The Best American Poetry

Judy Garland and Mel Torme collaborate on the Trolley Song (1963) [by David Lehman]

This is how I recommend you start your day
fresh squeezed orange juice
and then the phone rings
and oh yes coffee
and an amiable chat with you, mon amie
and sister sweet
who loves this song from the 1940s
sung by Judy Garland and Mel Torme
who was music director of the Judy Garland Show
on CBS in 1963
and later wrote a tell-all
book about what it was like
"The Other Side of the Rainbow"
about which an Amazon customer named Charlie
wrote "I was kind of surprised
at how engaging and well-written this book is"
and then the sun comes out

A Day at the Ballpark [by Greg Pattenaude]

This year's annual pilgrimage to see the Mets - my 52nd consecutive year in doing so - was a spur of the moment affair.  A combination of a good weather forecast, no other plans, and 50 percent off the face value of "Excelsior Level" seats in the shade contributed to the impromptu decision.

After a lunch of those magical ShakeShack burgers and fries, my wife, son, and I were in our seats in time for the first pitch.  The game started out promising.  Mets starter Rafael Montero retired the first three Philadelphia Phillies batters.  Those pretty much were the Mets highlights.  After that, a series of poor defense, untimely hitting, and unhelpful bullpen relief resulted in a 7-1 Phillies victory, with the Mets limited to three hits, one of which was a TJ Rivera homer to avoid a shutout.  I can say that I witnessed the Phillies' catcher Andrew Knapp score from second base on a wild pitch.  So there is that.  Or the Mets hitting into a bizarre double play when the Phillies' center fielder Aaron Altherr dove for a ball, juggled on his body as he rolled over, and managed to not let the ball hit the ground, fooling the Mets baserunner Jay Bruce and doubling him off first base.  Plus I saw Knapp at it again when he beat Mets relief pitcher Chase Bradford in a footrace to first base in what I thought would be the third out in an inning, only to open up the flood gates for three more runs.  I can safely say this game ranks in my Top 10 worst games attended ever.  Mind you, I can't name the other nine, but I know this one is on the list, ranking high on the uninspired chart.  (Hey, if you are a Phillies fan, you most likely have a different view and I tip my cap.)

So that leaves some random observations about the rest of day to share.  I'm not sure if this applies to all of Major League Baseball, but Mets management believes that fans need to be entertained in between innings.  I call it the two minute barrage.  Three "hosts" entertain the crowd on the big TV screen that sits in center field.  There are contests to guess this or that, people-powered car races on the outfield warning track, and not one, but two tee shirt tosses.  I expect this stuff at the minor league park ten minutes from my house; I don't expect it in Queens, at least not with the frequency that they do it.  They usually play Piano Man in the 8th inning so everyone can sing along, but I guess they didn't want to add to the day's depressing atmosphere.  And the biggest shock is that when it's time for the 7th inning stretch, a long-standing baseball tradition, no one gets out of their seats until instructed to do so.  This is when my wife sees the veins in my head bulge.

Over the last fifteen years or so, baseball has added "walk up" music, personally selected by the home team batter to inspire them as they face a 95 MPH fastball.  Some are amusing.  Yoenis Cespedes uses the Lion King theme.  Lucas Duda uses Jimi Hendrix' All Along the Watchtower, appropriate for this 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love.  The rest is pretty forgettable.  I cringe at thinking what Ty Cobb or Dixie Walker would have selected. 

And that leads me to my next observation: the noise.  There was a loud speaker directly over our heads.  While that's great for hearing announcements like who the batter is, or "New Jersey plates 123-ABC, your lights are on", it also allows for an overdose of bass-pumping, heart stopping sound effects.  Honestly, I couldn't hear my son two seats away. We both chuckled at "The Noise Meter" shown on the big TV, which is supposed to reflect the amount of cheering (it's more like yelling) in the ballpark when the entertainers who control barrage want you to make noise, like time to turn it up to 11.  For me, attending a baseball game is part observation, part conversation, part anticipation, and part playing manager - cheer when it's appropriate and frown when things don't go your way.  This was a frown game.  Give me a day where there is gentle organ music in between innings, and an organic "Let's Go Mets" chant started.  All the instructions to make noise down 7-1 with two outs in the bottom of the 9th isn't going to happen.  Plans for shiva were being made after the 2nd inning.

Do I sound like a curmudgeon, perhaps Andy Rooney returning to wax not so poetically on the current day baseball experience?  Probably so.  My next birthday ends in a zero, so that means it's time to question life's achievements, think about what's ahead, and face my own mortality.  When Shea Stadium was christened in 1964, Bill Shea's speech mentioned the "Old Breed" making way for the "New Breed".  So maybe its time to let the "Even Newer Breed" take over and have their fun.  But I'm not going away.  My hope is to conquer the next decade as I hope the Mets do - with new achievements and sustained success.  But would it be too much to ask for this to happen with just a little less noise and a few more wins?

 

Graham Greene on truth, fiction, journalism and "the Media"

Ask Graham Greene the difference between journalism and fiction, and he'll say that "novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction."

He will add that "Media is just a word that has come to mean bad journalism."

-- DL [from the archives; originally posted May 9, 2014)

"The Ramble" [by Lily Bowen]

All I can think about
is her shiny, golden retriever
hair, falling down her back.
I can’t believe you share
a dog with someone. I lied
when I said I was allergic.
I wonder if sometimes,
when you’re fucking her from behind,
you mistake her for me.
It makes me want to dye
my hair brown.

Good Morning, Dean Martin, on an Evening in Roma

Penso che un sogno così non ritorni mai più
Mi dipingevo le mani e la faccia di blu
Poi d'improvviso venivo dal vento rapito
E incominciavo a volare nel cielo infinito

Volare. . .oh oh
Cantare, ohohoho...
Nel blu dipinto di blu
Felice di stare lassù

"No wonder my happy heart sings,
Your love has given me wings"

Segue

"Do they take 'em for espresso
Yeah, I guess so
On each lover's arm a girl
I wish I knew

So meet me in the plaza
Near your casa"

"Moscow Personals Ads— A Found Poem" [by Bruce Isaacson]

Selections from Moscow’s Argument & Fact which, with a circulation of 15 million, is the world's most widely read newspaper.

            -1-

I am 85 years old.  I'm in love with the TV serial
"Los Ricos Tambien Lloran" —"The Rich Also Weep"—
and I'm not sure I'll live to see the end. 
I promise to leave my legacy to the person who can
tell me when and how it ends.

                        —Address & Name Published

            -2-

I know 86 methods of fraud. 
I will trade one for another
or sell the entire collection.

                        —Address Published

            -3-

I am sick.  I can't walk or go out far. 
Doctors say a cure is possible if I can have
someone close to love. 
I'd like to meet a man who will love me as I am. 
I am 18 years old.
I can do everything with my hands:
cook food, wash clothes, clean an apartment.
Who are you?  Student?  Soldier? 
Released from prison?  Orphan? 
Be a kind man.  Be close to me.
                       —Alyona
                        Phone Number & Address Published

            -4-

A drunk doctor in an ambulance dragged me
when I was unconscious to the morgue. 
When I woke up I saw Terrible Things. 
I will tell all to all who want to hear.
                        —Address Given

            -5-

I'm looking for partners in a mobile slaughterhouse. 
When private slaughterhouses kill their livestock
they lose the stomach and the blood. 
I have an idea for a better system.  Contact me at...
                        —His family name, "Conovoleev",
                        translates roughly as "horse doctor".

            -6-

I did my time in prison for killing my unfaithful wife.            
I've taken my daughters from a boarding school
and want to begin a new life. 
Family and friends have turned away from me. 
I want to find other people who've had troubles
to help me start again. 
Merciful & kind Allah will help you
on Judgment Day.

            -7-

I am 112.  I feel great. 
My loving wife is 106. 
We've been married for 90 years. 
For all those who want the secret of this life
contact...
                        —Address given for Tblisi, Georgia,
                        which I've since unfortunately misplaced.

-- Bruce Isaacson

Young Bert Cooper sings "I Believe in You"

 

George Balanchine, Patriot

George Balanchine loved America. This Russian émigré choreographer, who founded the New York City Ballet with Lincoln Kirstein, delighted in everything from the songs of George Gershwin to the city's ''Don't Walk'' signs.  When asked why he why he would choreograph to the marches of John Phillip Sousa, as he did for "Stars and Stripes," Balanchine replied, "because he makes me happy." On January 25, 1981, just five days after the American hostages were released from Iran, Balanchine added "Stars and Stripes" to program, as a special encore. It remains one of my favorite ballets. It is in this country that Balanchine was able to make his great contributions to dance. It pains me to think that there might be another Balanchine waiting to get here so his or her gifts can find their full expression on our shores. Here are highlights from Stars & Stripes.

From Beirut, "the Freedom Haven of the Arab Middle East," Joumana Haddad on "Crime in Ramallah"

A Palestinian Novel Unearths Dirty Secrets in the Arab World /
by JOUMANA HADDAD / July 3, 2017

We are a people of dirty secrets hiding beneath a veil of fake morality.

That’s the first thought that came to mind when I read about the banning of the novel Crime in Ramallah by the Palestinian author Abbad Yahya, and about the death threats he has been receiving.

Published this year and the fourth book by Mr. Yahya, the novel narrates the everyday lives of three young men (Raouf, Nour and Wissam) in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The Palestinian Authority’s attorney general banned it in February because it contained indecent texts and terms that endangered morality and public decency. Some Palestinians have even threatened to burn bookstores selling the novel.

When I heard the news, I immediately went out and bought a copy. Because I live in Beirut, the freedom haven of the Arab Middle East, this proved easy.

That evening, I started reading Crime in Ramallah and did not stop until I finished it. It was refreshingly genuine. It did not shy away from exposing the ugliness, the desperateness, the corruption, the loss of purpose, the unavoidable wrong turns and the uncomfortable truths of life in Ramallah after the second intifada. The sexual fragments are quite graphic, which was surprising and exhilarating. An Arab author writing about a homosexual character (Nour) enjoying oral sex, to cite but one example, is not something we encounter often. But, as the response to the book has shown, there can be no homosexuals in a reality-obliterating Arab world, where real manhood is defined by a chauvinist heterosexuality. Continued here

from The New York Times, July 3, 2017.

"To Independence" (Steve McQueen) and some prose "In Favor of Peace" [by David Lehman]

It is July 4th in The Great Escape and in the POW camp dominated by Brits, Steve McQueen lifts his glass of homemade rotgut and says "Independence." In one word he characterize an entire way of life. We observe the privileges of freedom and independence on a day when we must also remember that the fruits of freedom begin with peace and that a hallmark of peace is civility in discourse and an agreement to respect ourselves by respecting each other. 
The great music in The Great Escape was written by Elmer Bernstein.

<<
Poets tend to be more in love with love, with ideas, with death, or with the details of their own autobiographies-in-progress than in peace, or health, or well-being as a subject in its own right. Peace in poetry is the necessary but only implied backdrop for all productive human endeavors. I sometimes think of William Carlos Williams as the one modern poet whose collected works seem a hymn to peace as the ground condition that makes all else possible, beauty included. I have wondered whether this may be because he preferred things to ideas. He captures fragments of being: plums in a paper bag or in the ice-box, a young housewife, flowers and farm implements, people at a ballgame, rain, a cat in its stealth, an eight-foot strip of copper, the “rank odor of a passing springtime.” But before I get carried away, Bob Hass reminds me that Williams could also be warlike; he wrote enthusiastically about the cleansing blaze of violence in “Burning the Christmas Greens” (1944).  In the poem, green turns into ash, and we stand there “breathless to be witnesses, / as if we stood / ourselves refreshed among / the shining fauna of that fire.”

Poems of war announce themselves as such; poems of peace do not invariably do so. An exception is Kenneth Koch’s long poem “The Pleasures of Peace,” which he wrote in the late 1960s when the Vietnam War was raging and poets felt a tremendous pressure to write anti-war poems or take part in protest rallies. Many bad antiwar poems were written at this time. Political urgency leads often to poetical triteness. Koch’s solution to the problem was to write a joyful poem not an angry one, radiating pleasure, not scorn or detestation. The madcap poem affirms that the natural state of man is peace, not war. In a last,valedictory stanza, boats sail and apes run and the sun shines for peace, and monkeys climb for peace, and serpents writhe for peace, and “the Alps, Mount Vesuvius, all the really big important mountains / Are rising for peace.” The poem reaches its highest level of pathos when the poet punctuates his closing peroration with a plea, not a prediction: “Surely it won’t be long.”
>>>

For more of the essay "Peace and War in American Poetry," written at the behest of the Library of Congress, click here.

Weather Report [poem by Sharon Preiss]

Weather Report by Sharon Preiss

 

In the year of our lord, zip code 12198, in the summer
Of abstract art, I wrote a book. It read like this:

Her name is Nina, her name is Sandra, his name is Lane.
They dislike each other equally under the same roof.
C’est la vie.
At least it’s a roof.

And god said, “Let it be 48°,” and it was so.
And god said, “Let it be 91°,” and it was done.
And god said, “Let it all happen in a 24 hour span,”
And Upstate New York was born.
And god saw the people grumble, but he let it go,
Because, for crying out loud, it’s only weather.

Did the hate grow deeper that summer?
Did Rothko and Calder and Nevelson learn to live side by side?
Did the people come to blows?
Do we really love New York?
Which roof and which zip code should we live under?

Words For Our Wounded World – “Where Epics Fail” Aphorisms by Yahia Lababidi

Best American Poetry readers who pledge/pre-order from the book’s webpage will have their names included in the back of the special hardcover edition. This offer extends to readers who pledge before the end of the end of July. Use promo code: yahia17

Yahia Lababidi, whose work has appeared in these pages, is an Egyptian immigrant and bewildered Muslim in Trump’s America seeking to do some good through his art. His new book – Where Epics Fail – is a work of hope, peace and healing for our wounded world. Lababidi writes that he chose the title, based on a Persian proverb: “Epigrams succeed where epics fail.” His subtitle, Art, Morality and the Life of the Spirit refers to three life-giving spheres of our existence where, Lababidi believes, the grand narratives seem to be failing to hold our attention or capture our imagination. Instead, this is where he hopes his own epigrams might succeed.

Lababidi began writing aphorisms as a teenager in Egypt, more than twenty years ago. Aphorisms may read like headlines, but they contain stories, too—inviting readers of sensitivity and conscience to breathe life into them, by living at a higher level of consciousness. Composed over the past decade or so, Epics, is Lababidi's second collection of aphorisms, featuring over 800 of his elegant brief arts–many of which have gone viral online, been translated internationally, and used in classrooms. Epics will be published by Unbound (UK), the world’s first crowd-funding publisher, in partnership with Penguin Random House.

The term “aphorism” comes from the Greek “Aphorismos.” Hippocrates, a Greek physician of the Age of Pericles (450 BCE to 380 BCE), is reportedly the first person to use the term. According to Oxford Dictionary, an aphorism is defined as: “a pithy observation which contains a general truth; a concise statement of scientific principle.” As novelist Kris Saknussemm writers in Epics’ Introduction:

The aphorism may well be regarded as one of the oldest literary forms, and yet, in this age of Facebook memes, text messages, and sound bites, it may be the most accessible and relevant form of literary expression there is.

Where Epics Fail is generously endorsed by poets and intellectuals, including Richard Blanco, Barack Obama’s inaugural poet. Blanco refers to Lababidi as the “current-day master” of aphorisms. Blanco goes on to describe Lababidi’s aphorisms as “simple, natural gestures, that in fact hold multitudes of meaning rooted in the eternal.” Poet Sharon Dolin appears to agree: “His aphorisms could form a new gnostic religion, and I could dwell a long while inside them. Yahia Lababidi may be our greatest living aphorist.”

Recently, Lababidi’s book of short meditations was featured on PBS Newshour:

The aphorisms in “Where Epics Fail” exhort us to pay attention, believe we can make a difference, keep our hearts open in the face of pain, take responsibility for our actions, avoid ego and do the hard work that comes with sticking to ideals.

Epics is Lababidi’s seventh book. His first book of aphorisms – Signposts to Elsewhere, was selected for Books of the Year, by The Independent (UK).  Signposts went on to be translated into Arabic, with a warm introduction by the late, celebrated Egyptian writer, Ahmed Ragab.

Best American Poetry readers who pledge/pre-order from the book’s webpage, will have their names included in the back of the special hardcover edition, as a thank you. Also, the author would like to extend this promo code to BAP readers who pledge before the end of July: yahia17

Groucho Raises a Toast to Lydia [by David Lehman]

Listen to this
praise of Lydia
the tattooed lady,
the most glorious
creature under the sun:
"She has eyes that folks adore so
and a torso even more so. . ."
in The Marx Brothers
At the Circus (1939)
On her back is the battle of Waterloo!
When a robe is unfurled
she will show you the world!
If you tell her where
she'll show you 
Washington crossing the Delaware!
Here is Captain Spalding exploring the Amazon --
Here's Godiva but with her pajamas on --
You can learn a lot from Lydia!
music by Harold Arlen
words by Yip Harburg
Lemonade! Romance!
The World's Fair of 1900
marked down from 1940
a happy way
to start your day

 

A Home for All God's Children: What Is America To Me? [Paul Robeson]

I've always been deeply moved by Frank Sinatra's original recording of this song (music Earl Robinson, lyrics Abel Meeropol under the pen name Lewis Allan. You can find it here.) but this version by Paul Robeson is also beautiful and worth sharing:

THE HOUSE I LIVE IN (1947)

What is America to me?
A name, a map or a flag I see,
A certain word, "Democracy",
What is America to me?

The house I live in,
The friends that I have found,
The folks beyond the railroad
and the people all around,
The worker and the farmer,
the sailor on the sea,
The men who built this country,
that's America to me.

The words of old Abe Lincoln,
of Jefferson and Paine,
of Washington and Jackson
and the tasks that still remain.
The little bridge at Concord, 
where Freedom's Fight began,
of Gettysburg and Midway 
and the story of Bataan.

The house I live in,
my neighbors White and Black,
the people who just came here 
or from generations back,
the town hall and the soapbox,
the torch of Liberty,
a home for all God's children,
that's America to me.

The house I live in,
the goodness everywhere,
a land of wealth and beauty 
with enough for all to share.
A house that we call "Freedom",
the home of Liberty,
but especially the people,
that's America to me.

But especially the people--that's 
the true America...

-- sdl

"Where or When" with Dinah Shore and Frank Sinatra [by David Lehman]

Here's a love song that doubles
as an uncanny moment
of deja-vu bliss:
"Where or When"
by Rodgers and Hart
Listen to the music soar
with Sinatra and Dinah Shore
on black-and-white TV
in 1958
then linger over your second cup of coffee
with "I See Your Face Before Me"
and "You're Sensational"  

Waltzing Matilda. . .

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled:
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."

Chorus:
Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled:
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."

Down came a jumbuck to drink at that billabong.
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee.
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag:
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."

(Chorus)

Up rode the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred.
Down came the troopers, one, two, and three.
"Who's the jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."

(Chorus)

Up jumped the swagman and sprang into the billabong.
"You'll never catch me alive!" said he
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong:
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."

Meet the Press: Dante Di Stefano in Conversation with Kelly Forsythe and Emily Grise of Copper Canyon Press

DD: I’d like to start by quoting the last five lines from Jim Harrison’s poem, “Books,” published posthumously in Dead Man’s Float:

            I must sell these books, some quite rare,
            or exchange them for good food and the wine
            I can no longer afford. I used to look
            at pages 33, 77, 153 for the secrets of the world
            and never find them but still continue trying.

Could you use these lines as a jumping off point for discussing the good work you do as a publicist at Copper Canyon Press?

KF: Ha! What a great line from Harrison to start our conversation. I am the Director of Publicity for Copper Canyon, which means that I work to get our authors and their books print and broadcast media coverage. Because Copper Canyon is a nonprofit, part of my job also involves working to increase the visibility of our donor campaigns and reader engagement programming.

EG: As Copper Canyon’s Associate Publicist, I manage the press’s digital footprint —  primarily on social media. Social media serves to amplify press coverage for our books and authors, support the press’s development initiatives, and help build relationships with our community of readers and the literary community at large. The digital landscape is always changing and it’s my job to keep up, so there’s a lot of answer-seeking and not-finding and then continuing-to-try; that’s part of the fun.

DD: Jim Harrison’s Dead Man’s Float and C.D. Wright’s ShallCross are both amazing books, capstones to admirable lives in poetry and the arts. Do you see the marketing of these books differently than other books? Could you say that your work as a publicist in these cases is also to elegize and to praise?

KF: My role as a literary publicist is to advocate for poetry, and to shout from the rooftops when we get a beautiful collection in our hands. Both of these books are capstones, and that is an important quality that I took into consideration when we developed the publicity campaigns. They were handled with care, and both went out to reviewers with Letters from the Editor, contextualizing the work and honoring the legacies of the poets. The coverage they received was predominantly focused on the poetry itself, with remembrances and retrospectives woven in.

EG: Elegizing both Jim and C.D. felt in the wake of their passing more like an organic, communal act of which the press is only a part. Spending as much of my time plugged into online conversation as I do, it was incredible to witness the chorus of so many voices — writers, readers, academics, students, family, friends — sharing with the digital world the impact these poets had on their lives and their work. ShallCross and Dead Man’s Float naturally became important touchstones for this collective eulogizing. Ongoing eulogizing, really; I don’t know that the world will run out of things to say about either of these poets any time soon.

DD: What do poets most need to know about publicizing a book of poetry, in your opinion?

KF: I think poets should know that social media is a crucial part of how readers discover new books today. Online reviews, literary journals that publish their issues digitally, and presses that help celebrate its authors accomplishments through Twitter and Facebook, are all part of the publicity process. It’s also important to have an author website for readers to learn more about you. I think that a lot of poets don’t believe that mainstream media is engaged in poetry, and in some cases, it isn’t — but in many circumstances, reviewers and editors are taking note of poetry and looking for ways to celebrate it.

DD: How important is an author’s use of social media and overall web presence in publicizing a book?

EG: Generally speaking, I think the importance of a particular poet’s online presence is proportional to the importance of that presence to their readers. As a publicist, you want a book and its readers to find each other, so if a poet’s readers – actual and potential – are online, I think it makes a measurable impact if the poet is online too.

There are always exceptions, of course, and I wouldn’t push a poet to jump into the digital abyss if they’re not going to feel okay about being there. Managing a social media presence takes time and energy, and it’s publicly performative so it can drain your reservoir of self (hi, introverts!). A poet’s primary responsibility is to write poetry, so if Twitter takes away from that instead of feeds it, I respect the choice say “pass.” (That’s part of why I do the job I do: so poets can poem first.) But if social media fits comfortably into a poet’s life, their use of social media can really help make space for their book in the world and find the readers who’re going to love it.

DD: Since the last time Kelly was interviewed for this blog, by Nin Andrews, in 2012, Copper Canyon Press has launched several initiatives to raise funds and increase the variety of poets it publishes. One such initiative is the New Poets Project. Could you tell us a bit about this project and Javier Zamora’s new collection?

EG: The New Poets Project campaign used crowdfunding to raise funds for debut poetry collections by extraordinary voices like Zamora’s. Copper Canyon is a platform for both established and emerging poets, and for the latter, debut books can be the critical jumping-off point for long-ranging careers and can carry a lasting impact in the poetry world. We’re invested in the power of these debut books and the poets who write them – poets like Camille Rankine, and Ocean Vuong and Javier Zamora. It was great to see the literary community rally around these writers.

The emotional ground that Unaccompanied covers is remarkable. There’s a physical journey embedded in the book – an incredibly compelling one – but the internal landscape Zamora explores is equally rich and deeply considered. The sense of urgency in these poems sticks with me after I read them, too.

DD: Camille Rankine’s poetry seeks to propel the passive reader into active and aggressive questioning. With intense lyricism, Incorrect Merciful Impulses charts the anxieties, the blindness, and the perplexities characteristic of urban life in contemporary America. Compassion foregrounds Rankine’s poetic inquiry into the confluence of identity, history, politics, mortality, and culture, in a nation endlessly implicated in violence, domestically and overseas. To me, this book is emblematic of the timely and timeless quality of Copper Canyon books. Which books recently published by Copper Canyon Press resonate most deeply with you in these dark political times?

KF: One could (and has) made the argument that all poetry is political. See: this, or this.

But as far as specific Copper Canyon titles that have resonated with me (in addition to Camille’s collection), these would make the shortlist (among many others):

            Roger Reeves’s King Me
            W.S. Merwin’s The Lice, a 50th Anniversary reissue
            Javier Zamora’s Unaccompanied
            Ocean Vuong’s Night Sky With Exit Wounds
            Lisa Olstein’s Late Empire

DD: Kelly, your digital chapbook, Helix, is available online at Floating Wolf Quarterly. I enjoyed the lyric intensity of this collection. The first four lines of the title poem were particularly emblematic of the strengths of the chapbook as a whole:

            That you may have been small, gene. A tiny cross
            of parental freeways. Little fragment of extended
            tastes: likes, dislikes, hair color, eyes.
            That our thrills could be found in the departure—

How has your work at Copper Canyon Press influenced your life as a writer? In what ways has your writing life, in turn, influenced your work as a publicist?

KF: My work at Copper Canyon Press has changed my life. Hands-down: as a writer, reader, and a professional. I think I am probably a more sensitive marketing professional because I’m also a poet (actually I’m going through my own “first book” publishing process with Coffee House Press right now). So there are some insights I definitely try to apply to my job — about how vulnerable it can be to publish a book — for all poets regardless of their experience or publication history.

As far as how working at Copper Canyon as a publicist has influenced me as a poet: it has exposed me to so many different styles and types of poetry, and through that exposure I have experimented, imitated, reconsidered, and re-imagined, my own writing. I read many manuscripts throughout the year in order to prepare PR plans, sometimes multiple books a week, and often in raw form without final edits or revisions. This is a practice that has affected my vocabulary, my understanding of lineation, my theory on titling poems...the list could go on.

DD: Emily, I love your prose poem, “The Rabbit,” which appeared in the New Delta Review.  It manages to be playful and new and to deeply engage Francis Ponge’s work at the same time. The poem ends wonderfully:

            Rabbit, I think I am saying I would vote for you if only I had a better
            grasp of your platform.

            Rabbit, I think, if you were my father, we’d go out to lunch every week
            and despite our labored conversation, I’d kiss your furry cheek before
            I hurried out of your car.

How has your work at Copper Canyon Press influenced your life as a writer? In what ways has your writing life, in turn, influenced your work as a publicist?

EG: Thank you for such a kind reading of “The Rabbit!”

Surrounded by the work of incredible poets at Copper Canyon, I’m both inspired and daunted, moved to write and stunned into silence. Consuming good poetry is nourishing to me as poet: it feeds me rhythms I want to borrow and phrases I obsess over and forms I want to play in and new ways of being that I want to inhabit for a while. It wakes me up to the world again so I can write about it. But it also greases the machine of self-doubt; it feels like I’m always navigating this push and pull  – a healthy tension, I like to think.

The flow of influence in the other direction is less fraught: my life as a writer serves as a welcome source of empathy for me as a publicist working with other writers. I can’t fully inhabit every poet’s experience, of course, but I can honor the vulnerability and bravery of what they’ve done to craft a book through the careful attention I give that book, and through the work I do that helps that book make its mark, because I’ve felt that vulnerability myself. I value my own experience as a point of reference in that sense.

DD: What is the most encouraging experience you have had as a publicist?

KF:  It is really gratifying to see sold-out readings or lectures, rooms packed with people waiting to listen to poets read their work.

DD: What is one thing that American poetry needs more of, in your opinion?

KF: It needs more readers.

DD: If you could only read and say and remember one poem (written by someone else) for the rest of your life, what poem would it be?

EG: Can I cheat a bit in my response? The first and truest-feeling answer that came to my mind in response to this excellent question isn’t quite a poem but words from a poet: Audre Lorde’s well-known assertion that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” I carry those words around with me and visit them often. They call me out, they move me forward, they teach me and inspire me and feed a fire under threat. These words name the world; they’re the lens I need to really see it. I want to keep that close.

KF: My poem would be W.S. Merwin’s “Variation on a Theme,” from his collection Moon Before Morning, and it will also appear in The Essential Merwin this Fall 2017. The line: “thank you whole body and hand and eye / thank you for sights and moments known.”

DD: Speaking of W.S. Merwin, I’d like to end with a poem from the remarkable Garden Time; “The Present” is maybe the most Blakean poem in a very satisfyingly Blakean collection:

            The Present

            As they were leaving the garden
            one of the angels bent down to them and whispered

            I am to give you this
            as you are leaving the garden

            I do not know what it is
            or what it is for
            what you will do with it

            you will not be able to keep it
            but you will not be able

            to keep anything
            yet they both reached at once

            for the present
            and when their hands met

            they laughed

Kelly Forsythe is the Director of Publicity for Copper Canyon Press. Prior to working with Copper Canyon, she was a consultant for the web team at the Poetry Foundation, and worked with the marketing department at Poets & Writers Magazine. She has given lectures on publishing and book publicity at NYU, The Academy of American Poets, the Institute of American Indian Arts, and Manhattanville College. Her publicity endeavors at Copper Canyon include Natalie Diaz’s When My Brother Was an Aztec, Ocean Vuong’s Night Sky with Exit Wounds, and Then Come Back: The Lost Neruda. She is on the Board of Directors for the C.D. Wright Women Writers Conference, and the author of Perennial, forthcoming from Coffee House Press in 2018. In addition to her work with Copper Canyon, she edits Phantom, an online journal, and teaches creative writing at the University of Maryland. Photo: Janessa Jackson

Emily Grise serves as Associate Publicist for Copper Canyon Press and holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Missouri - St. Louis. Previously, she served as an Assistant Editor for Natural Bridge and a reviews writer for DIALOGIST, and is currently Associate Poetry Editor for WomenArts Quarterly — a St. Louis-based art and literary journal which features work by womyn artists. She teaches creative writing for pre-teens with the St. Louis Writers Workshop. Photo: Tim Young

 

Dante Di Stefano is the author of Love is a Stone Endlessly in Flight (Brighthorse Books, 2016). His poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared in Brilliant Corners, The Los Angeles Review, Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. He is a poetry editor for DIALOGIST and the poetry book review editor for Arcadia.

Wake up: Elvis sings "Witchcraft" and Sinatra sings "Love Me Tender"

 It's witchcraft wicked witchcraft
when Elvis came home from the army
and he and Sinatra sang this duet
What a thrill
For my darling I love you and I always will