Surfacing with a few poems

Apology-and-poems

I've neglected sending out poems and posting for a long time because of far-flung travels, a long stay in North Carolina after my mother's death, those peculiarly-named small but wicked demons Madame Plantar Faciitis and Sir Histamine Intolerance, and also the general oceanic chaos that is sometimes life. Luckily, I sent a few poems out and also received some welcome requests. So here are what new or recent-ish publications that come to mind. I'm afraid it's a bit random. Rather lazily, I have sometimes simply pointed to a page that gathers all my poems from different issues in one place, so be sure and ramble around and read other poets in the archives. (And in fact, you may find more of my poems from earlier years there if you keep scrolling down at The Brazen Head.)

I do have some (eight, maybe?) new poems coming out in The Colosseum, The Brazen Head, and New Verse Review... All three journals are good homes for poets who write in form, and they have interesting poet-editors. And I think a number of those poems reflect some of my travels of the past year and a half (Canada, Italy, Spain, Czech Republic, Hungary, Singapore, and South Korea--whew!), particularly in Asia.

• "A Painter of the Eleventh Century" in Mezzo Cammin

• "Aelfstan the Illuminator Begins a Work," English-Speaking Union (Victoria Branch, Australia) / ESU Formal Verse Contest 2024: Runner-up to the First Prize. President's Choice Award. Published at the English-Speaking Union (Victoria Branch) site and in The Brazen Head.
• "Blue and Shadow" in The Brazen Head
• "Child and Ancient Mask" in Mezzo Cammin
• "Jenetta, Blessed" in The Borough (Australia)
• From the archives — "Landscape With Icefall" in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily
• "Making and the Blackbird" in Presence (2025)
• "My Fox Wife" in The Borough (Australia)
• "Saint Thief" in New Verse Review
• "The Cartaghena Fair" in The Brazen Head
• "The Castle that is the World" (crown of sonnets) in Gramarye (University of Chichester, UK)
• "The Deepening Shade in The Borough (Australia)
• "The Maker in the Snows" in the special issue in memory of poet Jane Greer from New Verse Review.  A Tribute to Jane Greer: Poets and Friends Remember Jane Greer (1953-2025)
• "Thomas the Rhymer and the Ancient Paths" in Gramarye (University of Chichester, UK)
• "Woman in the Land of Dream-after-storm" in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily

Easter Triduum greetings--

A lovely crucifixion in linden (12" x 16″) by the interesting Montreal icon carver, Jonathan Pageau. From "Understanding the Icons of Holy Week," https://www.orthodoxartsjournal.org/understanding-the-icon…/.  You may meet facets of him at Orthodox Arts Journal, twitter, and YouTube. Go to his gallery at Pageau Carvings to see more of his art. I'm fond of his writings and podcasts about symbology, perhaps because--human weakness!--I find them congruent with my own thoughts.

Ekphrasis for Triduum

Christ Washing the Feet of the Apostles
by Meister des Hausbuches, 1475 (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin)
Wikipedia, public domain

*

And here's a little ekphrastic poem....

The Thursday of Mysteries   

   After Christ Washing the Feet of the Apostles

              Meister des Hausbuches, 1475

Dim clashing measures like muffled cymbals

As halos make the music of the spheres…

The apostles are crowded on the pews,

Some watching and some not as Jesus Christ

In his halo leafing with three branches

Gestures upward and to the water bowl

That is like another halo, fallen

To the floor and waiting for the maundy

Foot of innocent and guilty alike.

The room looks like some holy carpenter’s

Medieval caravan, all fitted out

With paneling and mullions with crown glass;

In the unfolding distance, see the stairs

Slanting leftward over the black archway

That might mark entrance to a waiting tomb.

There’s Judas, all his facial lines tugged down,

And on a shelf a platter like some lost

Halo, unneeded, there for change of mind. 

                                      reprinted from Mezzo Cammin 

"For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning,
 that we should love one another."
 #SriLanka 

#Pittsburgh 

#Christchurch

A merchant, a stylite, and a maiden walk into a bar--

Two of my new poems are up at Mezzo Cammin here. Snips with title and first two lines:

     The Merchant and the Stylite

     Whether he was comely, I cannot say,
     But he was born in Sis, Cilicia;

     The Maiden-saint of France

     While still a child I was a thing men fear,
     The fire-struck one who has the ears to hear

I'm looking forward to reading the issue after I finish bushwhacking my way through an author questionnaire... See editor Kim Bridgford's facebook announcement below for a complete list of contributors. There's also a list with biographical sketches and pictures here.

* * *

Kim Bridgford: It is with joy that I announce the latest issue of Mezzo Cammin, with featured visual artist Morgan O'Hara, featured poet Kathleen McClung,reviewer Alexandra Oliver, and poets Barbara Crooker, Alexandra Donovan, Jehanne Dubrow, Kathleen Goldbach, Colleen S. Harris, Brittany R Hill, Katie Hoerth, Lynne Knight, Jean L. Kreiling, Angie Macri, Carolyn Martin, Mary Mercier, Ann E. Michael, Leslie Schultz, Myrna Stone, Jean Syed, Ann Christine Tabaka, Sally Thomas, Doris Watts, Joyce P. Wilson, and Marly Youmans. With profound gratitude to Anna M. Evans for technical expertise and to Pete Duval for the cover image.

New poems at Mezzo Cammin

Three newish poems online at the polar bear issue! Bites from the openings:

Melville at Mooring

So frail and nearly mad, too old for seas,
Recalling Greylock like a cresting wave,

and
Zodiac

One of them is wandering with Bartram,
Tasting breast-of-heron, vision shaken

and
Family Storybook: Peter Rabbit

In the yard with the thrum of hummingbirds,
With zinnias rioting from coffee cans,

I see lots of familiar names, including old friend Jeanne Larsen. Thank you to poet and editor Kim Bridgford.

2 at Mezzo Cammin

Two newish poems are up at Mezzo Cammin: the tetrameter "The Soul Considered as a Boat" and "The Thursday of Mysteries," an ekphrastic pentameter poem (after "Christ Washing the Feet of the Apostles" by Meister des Hausbuches, 1475.) 

Kim Bridgford, poet and editor and more, with a comment on Facebook: Delighted to share the new issue of Mezzo Cammin! Thrilled to feature so many wonderful poets including Catherine Chandler, Rebekah Curry, Anna M. Evans, Nicole Caruso Garcia, Vernita Hall, Katie Hoerth, Michele Leavitt, Barbara Loots, Joan Cacciatore Mazza, Kathleen McClung, Becca Menon, Diane Moomey, Sally Nacker, Stella Nickerson, Samantha Pious, Monica Raymond, Jennifer Reeser, Jane Schulman, Katherine Barrett Swett, Paula Tatarunis (Featured Poet), Ann Thompson, Jo Vance, Lucy Wainger, Gail White, Cheryl Whitehead, Liza McAlister Williams, Sherraine Williams, and Marly Youmans. The featured visual artist is Alice Mizrachi, whose cover is based on a quote by Russell Goings. Wendy Videlock has written a beautiful essay on the work of Paula Tartarunis, our featured poet. For my own part, I was happy to spend some time with new books by Luann Landon and Alexandra Oliver, both of whom address issues of home. Thanks from the bottom of my heart, as always, to Anna M. Evans for all of her digital time and expertise, and to Pete Duval, my husband, who has provided technical time and support on every issue.

Poems at Mezzo Cammin

New at Mezzo Cammin: "A Curious Incident," a poem from the manuscript of The Book of the Red King; and "Rider Entering a Ruined City," a poem I wrote for painter and occasional penpal Graham Ward (UK.) Unfortunately, I cannot find an image of Graham's painting--thought I had saved it--but shall post later if I unearth one.

At Mezzo Cammin

Update: Now we know that I'm either insane or very much too busy because that's not the new issue! Not only that, but I read it and wrote about it earlier. I'm going to go put my head in a bucket. Good night!

Again I'm in one of my very favorite online 'zines, Mezzo Cammin, edited by poet Kim Bridgford. Mezzo Cammin is home to formal poems by women. Here is a taste--titles and opening lines. To see more, click and leap here.

Notes on the poems: 
The poem about Carolyn Wyeth (one of Andrew Wyeth's daughters) was written after seeing a Wyeth family show at the Fenimore Museum in Cooperstown. Until then, I didn't know much about the two daughters as painters, as one hears mostly about N. C., Andrew, and Jamie Wyeth. And here's a link to a piece about and photograph of the bride, groom, and magnolia bouquet (my maternal grandparents.)  "My Lover Sang to Me" is for Michael, my husband. "The Dream of the King's Clothes" was written after looking at photographs of cloth made from the silk of the golden orb spider. The beauty of the material and the slowness of the Peers and Godley project interested me. The setting for "Eldest" is the Cathedral of All Saints (Episcopal) in Albany, New York. That one's for Benjamin.

Portrait of Carolyn Wyeth with Leaves

Leaves moving in the evening light and air—
Some are lit from within, irregular


Bride, with Magnolia Blossom

The piano-and-fiddle tune is faint,
As light as eyes in the daguerreotype…


My Lover Sang to Me

He sang a ballad in my ear;
     Song echoed like a shell.


The Dream of the King's Clothes

Seven years we toiled, collecting the orb
Spiders at dawn, coaxing the spinnerets


Eldest

Firstborn, strange in the womb, too-late turner, brow-positioned—
     In the cathedral I wandered to the Lady Chapel

Poetry-and-novel roundup

Today's another celebratory day, as my youngest child will have his Eagle Ceremony, along with miles of cake and ribs at the Scout compound at Crumhorn Mountain... Meanwhile, here's a roundup of my poetry-and-fiction news.

"the ink seed," July 

"Something like a Memory" appeared in the current issue of Books and Culture, and is now up on the website here. The magazine (edited by that wide reader, John Wilson) has been a big supporter of mine, a thing I very much appreciate.

Mezzo Cammin, June 28

 

Lovely day doing various events at International Arts Movement and Fujimura Institute's Culture Care Day at Cairn University (Langhorne, Pennsylvania) on Wednesday, lovely day with family at graduation today... And now I find  some poems just up at Mezzo Cammin--here is a taste of what is there, titles and opening lines. Thanks as always to editor and poet and culture maker Kim Bridgford.

 Portrait of Carolyn Wyeth with Leaves

 Leaves moving in the evening light and air—
Some are lit from within, irregular

 Bride, with Magnolia Blossom

 The piano-and-fiddle tune is faint,
As light as eyes in the daguerreotype…

 My Lover Sang to Me

 He sang a ballad in my ear;
 Song echoed like a shell.

 The Dream of the King's Clothes

 Seven years we toiled, collecting the orb
Spiders at dawn, coaxing the spinnerets

 Eldest

 Firstborn, strange in the womb, too-late turner, brow-positioned—
 In the cathedral I wandered to the Lady Chapel

Lament for the Dead, July 4

LAMENT FOR THE DEAD IS AN ONLINE COMMUNITY POETRY PROJECT WHICH WILL MARK THE DEATH OF EVERY PERSON KILLED BY POLICE THIS SUMMER, AND EVERY POLICE OFFICER WHO LOSES LIFE IN THE LINE OF DUTY, WITH A POEM.

http://www.lamentforthedead.org/…/unknown-man-60s-or-70s-sa…. 

Back at the start of May, Carey Wallace asked me to write for Lament for the Dead and to suggest some other poets--my day to write was July 4th (thank you, Carey) and here is the link to my 7-part poem. Interesting to see my words centered--looks like a different poem! Thanks to Carey for all her hard work on Lament for the Dead. Take a look at the many varied poems...

Maze of Blood news, 2 July

Art by Clive Hicks-Jenkins

1. News: My youngest has graduated, with many frolics and much company, and I had a wonderful time at the Culture Care Day at Cairn University (sponsored by Fujimura Institute and International Arts Movement), where I did a poetry reading, an interview and fiction reading, a small kickoff reading for the concert, and a taped interview. Whew. What a week that was!

2. Pages

New page
on Maze of Blood at Facebook here.  
(Evidently Facebook will not allow the world "blood" as part of a page title!)

Old page on my website, now updated, here. 

Art by Clive Hicks-Jenkins,
design by Burt and Burt

3. Recent comments on a Maze of Blood galley
at twitter, with slash marks to separate each tweet:

5 tweets from editor John Wilson ‏@jwilson1812 Jun 28:
The novel is inspired by the life of Robert E. Howard (creator of Conan the Barbarian), and Coleridge is a / tutelary spirit. (Cover and illustrations by Clive Hicks-Jenkins.) Like all of Marly's books, it's one of a kind. / I marvel at the arc you've followed. Each time you start from scratch, in a new direction, so that a bald summary of your / novels would seem to suggest that "Marly Youmans" is actually 8 or 9 different writers, and yet in fact each book is so / clearly and distinctively yours, with your "inscape."

3 Tweets from John Wilson, editor of Books and Culture:
Saved galley of Maze of Blood (new novel by @marlyyoumans) for this trip. Finished it yesterday: wonderful. Coming in Sept from @mupress / The novel is inspired by the life of Robert E. Howard (creator of Conan the Barbarian), and Coleridge is a ... / tutelary spirit. (Cover and illustrations by Clive Hicks-Jenkins.) Like all of Marly's books, it's one of a kind. @marlyyoumans @mupress

And here's a 4-tweet quote, John Wilson ‏@jwilson1812 Jun 28
"And so the tale of a Green Knight with his chopped-off head still holding a knight of the Round Table to promises made / is no less true than the tale of a man crammed with secrets who spontaneously combusts and leaves behind only a black, / tallowy mark on the floorboards, and his story in turn is no less true than the tale of a Texas sharecropper's wife who / has had a miscarriage only ten days before but just this morning was walking behind the mule and guiding the jerking plow."

Poems at Mezzo Cammin

What Consoles the Fool

Glossary by Twilight

Invisibles

Take a look at the new issue--lots of familiar and not-so-familiar names in the realm of women-who-write-formal-poems. Also, please look at the just-prior and brand new post about "The Magician's Card," an essay written for Fujimura Institute.

6 poems at Mezzo Cammin

Update: I suppose this is a hat tip to poet Ned Balbo for saying on facebook that he especially liked "Legends of the Virgin Martyrs" because that made me suddenly realize that the post should be "7 poems at Mezzo Cammin." The unfortunate virgins have suffered yet another injury . . . .

* * *

I'm feeling celebratory, as I'm just home from a tournament--child no. 3 won two matches (one technical fall and one pin) and had a forfeit (and yesterday won his dual with a pin as well)--and my husband will be home from Kyrgyzstan in the small hours of this very night. And so it's good to have a little flourish of my own to share--some poems at Mezzo Cammin, edited by poet and West Chester Poetry Conference director Kim Bridgford. Thanks to to her for much hard work of sifting and and arranging!

Love for a Stranger

Sixteen Hundred Years

In the Outer Darkness of Middangeard

The Village Whispers

Yeats Wishes to Be Magus

Sir Gawain to His Shield

And there are lots more poems in the issue. The poets are Liz Ahl, Shaune Bornholdt, Rebecca Guess Cantor, Joanna Cattonar, Claudia Gary, Carrie Jerrell, Ann Kolakowski, Jenna Le, Diane Lockward, Barbara Loots, Katherine McClung, Susan MacLean, Angela O'Donnell, Jessica Piazza, Rosemarie Rowley, Maxine Silverman, Katherine Smith, Linda Stern, and Karrie Waarala.

Thank you

to Maryam Chahine for picking "The Buried Girl" as her poem of the week this week (scroll down, bottom right.) Earlier it appeared in Mezzo Cammin. It's always pleasant to have work singled out by a young writer... Good luck to her!

In the Shadow of the Jasmine

Below please find a reprint from Mezzo Cammin; if you would like more, there are more poems by me in the same issue, as well in almost every issue in the archives. And, thanks to poet and editor Kim Bridgford, there are plenty of poems in the journal that rejoice in depth, feeling, rhythm, the sound of words, and shapeliness.

Note on the poem and recent publications: This poem appears in The Foliate Head (UK: Stanza Press, 2012.) My other recent poetry books are the long-poem adventure in blank verse, Thaliad (Montreal: Phoenicia Publishing), and a collection, The Throne of Psyche from Mercer University Press, 2011. (My most recent novel is A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage from Mercer, 2012, winner of The Ferrol Sams Award / current ForeWord BOTYA finalist.) All four are available fromt he usual sources, though the hardcover version of Thaliad is available only through Phoenicia.

In the wake of Mark Edmundson's assault on contemporary poetry, I suggest that readers might look beyond the usually-pushed poets. (If you have a favorite, please tell!) I've only read the Ron Charles review but should be getting a copy of the original Edmundson piece today. 

Their poems “are good in their ways,” he concedes. “They simply aren’t good enough. They don’t slake a reader’s thirst for meanings that pass beyond the experience of the individual poet and light up the world we hold in common.” --Ron Charles quotes Mark Edmundson

More to come on that topic, I imagine...

Update. Thanks to Death Zen for an email copy of the Edmundson piece. And, a bit later, thanks to John O' Grady for a link to a .pdf copy: http://treeturtle.com/poetryslam.pdf. I am reading it now and would love to hear what other people think.

In the Shadow of Jasmine 

       in the shade--the eternal jasmine's--
       with immaculate joy.
             --Wasyl Barka, "The Mad Woman"

As white as jasmine though more crystalline,
The snow goes on for miles around the house
Under a freighted, leaning sky of ice.
So it has been for months--first the water
Flowing choppily between us, and next
Torrential time, widening the spaces.
Then came the soft relentlessness of snow.
At first I thought one second was enough
To alter us forever and bereave
My soul of you--and so it was--but then
Your face went slipping through my memory
Like water that no human hands can hold
Until I ran along the banks of death,
Stumbling, cutting my feet, calling your name,
And there I glimpsed the shade of you, not torn
In pieces by mad terror's strike . . . To think,
They've named me mad who had divinest sense
Of love for you that would not ebb and die
As others wished, as others would commend!
I knew your voice, your body wavering
As if in ancient glass--you steadied, were
A vision of full-bodied soul, my love,
Who elsewhere lay in fragments in the grave,
And there along the shrapnel-edge of death,
We made the only vows we'll ever have,
To walk past time into the jasmine shade
Where fragrance may be music, where our love
May fuse with light, where we're not as we were.

At night my sheets are white as miles of snow;
My body, restless, aches for what is not,
And when I sleep my dreams are jasmine-lit.
I wander in the moonlight, break the stems
Of closed-up jasmine flowers just at dawn
And make them into tea. Sun's corolla 
Transforms into a single jessamine.

Above your bones I draw in snow a bloom
That glints as if it were a diamond brooch--
A scentless thing with dust at every heart
Of every flake of snow. No matter how
Broken, each crystal star is beautiful,
Fallen from perfection into a world
Infinitely precious, infinitely
Small against the dark and galaxies.
My love, my love, there is no terror here
But only grief that passes and a joy
I cannot share, these stars upon my skin.
I bend to taste the snow, and it is sweet. 

Poems, essay at Mezzo Cammin--

Poems up at Mezzo Cammin, three of them from The Book of the Red King manuscript:

• Tree Girl
• The Garden at 4 a.m.
• The Alchemist to the Fool
• The Red King to the Stricken Man

I also have a little essay on Kathleen Raine in Mezzo Cammin's Fifteen by Fifteen, a celebration of fifteen women poets by fifteen women poets. And thanks to editor, poet, and West Chester Poetry Conference director Kim Bridgford!

Index to my online poems in Mezzo Cammin

2013.1

2012.1, 2012.2

2011.2, 2011.1, 

2010.2, 2010.1, 

2009.2, 2009.1,

2008.2, 2008.1, 

and 2007.1.

Mezzo Cammin is one of my favorite places to publish. I admire the energy and work of poet, Mezzo Cammin editor, West Chester director, and founder of the woman poets' timeline project Kim Bridgford. Here's a little map to my various publications there. More will be coming out in the next few issues. I think this compact list can serve as a little introduction to my poetry, as it contains a lot of variety, including a snip from Thaliad, poems from The Foliate Head and The Throne of Psyche, and some adventures with the Fool and the King from The Book of the Red King (forthcoming, some day!)

Puck in Spring etc.

Half-title page, image
by Clive Hicks-Jenkins

Wave

It's busy here with my husband's birthday, and the need to get one son off to Rhode Island and another off to North Carolina early in the morning tomorrow. So I just wave and move on, gathering my groceries and supplies and washing clothes.

Read a poem (the nearest is below), read a book, enjoy your day...

Poem

Here's a poem for chilly spring, finally coming to upstate New York. If you take a look at A Midsummer Night's Dream, you'll find that I not only borrowed Puck for my speaker but borrowed from a Puck-song's metrics and rhyme scheme. This poem was originally published in Mezzo Cammin and is now part of my collection The Foliate Head (UK: Stanza Press, 2012.)

Puck in Spring

Now the catamount will scream,
Now the bears awake from dream
That the winter’s night prolongs
Till the ice dissolves in songs.
Now the daybreak fires the mist
By the mountain ridges kissed.
While the crocus blossoms yield,
Opening along the field.
Now it is the hour in spring
When the jetting sap will bring
Fresh desire to boy and girl
Waking to a brighter world.
And the fairies hunting shade,
Finding meadow grass arrayed
With the bloom of early bells,
Creep inside the fragrant cells.
Now in clearing, vale, and slope,
All the land is drunk with hope—
In the ancient greening weald,
Now is loosed what once was sealed.
Why, the very mountains reel
At the turning of the wheel.

Art for The Foliate Head
by Clive Hicks-Jenkins

Finding me elsewhere in recent books:

• Thaliad's epic adventure in verse here and here (Montreal: Phoenicia Publishing, 2012)
• The Foliate Head's collection of poems from Stanza Press (UK) here
• A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage from Mercer University Press (ForeWord 2013 finalist, The Ferrol Sams Award, 2012) here
• The Throne of Psyche, collection of poetry from Mercer, 2011, here
• Excerpts at Scribd

Epic and epic hair!

An epic adventure and adventures in epic hair

Thaliad

Here's link to a qarrtsiluni podcast of a fragment of that wild adventure in verse, Thaliad--one in which the children make an early, terrible mistake that colors the rest of their lives. You can also find pieces of the poem at Mezzo Cammin (scroll down) and Scribd.

Seni Crines

If you have an interest in ancient art, you will be fascinated by the video of how hair stylist and scholar Janet Stephens recreated the seven-braid crown seni crines hairstyle worn by Roman vestal virgins with only simple tools--a comb, t-pin, bodkins, and a woolen cord. She bases the design primarily on the vestal virgin in the Uffizi but looks at many models as well. Her aim was to prove that vestals did  not have to be wearing wigs to achieve their complex fashion.

More on hair archaeology

Stephens also is looking at aristocratic Romans and their stylings, such as edifices of hair worn by Faustina the Younger and Empress Plotina. Another video here.

Mezzo Cammin, again--

Six poems of mine are up at Mezzo Cammin, edited by poet Kim Bridgford. Below find a taste, the first three lines of each. Three of the six poems will be in The Book of the Red King, some day.

If you would like to read more of my poems, check the contributors' notes--mine has links to other poems in earlier issues. Recent in-print poetry books of mine are: Thaliad (just out, a post-apocalyptic epic in blank verse from Phoenicia Publishing in Montreal, with wonderful art from Clive Hicks-Jenkins); The Foliate Head (a 2012 collection of poems from Stanza Press in the UK, also with art--green men!--from Clive); and The Throne of Psyche (a 2011 collection from Mercer University Press.) See tabs above for more about each--available worldwide in hardcover, as well as paperback for two of the books.

Little Epithalamium

As soul and body join,

As God was born in flesh,

As Psyche married Love,

L-O-V-E

In glittering clouds of snow the Red King sits

And meditates, and the word LOVE is all

His mantra:  L’s the scoop that hurls his thoughts

The Bloodroot Fool

Corm-sprung

And nectarless,

Blown from another world,

Great Work of Time

The Alchemist to the Fool

This you must know:

                                     the world is a bright glass,

Reflecting all the universe

Spring in Fall                      

World new-washed with a raindrop on the tip

Of every yellow leaf, strung and hung

For miles into the distance . . . all dew and new,

The Sheaf of Wheat

Subtle, suffused light in the sheaf of grain

Is pale gold that’s almost silver,

Like, in a certain leaning light, the rain,