MAY POET OF THE WEEK: SCOTT OWENS

I've known Scott Owens for years. We first met while I was at UNC-Greensboro doing a week-long residency for the MFA Writing Program. Since then he has devoted his time and energy not only to his own poetry but also to that of others in our region. As editor, blogger, and author of a regular column on poets and poetry, he serves as an example of what a poet fully engaged in his community can offer us. Go to Musings to read his blog posts; go to his books to read his poetry.

Author of 7 collections of poetry and over 800 poems published in journals and anthologies, Scott is editor of Wild Goose Poetry Review, Vice President of the Poetry Council of North Carolina, and recipient of awards from the Pushcart Prize Anthology, the Academy of American Poets, the NC Writers' Network, the NC Poetry Society, and the Poetry Society of SC. He holds an MFA from UNC Greensboro and currently teaches at Catawba Valley Community College. He grew up on farms and in mill villages around Greenwood, SC. His new book, Something Knows the Moment, will be published in August by Main Street Rag. I've selected several of my favorites from the manuscript to share with you.

The Dream of St. Francis

It started with the hungry look of stars,

wind a trembling lip, earth

a field of mouths closing on air.

For all I gave I thought that God

would show me the way, give me the means

to make my life a sacrifice.

He gave me nothing but pierced hands,

a dream of the world in need.

All I had left was myself.

I gave my hands to doves, shadow wings

incapable of flight.

I gave my arms to the deep needing

of thorns, feet to blistering sand,

ankles to holes in the ground,

knees to trees crouched in water.

A pair of crows carried my eyes away.

Wrens made nests of my hair.

I gave my tongue to the bleating of sheep,

my ears to bats. A possum wore my scalp

like a helmet. Rats settled in the back

of my skull. I left the skin of my arms

for snakes to inhabit, the rest for deer,

rabbits, raccoons, worms.

The smallest insects drank from the cup of my heart.

Reaching the pond I lay down beside it,

satisfied, unafraid, waiting

for what remained to turn to dust

and ash, for rain to empty this prison

of skin, feed the earth’s menu of roots,

castings, runoff to another day.

Why Angels Are Always Fat

He took all my pretty ones with him

the ones with tight bellies, long

streaming hair, faces thin as blades,

the ones who had fallen in love

with themselves, and had reason to do so.

He left me only these soft and silent

mounds of flesh, these uninspired,

these bodies needing wings twice

the size you’ve imagined.

He took all my hungry ones with him,

the ones who ate meat, drank fire,

howled at the moon. He left me

not with shepherds but sheep

fattening on clouds, their wrinkled bodies

growing chins instead of desire.

When I clapped my hands the pretty ones

came slow, always touching themselves

below the waist, lingering to see how

first one, then another thing felt against them.

He never clapped at all, just made his body

like silver, a mirror they’d follow anywhere.

Of course I had to let him go.

That was no way to run a heaven,

everyone looking at him,

myself no longer the center of thought.

But now when I clap, no one comes

at all, not that I wish they would.

Those he left stuff themselves

on dumplings and cream, their bodies

turning to clouds heavy with rain.

Sometimes when he leaves his lights on

I watch them from my high chair.

I like to see the shapes they make

with each other, see their bodies burn

with forbidden fire, see what they remember,

see my face reflected there.

Now Hiring Holy Angels

Title from a sign on Highway 16 Near Denver, NC

Job Title: Messenger.

Full-time position. No education required.

Duties may include intervention,

retribution, passing through silent rooms,

guarding trees and true believers,

unlocking gates, moving the dead.

Some heavy lifting.

Must have own halo and be willing to relocate,

possess excellent customer service skills,

bedside manner and flair for the dramatic.

Experience with flaming swords a plus.

White robe provided. Prefer blondes

or redheads with long, curly hair.

Fat babies need not apply.

Send name, photo, previous addresses,

age, religion, exact weight,

relevant experience, personal references

and driver’s license number for criminal background

check. All applicants will be tested

for drugs, narcissism, and insatiable lust.

Salary: None. Benefits to die for.

Evolution

It starts with your hand floating on water,

your feet leaving no wet spots on the floor.

She was surprised to find how easily she stayed

on top, feeling weightless even on the thin skin

of lake. When she stood up she had to be careful

not to be seen. It’s not walking on water exactly

but floating just above the surface of everything.

Waking in the middle of the night you walk

to the mirror and find your entire face

dilated. The past has become a single dream,

more than enough to keep you from sleep.

Already her body yearns for earth,

her feet linger over roots, her hands

try to fly away like leaves, her mouth

leans to kiss every flower she sees.

One day you think you see yourself

disappearing in sunlight, your body scattered

like dust. You move quickly towards shadows.

The strange hair in your back begins to feel

like a feather, your feet curl like talons.

Reaching out to the people she loves

she feels nothing but the light around them.

She no longer knows the imperfections of face,

hand, breast. When she tries to speak

she finds her mouth can only make music.

If she could shed this skin, her body

would burst into flight, her wings cut the sky

like sharp limbs tossed erratic in wind.

William Everett: Coffee With the Poets

William Everett gave us a thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable reading and commentary about his poetry at our last Coffee With the Poets at City Lights Bookstore on August 19. Bill is both novelist and poet and a former professor of Ethics and Theology. He is fluent in German (he's done translations) and Lord knows what else. He's mostly fluent in poetry, however, and we were delighted to be able to welcome him to Sylva. After the reading several of us retired downstairs to Spring Street Cafe for lunch and a casual poetry workshop around the table. What could be better than good food and poetry?

Bill was waiting in the Regional Room of City Lights Bookstore.

We were immediately joined by Charlie, the Bookstore Cat!

Food, glorious food! Muffins, cookies, coffee, lemonade, and so on.

Bill organized his presentation around his journey as poet. His earlier poems showed his ear for the sounds of language and the influence of poets whose work he has admired in the past. He is clear about how the poetic tradition guides and instructs us as we write our own poems.

The following are some early poems he read. To read more about Bill, go to his website www.williameverett.com.

Rusted roofs
---where children played,
Graybeaten boards
---engrained with laughter,
Christmas pines in morning
--drape the walls
---in shadow calico.
The sun bakes down
--the flower patch,
A puppy hushed in memory
--underneath the porch.
Old folks whisper in the weeds,
--it was not so,
--it was not so.


9-10-83

Round red lips pubaceous
Smile in the glossy of the party
Frozen on the yellowing page,
A sentimental daiquiri
Of tender expectations.
How, with whom and where
Will teasing eyes find their reflection?
Who will find the woman
In the girl in the taffeta gown?

3-27-87/4-6-10

Sweet lady,

if
in tinseled tear
you pray the evergreen upon us,
supplicate the lavish laughter of your heart
to snow upon the muddy traces of our mind.

12-17-80

Nan Watkins, prose writer, translator, and musician, listens.

After Bill's presentation, Newt Smith read some new poems. We continued our comments on his work at lunch.

Dianna Jurss, below, on the left, will be the featured poet in September.

IF ARE IN THE AREA, PLEASE JOIN US ON THE THIRD THURSDAY OF EACH MONTH FOR COFFEE WITH THE POETS AT CITY LIGHTS BOOKSTORE IN SYLVA, NORTH CAROLINA. PHONE: 336-9499. WEBSITE: WWW.CITYLIGHTSNC.COM.

ECHOES ACROSS THE BLUE RIDGE: MARY MIKE KELLER

When Mary Mike Keller read her poem "As the Deer" at our Gala Publication party for Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, hosted by City Lights Bookstore two weeks ago, I was swept away. It's a beautiful poem, and she read it beautifully. This poem is yet another reason to own a copy of Echoes. Go to the Echoes page on Facebook and take a look. Or the Netwest blog. You will find information on how to purchase the book.

As The Deer

The dulcimer drones tranquil

as the pick grazes across strings

as the deer across the glade

My thumb under f sharp mimics

her tongue curled to pluck

a blade intoned on b

Quietness slides along her body

my finger descending the string

in a smooth slur of music

The sweetness of the melody

new as young grass lingers

in the lea of my instrument

A barre chord trembles

I wait

for that last unfettered fret

----Mary Michelle Brodine Keller

Mary Mike reads her poem at the Gala event.

COFFEE WITH THE POETS: Jeannette Cabinis-Brewin

(Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin)

City Lights Bookstore and the NC Writers Network West now sponsor Coffee With the Poets every third Thursday of the month. Inspired by a similar gathering in Hayesville which has been in existence for a number of years, this program is only in its second month. Our first meeting featured poet Glenda Beall of Hayesville, former Program Coordinator for Netwest. Glenda read and discussed her new chapbook, Now Might As Well Be Then, published by Finishing Line Press.




(At the coffee and tea table)


Thursday's guest was Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin, who brought her beautifully rendered poetry to us, along with an intelligent and stimulating commentary. We could have talked on for hours about poetry, the mountains, environmentalism, spirituality...well, I could go on, but wouldn't you rather read some of Jeannette's poems? The ones that follow are from her chapbook Patriate, which won the Longleaf Press chapbook prize in 2007. She began with a quote from William Stafford, a voice that's been like a touchstone for her.

The Way It Is

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among

things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

--William Stafford

Jeannette then read this beautiful poem written as if in conversation with Stafford's poem.
Still That Way
--with thanks to William Stafford

The thread I follow winds among wild plum trees
in an orchard planted by black bears. It drops

in windblown loops from nine beanpoles
lately wound with tender pods, makes a beeline

for the garnet parade-hats of sourwoods on the ridge,
their cream tassels buzzing with next year's honey.

It's drawn upstream by the gravity of the mossy altar
we call The Stone Table, and weaves a circle round it

for safekeeping of leafy fair-linen and acorn-cup
chalices. As it trails down the road, the thread takes a zig

and a zag, caught up in an exuberance of happy dogs.
While I follow it, I am not lost. The dirt names itself:

here's the sandy soil where coneflowers poke
spike seednoses this way and that; here's the sreambank

where in spring the Quaker ladies throng, feet down
in the dampness. Here the sparrow grass sleep in their bed

and parsnips lengthen their white sweet bodies down into dark.
The granite heft of the knoll lies across a hidden stream

that springs up on north and south to spread into pools,
one upwelling frequented by bars, the other by blacksmiths.

Let me explain about the thread: it's wrapped around this house
from foundation stone to roofpeak, lies across the marriage bed

length and breadth so many times, it's warp and woof
of the blanket that, sighing, we draw over our nakedness.

beneath it his heart pounds like the beater bar of a loom.
and I listen. We grow old; some things are still steady, but we know

nothing can stop time's unfolding. Like the skein for a covered basket
it pays out, soft and pliant, as I wind and count the loops

around the board. From this window I see the places it has knit
into home: vegetable patch, wild grove, flowery verge, all now bitten

black with frost. The basket's no longer full and at any moment
I may draw up the raggletaggle end, frayed out to nothingness and my hands'

surprised, scribe a final airy O




(William Everett listens as Jeannette responds to his question. He will be August's guest author.)


One of our favorites was a new poem titled Still, in which Jeannette plays on that word. Here are some lines I especially like, Randolph speaking at the outset.


My daddy sometimes was known
to weld up a still, he grins.
He’d pretend and go along
with whatever wink and purpose was given.

Still and all, that was the way
the old-timers got around and along.
And it still is today.
Some things, over time, still strong

as double-run corn. Like
Randolph’s will, like love
for the burn, that likker-spike beyond flavor.

---from Still





An exemplary quote from Blaise Pascal is tailor-made for our contemporary rushed, texting, online lives: "The sole cause of our unhappiness is that we do not know how to stay quietly in our rooms."


Jeannette concludes the poem "Pupil" with similar instructions to us and to herself.

Learn to sit still. The dark


iris of the mind,


receptacle and organizer,


opens inside, synapses making


birds, movements, sounds, thoughts,


glass and wood--a hole in the wall--


into a whole and living thing.


The cage of mullions,


a hologram of creation:


each pane entirely full


of new and repetitive beauties.

(Netwest member Ben Eller)


Afterward, we had lunch at Spring Street Cafe, underneath the bookstore. Pictured are Jeannette, Bill Everett, and Newt Smith, Netwest Treasurer.

ECHOES ACROSS THE BLUE RIDGE--FEATURING ROSEMARY ROYSTON

After taking a break for a few weeks from my blog, I'm back with big news. ECHOES ACROSS THE BLUE RIDGE: STORIES, ESSAYS, AND POEMS BY WRITERS LIVING IN AND INSPIRED BY THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS has arrived. For the next several posts I will be featuring the work of some of the contributors. This book will sell like hotcakes, so click on the link just above to go to the Netwest blog to order a copy.

My first author is Rosemary Royston, a young poet who just gets better and better. She lives in northeast Georgia. Her poetry has been published in The Comstock Review, Main Street Rag, and is forthcoming in Literal Latte and online at Dark Sky Magazine and Public Republic. She is the recipient of the 2010 Literal Latte Food Verse Award, and in 2004 she placed first and third in poetry, Porter Fleming Literary Contest. Rosemary has taught poetry courses at the Institute for Continuing Learning at Young Harris College, and she holds an MFA in Writing from Spalding University.

I especially love Rosemary's Dogwood Winter, the last of the three. It's a poem I wish I'd written! But I wouldn't mind claiming the other two, either.

Neighbor Lady

She has made them beds.
Beds of hay sporadically placed
in the ragged green pasture.
Pallets, really. Some say

she once lived north of here
had a high falutin’, high payin’ job.
Now she wears yellow rubber gloves,
like the ones I wear to clean the bathroom,

and there’s a turban of sorts on her head.
They say she’s the richest lady in the county.
Sometimes on a soft summer’s night
I see her truck on the property line

and in the air I can feel her presence
as she soothes those she loves so much.
She has spoken to me once: One cow
is worth ten good neighbors.

The Possibility of Snow

Ms. Callie is like a perfumed sparrow,
tiny and fragile in dress slacks,
the seam straight and pressed,
her sweater a matching shade of green.

When I hug her hello I’m afraid she will topple
under the weight of my slender arms.
At 80 her hair is coiffed and teased
and she’s just short of five feet,

only a head taller than my son, Luke.
We are visiting Angie, her daughter, (my friend)
and after talking and laughing over Oolong tea
we realize that my 7-year old has vanished—

he’s not in the guest room with the TV,
nor is he chasing the many cats around the house.
His drawing pad lies abandoned on the floor.
In the distance we hear a soft song of sorts

and are drawn to it, only to find him
on Ms. Callie’s bed, stretched out,
his head propped against the footboard,
conversing with her on the possibility of snow.

Dogwood Winter

Ants raid the bath, wasps claim the washroom,
even as the cool of winter looms.

The forsythia sings against a chorus
of green, yet the hue of winter looms.

The bunting’s a blur of vibrant blue,
off-setting winter’s gray loom.

Calves nurse in the open field, chilled
as the nip of winter looms.

Blood buds of azaleas burst forth
even though winter looms.

The creek hums a rain-filled song,
oblivious to the winter that looms.

Rosemary, thyme, and sage grow
in the sunroom, even as winter looms.

I HAVE COFFEE WITH THE POETS

Imagine walking into a bookstore like this one. It's a gray February day, with storms threatening, and you've just driven in the rain from Cullowhee over Winding Stair Gap and down into the town of Hayesville. You find the town square and park in front of a place called Crumpets, also known as Phillips & Lloyd bookstore. You're early. You sit in the car waiting for the doors to open, and when they do, you enter the store where you see one of the most welcoming interiors you've beheld in quite awhile.



But wait! It gets better. There's your old friend Nancy Simpson waiting to give you a hug. You are, after all, the special guest today, the poet who drove into the clouds and down again to get here for a morning of poetry.



Here are Brenda Kay Ledford and Carole Thompson waiting to say hello.



There's fresh coffee waiting, and oh my, all sorts of goodies being spread on a table in the room where ruffled curtains and quilts adorn the windows and walls. Soon other friends from Netwest arrive--Glenda Beall, Brenda Kay Ledford, and a little later, Janice Townley Moore, to name only a few. It's COFFEE WITH THE POETS morning. Wake up, wake up, the poets all around me seem to be saying, and after my reading and question/answer session, I listen to them read their own work in the open mic portion of this monthly event sponsored by Netwest.




(Michelle Keller, who coordinates Netwest's COFFEE WITH THE POETS, introduces me before my reading.)

Janice Moore sits to the side listening.



One by one the poets read their poems. "I want these," I declare, grabbing pages out of each poet's hand, and I carry them back home with me over the mountain. When I get home I realize I can't possibly type all of these for my blog! So, out comes my trusty digital camera, and I photograph each poem. Aha, the real thing, preserved by modern technology. Even the wrinkles in the paper.

Brenda Kay Ledford in her red-hot leather suit leads off the list.





Richard Argo flashes a big smile after reading his poem about being in a tent during rain. (I remember tent days--and nights---but mine weren't so romantic.)





Idell Shook introduces me to her book, Rivers of My Heart.





And Clarence Newton! What else to say about his "Adventure"?






One of the highlights of my day is meeting Lynn Rutherford, whose comments on this blog have delighted me over the past months. A Georgia girl herself, she knows about muddy rivers, squishy mud, sandspurs, and mosquitoes!








Nancy Simpson reads an old poem made new again through revision and recently accepted by The Pisgah Review.



Carole Thompson's poem set in St. Simon's Island, shows her gift for vivid imagery. It made me want to head south to the Golden Isles, where my favorite beaches wait.




Glenda Barrett, who lives just over the state line, promised to email me some of her poems. Here is one of them. Glenda is a widely published poet, with a recent chapbook to her credit. (more about that in a later post)




Flashback


The massage therapist

moves her slick palms

up and down my leg muscles

and notices a scar on my ankle.

Did you know every cell

in our body has a memory?

Experts say that simply touching

a scar can bring back the memory

of the trauma.

I listen as she speaks,

but I’m secretly glad

no one can touch my heart.

------------Glenda Barrett

Published in The Cherry Blossom Review in summer of 2008


If you are looking for crafty wit, look no further than Dorothea Spiegel's "X ON."





And Linda Smith's voice was well-suited to the "mystery" she unfolded in her poem "Mystery Memory."






Karen Holmes read a memorable poem about the circles life makes.





And after the open mic, we made our way to the delicacies arranged on the table. Poetry makes you hungry, after all. And COFFEE WITH THE POETS will make you hungry for more such mornings when friends and lovers of poetry gather to celebrate and enjoy the magic of each and every poem.