Ally Malinenko's Blog, page 17

Post-California update but really, it’s just about poetry.

Hi.

I’m back from California where I met amazing people, heard amazing poety, drove amazing roads, saw amazing animals, ate amazing food and then took one very NOT amazing flight home. This whole traveling thing would be much easier if someone could just knock me over the head as soon as the plane takes off and wake me up when it lands.

That said, I’ll have a post (with pictures!) on all that soon. In the mean time, here’s some poetry stuff.

First off, many thanks to the fine folks at Red Fez for taking this poem about America being lonely. It’s another poem from the series that I’m working tentatively entitled How to Be An American. More info here.

Also, here’s a poem I wrote this morning cause sharing is caring. Also this is probably the longest poem I’ve ever written. Consider that a warning.

Kevin loves Lisa

This is what it says on the metal door of the bathroom stall.

Kevin

loves

Lisa

with a little heart for emphasis.

Next to that it says

Shane and Mary forever.

And above that

Matthew and Marie equals destiny.

I couldn’t help but enjoy the rhyme scheme on that one

as I sat there, peeing out the four beers

we’d already had in this tourist trap

of a bar on the San Francisco wharf

because we were too tired

after hitching a ride back

over the Golden Gate bridge

from a Scottish man driving

a tourist trolley

who said the company charges 35 a piece

but he’d take both of us for 15

as long as we had cash,

we did,

and don’t mind the stopover in Sausalito.

We didn’t.

And now here I am,

too tired to walk back up to North Beach,

reading the graffiti in the women’s room stall

all about love.

I never have a pen on me

let alone a sharpie

to doodle

my thoughts on the metal doors of bar restrooms

probably because I don’t carry a purse,

but other people do,

because I am never without reading material.

I wonder about these women,

the ink at their fingertips,

the truth of their heart

and minds ready to become a permanent part

of the bar landscape

and I can’t help but think

that’s it?

that’s all they have to say is

that Kevin loves them?

Not even that they love Kevin.

No, the order is important.

Kevin Loves Lisa forever and ever and ever.

This is the most we can muster, women?

Really?

Because back in New York City

which feels so far from here

and back in time

farther still

someone once scribbled

You’re drunk Kerouac go home

in the men’s room stall of the White Horse

which as far as graffiti goes, is pretty damn good.

And I can’t help but wonder

what else we can write besides

Kevin Loves Lisa

which of course

I’m sure he does

or did

at the moment Lisa pulled from her bag

a sharpie and sealed their future on this door.

And I wonder is it the beer

or the chocolate-tinis that stifles our pen?

That stays our tongue?

That reduces us to nothing more than

Kevin Loves Lisa.

Not even Lisa loves Kevin

because we all know

to be loved

is better than to love.

No one writes poems on the walls of this bar

but I’ve seen a few in the Grassroots

and once an amazing doodle

on the side of a piano

which shared the bathroom space

in New Orleans.

No, on this door,

it is love and only love that we want to talk about,

that Lisa and Marie and Mary,

three women who I now picture together

here in this stall,

giggling

brave on vanilla flavored shots

breaking the rules

in their first big girls weekend

trip to San Francisco.

And suddenly, while peeing,

I hate these girls.

I hate them for not being poets

for reducing themselves

to nothing but their relationships

as if couple-dom is the ultimate

status update.

I hate these girls for having nothing

in the empty little heads and empty

little hearts

but to declare

that they have something

that you don’t.

They have a love,

who loves them

all the time and don’t you doubt

it cause that’s why they wrote it in permanent ink.

I’m being harsh, I know,

as I ball up the toilet paper and wipe and flush

and wash my hands and return to the bar

to ask my husband

what men write about on the walls of

their stalls

because it has to be better

than what we women got going and I’m starting

to think that the war of the sexes

will never end if we keep

ratcheting up the bulllshit quota

by deciding to limit ourselves

to the two names between the ampersand,

to define ourselves by the fingers entwined

or not entwined in ours.

I want to find Lisa and shake her

and ask her what she thought the day

she saw her mother crying at the kitchen table

or what she thought

the first time she heard a record skip

Did she believe with all her heart that this moment

was never going to be the same?

Plus

I want to know what Kevin thinks,

what he writes on the stall doors

so I ask my husband who cocks an eyebrow

because it seems that I’m always

asking these sort of things

and I wonder if that too

is getting tiring.

What do they write on the stalls, I ask,

as he pulls on his beer and glances

at the playoff game over the bar,

knowing he’s secretly rooting for the Dodgers

even though we’re in Giants country

and he says

it’s mostly about getting head.

Or getting laid.

Or getting some.

And I sigh

and drink my beer

and think

maybe it doesn’t matter

maybe I’m just an old married woman

who doesn’t remember what it’s like

to want to tell the whole world

about how great Kevin is.

And maybe he is,

even if he did write that thing

about getting head on the bathroom wall

of his stall

which I hope, for Lisa’s sake isn’t about her.

And then I think

I hope that I won’t have to pee again

before we get up the hill to Broadway

and Columbus

to have a dark and stormy at Vesuvio.

Peace Love and Starbursts,

Ally

End of an Era

So my submission notebook finally gave out.

All the pages are filled.

I know what you’re thinking. Who cares, right? Get a new notebook.

Thing is I bought that notebook back in 2000. Thirteen years ago at the Pitt campus bookstore I snatched that notebook off the shelf and decided that while it was great to write my little heart out, if I didn’t have the chutzpah to put it out in the world then what was the point?

I was 23 years old. Christ.

The first entry was from August 19th 2000. I submitted poems to Alembic – a now defunct press in Philadelphia. They took two, Little Love Poem and An Apology in November. I don’t even have those poems anymore. They were written on a word processor. It looked like this:

And then saved on one of these

which I used to keep wrapped in a plastic baggie – just in case it rained – in the pouch of my backpack.

Blind Dumb Walking Space was rejected. With a title like that, I can’t really blame them.

This was back when you mailed things.  No email attachments, no submishmash, no paste in the body of the email. You printed it out, folded your SASE (Bonus points if you still know what that even means)  into the envelope – DON’T FORGET THE STAMP – and the dropped it in the box with an extra stamp cause those five sheets of paper felt a little bulky. Then you waited two months for an answer.

Man, you could go broke mailing out to the little rags.

Aside from this book being a cool little record of everything I got accepted and rejected over the last 13 years, it’s also a reminder of how you grow a skin. I used to keep the rejections in a little folder. Little slips of paper that said, “I’m sorry your work does not fit our needs” or just a handwritten note that said “sorry, not for us.” I kept all of them. In the beginning they crushed me. Eventually they barely elicited a shrug. They’re all lost now. In the successive moves from apartment to apartment from Pittsburgh to Brooklyn to Buffalo and back to Brooklyn I lost them. But not this book.

Inside is a record of every poem accepted. Ever story rejected. A huge list of agents – all of which also rejected me.

It’s humbling. I’m not saying I have anything to be particularly boastful about – that’s not what I mean – but it’s humbling in the sense that you really get a scope of how much work goes into each small accomplishment.  Each poem accepted came off of rejections. Each story. Each novel.

It’s like a little written history of How Ally Grew Her Skin and Put Her Writing Out There.

I’ll miss this little notebook.  I learned a lot with her.

Where is my brain?

Clearly I left my brain behind back in August when the very very kind folks at Electric Windmill Press published Issue 7 which contains two poems of mine, Long Weekend and Teaching My Cat.

There is also work by the always awesome Susie Sweetland, one of half the Blue Hour dynamic duo. TRIO! (see comments) Susie has a new book out now, Approximate Tuesday which is available for pre-sale. Wink. Wink.

So my sincere apologies to the wonderful Electric Windmill Press (who also published Kevin Ridgeway’s new book All the Rage also available for sale. Double Wink. Wink) for taking these poems and my apologies for my forgetfulness.

Blame it on the drinking.

You can read the whole thing here OR you can pick up the print edition for a whopping $5.00 here. It’s a steal.

Peace, Love and Starbursts,

Ally

The Reverberations from 9/11 Seem Likely To Continue For Many Years at Camel Saloon

This is the cover of Culture Shock: USA, a book that is supposed to help acclimate new immigrants to the customs and etiquette of America. It’s also full of sweeping generalizations about the country that I live in, some of which are so true, I don’t know if I should a laugh or cry. It’s been fascinating and inspiring to read.

So I started writing a chapbook of poems entitled How To Be An American. The title of each poem is a line or two lifted from the book.

And the very lovely Russell Streur over at Camel Saloon agreed to publish this one about the after effects of September 11th.

Peace, Love and Poetry,

Ally

Banned Books Week

Phew. One day left.

I missed it last year but this year, I got in just under the wire. You remember that scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom?

Yeah. Banned Books Week = hat.

So here’s my favorite of all favorite banned books: The Catcher in the Rye which has been banned about a bajillion times.

What makes [Catcher in the Rye] especially interesting,” the BBC observed in 2003, “is that it has been banned in many countries at one time or another and still remains on the banned list in areas of the USA. As well as containing ‘vulgar and obscene language’, drunkenness, prostitution, delinquency and references to sex it has also been accused of being: ‘anti-white’ (1963 – Columbus, Ohio), being part of a ‘communist plot to gain a foothold in schools’ (1978 – Issaquah, Washington). . . .

-Daniel Jack Chasen, “Why J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye still provokes book bans”

And look what I found:

Nice, huh? That’s from the 5 Criminal Mugshots of Characters from Banned Books which you can see here.

So here are some favorites and why they were banned:

1. Autobiography of Malcom X – “how-to-manual” for crime and “anti-white statements”

2. Call of the Wild – “too radical”

3. For Whom The Bell Tolls – “spreading propaganda unfavorable to the state”

4.  Grapes of Wrath – profanity (goddamn) and “spreading propaganda”

5. Great Gatsby – “sex”

6. Howl – “homosexual sex”

7. Invisible Man – “marxism”

8.  To Kill A Mockingbird – “promoted white supremacy.”

9. Our Bodies Ourselves – “promotes homosexuality” and the use of the word “vagina” (I kid you not)

10. In the Night Kitchen – “baby boy’s penis.” (again, not kidding)

Penises and Vaginas. They’ll get you banned every time.

Happy Banned Books. It’s always fun to see how ignorant we can be!

Happy Birthday, Jim

“I believe that we form our own lives, that we create our own reality, and that everything works out for the best.”

                                                                                                                                                                          – Jim Henson

 

 

Happy Birthday Jim. You’re still missed.

Water is Patient at Mad Swirl

Just a quick thank you to Mad Swirl for picking up this poem Water is Patient.

And yes, if you think I got the idea from Doctor Who, you couldn’t be more right.

Though at the time it was written, it was rather eerily fitting.

Besides if Amanda Palmer can write a whole song called Bigger on the Inside then it’s all good.

 

Thanks again to Mad Swirl.

Peace, Love and Poetic Doctor Who,

Ally

Pushcart, Poems, and Paintings

So the really wonderful ladies over at Blue Hour press were nice enough to nominate my poem, Worship for a Pushcart. The Pushcart is a best of the small press award. I think it’s 100% awesome that out of all the poems that Blue Hour published this year, they picked mine. I can’t thank them enough for their support. As I’ve said before, I have the utmost respect for small presses.

Speaking of poetry, I’ve started writing a chapbook tentatively titled How To Be An American. Normally when I put a chapbook together, I just haphazardly throw together 50-60 poems and hope for the best. But this time, I’m writing with a theme.

Ha.

So I’ve been reading this book called Culture Shock: America which was written to acclimate new immigrants to the weird ways of Americans. The whole things has been sort of strange because while the book definitely has gross assumptions and stereotypes, some of it hits so close to home it’s unsettling. I pulling a line from the book and then writing a poem. Like this:

Americans Have an Enthusiastic Look. They Feel Empowered. No one Else Has That Special Kind of Confidence

 

Making our way through Paris,

my husband has left behind the baseball caps

that normally grace his head.

We’ve packed only plain t-shirts.

We keep the map folded, out of sight in our back pocket.

We speak in low, hushed tones

anxious about speaking English

and our American accents

and yet,

here he comes, in tight jeans, a small scarf,

his face shaved,

lithe, attractive,

crossing the wide open

space of the garden

points and says “Obama, ça va?”

He gives us a thumbs-up and a too loud laugh before passing.

So this weekend, I went to see the Chagall exhibit at the Jewish Museum and on the way, had a conversation with the mister about ny and he was telling me about this thing that he read on Salon (which I can’t find to link to) about two competing writers talking about the cost of NYC. Here’s my take on this. Rent is high, but there are so many cheap/free things to do in the city it’s insane. All summer there are free movies, free Shakespeare in the Park, plays that have discounted nights, nearly every museum has a free day. For instance every Saturday you can see these for free from now until February:

and every friday night, you can go to the MoMA, like we did after the Chagall, and see these for free:

and you know, not to mention this:

 

And then afterwards you’ll spend all day singing Rene and Georgette Magritte with their dog….after the war. (Curse you Paul Simon!)

All I’m saying is it’s a pretty good deal. People should really take advantage of it.

Peace, love and arty-happiness,

Ally

Soft Machines at Blue Hour

Many many many thanks to the lovely ladies over at Blue Hour for publishing this poem, Soft Machines.

Please, do yourself a favor and pick up some of their books. They are putting really quality poetry out into the world. And when really quality poetry is in the world, the world is a better place.

Peace, love and starbursts,

Ally

Speaking Shakespeare and Star Wars

“There’s something about working our way back to Shakespeare rather than dragging him into the 21st century”

If you’re a Shakespeare fan or a linguist or word geek there’s no way you won’t find this video, shot on location at the Globe, fascinating.

Also, why hasn’t anyone bought me this:

It’s like taking two of my favorite things in the world and making them one. Like ice cream soup. (yeah, that comparison didn’t really work did it?)

Brainpickings has got a great little write-up on it.

Get thee to the book store!

Peace, love and Starbursts,

Ally