Thirty-Seven Cents

THIRTY-SEVEN CENTS
Vol. 4, No. 8 An Online Chapter of Missouri State Poetry Society 1 August 2005

WHO'S TAKING YOUR VACATION?

This summer my sister took the vacation I have always wanted to take: a cruise in the Mediterranean Sea that left Athens for Istanbul, Ephesus, and several islands off the coasts of Greece and Turkey. To rub it in, she made several beautiful pictures such as the one above. But because she is a poet, she will perhaps write some of her adventures into poetry. Pictures are good for recalling events, but of course poems are better. Visual images are easily captured in both, but poetry can more directly capture the poet's personal emotions, and thereby the poet is "closer" to the experience he or she recalls than is the photographer. Wendell Berry has a delightful poem ("The Vacation") about a man who took extensive pains to videotape everything he saw on his trip, "preserving his vacation even as he was having it," only to realize when he got home that what he had was not his vacation at all. Anyone could have taken this vacation, for he was not in a single one of the pictures, and "He would never be." The message is clear: take all the pictures you want, buy all the postcards, but appear in some of the pictures and all of the poems your trip generates. Make your adventures yours. Take your own vacation. -- Tom Padgett

CONTENTS:

Past Issue Next

Poems by Members

Workshop

Missouri State Poetry Society

Summer Contest

Spare Mule Online

National Federation of State Poetry Societies

Strophes Online

HAVE YOU VISITED THE WORKSHOP LATELY?

Click Workshop and do some of the lessons there.

MEMBERS' SHELF

Mark Tappmeyer's new book Wisecracking was published this summer and is available from the author for $10.00, which includes mailing. His address is 1159 Highland Lake Way, Brownsburg, IN 46112.

HAVE YOU READ YOUR ONLINE NEWSLETTERS?

Remember to read Spare Mule Online and Strophes Online. You can keep up with members who get newsletters by mail by remembering to read them on the Net. The August 1 issues of Spare Mule Online and Strophes Online will soon be available to you by clicking the underlined titles.

NEW FEATURE: AMERICAN LIFE IN POETRY

Ted Kooser, current U. S. Poet Laureate, in response to an interviewer for National Public Radio, stated that his "project" as laureate was to establish a weekly column featuring contemporary American poems supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska. This column appears in on-line publications (such as Thirty-Seven Cents) as well as hard-copy newspapers. Poets are asked to contact their local newspapers to inform them that such a column is available free to them and to relieve the editor by explaining that all of the poems that will appear week by week are accessible, not obscure poems.

Here are the columns for this month:

American Life in Poetry: Column 015
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Many of us are collectors, attaching special meaning to the inanimate objects we acquire. Here, Texas poet Janet McCann gives us insight into the significance of one woman's collection. The abundance and variety of detail suggest the clutter of such a life.

THE WOMAN WHO COLLECTS NOAH'S ARKS
Janet McCann

       Has them in every room of her house,
wall hangings, statues, paintings, quilts and blankets,
ark lampshades, mobiles, Christmas tree ornaments,
t-shirts, sweaters, necklaces, books,
comics, a creamer, a sugar bowl, candles, napkins,
tea-towels and tea-tray, nightgown, pillow, lamp.
       Animals two-by-two in plaster, wood,
fabric, oil paint, copper, glass, plastic, paper,
tinfoil, leather, mother-of-pearl, styrofoam,
clay, steel, rubber, wax, soap.
       Why I cannot ask, though I would like
to know, the answer has to be simply
because. Because at night when she lies
with her husband in bed, the house rocks out
into the bay, the one that cuts in here to the flatlands
at the center of Texas. Because the whole wood structure
drifts off, out under the stars, beyond the last
lights, the two of them pitching and rolling
as it all heads seaward. Because they hear
trumpets and bellows from the farther rooms.
Because the sky blackens, but morning finds them always
safe on the raindrenched land,
bird on the windowsill.

American Life in Poetry: Column 016
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

There are thousands upon thousands of poems about love, many of them using predictable words, predictable rhymes. Ho-hum. But here the Illinois poet Lisel Mueller talks about love in a totally fresh and new way, in terms of table salt.

LOVE LIKE SALT
Lisel Mueller

It lies in our hands in crystals
too intricate to decipher

It goes into the skillet
without being given a second thought

It spills on the floor so fine
we step all over it

We carry a pinch behind each eyeball

It breaks out on our foreheads

We store it inside our bodies
in secret wineskins

At supper, we pass it around the table
talking of holidays and the sea.

American Life in Poetry: Column 017
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Nearly all of us spend too much of our lives thinking about what has happened, or worrying about what's coming next. Very little can be done about the past and worry is a waste of time. Here the Kentucky poet Wendell Berry gives himself over to nature.

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS
Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

American Life in Poetry: Column 018
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Every reader of this column has at one time felt the frightening and paralyzing powerlessness of being a small child, unable to find a way to repair the world. Here the California poet, Dan Gerber, steps into memory to capture such a moment.

THE RAIN POURED DOWN
Dan Gerber

My mother weeping
in the dark hallway, in the arms of a man,
not my father,
as I sat at the top of the stairs unnoticed--
my mother weeping and pleading for what I didn't know
then and can still only imagine--
for things to be somehow other than they were,
not knowing what I would change,
for, or to, or why,
only that my mother was weeping
in the arms of a man not me,
and the rain brought down the winter sky
and hid me in the walls that looked on,
indifferent to my mother's weeping,
or mine,
in the rain that brought down the dark afternoon.

INTERVIEW WITH TED KOOSER, U. S. POET LAUREATE:

The archives of National Public Archives has this very interesting interview with Ted Kooser:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4728857

It is well worth the 45 minutes it takes to hear it.

POET OF THE MONTH: WENDELL BERRY

Begin by reading this brief biography of Berry and one poem:

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/675

For in interview with Berry, visit

http://arts.envirolink.org/interviews_and_conversations/WendellBerry.html

For a web site dedicated to Berry which includes several of his poems, visit

http://brtom.org/wb/berry.html

Buy a book of Berry's poetry at

http://www.booksense.com/index.jsp?affiliateId=AmerPoets

http://www.powells.com/

http://www.amazon.com/

POEMS BY MEMBERS

MAN / MANKIND
Phyllis Moutray

Whether one speaks
of the family of man,
or the family of a man,
one speaks of a microcosm.

For each family has its characters--
its Archie Bunker,
its good ordinary man
(so often portrayed by Jimmy Stewart),
its mentally ill (Unabombers),
its Edith, Madonna, and
Julia Roberts

Each man has his Achilles Heel,
his Atlas Shrugs.
Each man achieves a peak in his life's work,
has his moment in the sun.
Each man experiences the death of a love,
and periods of grief.
So, if "everything is coming up roses today,"
tomorrow it may not.

For though we may wish it,
none of us is the best,
nor are we the worst;
but rather somewhere in between.

So we need the rest of us
to help us
be the best us we can be.

AH, SUMMER
Velvet Fackeldey

The loathsome winter's gone at last,
but the heat melts my bones,
melts my brain.
The blazing sun cooks my face,
cooks my skin.
My head aches and my feet sweat,
all my clothes stick to me.
Drink water, iced tea, anything cold.
Run indoors to artificial cool
and wait for winter's bitter arctic chill.

SUMMER STORM
Bev Conklin

Fluffy white clouds growing larger,
moving faster, covering the sun for lengthening periods,
slowing the rotating display of light and shadow
to a final cessation.
Too early in the day, solid darkness appears
on the horizon. Distant low rumbles of thunder
orchestrate its steady, menacing advance in this direction.
Fluttering sheets of light accent the darkness.
No special pattern of timing, just accelerating warnings
of Nature's building nervous energy.

Breathless humid stillness is swept away
by frenzied, whirling breezes
playing with dead twigs, plastic cups, and other highway
     debris.
These sporadic gusts are swallowed
by a roaring wall of straight-line winds from the west.
A sudden burst of rain plops and bounces
from roads, sidewalks, and open decks.
The dry, drought-desiccated earth and grass greedily suck
     at every drop.
"Give us more," they seem to plead. "So much more is needed."
The rain complies.
Changing to a solid, wind-driven sheet of water,
it is temporarily merged with round, pea-sized pellets of
     ice.
Overhead, thunder directs the tempest,
changing from rumbles to percussive explosions of sound
interspersed with sizzling crackles
as jagged swords of lighting
seem to thrust and parry, dueling to be first
to impale whatever lies below.

As quickly as it started, Nature's tantrum ends
with gentle tears of light rain. Clouds disappear.
Still blushing pink, Mother Sun appears, checks that all is
well,
and quickly slides beneath the horizon to rest.

NINE LIVES
Judy Young

I am a cat.
I need nine lives.
Having only one
Deprives.

TO JANYCE
Tania Gray

Your neat red house is on my mind
long since you left us all behind;
remembering, I slowly toil
with turpentine and linseed oil,

Just scrubbing woodwork as you did
while keeping house, an invalid
who rid her floors of red clay soil
with turpentine and linseed oil.

You celebrated artistry.
I'll celebrate your memory
by painting dogwoods quatrefoil
with turpentine and linseed oil.

WHAT IS UNDER MY FEET?
Jean Even

What is growing under my feet?
Dust bunnies and crunches to defeat.
Why did I ever let it get so bad
When I had the power to conquer? I'm sad!

Now I must get busy to do what I can.
Bring out the dust buster and not to fan
All my mess up under the carpet
Just to keep a mess for a pet.

FORTY-FOURTH ANNIVERSARY
Nancy Powell

I place my hand in yours,
You place your lips on mine.
We are two hearts in love,
Lives that forever twine.

WRITE AS YOU GO
Gwen Eisenmann

Write as you go.
There are poems everywhere.
Rhyme, rhythm, writing
in feet and faces,
what life is all about
in wordless places.
Swing it, bring it,
write your ingenuity
before you lose it.
It's all poetry.

BAYOU BROTHERS
Harding Stedler

I came too late
to file their teeth.
Buried now in mud
along the bayous' banks,
they hibernate for spring.

I can safely wade the waters
while they sleep,
safely gather clams
and crawfish
in their breeding grounds.
I can even pitch a tent
and safely sleep a winter
with the alligators.

TRUTH BE TOLD
Mark Tappmeyer

“Which is easier: to say to the paralytic,
‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say,
‘Get up, take your mat and walk’?”
Mark 2:9

a little bone straightening
was but verbal play
for him.
Not the task you might expect
against the real ton
He had to press,
a spirited clean and jerk
above his chest.
To them who sneered
His slightest breath
had blown away a boulder but
this charlatan couldn’t hoist a bag
of pigeon feathers to his shoulder.

EVENING ROUNDS
Valerie Esker

Fanny fretted over Frank.
His handsome face was haggard.
She watched him limp home late at night
so tired, he sometimes staggered.

He toiled each eve at the hospital
as a bio-med technician,
while she worked there in ICU--
each job, high-stress position.

They both claimed early retirement,
then bought a little nest
where they could read and swim and play,
enjoying well-earned rest.

But time has a way of altering
one's philosophical view.
Before too long the two of them
became a disenchanted crew.

Most evenings you can find them now
at the South-side Medical Suite.
Frank mops the floors with gusto.
Fanny vacuums to calypso beat.

Each metal sink is polished bright,
each hallway litter free,
In gleaming bowls in every john
they've found epiphany!

ANOTHER THREE UNRELATED CINQUAINS
Patricia A. Laster

Every
thirty minutes
all night long, he pops in,
asks, “Is it time to open our
presents?”

He dropped
a sack of flour
on the Imperial
Palace, proving it could indeed
be bombed.

Tax day:
enough to take
the bloom out of April’s
dogwood, plum, pear, forsythia,
redbud.

HEAVEN AND THE SECRETARY
Tom Padgett

The secretary said her life was ruined.
She sat amid a general disrepair
that Sunday afternoon relating how
her hard computer disk had "crashed" and lost
the data she had stored the last six months.

The copier was "on the fritz" again,
requiring tape to keep its panels shut
and jamming every time "you looked crossways."
She sighed for Heaven, confident that there
no one will work--at least not with machines.

"But what about mechanics, engineers--
those guys who fill their lives down here with parts
and plans? What will they do up there?" I asked.
"Oh, all of them will be in Hell," she said,
"because they overcharged the rest of us.”

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