Jose Angel Araguz's Blog, page 46

* final reasons (not) to dance excerpts & art

For various reasons, I fell behind in sharing more from my latest chapbook of prose poems and flash fictions, Reasons (not) to Dance. As promised, here is the final installment of excerpts and artwork from the project.

* train of thought *

This almost-cover image was inspired by the piece below, “Relinquished.” One of the memories that always comes up when revisiting this particular piece is one audience member’s reaction back in 2013. I was doing a reading for the Eugene Public Library’s Windfall Reading Series (run by the Lane Literary Guild) and performing excerpts from an early draft of Reasons. As the narrative developed, there was a gasp that reached me as the piece came to its conclusion:

 

Relinquished

 

                        after Lafcadio Hearn

 

A Buddhist priest – upon receiving a note of love from a woman who had seen him only in passing and could not think of anything else and now hoped for a response from his heart –wrote a letter himself saying that he relinquished his body for he was growing weak and did not want to sin and sent it to his superior before heading out in time to kneel between the rails as an oncoming train made its scheduled trail of smoke and sound in the night – leaving what was left of the man’s heart to be turned over and over in the sleepless thoughts of a woman.

***

* what blossoms here *

This last image was inspired by the piece that closes Reasons, “Rewarded.” A side note: the story of the man and the tree retold in this piece is from a Zen Buddhist tale. Between the piece above and this one, one can read one of the underlying themes of the project, the worlds one experiences between restlessness and rest:

 

Rewarded

 

Showering under a low faucet, I see the sun begin to show at the window. The room fills with orange light, and I am like the man rewarded for his silence as he slept under an orange tree that dropped its blossoms over him in such a way he heard a voice thank him for his words on emptiness. When he spoke up, and said he had said nothing, the tree agreed, he had said nothing, and the tree had heard nothing, and the rush of blossoms poured on.

***

Reasons (not) to Dance is available from FutureCycle Press is available in paperback and Kindle here.

Thank you to all who have bought copies and have shared your thoughts on the project. Special thanks to Diane Kistner and everyone at FutureCycle Press for all the support with this project.

Thank you also to Blue Earth Review for publishing both “Relinquished” and “Look” (shared here) and placing them 2nd in Blue Earth Review’s 2014 Flash Fiction contest.

Lastly, a very special thanks to Andrea Schreiber (“my co-conspirator” to whom the chapbook is dedicated) for all the great artwork and support. It is her art displayed not only on the cover but also on the Reasons-related art/excerpts posts today and from this summer.

See you next Friday!

Jose

* dreaming with miroslav holub

* rules were meant to break your head *

The above image is in reference to Fleming’s right-hand rule, a term used in talking about electromagnetism.

The term appears in this week’s poem, “Dreams” by Miroslav Holub. When writing a dream poem and/or about dreams, I try to always be conscious of the why behind each dream detail. Each detail should feel necessary rather than just shocking or “dream”- like.

The details that surprise me most in Holub’s poem are those that are closest to everyday reality. The short lyric travels from the outlandish to the concrete, and ends on “Just grass” as if defying the expectations of a poem about dreams. Even the reference to the right-hand rule, which was outside of my immediate understanding, is handled as an everyday detail. Holub was a scientist; if dreams are made up in part of the details of everyday life, Holub’s lyric stays true to its revelatory impulse all the way through while remaining consistent to the poet’s life.

***

Dreams – Miroslav Holub

They sap man’s substance

as moon the dew.

A rope grows erect

from the crown of the head.

A black swan hatches

from a pebble.

And a flock of angels in the sky

is taking an evening class

on the skid pan.

I dream, so I dream.

I dream

that three times three is nine,

that the right-hand

rule applies;

and when the circus leaves

the trampled ground will

once more overgrow with grass.

Yes, grass.

Unequivocal grass.

Just grass.

***

Happy grassing!

José

* new work up at Bear Review

Just a quick post to announce the release of Bear Review 2.1 which includes two of my poems.

Read “Theory of the Slammed Door” here

and “Theory of Grapes in a Dream” here.

These two poems continue formally in the vein of my “hands” series but move into their conceptual world. Special thanks to Brian Clifton and Marcus Myers for including me and for a dynamic edit in one of the poems!

This issue also includes fine work by J. P. Dancing Bear, Meg Johnson, Nomi Stone, and John Gallaher, as well as a collaboration between Simone Muench and Dean Rader. Read it here.

See you Friday!

José

* dedicated with william carlos williams

While “The Red Wheelbarrow” remains one of his more popular poems – and one that confounds students to this day, usually leading to the question Why is that a poem? (to which I usually respond with Why not?) – read enough William Carlos Williams and you’ll see how multifaceted his body of work is. In this week’s poem, “Dedication for a Plot of Ground,” Williams is able to whirlwind through the details of a human life and have them stand with as much vividness as the more nuanced image of

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

Two weeks ago I shared a poem by Blaise Cendrars in which I discussed the use of lists in poetry and life. Williams’ use of a list in this week’s poem opens up and gives a second life to a person through his own singular way with specificity.

* este wheelbarrow *

Dedication for a Plot of Ground – William Carlos Williams

This plot of ground

facing the waters of this inlet

is dedicated to the living presence of

Emily Dickinson Wellcome

who was born in England; married;

lost her husband and with

her five year old son

sailed for New York in a two-master;

was driven to the Azores;

ran adrift on Fire Island shoal,

met her second husband

in a Brooklyn boarding house,

went with him to Puerto Rico

bore three more children, lost

her second husband, lived hard

for eight years in St. Thomas,

Puerto Rico, San Domingo, followed

the oldest son to New York,

lost her daughter, lost her “baby,”

seized the two boys of

the oldest son by the second marriage

mothered them—they being

motherless—fought for them

against the other grandmother

and the aunts, brought them here

summer after summer, defended

herself here against thieves,

storms, sun, fire,

against flies, against girls

that came smelling about, against

drought, against weeds, storm-tides,

neighbors, weasels that stole her chickens,

against the weakness of her own hands,

against the growing strength of

the boys, against wind, against

the stones, against trespassers,

against rents, against her own mind.

She grubbed this earth with her own hands,

domineered over this grass plot,

blackguarded her oldest son

into buying it, lived here fifteen years,

attained a final loneliness and—

If you can bring nothing to this place

but your carcass, keep out.

***

Happy bringing!

Jose

p.s. Read an article on the recent discovery of the man behind “The Red Wheelbarrow” here.

* moebius stripping with michael ondaatje

This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.

– Alan Watts

I like this quote because of the shift in gears it implies about life and how we approach it. I feel it easily mirrors something done in writing, how one must fight against being caught up in making a point and rather be open to what is at play. In a poem, it is being aware of the possibilities in an image or a turn of phrase, and digging further.

This week’s poem – “The Time Around Scars by Michael Ondaatje” – digs into the image of a scar and ties it to ideas of memory and time. As the poem develops, I feel myself as a reader traveling as if on a moebius strip. Ondaatje, by staying close to an image and emotion, is able to create a reading experience where time is traversed as it only can be in a poem.

* star time *

The Time Around Scars – Michael Ondaatje

A girl whom I’ve not spoken to

or shared coffee with for several years

writes of an old scar.

On her wrist it sleeps, smooth and white,

the size of a leech.

I gave it to her

brandishing a new Italian penknife.

Look, I said turning,

and blood spat onto her shirt.

My wife has scars like spread raindrops

on knees and ankles,

she talks of broken greenhouse panes

and yet, apart from imagining red feet,

(a nymph out of Chagall)

I bring little to that scene.

We remember the time around scars,

they freeze irrelevant emotions

and divide us from present friends.

I remember this girl’s face,

the widening rise of surprise.

And would she

moving with lover or husband

conceal or flaunt it,

or keep it at her wrist

a mysterious watch.

And this scar I then remember

is a medallion of no emotion.

I would meet you now

and I would wish this scar

to have been given with

all the love

that never occurred between us.

***

Happy occurring!

Jose

* listing with blaise cendrars

This week’s poem – “Chinks” by Blaise Cendrars – reminded me of an early lesson about list poems, namely how most poems can easily slip into lists. Whether it be a series of phrases, images, or movements, lists can sneak their way into poems, usually in threes (note how even in this sentence about lists there is a list of three within it!).

Mind you, there’s nothing inherently bad about this: usually it’ll happen naturally and have its own rhythm. Finding ways to subvert this human tendency towards *ahem* “listing” in a poem is always a challenge.

In the poem below, I was moved by the way Cendrars is able to create a pocket of human action between lists. The tension created between nature images and the speaker’s silence in the poem’s narrative adds energy to both.

* pieces, in *

Chinks – Blaise Cendrars

Sea vistas

Waterfalls

Trees long-haired with moss

Heavy rubbery glossy leaves

Glazed sun

High burnished heat

Glistening

I’ve stopped listening to the urgent voices of my friends discussing

The news that I brought from Paris

On both sides of the train close by or along the banks of

The distant valley

The forest is there watching me unsettling me enticing me like

a mummy’s mask

I watch back

Never the flicker of an eye.

translated by Dick Jones in qarrtsiluni

***

Happy watching!

Jose

* hoping with kay ryan

Crown – Kay Ryan

Too much rain

loosens trees.

In the hills giant oaks

fall upon their knees.

You can touch parts

you have no right to—

places only birds

should fly to.

* flight *

As August comes to an end, I begin to reflect on the end of summer – or, rather, the ending of summer. Perhaps it takes being born in the summer to be sensitive to the days beginning to grow shorter, even by minutes. Or maybe that’s just a kind of idealistic hope of my own. My world’s been pretty rich this summer, good and bad. Through it all, I am happy to report hope keeps winning out, idealistic or otherwise.

Kay Ryan’s work has always struck me as full of a similar kind of hope. A kind of stubborn and willful hope played out in phrasing and what she terms “recombinant rhyme.” The poem above models this willfulness with grace; the poem below has a tone steeped in struggle. Enjoy!

A Certain Kind of Eden – Kay Ryan

It seems like you could, but

you can’t go back and pull

the roots and runners and replant.

It’s all too deep for that.

You’ve overprized intention,

have mistaken any bent you’re given

for control. You thought you chose

the bean and chose the soil.

You even thought you abandoned

one or two gardens. But those things

keep growing where we put them—

if we put them at all.

A certain kind of Eden holds us thrall.

Even the one vine that tendrils out alone

in time turns on its own impulse,

twisting back down its upward course

a strong and then a stronger rope,

the greenest saddest strongest

kind of hope.

***

Happy kinding!

José

* a colorful lyrical alignment

This week’s post features a lyrical alignment of an excerpt from Victoria Finlay’s book Color: A Natural History of the Palette. This is the kind of nonfiction book that tries to break down information through story and personal recollections. Finlay writes of her travels to the places where particular colors are made and goes into the details of their physical and historical make-up.

I read this book back in 2012 and still find myself citing several of its jewels of knowledge with people. One particular moment in the book lends itself to being read on its own like a poem. In the excerpt (lyrically aligned below), Finlay recounts one scientist’s metaphorical explanation of the color of the sky. Enjoy!

The Color of the Sky

a lyrical alignment 

“…to explain the color of the sky, [John Tyndall, nineteenth century British scientist] would use an image of the sea.” (from Color – Victoria Finlay)

Think of the ocean, he would say,

and think of the waves

crashing against the land.

If they came across

a huge cliff

then all the waves would stop;

if they met a rock

then only the smaller waves

would be affected;

while a pebble

would change the course

of only the tiniest waves

washing against the beach.

This is what happens

with light from the sun.

Going through the atmosphere

the biggest wave lengths –

the red ones –

are usually unaffected,

and it is only the smallest ones –

the blue and violet ones –

which are scattered by the tiny

pebble-like molecules

in the sky,

giving the human eye

the sensation of blue.

Tyndall thought

it was particles of dust

which did it;

Einstein later proved

that even molecules

of oxygen and hydrogen

are big enough to scatter

the blue rays

and leave the rest alone.

***

Happy scattering!

José

* Francisco X. Alarcón: poem & review

* canto hondo *

Happy to share my latest review for the Volta Blog: a meditation on Francisco X. Alarcón’s latest collection, Canto Hondo. In my review, I discuss Alarcón’s engagement with Federico García Lorca’s ideas on cante jondo (deep song). Alarcón delves into García Lorca’s homage to his Andalusian influences to create his own deep song tempered by his own distinct poetic line, a line I describe as being “as alive and intimate as a nerve or a gasp.”

The review may be read here.

To get a sense of what I mean by the above, I’ve chosen this week’s poem from Alarcón’s From the Other Side of Night/Del otro lado de la noche (University of Arizona Press). Following the poet’s line breaks, I like how the reader is invited into the thought and experience of each stanza. I’m also moved by the choice of moving from a four-line stanza to a three-line stanza, right at the line “…you’re home’s/nowhere -.” This change in form mirrors a change in the drama and tone of the poem; the stanzas that follow put forth their own hope and response to the dilemma of “those who have lost everything.”

Enjoy!

To Those Who Have Lost Everything – Francisco X. Alarcón

crossed

in despair

many deserts

full of hope

carrying

their empty

fists of sorrow

everywhere

mouthing

a bitter night

of shovels

and nails

“you’re nothing

you’re shit

your home’s

nowhere”—

mountains

will speak

for you

rain

will flesh

your bones

green again

among ashes

after a long fire

started in

a fantasy island

some time ago

turning

Natives

into aliens

 ***

Happy amonging!

José

* new work up at the Olduvain Review!

Just a quick post to announce that my poems “Another Sound” and “Of Longing” have been published in The Olduvain Review. Check them out here.

“Of Longing” comes from a conversation I had with C.K. Williams about neither of us playing guitar enough. Perhaps that’ll be the plan for this afternoon :)

See you Friday!

José