balanced on the edge

Jo and I are pleased to release the latest issue of ouroboros review. We started ouroboros almost a year ago, and now we have produced three beautiful issues, thanks to our generous contributors. You can read the magazine on our website, as well as purchase a copy from the bookstore.

Thanks, Jo, for being a great business partner. You have made the po-biz lots of fun.

Today I read poems by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, brother of Ann and Mary Boleyn, and member of the court of Henry VIII. He fathered a son at the age of nineteen, but the poor guy was executed at the age of thirty for treason, though it seems he was innocent of wrongdoing. Those Seymours had it in for him.

According to what I read about Henry Howard, he wrote most of his poetry while imprisoned. At least he made good use of his time. He was friends with Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder, and both are considered to be the fathers of the English sonnet. They both translated sonnets into English from Italian, as well as longer works from Latin.

Here’s a link to one of the poems on my list, Complaint of a Lover Rebuked, with audio, in which the speaker declares he will continue to love even if he dies from it.

I’m still chipping away at my reading list for the MFA. Today I read poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder, born in 1503 and member of King Henry VIII’s court. It’s thought that Wyatt was the lover of Ann Boleyn. I remember him as a minor character in Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl, portrayed as a love-struck nobleman who wrote  poems to the elusive Boleyn.

He’s known as the father of the English sonnet, a title he shares with Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. I’m saving Henry Howard’s poems for tomorrow.

Here’s a link to an audio version of Whoso List to Hunt, with a painting of Ann Boleyn next to the poem. The word ‘list’ is a funny one to me. People in the Appalachian regions still use that word to mean a desire to do something. I remember Granny from the old TV show The Beverly Hillbillies used to say it, usually in the negative, as in I don’t list to eat them fancy vittles.

I’ve been alternating old poems with twentieth century as well as contemporary works. On Jo’s recommendation, I read Lip by Catherine Smith. What a feast of lucidity combined with mythic moments of eroticism! I just loved it.

I’m also working my way through The Complete Poems: Anne Sexton. Each of her books is combined into one volume, in chronological order. After I finish a book, I put down the Sexton volume to read a contemporary collection. I’m feeling very tenuous these days, somewhat anxious, so even though Sexton’s metaphors about emotional pain are particularly vivid and help me visualize my own pain, there’s only so much talk of misery I can take at one time, and then I need a break. Billy Collins is a good respite. His poems make me feel like God is in his universe and all’s right with the world. Om mani padme hum, the jewel is in the lotus flower.

Night falls at the pier

Spending a few days at the beach with my sister and her daughter was a welcome change from the ordinary, and it was also nice to see my husband, my  son and his friends have a good time there. The boys bought a raft and a pirate’s flag to ride the waves, while the three adults took care of the three-year old. It can take that many sometimes… .

My sister is a single mom who does an amazing job with her daughter – so much patience and attention, which is what children need and deserve. In addition to being a skilled parent, she’s also an incredible artist. She can do it all really, sculpture, portraits, lithographs, but her specialty is 3-D animation with a focus in mat painting and landscapes. While we were at the beach she had one chance to go out to a pier to paint. Lately she has been interested in plein-air painting, and keeps a portable easel and paint set in the trunk of her car.  This time she painted a tree with a view of the marsh in the distance.

Here’s a link to my sis’s website, which showcases some of her landscape paintings. Can you tell how proud I am of her?

If you’re interested in plein-air, here’s a link to the Plein-air Painters of America.

Below is a flier announcing riverbabble 15. I have a short fiction piece included. It’s a few days after the solstice, but the evening light is still with us, a nice time to read. Here’s a direct link to my piece, ‘Dusk.’

Celebrate the summer solstice

and start your summer reading with

riverbabble15

Bloomsday issue

is now online at

http://iceflow.com/riverbabble/Welcome.html

Featuring

FICTION

Margot Comstock, Sara McAulay, Bev Vines-Haines, Patsy Covington, Kyle Hemmings, Rick Spuler, Thomas Kearnes, Andrew M. Lopas, Ward Jones, Marjorie Carlson Davis

POETRY

Rafael Jesús González, Francine Witte, Anthony Adrian Pino, Julene Tripp Weaver, Charles Clifford Brooks III, Luigi Monteferrante, Jason Price Everett, Paul Lobo Portugés, J. Bradley

PROSE POEMS / FLASH FICTION

Doug Mathewson, Christine Swint, Andrew M. Lopas

COVER PHOTOGRAPHY

Christopher Novak

Visit us here:

http://iceflow.com/riverbabble/Welcome.html

My sis and I are going to the Charleston, SC for a week with our respective families, which means I probably won’t be posting here for a week (unless I get motivated to figure out how to use Wordpress on my iPhone).

I will, however, continue to entertain you with my witty observations (she says tongue in cheek) on Twitter. If you look to the pink box to your left you will see my 140 character aphorisms.

As part of the MFA program I’m starting, I need to read and ‘explicate’ many poems. Although I have three years to complete the readings, I’m beginning now because I’m a nerdy book worm, un ratón de biblioteca, as they say in Spanish.

To make the project more interesting, I thought I’d share some of my observations of the poems I read. Let me make one disclaimer: I’ve never been a scholarly sort of person, and even though I’ve been a teacher and a student all my life, I’m more apt to share my gut reactions rather than a true literary analysis. Unless a professor requires it, I doubt I’ll read what real literary critics have to say about the poems. Hope that’s OK with everyone.

Popular British Ballads begin my list. Reading these ballads is like getting a glimpse into long ago daily life in the British Isles. The first one I read is titled Lord Randal. It’s Scottish, from the 1500s, passed down to us by Francis James Childs, who compiled and edited The English and Scottish Ballads, 1892-1898. You can read every single one of them right here.

The end words of each stanza are the same: son, man, soon, down, and in fact each line ends with the same phrase or question, because it’s a song.

A young man named Lord Randal is asking his mother to make his bed because he is sick at heart and he soon will die, both from heartache and from poisoning.

The mother goes on to ask him what he’s going to leave behind to all his loved ones. At first those stanzas made the mother appear to me like a mercenary sort of mom, the kind who ‘knows the price of everything and the value of nothing’ (Oscar Wilde’s definition of a cynic). I thought, is she kidding? The kid is dying and she’s already divvying up the loot?

But more than likely death was more a part of everyday life then, and practical matters like wills were discussed openly. The talk of leaving behind worldly possessions  also adds to the pathos of the story, that such a handsome young man, and wealthy too, is dying.

Of course he says the girl who has double crossed him will only get  ‘hell and fire.’

In addition to this version I found on Youtube, there are also Appalachian singers who’ve recorded many of these ballads, as the songs were passed down to them by their ancestors.

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Here’s a version I found on Youtube by poet and painter Michael Foster:

And here’s the ballad:

Lord Randal

“O where ha you been, Lord Randal, my son?
And where ha you been, my handsome young man?”
“I ha been at the greenwood; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m wearied wi hunting, and fain wad lie down.”

“An wha met ye there, Lord Randal, my son?
And wha met ye there, my handsome young man?”
“O I met wi my true-love; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m wearied wi huntin, and fain wad lie down.”

“And what did she give you, Lord Randal, My son?
And wha did she give you, my handsome young man?”
“Eels fried in a pan; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m wearied wi huntin, and fein wad lie down.”

“And what gat your leavins, Lord Randal my son?
And wha gat your leavins, my handsome young man?”
“My hawks and my hounds; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m wearied wi huntin, and fein wad lie down.”

“And what becam of them, Lord Randal, my son?
And what becam of them, my handsome young man?
“They stretched their legs out and died; mother mak my bed soon,
For I’m wearied wi huntin, and fain wad lie down.”

“O I fear you are poisoned, Lord Randal, my son!
I fear you are poisoned, my handsome young man!”
“O yes, I am poisoned; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m sick at the heart, and fain wad lie down.”

“What d’ye leave to your mother, Lord Randal, my son?
What d’ye leave to your mother, my handsome young man?”
“Four and twenty milk kye; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down.”

“What d’ye leave to your sister, Lord Randal, my son?
What d’ye leave to your sister, my handsome young man?”
“My gold and my silver; mother mak my bed soon,
For I’m sick at the heart, an I fain wad lie down.”

“What d’ye leave to your brother, Lord Randal, my son?
What d’ye leave to your brother, my handsome young man?”
“My houses and my lands; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down.”

“What d’ye leave to your true-love, Lord Randal, my son?
What d’ye leave to your true-love, my handsome young man?”
“I leave her hell and fire; mother mak my bed soon,
For I’m sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down.”

After reading Odessa’s post (author of the inspirational blog freefalling me) about the film Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamtress, I started thinking about independent movies I’ve seen recently, and Viva Cuba came to mind.

Viva Cuba, written and directed by Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti, tells the story of a girl and a boy on the cusp of puberty who go on a cross-country trek to find the girl’s father. It’s a movie about children, but not made for children, one of my favorite genres. Just as Odessa found Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, I found this movie at my local library. It’s part of a monthly film club sponsored at a site called Film Movement.

Film Movement features independent and foreign (to me) films from all over the globe.  I tend to gravitate toward independent films because the stories are intimate, the acting authentic, the photography inspired. Independent film makers need the film to tell the story because they can’t rely on the Hollywood machine and special effects to carry the day for them.

And when a theatrical presentation costs $10.00 a show, I’d rather spend my money on a high-quality DVD I can watch several times over if I choose to, in my own home. And when my library subscribes, it’s even better.

Here’s a short list of movies about children but not made for children that I especially like:

The Bicycle Thief
My Life as a Dog
Valentin
Por la libre (in English billed as Dust to Dust. In Spanish it means ‘on the freeway’.)

And I can’t forget the blockbusters, Slumdog Millionaire and Pan’s Labyrinth.

What about you? Any coming-of-age films you’d like to share?

Fiona Robyn has posted a short poem I wrote for her blog, A Handful of Stones. Each day Fiona posts a different ’small stone,’ an observation of the world or a fleeting thought or feeling. As Fiona says, “a small stone is a polished moment of paying proper attention.”  The one from me she included is called Coiffure. Thanks, Fiona!

Fiona is a poet and a novelist. Her debut novel, The Letters, is now available through Amazon. Her next novel, The Blue Handbag, will be released in August of this year. Both books are with Snowbooks.

I met Shaindel Beers on facebook after reading about her when her virtual tour stopped at Michelle McGrane’s peony moon. The virtual tour, called “On the Hood of a Cutlass Supreme,” is for her first full-length poetry collection, A Brief History of Time, published by Salt Publishing (January 19, 2008). Shaindel Beers is a very talented poet who will stay on my radar in the years to come.

There are currently two interviews posted about A Brief History of Time and Shaindel Beers, so now is a good time to learn more about her and her work, and to buy a copy of her book. Remember, Salt Publishing is losing its  funding – treat yourself to some delightful poetry and support independent publishers in one fell swoop!

Poets Online: On The Hood of a Cutlass Supreme, virtual book tour for A Brief History of Time.

Poet Robert Lee Brewer interviews Shaindel Beers at Poetic Asides.