2 at 8: Angle

Angle 8, edited by UK poets Ann Drysdale and Philip Quinlan (with web mastery by poet Peter Bloxsom), is now up. The issue is full of interesting poets drawn to form, including Claudia Gary, Kate Bernadette Benedict, Norman Ball, R. Nemo Hill, Mary Meriam, Anna M. Evans, Charlotte Innes, Janet Alexa Kenny, Alan Wickes, Maryann Corbett, Deborah Warren, David M.Katz, Catherine Chandler, Kevin Durkin, John Whitworth, Jeff Holt, David Wayne Landrum, Jennifer Reeser, Marybeth Rua-Larsen, Siham Karami, Rick Mullin, Ed Shacklee, Terese Coe, John Foy, and more. (Hat tip to Claudia, as I lifted the list from her Facebook post, rather than industriously cobbling it together on my own.) The archive is here.

Two of my poems may be found in the issue. One is "Dread," lodged in the second half of the issue. I wrote that one after reading some translations from Robert Walser, but it's also under the sway of late winter in Cooperstown, a time in which a Southerner (and perhaps even a born-and-bred Yankee) begins to believe that the White Witch of Narnia might really hold sway and that winter will not end: "...No little wood stove witch / Is opening a door on burning souls,  / No evil but the dread you wear like skin / Is muttering your name in conjure tones."

The other finds a place in the middle section of the issue, Arsy-Versy: Ekphrastic Supplement. That one, "Parque Forestal," was jotted in a pocket notebook while traveling in South America last fall; the park, a wonderful and various city greenspace, follows the Mapocho river in Santiago, Chile. I stumbled on a monument to Rubén Darío, his "name / Mingled with drops and stone and evergreens / And dawn as yellow as a daffodil."

The easiest way to find them in the .pdf file? Go to the table of contents and click on the page number by my name for "Dread" and by the name of the supplement for "Parque Forestal"--and then scroll down four pages--but I recommend a wander through the issue.

Rocking in the ship of trees--

All dressed in snow and holly and berries for the season...

Here's a poem for the nigh-endless falling feathers and stars and cold of the past three days. I wrote it for my youngest child one night when the winter winds were toying with the corners of our federal-era house. It was originally published in Angle. Last year it was reprinted in The Foliate Head (UK: Stanza Press, 2012), where it has the company of many other poems and the marvelous interior and exterior artwork of the Welsh artist Clive Hicks-Jenkins.

Stanza goes foliate!

Ship of Trees

Nails tingle in boards, freezing in the grain,
And the whole house struggles to conjure some
Swaying rootedness, rampire and bulwark
Against invader cold and winter’s gusts.
Outside, the still-living limbs comb and catch;
Migrant months ago all leaf-freight tumbled
South to mulch—and so this naked writhing
With no green hands to stem the streams of air.
In the heaped bed, your hazel eyes yawn black,
Staring into the night, at pale tossings
Past the windowpanes, as the winds shiver
The glass, playing it like an instrument.
I lie down by your side to whisper how
Inside each weathered length of sawn clapboard,
—More than two centuries old, that harvest—
Sleep rings of years, the memory of trees.
Wood will remember how to stand in brunt
Of freeze and gash of winds, to dance, to tack
Like a grove of chestnuts sailing the breeze,
Bringing the cargo of us to shores of dawn.
And when you drift away from me, I lie
With eyes open to the rule of darkness,
Hearing the cold withdrawing of the nails,
Watching branches sweep the prickles of stars.
Your breath is pulsing on my cheek, and I
Shift closer, pushing away all winter thoughts,
Letting each die, alone, in the chilly room
Like a stranger who lacks my harbored joy.

the acutest Angle

Angle, that slanted-toward-the-formal poetry magazine edited by those industrious poets, Janet Alexa Kenny (NZ) and Philip Quinlan (UK) has leaped on metrical feet into the world with a great TADA! If you are a person who cares about poetry, you just might like to visit. The issue is dedicated to poet and founder of interesting 'zines, Paul Stevens. You may download and browse the contents here.

   My presence in the issue (pp. 75-77, p. 101),
along with the first two lines of each poem:

The Fool Glimpses the City 

    --from The Book of the Red King--

Waterfalls of stars from outcroppings,
Torn vigorous lace making dervishes,

Because I Pass, I Pass, While Dreams Remain 

   --a little homage to poet Kathleen Raine--

   Who was it whispered in my dream?
The dream hour's angel whispered in my ear

Lumen Hour 

   --one of those uncanny dreams that want to remain--

Ankle-deep, I stand in sunlit waves,
An enormous disk of sun-lit water

To Make Much of Time 

   --finally a poem about internet frittering!--

Why must you fritter, twitter, play
And want fresh hours to the day?

"Angle welcomes poetry that is acute, possibly oblique, but never obtuse."

***

Favorite facebook posts of the week: 

so pleasant that I'm sharing them.

Carol Jean Treseposted toMarly Youmans

September 30

I read your book yesterday. A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage. Wow. I couldn't put it down. I fell in love with all the characters, and I didn't want the book to end. You are a maestra, Marly!

Robin Egg shared a link via Marly Youmans.

September 29

This is a very short blog post, and you don't have to know the context or know Marly or know anything to read it and be amazed at what the English language can accomplish. Go on! Read it! Stop reading this, and go read that! It'll just take a second, and I can almost promise you'll be made to feel more aware and alive. http://thepalaceat2.blogspot.com/2012/09/good-by-to-all-that.html

What lovely comments, one from a brand new e-friend. I liked them so much that I'm saving them here... In a world where chance plays a large role and the number of writers who support themselves by writing is miniscule, such words are sweet.

At an Angle

A delayed post: clearly written a few days ago.

Waking, I remembered that the marvelous Maurice Sendak died yesterday. Amazing that the planet can go on without his curmudgeonly verdicts and masterful strokes of brush and pen.

His was a life that mattered to many in the world of books and theatre and bedtime reading. I shall have to hunt up my beloved The Juniper Tree and have a little mental confab with the man. So many wonderful collaborations-on-paper (Ruth Krauss, Randall Jarrell, George MacDonald, and many more) and lovely Sendak books remain.

Janet Kenny and Philip Quinlan's new magazine Angle launched today--please download and browse and read. Thanks to the editors for asking to see some of my poems! The first issue is packed full of interesting poets from all over the world, united in the love for form and sound. I have several poems in the new enterprise; here's a bit from the start of each:

The Substance

Fine as a ring-stole drawn through a hoop
Of gold, but crimped and burned
And almost ruined by some fire

Ship of Trees

Nails tingle in boards, freezing in the grain,
And the whole house struggles to conjure some
Swaying rootedness, rampire and bulwark

"The Fool Glimpses the City," "Lumen Hour," "Because I Pass I Pass," and "To Make Much of Time" will be in the second issue, winter 2012/2013.

Links for the new novel, A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage: Pinterest page for the book; read chapter one at Scribd ; visit the book page; see the facebook page; try for the Goodreads giveaway of 24 books, April 15-May 15; find the Amazon  hardcover / ebook or indie books search; order from Mercer.