The Best American Poetry

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Easter, and the Christians are at it again, raising the dead. [By Jill Alexander Essbaum]

(Ed note: This post is from the archive. It first appeared on April 6, 2021)
  

If you see me in church this weekend, I’ll be crying.

Wait.  Scratch that. 

I’ll be weeping.

Hmm.  No.  That’s not right either.

Try:  Sobbing.  Bawling.  Engaging in a back-pew sort of break-down best reserved for funerals (and only really, really, really tragic ones at that). 

I know.  It totally doesn’t make sense.  In the fairy tale of Holy Week, Easter’s the happy ending.  It’s the Resurrection!  It’s death undone!  It’s every promise rendered right!  It’s bunnies and chocolate!  Jesus, Jill. Jill—it’s Jesus!   

AND YET: The minute that stone is rolled away I lose my shit.  Crude, but there’s no other way to put it.

Easter fucks me up.*

A digression, not particularly brief. Indulge, please:

Indomitable faith isn’t my strong suit. I’m pretty good at misgiving; doubt’s my specialty. Trust? A habit I’ve unlearned. My conviction is never convinced and what assurance I do have is never, but never blessèd.  Therefore my belief in God comes and goes in the manner of a city train: it chugs from Skepticism as if it were a northern suburb and it runs all the way down to Denial, an outlying town at the end of the line. And while I do indeed disembark at Spirituality Central Station often enough to know which tram will get me to the cathedral without having to look it up in a Frommer’s, at some point I get back on the train.  It’s inevitable.  To do otherwise would to not be Jill.  This is part of the problem. 

But even in doubt, I have always prayed.  I pray, in fact, in the manner that Sugar advises us to write which is like a motherfucker.  I pray like Shaft prays.  Eat your heart out, Roundtree.  Can you dig it?  I pray aloud.  I pray loudly.  I pray all day long, though my self-appointed hour is five am.  I take a pre-dawn walk and speak to the sky.  God’s come to expect me at that time.

(Lest you find me too virtuous for my vestments, I ought to confess it took months for me to train myself to pray for other people beyond ‘andgodpleaseblesssoandsoamen.’  Mostly when I pray I’m thrice a singer’s third syllable solfège: Mi, mi, mi.  Not so proud, not so pious.)

But I pray.  Boldly.  Like how Luther says to sin.  I’m not very nice about it.  I’m adamant.  My most-prayed prayer? What Jacob told the angel. I will not let you go until you bless me.  To which I add: And then, I still won’t let you go.  To which I also add: Dammit.

And so I doubt.  And so I pray.  I’m ok with that.  I don’t think it’s so unusual.  I’m not the only one of us who walks and chews gum at the same time.  This is a tension I’ve held for years.  Tension, you know, is sometimes called for.  A guy-wire must be taut to be of any stabilizing use.  And what this tensity has taught me is that slackening isn’t always safe.  I’m tempted to retell the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, but I won’t.  Except to say: Bridegroom awaits.  Better watch out, not cry, not pout.  Here come da judge.  Here come da judge.

It’s not the doubt, then, that ramrods me at Easter exactly.

It’s Easter’s premise.

You wanna get to Heaven?  Baby, you gots to die.

"The Men We Marry, the Men We Fuck" [by Jill Alexander Essbaum]

This one kissed me beneath the stars.
That one fondled me up the stairs.

This one confessed his sins but to God.
That one demanded his pity aloud.

This one drove me to the store.
That one drove me like a car.

This one gave me violets and asters.
That one brought me violence and disaster.

This one wed me in the chapel.
That one ate me like an apple,

And he was as handsome as he was doomed.
Lovely as lust, but fickle as the moon.

This one built a house to live in.
That one fed me glass and poison.

This one tended a kindled hearth.
That one threw me to the dirt

And by the greenbrier patch we tangled,
Hand to thigh and lip to nipple.

The men we marry, the men we fuck:
This one doubly filled my cup,

That one used me up.

-- Jill Alexander Essbaum

(originally published in The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel: Second Floor)

Easter, and the Christians are at it again, raising the dead.

         

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you see me in church this weekend, I’ll be crying.

Wait.  Scratch that. 

I’ll be weeping.

Hmm.  No.  That’s not right either.

Try:  Sobbing.  Bawling.  Engaging in a back-pew sort of break-down best reserved for funerals (and only really, really, really tragic ones at that). 

I know.  It totally doesn’t make sense.  In the fairy tale of Holy Week, Easter’s the happy ending.  It’s the Resurrection!  It’s death undone!  It’s every promise rendered right!  It’s bunnies and chocolate!  Jesus, Jill. Jill—it’s Jesus!   

AND YET: The minute that stone is rolled away I lose my shit.  Crude, but there’s no other way to put it.

Easter fucks me up.*

A digression, not particularly brief. Indulge, please:

Extra! Extra! Read All About It! JAE in the Times!

Best American Poetry's own Jill Alexander Essbaum is featured today in the New York Times'  "Learning Network" Blog's post, "Poetry Pairing." Click here to read Jill's wonderful poem "Precipice" and the discussion as the poem is compared to two other pieces about time.

Way to go, Jilly!

From the Archives: A Christmas Sermon by Jill Alexander Essbaum (December 25, 2010)

(Yup.  What follows is a Christian, Christmas sermon.  You've been warned.) 

    A couple of weeks ago I was on a flight from Palm Springs, returning home from the December residency of the MFA low-res program in which I teach (UCR-Palm Desert: The Hottest MFA in the Country—no, it’s true; our posters say so).  I’m not a brilliant flier.  Airplanes make little sense to me and thus, they terrify. Sometimes I take a valium.  Sometimes I white-knuckle my way through the turbulence and the beverage service.  And sometimes, as in this instance, I strike up a conversation with the poor sap sitting next to me.  

    My seat mate was young and very handsome.  He worked as a supervisor on an herb farm in the Coachella Valley.  He was traveling to Miami with his boss. His hometown was Jerusalem.  His name was Mohammed.   

    We had a nice chat, us.  I inquired after the herbs he farmed.  What’s the best one? I asked. The chive, he replied. It's the hardest to grow. I asked about his family. Ten years ago a brain tumor killed his father.  My own father's been dead a little over a decade, and I said as much. We offered each other the condolences of paternal loss.  

 

A Christmas Sermon

(Yup.  What follows is a Christian, Christmas sermon.  You've been warned.) 

              

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    A couple of weeks ago I was on a flight from Palm Springs, returning home from the December residency of the MFA low-res program in which I teach (UCR-Palm Desert: The Hottest MFA in the Country—no, it’s true; our posters say so).  I’m not a brilliant flier.  Airplanes make little sense to me and thus, they terrify. Sometimes I take a valium.  Sometimes I white-knuckle my way through the turbulence and the beverage service.  And sometimes, as in this instance, I strike up a conversation with the poor sap sitting next to me.  

    My seat mate was young and very handsome.  He worked as a supervisor on an herb farm in the Coachella Valley.  He was traveling to Miami with his boss. His hometown was Jerusalem.  His name was Mohammed.   

    We had a nice chat, us.  I inquired after the herbs he farmed.  What’s the best one? I asked. The chive, he replied. It's the hardest to grow. I asked about his family. Ten years ago a brain tumor killed his father.  My own father's been dead a little over a decade, and I said as much. We offered each other the condolences of paternal loss.  

Boxed-In, Blue Humorous and Bleary-Eyed (Bildungsroman Holiday by Jessica Piazza)

I spent a lot of time today thinking about my intentions for tomorrow's feast.  The way I want the table to look, who should sit where, how I should time every dish, course, segment of our evening.  In the end, some of those intentions will be realized and some will certainly not.  Every Thanksgiving has been made both better and worse by things going off-plan.  (I think here, first, of the oft dragged-up story of the year we ate at midnight because I didn't know how to cook a turkey, and also of the time a squirrel ate the pie crust I had cooling on the porch, but also of that one Thanksgiving when we played impromtu charades and laughed hysterically for an hour.)  

More appropriately, though, I it also made me think about poetry, and how I often sit down with a prompt, or a plan, but only sometimes go that path.  Writing formal poetry is one way of working according to plan.  Thematic poems, too.  But even starting with a last line, or an organizing image...that's organization of a sort.  I rarely if ever write completely free, and I'm entirely curious about people who do.  How does anything *go* anywhere?  I couldn't do it.  Some friends I know couldn't start with a plan or everything they write feels contrived. 

But--okay, and here's my own plan veering off course--you know what, kids?  I think I might beg my wonderful hosts at BAP to give me more than a week of blogging.  Because I swear I have lots of deeply-considered and potentially interesting things to say to all of you, but right now I'm about to fall face first into the huge stock pot of autumn soup. (A recipe, by the way, I stole from my wonderful friend, the amazing poet Rebecca Lindenberg.)

Yeah.  See, my family arrived today.  En masse.  From Brooklyn.  They haven't been cooking, no, but they have been talking.  Loudly.  And borrowing my car and stealing my bed.  And arranging my furniture.  (It's already arranged the way I want it, of course.)  

God, I love them.  God, they are A LOT of a lot of a lot.  And Jillybean and I will be waking up at 5:30 to prep and cook the turkey.  Woo, Lord.  Woo, we're thankful and tired.

So, here.  I'll leave you with some fun, maybe.  And an explanation of the title.

Jilly's idea of blue (butternut) humor:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to Chop a Fuckton of Onions (more Bildungsroman Holiday, by Jessica Piazza)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, kids.  And you know what that means?  Onions.  A FUCKTON of onions.  Below you'll find one of my favorite recipes (and the impetus for said onion-chopping), an amazing poem by the lovely Suji Kwock Kim called "Monologue for an Onion," and a question that is all together too personal.  I hope you'll answer it.

And I very much hope you're having fun out there, celebrators.  

Sex Advice from Poets!

Check out Nerve.com where David Lehman, Jill Alexander-Essbaum, and Mark Bibbins answer such questions as

<<
This guy I’ve been dating is a writer and things have really been going well between us. The problem is that he showed me some of his work last week and I didn’t know how to react — it was terrible! I know it’s a huge part of his life, so I lied and said I liked it. Is this a dealbreaker? I can’t lie forever.
>>

You will also find, among many other juicy epistles, the perennial query from the "self-described feminist" who wants the guy to pay when they go out and also wants absolution for her heresy.

http://www.nerve.com/advice/sex-advice-from/sex-advice-from-poets-0

It's been awhile...

...since I've posted any puns.  "Are y'all havin' any symptims of depruvation?" Jill asked, concerning withdrawal.  

Ok.  That was bad.  Real, real bad.  As are the following, unapologetically harebrained Tom Swifties.  The Tom Swifty is my pun préféré.  Like all puns, it contains, in the brevity of its form, the twin potentials of greatness and ridiculousness.  These are at once too clever by three-fourths and as self-indulgent as a dozen showers a day during a drought.  Love them or loathe them, here they are.  

The Reading I Can't Attend, But Hope You WILL

Exactly one year ago today, I was in Switzerland on a visit.  I stayed with my dear, dear friend Susana Gardner in her home in Wallisellen.  We drank, we gossiped, we plotted world poetic domination.  I love this lady immensely.  

Susana is the curator / editrix / head beauty in charge of Dusie, a fantabulous multi-tiered organization that includes a press, a publishing collective, a journal, and (blessedly) a pillow for me to lay my head upon whenever I land in Kanton Zürich. 

On Thursday, August 12, at 8 pm, Susana Gardner, Cara Benson, Mairéad Byrne, Caroline Crumpacker, Eileen Myles, and Kate Zambreno will be reading from their new works. The reading is at Book Thug Nation in Brooklyn, New York (100 N 3rd St. between Berry Street and Wythe Avenue).  That's a rock-star line-up if ever there was one.

I want so badly to attend this reading but I can't quite swing the scratch to fly from Austin to NYC for just a night.  So what I'm hoping is that anyone who CAN attend this reading WILL attend it.  And that if you go, you'll sidle up to Susana and give her a hug and say simply "That's from Jill."

Did you hear about the consumptive hollywood starlet?

She was always being typecast as a phlegm-fatale.  

A Bloomsday Note: I visit James Joyce's grave with Craig Arnold (by Jill Alexander Essbaum)

Statue of James Joyce at his grave in Zurich

A favorite memory from Switzerland. Craig and Robin come to visit me. We share a picnic of cheese and cherries and bread in the park behind the Landesmuseum near the Zurich Hauptbahnhof.  We sit on the concrete-floored gazebo, and there are ants. Later, it is a trek to James Joyce's gravesite. We are appropriately reverent and also appropriately irreverent. We may or may not quote passages from Joycean works (alas, I do not recall). I may or may not mention that my prefered Joyce is 'Carol Oates.'  Robin, I think, is bored. The sun is high and hot in the sky. It is summer. I had broken a tooth on a frozen bar of chocolate the night before and am wearing an odd prosthetic. My Swiss dentist also has a son named Robin. Later, Craig cooks a supper for all of us. It is pasta, if I remember rightly, and it is exquisite.  As Craig's meals always were.

Poetry Hi-Jinx in West Chester PA (by Laura Orem)

Here's a cool way to spend a Wednesday evening: attend a poetry reading by our own Jill Alexander Essbaum! Last night, I drove out to West Chester to hear Jill and poet Ernest Hilbert give a reading at the West Chester University Poetry Center's Poetry House. They read to a standing-room only audience from their latest work, and a gala time was had by all.

    

JAE has the audience in the palm of her hand.

   

Ernie Hilbert reading from Sixty Sonnets and his upcoming (2012) book.

Buy these books!

Brilliant AND beautiful - poets who multitask!

All The Fun’s In How You Say A Thing* (even more travelogue by Jessica Piazza)

Hi travel pal!

It’s almost six p.m., and daytime is only a glowing line of bright yellow clinging to the black hills of West Texas.   We just rolled through border patrol, where a very nice female officer inquired about our citizenship.  “USA,” we said, and she snickered.  Me with my Apple laptop plugged via converter into the car charger, and the GPS system suction-cupped to the windshield telling us it’s “recalculating.”  When she asked where we’re going and we said Marfa we got yet another eye-roll, my crazy-looking dog turning around in his doggie-booster seat and Josh flashing a charming smile behind his aviators and hipster-fisherman’s cap.  Small artists’ community in the desert?  Umm, obviously.

 

In this case, we were exactly what the officer expected.  But during the trip today, with nothing—and I mean nothing—but scrub brush and the occasional metal pre-fab shed for a hundred miles at a time (what’s in those things, anyway?), Josh and I started talking about a particular unexpected phenomenon we sometimes witness: the terribly good or wonderfully bad poetry reading.

It all started because, between This American Life podcasts and naps, I sat in the passenger seat and read aloud each of the poems from the “56 Days” section of Kate Greenstreet's latest book “The Last 4 Things.”  For those of you who know Greenstreet’s absolutely wonderful poems, they’re an eerie, disjunctive lot, full of recurring lines, reappearing characters and settings, random bits of dialogue between unknown persons and scarce little linear storytelling.  Which, honestly, isn’t such an easy read out loud (though she does quite the job herself, as anyone who’s heard her knows). “The eye fills in what it knows,” she writes in one poem, but so does the ear.  Surrealistic and leaping, the listener of these poems can never really anticipate what might come next, so the speaker has to slow down, stay focused, and, ultimately, use the voice to convey some of the emotional import and changes in mood the text attempts.  I did my best.

I think this difficulty rings true for much non-narrative poetry, but also for any poetry read in public to an audience. And that’s where I declared a major problem I have with graduate poetry-writing programs in general: the lack of focus on public reading skills, as though those weren’t integral to our work as professional poets.  As a PhD student, I’m not required (nor even encouraged) to take public speaking or drama courses.  Nowhere in the curricula is it acknowledged that, because we poets have a devastatingly small audience matched by terrible underrepresentation in book stores, most of us will sell the majority of our books (if we’re lucky enough to publish some) at poetry readings.  Shouldn’t that fact be considered when deciding what professional poets should learn in school?

The Cat Piano [by Jill Alexander Essbaum]

In a city of singing cats, 

a lonely beat poet falls for a beautiful siren. 

When a mysterious dark figure emerges, 

kidnapping the town’s singers for his twisted musical plans, 

the poet must save his muse 

and put an end to the nefarious tune 

that threatens to destroy the city.

From the official site of The Cat Piano

Cats? Check. Poetry? Check. Narration by the inestimable Nick Cave? Check, check, check.

These are a few of my favorite things.  Watch it. Now.

What the minister counseled the small-bladdered groom before the ceremony:

Leak now, or forever hold your pee!

(Groan.)

Why did the cumin flatter the turmeric?

To curry flavor with the rice.

Ouch.  

I promised David Lehman ten puns today

Here they are. Plus one to grow on. 

Didya hear about the infamous movie director who tumbled down the snowy mountain?

...He had a roaming pole and ski. 

Didya the good natured Hasid who couldn't bring himself to true hooliganism?  

...He only threw Mazel Tov cocktails through windows. 

Didya hear about the Jewish matron who got an obscene phone call from a famous Mexican guitarist?

...So overcome with the perplexing emotions of both shock and flinching desire, she responded in the only way she could: "Oy vey! Come ovah!"

Now for some Tom Swifties:

"Buy my trout!  Mine alone!" Tom said, selfishly.  

"I'll take another gin," Tom said, slowly. 

Bathroom humor alert:

"Indeed, I poop every twenty four hours!" Tom said, yesterday.  

"Whoops! I farted!" Tom said, astutely.

And a few more because I cannot help myself, really. 

"This I do on behalf of my former spouse," Tom said, exactingly.  

Tom was forthcoming: "I can masturbate ALL NIGHT!"

"It seems this bird is missing something," Tom said, knowingly.

And lastly, leastly:

Tom totally announced: "Yep, there's ten of them!"

 

Thank you, thank you.  You've been great.  

"All the Things You Are": The Greatest Love Song?

The other day, David proclaimed that Jerome Kern's "All the Things You Are" is the greatest of all love songs and Jill Alexander Essbaum asked why. David played a Sinatra cover from 1944 and Stacey searched vainly for the "Broadway Showstoppers" album that John McGlinn put together, which features a full operatic version of the song, verse and all, as it would be presented theatrically. But Jill's question lingered in the air. Jamie Katz talked about how the changes in the song held a great appeal for jazz musicians, something you couldn't say about "Some Enchanted Evening," for example. David talked about the soaring melody, the changes in key and the range that make the song so challenging to a singer. Stacey talked about how the lyrics expressed longing and epitomized the poem in praise of one's sought-for partner. Laura Orem recalled that Oscar Hammerstein wasn't very proud of the inversion toward the end: "Someday I'll know that moment divine / when all the things you are are mine" -- the inversion was forced on him by the rhyme. David remembered reading that Hammerstein fan Stephen Sondheim preferred the same songwriters' "The Song Is You" perhaps for that reason. We sat and we talked and we listened and we hope you will listen to -- two versions below -- and weigh in with your opinion. Leaving superlatives aside, since they are there to emphasize a point and not as statements that can be logically verified, what makes "All the Things You Are" a consummate example of the romantic love song in the great American songbook?

If you listen to Barbara Streisand's interpretation, you will hear the introductory verse Sills and Forrest leave out.