Robin Helweg-Larsen's Blog, page 43

Gail White, ‘The Girls Who Got Ahead’

When all the bright young women studied law
and medicine, I thought a PhD
in Women and the Novel would unthaw
the frozen heart of Academe for me.
When all the bright girls married, where was I?
Still shacking up with poets that I met
in bars, convinced that genius and rye
would write us into fame and out of debt.
The bright girls made investments by the rules.
I kept on writing novels in my mind.
They sent their handsome kids to private schools
and I became the girl they left behind.
Bright girls got married and ahead and rich,
while I’m in debt again, and life’s a bitch.

*****

Gail White writes: “The Girls Who Got Ahead is a poem from the 90’s. Yes, everyone was in the professions or in graduate school but me. I was a poet and that means taking a vow of poverty. I thought I might as well make a sonnet out of it.”

Gail White is the resident poet and cat lady of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. Her books ASPERITY STREET and CATECHISM are available on Amazon. She is a contributing editor to Light Poetry Magazine. “Tourist in India” won the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award for 2013. Her poems have appeared in the Potcake Chapbooks ‘Tourists and Cannibals’, ‘Rogues and Roses’, ‘Families and Other Fiascoes’, ‘Strip Down’ and ‘Lost Love’. ‘Money Song’ is collected in ‘Asperity Street‘. Her new light verse chapbook, ‘Paper Cuts‘, is now available on Amazon.

Photo: “Women Entrepreneurs Blazing Trails” by World Economic Forum is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Short poem: ‘Raven’

Every raven started as a naked nestling,
every fox was a blind nursing pup,
helpless… then looking, reaching, wrestling
into the wilderness of growing up.

*****

Written for my grandson Raven (born in October last year, and dressed by his parents in a fox outfit for Halloween). The poem was published recently in The Asses of Parnassus – thanks, Brooke Clark!

Photo: “HBT Raven Chicks” by vastateparksstaff is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Michael Tyldesley, ‘Ballad of the Siren Song’

“Come closer and I will tell you a secret
To you, to you, only to you.
Come Closer.”

You’re perched sultry on a craggy cliff,
curvy on a windswept rock
with red dress clinging to your breasts:
you play that tune, that tune you play
it’s calling out to me.

And I’m sailing, roving, lost at sea,
bedraggled by the ocean spray
and changing course for you.

Because, that tune, that tune you play
it jolts me, hooks me, reels its prey:
from silent waves to violin,
from moonless numb to sun-kissed-skin
from topsail calm to snatching whip,
from steady course to daring trip.

I hear that tune, that tune you play
it takes me further, far away:
your spiral smile, your whirlpool lips,
they whisper songs to rolling ships.

That tune you play, with gravity
hypnotic moonstruck melody,
there’s no escape, the heavens swarm
electrostatic pulses form –

I’d love to be your thunderstorm,
whipping up the specks of you,
teasing you; perplexing you
not pleasing you; just vexing you
yet needing the effects of you,
a feeling that projects on you,
it’s squeezing me and sexing you.

And yet, that tune, that tune you play
it leads me on in some strange way –
I see beached skulls and broken hulls
shadows changing, screeching gulls,
till I’m marooned, a castaway,
a shipwreck in your taloned splay.

*****

Michael Tyldesley writes: “The poem was inspired by the trap of damaging relationships earlier in my life and the metaphor that sits behind the poem and continues to burn in me is the irresistible lure of hypomania. The poem structure was inspired by the freeform rhyming style of Jenni Doherty and the language of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood. It’s been gathering dust in my drawer over the years and it’s quite an old poem. I wrote most of it at 26 and I’m now 42. It’s slightly raunchy and I suppose I didn’t want to be judged negatively due to that but it’s always been a very popular poem when I shared it.”

Michael Tyldesley works in British submarine design. At the time of writing this post he is in Australia, doing performance poetry at Melbourne’s Vibe Union. ‘Ballad of the Siren Song’ was published in this month’s Snakeskin.

Photo: Image Creator powered by DALL·E

Edmund Conti, ‘Two’s Company’

Sweet are the uses of divinity
And sweeter yet in keeping us engrossed
Is the simple complex concept of the trinity
The Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Is making sense of Them too much a bother?
Is there any way to master Three-in-One?
The son, the Holy Ghost and Father,
The Holy Ghost, the Father and the Son.

I use this ancient form, the cranky sonnet
To crank out my aberrant Dunciad
And what evolves from overthinking on it:
The Spook, the Kid and–dare I say it?–Dad.

It’s true that poems are made by fools like me
But only God can make himself a three.

*****

Edmund Conti writes: “I wasn’t going to get into any interpretations of the Trinity. Just noting that scholars writing about it don’t shed much light. So I decided to shed my own. Somewhere along the line I may have gone a little overboard. (Pray for me.) I think my cranky sonnet has its own rhyme scheme, not one from the books. Meanwhile I’ve forgotten what ”Dunciad” means except that it was a good rhyme word. Forgetting all that, I guess this whole thing was inspired by Joyce Kilmer’s memorable last line.”

Edmund Conti has recent poems published in Light, Lighten-Up Online, The Lyric, The Asses of Parnassus, newversenews, Verse-Virtual and Open Arts Forum. His book of poems, Just So You Know, released by Kelsay Books
https://www.amazon.com/Just-You-Know-Edmund-Conti/dp/1947465899/
was followed by That Shakespeherian Rag, also from Kelsay
https://kelsaybooks.com/products/that-shakespeherian-ragHis poems have appeared in several Potcake Chapbooks: Tourists and Cannibals
Rogues and Roses
Families and Other Fiascoes
Wordplayful
all available from Sampson Low Publishers

Photo: “Father, Son & Holy Ghost” by elston is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Edmund Conti, ‘The Straight Skinny’

To say that only I am fat,
To say that I am only fat,
To say only that I am fat,
To only say that I am fat,
Is not to say, however, that
They equally are definitive.

One statement says fat’s mine alone,
One says no other trait I own,
One just has a plaintive tone,
And–overlooked and overblown–
One just splits the infinitive.

*****

Edmund Conti writes: “I guess this began with the observation that ‘only I am fat’ and ‘I am only fat’ have different meanings depending on the placement of one word. Which made me wonder if placing ‘only’ in other parts of the sentence would change it again. Which it did. Why did I use ‘fat’ as a trait? Well, it’s an easy rhyme and people can relate to it—in themselves or others. Also, it gave me a good excuse for the title.
I thought writing the second stanza would be trickier, but the rhymes just fell into place. And noticing the split infinitive and using it saved the poem. Assuming it was worth saving.”

Edmund Conti has recent poems published in Light, Lighten-Up Online, The Lyric, The Asses of Parnassus, newversenews, Verse-Virtual and Open Arts Forum. His book of poems, Just So You Know, released by Kelsay Books
https://www.amazon.com/Just-You-Know-Edmund-Conti/dp/1947465899/
was followed by That Shakespeherian Rag, also from Kelsay
https://kelsaybooks.com/products/that-shakespeherian-rag

His poems have appeared in several Potcake Chapbooks:

Tourists and Cannibals
Rogues and Roses
Families and Other Fiascoes
Wordplayful
all available from Sampson Low Publishers

Photo: “Why Am I So Fat?” by morroelsie is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Richard Fleming, ‘The Railway Line – in memory of John Simpson’

We walked together side by side,
at dusk along the disused line,
restless and glad to be outside.
I had Woodbines, you brought cheap wine.
Fifteen, unthinkingly alive,
truants from our suburban drive,
we talked excitedly of life
how we had cracked it, knew the score.
We worked the cork out with your knife
then drank sweet wine and wanted more.
We smoked our fags, ignored the cold,
could not imagine being old.

*****

Richard Fleming writes: “The Railway Line is an old poem, rescued from the archives, that remains dear to me. In it, I’ve attempted to recapture the heady recklessness of my early teenage years when the world seemed full mysteries, and friendships were more intense than those I later formed in adulthood. John didn’t make it past his early twenties so he remains, in my memories of him, forever rebellious and young.”

Richard Fleming is an Irish-born poet currently living in Guernsey, a small island midway between Britain and France. His work has appeared in various magazines, most recently Snakeskin, Bewildering Stories, Lighten Up Online, the Taj Mahal Review and the Potcake Chapbook ‘Lost Love’, and has been broadcast on BBC radio. He has performed at several literary festivals and his latest collection of verse, Stone Witness, features the titular poem commissioned by the BBC for National Poetry Day. He writes in various genres and can be found at www.redhandwriter.blogspot.com or Facebook https://www.facebook.com/richard.fleming.92102564/

“railway lines” by apdk is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Review: ‘Burial Grounds’ by Brian Gavin

Gavin’s poems are quiet, elegant reflections on people—alive and dead—in danger of being forgotten, in towns not in the mainstream of modern life. His verse is quietly formal, usually rhymed, always rhythmic. Sometimes as brief as a sonnet, as with my personal favourite ‘Grand Opening’: an ex-serviceman, mopping floors and putting the coffee on at 4 a.m., running a business at which (apparently) four previous owners have failed, but simply doing what has to be done…

It isn’t so much hope behind these doors
as work to do. (…) He reaches for the light.
He sets his OPEN sign against the night.

There is an inherent mournfulness in these stories of people in places which once thrived but are now hanging on without major farming or industrial or commercial opportunities. Many poems are about people towards the end of their lives, or even later as the title suggests. And even when youth is included it shows up as a teen alone on a swing on a November evening, working her phone:

and nothing moves, but for the falling dark
and the quiver of her thumbs at work.

Railway stations close, businesses relocate, fires happen, towns empty out… but people are still there, poorer, aging, their prospects reduced. The overall tone is an almost religious attitude of accepting where you are, fighting the good fight, doing what must be done… moving, as we all must, into life’s inevitable landscape of burial grounds.

*****

Brian Gavin is a retired Distribution Manager who started writing poetry 10 years ago. His poems have appeared in The Journal of Formal Poetry, Peninsula Poets and Snakeskin Magazine, and in the Potcake Chapbook ‘Careers and Other Catastrophes’. He lives in Lakeport, Michigan, USA, with his wife Karen. ‘Burial Grounds’ is available from Kelsay Books.

Susan McLean, ‘Morbid Interest’

How unpleasant to meet Mr. Poe.
It gives a young lady a chill
when, just as she’s saying hello,
he asks if she’s lately been ill.

It was mid-afternoon, yet he seemed
to be tipsy or mildly sedated.
How oddly his mournful eyes gleamed
when he heard that we might be related.

He muttered some rhymes for my name,
saying nothing could be more inspiring
to a poet desirous of fame
than the sight of young beauties expiring.

Then he asked if I had a bad cough
or a semi-conversable crow.
I informed him of where to get off.
How unpleasant to meet Mr. Poe.

*****

Susan McLean writes: “In my teens, I was a big fan of Edgar Allan Poe‘s short stories and poetry. I loved his eerie subjects and crooning, incantatory lines. I memorized his poem ‘To Helen,’ and I parodied his iconic ‘The Raven.’ But in grad school, I read his essay ‘The Philosophy of Composition,’ in which he wrote that “the death . . . of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.” Hmmm. At that moment, it occurred to me that all of those dead women of his stories and poems might be less an outpouring of personal grief and more a product of an agenda. Years later, when responding to a challenge from the British journal The Spectator to write a poem modeled on Edward Lear’s ‘How pleasant to know Mr. Lear‘ but about another author, I imagined how Poe might seem to a young woman being introduced to him.
This poem, which was originally published in Light Quarterly, was later reprinted in Per
Contra and in my second poetry book, The Whetstone Misses the Knife.”

Susan McLean has two books of poetry, The Best Disguise and The Whetstone Misses the Knife, and one book of translations of Martial, Selected Epigrams. Her poems have appeared in Light, Lighten Up Online, Measure, Able Muse, and elsewhere. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.
https://www.pw.org/content/susan_mclean

Illustration: DALL-E

Formalist poet A.E. Stallings elected the next Oxford Professor of Poetry

Congratulations to Alicia Stallings on winning election to one of the most prestigious poetry positions on the planet – the Oxford Professorship of Poetry! A thoroughly deserved success for one of the absolute best poets writing today. And how nice for all of us, that a formalist is recognised as the best choice. Her term of office begins in October and runs for four years.

Here is the University’s report on it: https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/oxford-people/professor-of-poetry

Odd poem: Henri Rousseau, ‘Inscription pour La Rêve’

Yadwigha dans un beau rêve
S’étant endormie doucement
Entendait les sons d’une musette
Dont jouait un charmeur bien pensant.
Pendant que la lune reflète
Sur les fleuves [or fleurs], les arbres verdoyants,
Les fauves serpents prêtent l’oreille
Aux airs gais de l’instrument.

Yadwigha in a beautiful dream
Having fallen gently to sleep
Heard the sounds of a reed instrument
Played by a well-intentioned [snake] charmer.
As the moon reflected
On the rivers [or flowers], the verdant trees,
The wild snakes lend an ear
To the joyous tunes of the instrument.

*****

Henri Rousseau‘s last completed work, ‘The Dream‘ is huge – almost 7′ x 10’ – and is remarkable for a couple of reasons: it features his Polish mistress of decades before, and it was the first of his pieces to bring him wide-spread acceptance. Completed and sold in early 1910, it was exhibited for six weeks in the early spring, was praised by poet and critic Guillaume Apollinaire, and gave him long-sought recognition. He died in September of that year.

Picasso and Matisse understood and admired Rousseau’s work, but many people did not. Rousseau wrote the poem to help viewers understand the painting; he also wrote in a letter to art critic André Dupont, “The woman asleep on the couch is dreaming she has been transported into the forest, listening to the sounds from the instrument of the enchanter.”

‘The Dream’ is one of the most striking pieces of art on display in MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art, in New York.