Showing posts with label Emily Pineau. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Emily Pineau. Show all posts

Monday, November 26, 2018

Ibbetson Street 44 Table of Contents


Glad that Emily Pineau, our managing editor for this issue released the Table of Contents for Ibbetson Street 44--there maybe be some corrections, additions--but this is basically it. We hope to have the issue out late in December...


CONTENTS



EVENTIDE, DEEP IN THE RIVER OF GRASS 1
Michael Ansara

LA TÊTE 2

Krikor Der Hohannesian


IN THE BEEN WARD 3
Bridget Seley-Galway

MY BOOK. 3
Ted Kooser

AGGRESSIVE MEMORIES 4
Marge Piercy

WHAT WE DO NOT SEEK 4

Robert K. Johnson

WHEN THE BORDER PATROL AGENT SLEEPS 5
Mary Buchinger

HOUSE ARREST 6
Dennis Daly

TREASURES 6
Tom Miller

SKY MYTHS 6
Dorian Brooks

BETWEEN MY FINGERS LIKE A SHIELD 7
Elizabeth S. Wolf

DISSOLVED 8

Sandra L. Wyllie

ACCUSATION 8

Beatriz Alba del Rio

STILL LIFE 9

Brendan Galvin

THE CHOSEN, FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI, 2011 10
Ann McCrea


WAITING ROOM 10
Priscilla Turner Spada

FOR ALL MY FRIENDS WHO HAVE MOVED ON 11
Steven M. Smith

IT’S COME TO THIS 12
David P. Miller

BOWMAN’S BEACH 13
Lisa Sullivan

THE MEASURE 13
Anna Cates

DRIVING A POEM 14

Harris Gardner

HOW TO WRITE 14
Pui Ying Wong

MY NEIGHBOR’S FLAG STILL FLIES 15

Bert Stern

WE SHOULD JUST KISS LIKE REAL PEOPLE DO 16

Hunter Gillis

REMEMBERING SAM CORNISH 17
Essay by Doug Holder

THE MUSIC 19

Llyn Clague

FISHING IN THE FALL 20

Ed Meek

GRANDFATHER TOLD 21
Molly Mattfield Bennett

VISITING MY PARENTS’ GRAVES IN DENVER 22
Wendy Drexler

MISSING PERSON 23
Rebecca Yancey

ALMOST OVERNIGHT IN TUAM 23

Marge Piercy


HACK 24
Nina Rubinstein Alonso

LONELINESS 25

Carla Schwartz

HOW I GOT OVER 26
Kathleen Spivack

AUNT JESSIE DIES AT 103 27
Sandra Kohler

COMING HOME 28
Linda M. Fischer

NAKED ISLE 29
Zara Raab

GIVEN 30
Owen Doyle

CROSSING OVER 32
Robert J. Clawson

THE CAVE OF MACHPELAH 33
Keith Tornheim

THE SECRET SIN 34

David L. Arnett

HYPATIA OF ALEXANDRIA 35

Marc Jampole

ADVICE FROM A PRO 36
X.J. Kennedy

SCHRUNS WHERE THEY CAME TO SKI 37

Jo Carney


BROKEN MIRROR 38
Sandra Thaxter

WILLIE SHARES HIS LATEST FURUTE WITH HIS SUPPORT GROUP 39
Tomas O’Leary

QUEENS BOULEVARD 40

Tim Suermondt


THE SCULPTURE EXHIBIT 41
Lainie Senechal


Friday, June 08, 2018

New book out from the Endicott College/Ibbetson Street Press Young Poet Series.

Talented  Endicott College undergraduate Dan Calnan has a new book out from the Young Poet Series at Endicott College.



 “In this collection, Calnan writes with a wisdom and authority beyond his years. Ranging in tone from witty to profound, these poems all demonstrate his intelligence and affinity with words. He is a writer to watch.” — Elizabeth Winthrop, author of Fireworks, December, and The Mercy Seat.



to order a copy go to http://lulu.com/ibbetsonpress



Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Letting Go Of Who We Were: In the Pages of Cammy Thomas’s: Inscriptions


Cammy Thomas
Review by Emily Pineau

“Our ghosts are always with us, / their stinks, their bad habits, always / as much as we’re with them,” Cammy Thomas writes in her poem, “The Other You.” Thomas’s poetry collection Inscriptions is haunting, yet comforting, and is deeply rooted with sharp, vivid images. This collection, like people’s lives, is broken up into three sections : I. SWEET BROKE DOWN, II. POEMS IN MEMORY OF ELEANOR THOMAS ELLIOTT, and III. A WINDY KISS, for Elly. Our sections in life—past, present, and future—make up who we are. Thomas’s poem “The Other You” seems to be the heart of this collection, describing how our past selves live inside of us. Each poem in Inscriptions reads as if they are various versions of Thomas—only now, the poems also exist within us as she reveals the way she sees people, loss, and nature.
            The last line in Thomas’s “The Other You” reads, “You can’t forgive the one who hurt you. / Only the-you-from-then can do that, / and she will never be ready,”(p.12). This powerful line makes me think about closure and forgiveness differently. Sometimes past relationships feel like they happened in another lifetime, yet the hurt remains. Though, if you understand that you are a different person now then you were before, you are separating yourself from this pain—The pain is no longer yours—It belongs to the old you. The old you will hold onto the memory and stay in the moment so that the new version of you can move on from it.
            In addition, in Thomas’s “On the Island of Staffa,” a woman is climbing a hill, gasping as though she is both exhausted and devastated.  When she surrenders her husband’s ashes to the wind on top of the hill, the reader can imagine the wall of grief that hits her. We are not left feeling empty, though. Thomas writes, “Yes, yes, it’s dust, /yes it is. /It could be anyone, / and could there be anyone/ who wouldn’t want this kind of love?” (p.31). This line reveals that the kind of love that’s most painful to lose is the best kind to have. Rather than the woman facing the absence of love, she is encompassed by the presence of it when the wind picks her husband up. The feeling of this poem reminds me of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, “Annabel Lee.” In English class, my classmates and I remarked about how sad and tragic Poe’s poem is, but my English teacher had a different take on it. She said, “Imagine being loved like that, though.  Who wouldn’t want that type of love?” This sentiment resonated with me, and now when I read Thomas’s poem I feel like the grieving woman’s love trumps her sadness.
            Also, Thomas’s poem “Without Talking” has an deeply impacting ending that not only makes the reader want to hear more, but also makes the reader want more out of life, relationships, and themselves. Each line is spaced out so that the poem reads like a conversation—It has the feeling of a pin-pong match. On page 13 Thomas writes:
He said don’t use
                                      what saves you,
your wall, the words
                                       (do it without talking),
the words defend
              and don’t open—
                                           again, again, again,
but they keep…

                                                   oh and without them
Instead of being in a straight line down, the poem itself is breaking out of its comfort zone and is letting the feeling of the words shape it, rather than letting the actual words shape it.  I feel like this poem is applicable to the process of writing especially, because in order to successfully write an effective, moving, and authentic piece you need to write “without talking.” If you reveal your scenes and feelings with urgency and passion your readers can understand you without you explaining yourself to them.

            Throughout Inscriptions it is not necessary for Thomas to explain herself for readers to understand her. In her poems about death or disappointment, she weaves in some hope, making us feel like it is possible to move on and find new things and people in life to focus on and to love.  Also, when writing about love, Thomas reveals the ugly, raw truth, but this makes the relationships feel more accessible, honest, and real. I hope to emulate Thomas’s authenticity in my own writing, as she has become a poet that I can identify with on both a human and creative level. 

Thursday, August 07, 2014

Taking a Look Around Us: A Review of When The Light Turns Green by Kenneth Pobo, illustrations by Stacy Esch.





Taking a Look Around Us: A Review of When The Light Turns Green

Review by Emily Pineau

“Sooner or later/ everything is departure.  The hand lets go./ Wind finds it,” Kenneth Pobo writes in his poem, “Suitcase”.  This feeling of change, nature, and moving on is carried throughout Pobo’s poetry collection, When the Light Turns Green, illustrated by Stacy Esch.  Nature appears to be the binding force and metaphor that Pobo uses when talking about life, death, and the feeling of being stuck between the two.  Esch’s illustrations capture the feeling of childlike playfulness, imagination, and discovery that is found in Pobo’s examination of nature, the struggles of growing old, and letting go.  Esch gives a face to the sun and to the characters that are around trees and woven within a collage of bright colors.  This characteristic in her artwork instantly personifies nature, which matches the importance of nature found in Pobo’s poems.

As Pobo walks us through an intense scene in his poem, “Face the Autumn," he compares facing the seasons with the concept of facing bullies.  Pobo writes:

How to face
Autumn? Winter? Spring? Bullies,
birds surrounding the house
at the end of Hitchcock’s film,

waited.

When this feeling of being cornered is being compared to things that we have to face in life, such as the seasons, it makes this concept feel more manageable somehow.  Even when the harshness of winter seems to be unbearable, humans have the ability to make it through. So, when someone is faced with the harshness of bullying, helplessness, or loneliness, it would come to reason that people could make it through these situations and feelings as well.  Despite the fact that people may not know how to face these things, we somehow manage to keep going and cycle through, just like the seasons do.  Also, with this poem comes Esch’s picture called, “Where is the Horizon?”  A sun that has a face is being depicted as peeking over the land with what looks to be a pained expression.  Just like with Pobo’s poem, there seems to be a feeling of waiting for something to end, or waiting for a certain light or other side to come.  It is a very powerful metaphor thinking about the sun itself waiting and looking for something to happen.  Usually the sun is seen as something so constant and stationary that one would not think that it would desire change or long to be somewhere else.

    Pobo continues to change how one would think about certain aspects of nature with his poem, “Tree.”  I found this poem to be the one that best showcases Pobo’s unique and impactful images.  In this poem he shows how people can appear to be different in relation to nature and how nature can look different when compared with itself.  Pobo writes, “Put sky in a tree/ and it’s less than/ a caught kite.”  The sky is typically seen as something in the world that is overwhelming because it completely surrounds us and we do not see an end to it.  On the other hand, Pobo is suggesting that if you look at a tree and the spaces in between the branches you will find that the sky is tangled up in it.   Nature is all about perspective, just like how life is all about perspective.  Pobo also writes:

I sit under a leaf house
with no doors to lock,
no windows to close,
quiet slipping off
urgent green.

Houses are usually seen as something that would enclose someone and give them privacy.  In this image, however, a “leaf house” gives the narrator a feeling of openness and what sounds like a feeling of relief.  Peacefulness washes over the narrator at the end of the poem, and it feels like his life has been changed somehow.  The way that he looks at the world has been altered.  Also, accompanying this poem is Esch’s picture, “Last Call”.  In this green, yellow, and orange dominated picture, the sun has a curious look on its face as it is looking out at a fairy or some sort of character with its face hidden by a black mark.  There is a tilted tree off to the side and the setting appears to be a forest-type area.  This picture has a mystical feel to it and it feels like it came out of a fairy tale.  This aura of magic and mystery compliments Pobo’s poem very nicely because there are many elements of the unknown when it comes to looking at people and at nature.

    In general, people are constantly trying to figure out the uncertainties of each other and the world, while at the same time they are avoiding what they know for a fact—everyone’s time has a limit to it.  Naturally people want to continue to rush on to the next thing in life so that they do not waste any time being stuck in the same place.  Pobo’s poetry reminds us, however, that life shouldn’t be about rushing to the next stop.  We all need to slow down, water some plants, and look up at the sky.  After all, the light will turn green eventually.



************ Emily Pineau is an English major at Endicott College and the author of No Need to Speak (Ibbetson Street Press/Endicott College Young Poet Series)