my dog who’s looking for a place DD: I think you think about by critics’ sometimes-tough comments, you to crap. I want a woman to hug me from behind our project took over two years. The writing fiction again? said, if you believed the criticism, you must “I wish you wouldn’t complain so much,” they say. as we roar into the warm summer night. Maybe poems with additional constraints (like believe the praise. How hard is this to do? “It’s the meds,” I say. stop for a few beers. Ignore the guy and his dog palindromes or all “o” sounding endings) DD: Yes! In Ka-ching! I have a long staring at us from down the street. took quite a while. We were slow and poem called “Lucky Me” about my DD: It is hard not to want everyone to —Idella Anacker, Portage, WI methodical actually. Amy was moreso rejection in the fiction world, so I’m a think you’re doing great work. I just than I was. We were able to “keep” most little superstitious to say I’m working on noticed I wrote that last sentence in the —John Lehman, Rockdale, WI

of the poems we wrote. anything. If my current project doesn’t second person because it’s easier to do so. ? work out, I can always write another poem So when I say “you,” I mean “me.” You Tongue Piercing KH: I know poets read other poets and about my failure. can’t be an artist and expect everyone to reading is essential for lots of good reasons. love your work and feel comfortable with Mondays are But when you’re not reading other poets, KH: When can readers expect your next it. You have to ruffle feathers. That’s part the splinters what kinds of books do you like? Mystery? book? of the job description. So a bad review is taking over Romance? Literary fiction? better than no review at all. you get DD: I’m not sure. Maybe 2013? I have my licking an the fat corporate beast swaggers DD: I really love young adult chapbook projects to keep me going until KH: Speaking of publications that ruffle a ice cream into the bar, kicks novels. Francesca Lia Block, Peter then. One is called Help in 47 Languages, few feathers–if there were a National Enquirer stick, trying the skinny old bum offa his stool, Johnson, Lisa Glatt, Ron Koertge, and and the prose poems all fit into frames I headline about you, what would it say? to remove wiggles his high end ass onto David Hernandez are among my favorite found on sale for a penny a piece in a craft YA novelists. Teenagers, I think, feel more store. Each poem has the title “HELP” DD: “DNA Tests Prove Poet Denise last remnants the seat & buys everyone a drink and experience more in a novel than other from a different language and uses the Duhamel is the Love Child of Frank O’Hara of chocolate. characters. Each teenager encounters word help (in English) at least once. The and Anne Sexton”. for himself. —James Reitter, Sheboygan, WI —normal, Saugerties, NY AVOL'S BOOKSTORE

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 P See wfop.org for further information. $""! 36 Verse wisconsin #106 July 2011 VerseWISCONSIN.org 37 ? Contributors’ Notes ? Erum Ahmed is from Pakistan, currently traveling in Egypt. She has studied in Jim Giese has left Wisconsin numerous times for short-term jobs only to be drawn Amit Majmudar’s first book, 0°,0° [Zero Degrees, Zero Degrees], (Northwestern James Reitter was born in Germany, but grew up in lower NY. He earned his BA in Pakistan, the United States, and Germany, and published school books, articles on back to the state’s natural beauty. When he needs inspiration or recuperation he heads University Press/TriQuarterly Books, 2009) was a finalist for the Norma Farber First Creative Writing from SUNY Oswego, his MFA in Poetry from CUNY Brooklyn, diverse subjects, and poetry and fiction mostly in the United States. Although she’s to the woods and fields with his two labs. p. 4 Book Award. His second manuscript, Heaven and Earth, won the 2011 Donald Justice and his Ph.D. in Folklore at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He’s spent the visited many states in America, she has not yet visited Wisconsin. p. 4 Award. His first novella, Azazil, was serialized recently in The Kenyon Review over past four years as an Assistant Professor of English for UW-Sheboygan and lives in Sara Greenslit works as a small animal veterinarian in Madison. She earned an MFA three issues. His first novel,Partitions , was published by Henry Holt/Metropolitan in Sheboygan with his fiancée, two cats, and a bearded dragon. p. 29, 37 Idella Anacker is a retired Preschool/Kindergarten teacher. Her book Show and Tell from Penn State and a DVM from the UW. FC2 is publishing her second novel in 2011. His poetry has been featured on Poetry Daily several times and has appeared in shares her experiences with four and five year olds for over twenty-five years. She 2011, As if a Bird Flew By Me. Her first novel came out from Starcherone, The Blue Poetry Magazine and The Best American Poetry 2007. pp. 20-21 Harlan Richards grew up on the west side of Madison and came late to his penchant enjoys writing children’s stories as well as poetry and light verse. p. 37 of Her Body. p. 26 for poetry, having not begun to write until his mid-50s. He has had poems accepted Jesse Manser grew up in Middleton, attended UW-Milwaukee, and recently by Love’s Change Magazine, Shepherd, Samsara and Italian-Americana. He is currently Antler, former poet laureate of Milwaukee, is the author of Selected Poems, Ever- David Graham has taught writing and literature at Ripon College in Ripon WI since graduated with a degree in Journalism. He continues to work, write and live on living in Wisconsin’s Belly of the Beast. p. 12 Expanding Wilderness, Deathrattles vs. Comecries, and Exclamation Points ad Infinitum! 1987. He is the author of six collections of poems, most recently Stutter Monk (Flume the city’s eastside and is grateful and honored to have his poetry published in Verse His work appears in the recent anthologies Poets Against the War; Poetic Voices Without Press), and an essay anthology co-edited with Kate Sontag, After Confession: Poetry as Wisconsin. Other work of his can be found at the Shepherd Express online poetry Charles P. Ries’s narrative poems, short stories, interviews, and reviews have appeared Borders 2; Best Gay Poetry 2008; Comeback Wolves: Welcoming the Wolf Home; and Autobiography (Graywolf Press). pp. 6-8 column and in Fox Cry Review. p. 25, 26 in over two hundred print and electronic publications. He has received four Pushcart Wilderness Blessings. p. 4, 37 Prize nominations. He is a founding member of the Lake Shore Surf Club, the oldest John Grey has been published recently in the Talking River, South Carolina Review Wisconsin has always been special to Linda Back McKay. When she was little, freshwater surfing club on the Great Lakes. Most recently he was interviewed by Jane Christopher Austin is a previously unpublished writer living, working and writing in and Karamu with work upcoming in Prism International, Poem and the Evansville there were all those glorious summers at Uncle Albert’s farm in Chippewa Falls. Now Crown for Blog Radio (www.janecrown.com—click on archived shows at the bottom Milwaukee, where he lives with his wife, two children and two Labrador Retrievers. p. 28 Review. p. 24 it’s riding a red (the color of roses and fine cabernets) Harley-Davidson along the of the page). Visit www.literati.net/Ries/. p. 37 river through Stockholm, Maiden Rock and Pepin. She is author of several poetry Suzanne Bergen has lived in Wisconsin most of her life, born in the little town of Kenneth P. Gurney lives in Albuquerque with his beloved Dianne. For Kenneth’s collections and the groundbreaking book, Shadow Mothers: Stories of Adoption Marybeth Rua-Larsen’s poetry has been published or is forthcoming in: The Glenbeulah in the Northern Kettle Moraine. She fled to Massachusetts in midlfe for full bio, publication notes and available books please visit http://www.kpgurney.me/ and Reunion, which was inspiration for the play, Watermelon Hill, which has been Raintown Review, Measure, The Barefoot Muse, The Concho River Review and The adventures and education, but returned to Wisconsin and Madison in the 1990s. p. 5 Poet/Welcome.html. p. 13, 15 produced by professional theater. p. 12, 17 Worcester Review, among others. She has only the most tentative connections to Wisconsin: a talented former student of hers moved to Wisconsin after graduation... Gerald Bertsch grew up on the plains of South Dakota and attended a one-room Richard Hedderman’s poems have appeared in South Dakota Review, CutBank, Rick McMonagle was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. His parents honeymooned and loved it. p. 10, 22 school house for 6 years. His graduate studies in theology were done at Union Eclipse, and elsewhere. His chapbook, The Discovery of Heaven was published by at Lake Geneva. He lived in the country outside of River Falls, WI from 1996 to Theological Seminary in New York City. His books of poetry include In This Land: Parallel Press in 2006. He is the Senior Educator at the Milwaukee Public Museum 2008. His poetry lineage includes a Calabrian great-uncle who fell in love, left the Chuck Rybak is a professor of creative writing and literature at UW-Green Bay. He Prairie, a poetic memoir of his childhood on the homestead in South Dakota. p. 32 and a Lecturer in Theatre at UW-Milwaukee. p. 23 priesthood, emigrated to NYC and wrote poems; his first poetry teacher at Penn State, is the author of three collections of poetry, the most recent being Tongue and Groove, John Haag, who was a student of Theodore Roethke; and Allen Ginsberg and Anne which was published by Main Street Rag. Chuck lives in Green Bay with his wife and Over the past few years, Amy Billone has had poems accepted by such journals Charles Hughes retired recently from the law firm where he worked for many years. Waldman at Naropa Institute. p. 14 two daughters. p. 7 as Abbey, Barbaric Yawp, Bellowing Ark, literary art book, and Small Brushes and His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Measure, Sewanee Theological Review,

Wavelength: Poems in Prose and Verse. Her book of literary criticism Little Songs: Iron Horse Literary Review, America, and the 2010 poetry anthology of the Georgia Mary Mercier, a native of Milwaukee, now lives 77 miles east of that Cream City, Jane Satterfield’s most recent book, Daughters of Empire: A Memoir of a Year in Women, Silence and the Nineteenth-Century Sonnet was published with The Ohio State Poetry Society, The Reach of Song. He lives in the Chicago area with his wife. They and with her husband and two wily cats. Her poetry has appeared in Free Verse, Fuse, Britain and Beyond, appeared from Demeter Press in 2009. Her second collection, University Press in April, 2007. p. 5 their sons have enjoyed many family vacations in the Hayward area. p. 9 Connotations, and Wild Earth. She is the author of one chapbook, Small Acts Assignation at Vanishing Point, received the 2003 Elixir Press Poetry Prize. She ? (Parallel Press). In 2005 her poem “Snow Geese” was included as a component of received an NEA Fellowship in Literature and three Maryland State Arts Council David Blackey is a mostly retired attorney recently elected to the board of the Karla Huston is the author of six chapbooks of poetry, most recently, An Inventory Martha Glowacki’s exhibition, Starry Transit, staged at the University of Wisconsin’s grants in poetry. She hasn’t traveled to Wisconsin (yet) but was deeply flattered when ACLU-WI. He’s a volunteer naturalist with the Myrick Hixon Eco-Park, and a recent of Lost Things (Centennial Press, 2009). Her poems, reviews and interviews have Washburn Observatory. p. 31 a barista at the University of Iowa who hailed from Madison admired her “Boston” grandfather of two lovely girls, Isabella and Lucia. Previous work was included in Verse been published widely. Her poem “Theory of Lipstick,” originally published in Verse accent! p. 27

Wisconsin, SteamTicket, Forward and the 2011 Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar. p. 4 Wisconsin #101, was awarded a Pushcart Prize. pp. 34-36 Richard Merelman writes poems because language is the only medium through Contributors’ Notes which he can hope to achieve beautiful expression. Poems of his have appeared in G. A. Scheinoha thought about becoming a private detective, later, a bounty hunter. John L. Campbell started freelance writing for business and trade magazines in 1995. Clint Jensen is a junior at UW-Madison majoring in English and Journalism. He has Main Street Rag and Measure. Recent poems have appear in Bumble Jacket Miscellany He never imagined he’d follow in his father’s tracks; a series of blue collar jobs. Where His book, Writing in Retirement, explains his evolution into fiction and poetry along lived in Tomah, Wisconsin for his entire life. p. 33 and Verse Wisconsin. He taught political science at the University of Wisconsin- their lives differed was instead of marriage and family, he wrote a million words over with the profiles of thirteen other writers-in-retirement. His latest poetry chapbook is Madison until 2001. p. 14 thirty years, some of which have recently appeared in Avocet, Bellowing Ark, Bracelet entitled Backstreet Voyeur. p. 15 Henk Joubert moved to Wisconsin in 1998 from southern Africa, and has been Charm, Echoes, Floyd County Moonshine and Verse Wisconsin. p. 29 living in the greater Milwaukee area since then. He switched over to writing English Richard W. Moyer is 80 years old. He obtained his AB in English at Harvard College Antonia Clark works for a medical software company in Burlington, Vermont, poetry from his native language four years ago. He needs to write to get his creative in 1953; his MH from University of Richmond in 1976; and an MA in English Judith Sepsey began writing when she retired about ten years ago. She has been and is co-administrator of an online poetry workshop, The Waters. Recent poems fix. p. 33 from Temple University in 2000. His poems are widely published, and he has one published in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Echoes, Free Verse, and elsewhere. p. 33 have appeared in The 2River View, Anderbo, Apparatus Magazine, The Cortland chapbook and one book of selected poems to his credit. p. 32 Review, Soundzine, Umbrella, and elsewhere. She’s been to Wisconsin only once—to Claire Keyes is the author of two poetry collections: The Question of Rapture and John H. Sime lives in the Kickapoo Valley of Western Wisconsin where he operates Madison—and can’t wait to return. p. 17, 24 Rising and Falling. Her poems and reviews have appeared in Tattoo Highway, Prairie normal began writing and reciting poetry in Greenwich Village circa 1962-64. Since a funeral home. He has written poetry since service in the U.S. Peace Corps as Schooner and The Newport Review, among others. Although a resident of Marblehead, then he has lived in 47 places and held almost as many jobs, the past thirty years he’s an English teacher in Bamako, Mali. He has contributed to Kickapoo Free Press, Cathryn Cofell serves on the Advisory Board of Verse Wisconsin. She writes, too; MA, she took a memorable drive through lake-filled Wisconsin in the first car she been a nurse. He’s been widely published in mostly underground poetry rags, and has Hummingbird, The Epitaph-News,and The American Funeral Director. p. 17 moreso in the past with five published chapbooks and a CD that combines her work ever owned. p. 5 two chapbooks from Lummox Press. p. 37 with the music of Obvious Dog. She has lived in Wisconsin for all but three years Kate Sontag’s recent work appears in Prairie Schooner, Seattle Review, Verse Wisconsin, when she tried to love and live in Colorado, both heinous mistakes now rectified. p. Michael Kriesel is a poetry reviewer for Small Press Review and his reviews have Maurice Oliver’s poetry has appeared in numerous national and international and EXPRESSmilwaukee.com. Her work has been featured in Valparaiso Poetry 16, 30 appeared in Library Journal. He has won both the WFOP Muse Prize and the Lorine publications and literary websites including Potomac Journal, Pebble Lake Review, and Review and appeared in anthologies such as Boomer Girls, Are You Experienced?, Niedecker Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers. He’s been nominated for Frigg. His fourth chapbook was One Remedy Is Travel (Origami Condom, 2007). He and Sweeping Beauty (U. of Iowa). She is co-editor of After Confession: Poetry as Barb Cranford was an assistant editor at Britannica Junior, a poet, a sculptor and nine Pushcart Prizes. Books include Chasing Saturday Night (Marsh River Editions); edits the literary ezine Concelebratory Shoehorn Review at http://cshoe.blogspot.com. Autobiography (Graywolf) and teaches at Ripon College. p. 31 a gallery owner in Chicago. She has seven books and a Pushcart nomination, holds Feeding My Heart To The Wind and Moths Mail The House (sunnyoutside press); and p. 22 poetry workshops in her home in the woods, and writes poems when she feels like Soul Noir (Platonic 3way Press). pp. 18-19 Known mainly as a poet/teacher, Barry Spacks has brought out various novels, it. p. 7, 14, 32 Helen Padway lives, writes and laughs in Wisconsin. She is part of the Sparks and stories, three poetry-reading CDs, and ten poetry collections while teaching literature Jackie Langetieg has three books of poems: White Shoulders (Cross+Roads Press), the Hartford Avenue Poets. Her poems have been published in a variety of print and writing at M.I.T. & UC Santa Barbara. His most recent book of poems, Food for CX Dillhunt was born in Green Bay and grew up in De Pere in a big house on the Fox Just What in Hell is a Stage of Grief, and Confetti in a Silent City (Ghost Horse Press). publications and most recently in the ezines Newversenews and Your Daily Poem. She the Journey, appeared from Cherry Grove in August, 2008. Over the years his poetry River as one of twelve children. Currently he’s an assistant editor for Hummingbird: She is a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and regular contributor to the is young enough to think that poetry can change the world. p. 15 has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly, Paris Review and hundreds ? Magazine of the Short Poem, and he served as co-editor of the Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar: annual calendar. p. 17 of other journals. p. 11 2006. He teaches elementary school writer’s workshops and is the lead instructor for Nancy Petulla is a retired minister who lives in a 150-year-old farmhouse. She has Elderhostel’s The Writer in You at Green Lake. p. 28,29 Estella Lauter is Professor Emerita at UW-Oshkosh and lives in the Door Peninsula. lived there for 34 years. p. 33 Marc Swan lives on Munjoy Hill in Portland, Maine. His work has been published Her first chapbook, Pressing a Life Together By Hand (2007) appeared in the New in Exquisite Corpse, Rattle, Slipstream, and Westerly, among others. Simple Distraction, Denise Duhamel’s most recent poetry titles are Ka-Ching! (University of Pittsburgh Women’s Voices series from Finishing Line Press, and was nominated for two Pushcart Charles Portolano started writing poetry 14 years ago to celebrate the birth of his a collection of his poems from 1989 to 2009, was published in fall 2009 by tall- Press, 2009), Two and Two (Pittsburgh, 2005), Mille et un Sentiments (Firewheel, prizes. The Essential Rudder: North Channel Poems was released by FLP in 2008. Her daring, darling daughter Valerie, and to preserve the memories. Valerie was born lighthouse in London England. p. 25 2005) and Queen for a Day: Selected and New Poems (Pittsburgh, 2001). A recipient of poem “Gaza, January 2009” tied for first prize in the 2009 Barbara Mandigo Kelly with many obstacles to overcome. Writing soon became his way of saving his sanity. a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, she is an associate professor at Florida Peace Poetry Contest; it appears on www.wagingpeace.org. p. 28, 30 Valerie is doing great now; she is quite the young writer. p. 23 Richard Swanson lives in Madison, Wisconsin where he reads, gardens, and writes. International University in Miami. pp. 34-36 His previous volume was Men in the Nude in Socks (Fireweed, 2006). His newest John Lehman is the founder of Rosebud magazine and the poetry editor of Wisconsin Ester Hauser Laurence Prudlo is a UW alumna who has lived away from the state collection, Not Quite Eden, was also published by Fireweed in 2010. p. 26 P. R. Dyjak is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens People & Ideas. p. 12, 15, 16, 32, 37 for some 28 years, but who returned two years ago for summers in the Madison area. Point, where she teaches creative writing, poetry, and composition. She lives with her She is the author of three children’s books and has published a few poems. She taught Timothy Walsh’s awards include the Grand Prize in the Atlanta Review International puppy, Zoë, who is an Australian Shepherd/Border Collie, and two kittens, Flora and Quincy R. Lehr’s poetry and criticism have appeared in numerous journals and creative writing courses for UWX in the 70’s. A retired counselor to soldiers and Poetry Competition and the Kurt Vonnegut Fiction Prize from North American Chianna. A long time ago she lived in Madison, with her dogs Molly and Jasmine. p. 24 e-zines in the U.S., UK, Ireland, Australia, and the Czech Republic. His first book, inmates, she is mother of 4 and grandmother of 4, and she lives with her husband, Review. He authored a book of literary criticism, The Dark Matter of Words: Absence, Across the Grid of Streets, appeared in 2008, and his second, Obscure Classics of English Tony. p. 26, 27 Unknowing, and Emptiness in Literature and two chapbooks, Wild Apples (Parallel) and R. Virgil (Ron) Ellis lives near Cambridge, Wisconsin, where he and his wife are Progressive Rock, will appear soon. He lives in Brooklyn, where he teaches history. He Blue Lace Colander (Marsh River). He is an Assistant Dean at UW-Madison. p. 25 busy restoring fifty acres of wetland and savanna. He is an Emeritus Professor who once got unbelievably drunk in Madison, Wisconsin. p. 10 Casey Quinn has had two poetry chapbooks published Snapshots of Life by Salvatore taught writing, literature and media at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. For Publishing and Prepare to Crash by Big Table Publishing. His third poetry chapbook Marie Sheppard Williams’s mentor for poetry is Thomas R. Smith, a WI poet an exploration of his work see www.poetrvellis.com. p. 27 Though David Lurie grew up on the East Coast, he moved to the Midwest after will be released in 2011 by Epic Rites Press. In his free time he edits the online and essayist. She has had poems published in The Sun, Poetry East, Ted Kooser’s graduating from Binghamton University in 2008, and he’s spent the last three years magazine Short Story Library at http://shortstory.us.com. p. 24 newspaper column, and another issue of Verse Wisconsin. She has published seven Thomas J. Erickson is an attorney in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His chapbook, The Lawyer bouncing between Milwaukee and Chicago. Since earning his B.A., he’s taught in story collections, and has won the Pushcart Prize twice. p. 10 Who Died in the Courthouse Bathroom, will be published by Parallel Press in 2013. p. two different high-need Milwaukee Public Schools, worked as a test prep teacher for Christine Redman-Waldeyer, founder and editor of a new women’s literary journal 16, 23 wealthy Chicagoans, and sold fitness equipment and snow throwers, all while writing Adanna, holds a Doctorate of Letters from Drew University. She teaches literature, Marilyn Windau was nurtured on Big Bend farms, in raspberry patches in Fremont, poetry and making plans for Ph.D. programs. p. 12 writing, and journalism at Passaic County Community College and is the Coordinator by blue gills from Green Lake and on books in Madison. Graduating from UW- Casey Francis is currently pursuing a graduate degree in English at New Mexico of the Journalism Program. She is the author of two books of poetry with Muse-Pie Madison, she married a civil engineer from Wauwatosa and raised three daughters Highlands University, but will always be a Nebraskan at heart. He has published Press, Frame by Frame (2007) and Gravel (2009) and is published in literary journals in Appleton and Sheboygan Falls. She teaches art to elementary school children in work in Quincy University’s Riverrun Magazine and blogged for the Center for Rural including Caduceus Journal, Connections Magazine, Exit 13, and The Texas Review. p. 9 Oostburg. p. 31 Affairs on their Blog for Rural America (www.cfra.org/blog). p. 13 38 Verse wisconsin #106 July 2011 VerseWISCONSIN.org 39 PRSRT STD Verse wisconsin US POSTAGE P. O. Box 620216 PAID Middleton, WI 53562-0216 MADISON WI PERMIT NO. 549

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your last? Check issue of your mailing “106” you need to Wisconsin label! If it says renew with onthe page subscriber 2. form Verse Wisconsin online features at versewisconsin.org features online July 2011 Poetry Online By F.J. Bergmann Shirley Brewer More Verse Wisconsin Online Carol Carpenter Martha Christina “Luck of the Draw” Poems, Guest Edited by Jan Chronister Shoshauna Shy, Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf Barbara Crooker Heidi Kristine Czerwiec Jessica Nelson North: Recalling The Reaches Of Silence And Sound, Julie Damerell by LaMoine MacLaughlin Max Garland James Gurley Why Being an Obscure Poet Isn’t Such a Bad Life After All, plus Lois Marie Harrod Ten Ways of Knowing Your Poetic Sun is Setting, John Johnson Kit Kennedy by Charles P. Ries Peg Lauber Lyn Lifshin Four Musicpoems, by Ron Riekki & Dan Wrzesinski Dawn Lonsinger Alison Luterman Poetic Justice, A Review-Essay, by Wendy Vardaman Reading Janet McCann plus book reviews, audio by print & online Sept 1-Oct15 for Ken Pobo contributors, & Wisconsin Poetry News the March online Margaret Rozga theme, “Masks & Hal Sirowitz Sandy Stark Monologues.” Jeanie Tomasko Coming in November Theresa Welford “Earthworks” poetry at VW Online ission tatement Interview with Kimberly Blaeser M S Ann Fisher-Wirth on Ecopoetry Verse Wisconsin publishes poetry and serves the community of Patricia Monaghan on Black Earth Institute poets in Wisconsin and beyond. In fulfilling our mission we:

Jeff Poniewasz on Ecoliterature • showcase the excellence and diversity of poetry rooted in or What Editors Want, by Charles P. Ries related to Wisconsin • connect Wisconsin's poets to each other and to the larger literary world • foster critical conversations about poetry • build and invigorate the audience for poetry