Author Archives: Jendi Reiter

Two Poems by Temple Cone


A sacred quiet permeates Temple Cone’s debut poetry collection, No Loneliness, winner of the 2009 FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize. Abandoned barns are Cone’s churches; the steady rhythms of farm work, his liturgy. The birth of a daughter is both miracle and memento mori, a sweet paradox held together in an extended lyric poem that envisions poetry as a transmission of love across generations.

Temple has kindly given me permission to reprint these poems from his book. I had a hard time choosing just two favorites.

Mercy

Leaner than the gray French lops
I’d raised as a boy, the wild hare
I held in the August heat
was speckled yellow and brown
as old sandpaper, his pelt
worn to cussedness.
He lay twitching on asphalt
a minute after I swerved
and still hit him.
            I watched
his crazy dance to see
if he would rise, then gathered him,
trembling, into my arms,
one hand on his feather-quill ribs,
the other cupping soft neck.
Dumb luck, this. His eyes lolled
skyward, showed me
what to do. I whispered
some nonsense under my breath,
words to calm one of us.
The sparrow heart drummed in my palm.
I hadn’t forgotten how
to end life, could feel the old fracture
of knowledge in my bones.
So when he sprang free,
bounding to a roadside hedge,
I knelt down in the dust,
gaping at my torn shirt, marked skin,
stunned by how quickly
mercy could break from my hands.

****

  Bluesman

After his first descent to the underworld,
Orpheus didn’t die. The Maenads never tore him
apart like an offering of bread,
and the story of his head, singing
as the river bore it downstream to ocean,
is someone’s hopeful indulgence
in the persistence of song.
            What happened
to Orpheus happens to us all.
He wept. He cursed the animals who came
to comfort him, till the woods were silent.
In Thebes, he sold his lyre
and stayed drunk for days.
But the world doesn’t stop for myths,
so when the drachmas ran out, he found work
as a gardener. Kneeling hours in the dirt,
he’d talk to trellised morning-glories,
to the crocus and the daisies.
Of course, in time, he began to sing instead,
softly, and without knowing it.
The persistence of song. Then one day
he noticed the flowers following him
wherever he walked, and when he looked,
they didn’t turn away.

Two Poems by Ruth Sabath Rosenthal


Ruth Sabath Rosenthal’s poetry chapbook Facing Home has just been released by Finishing Line Press. As the title suggests, these frank and emotionally charged poems are about facing memories of the home we grew up in, as well as the homes that we as adults have made, broken, and re-formed. Rosenthal’s accessible writing style balances humor, anger, and compassion. She employs enough specific details from her own life to make the memories feel real, while staying focused on universal themes that will resonate with many readers. Some of her strongest work is about the complex feelings involved in caring for elderly parents who were emotionally unavailable to her as a child.

I chose the poems below for reprinting, with her permission. The extended metaphor of the porcupine is clever in its own right, but gains additional significance in the context of the more straightforwardly autobiographical poems–a sign of a well-constructed collection. As for “Zinnias”, I loved how she made the colors and textures of the scene come to life. My grandmother also slipcovered the good furniture in her Lower East Side apartment, and she also had a canary who died prematurely from the heat of the kitchen, though it wasn’t for lack of love–I’m told she let the little fellow fly all around the house, pooping where he wished!

Contemplating Caring for a Porcupine

A roof over its head, easily done.
Nurturing, quite another story.

Bathing — only with a long hose.
As for mealtime — the prickly thing

jumping up and down, impatient —
what protection would repel prick of quill?

What if the rascal was inclined to make
sport of that, then hide the mischief?

Get angry and chance an antsy porcupine
turning combative? Pay dearly for that;

or, if the critter contrite, savor the moment?
Or, having fed the robust rodent,

if it yelps for more but is on a diet,
what would distract? A game

of Hide and Seek might, though if
the quill ball should turn up missing,

how to know it would fare well, and
what angst to bear if the poor thing

was found to have been the dinner
of some known predator — when

all the poor porcupine wanted was more gruel,
and all I ever wanted was to care for it?

****

I Remember the Zinnias,

autumnal hues with bee-magnet centers.
In the planting, pearls of satisfaction
beaded Mother’s cheeks, made her glow
head to toe. Each summer, till first frost,
zinnias fringed the pathway to
the side door by our kitchen.

Mother loved her zinnias, their color rich
contrast to the dusty-rose brocade sofa,
aqua cut-velvet of Father’s chair —
both bound in clear-plastic slipcovers
that, in summer, made the backs
of our thighs stick to our seats.

When her new dining set arrived, keen
to keep it pristine, Mother moved Lucky,
my beloved canary, to the kitchen, to roost
inches from pot roasts simmering, the window
nearby rarely open — and, child I was,
I didn’t protest on my bird’s behalf.

Weeks later, just back from school,
I learned that Lucky had died
and Mother had given his cage away.
She claimed to have buried him
in her tomato patch, just feet
from her prized zinnias.

Thursday Non-Random Song: “We Lift Our Hearts in Thanks Today”


This selection from NetHymnal’s list of their top 50 Thanksgiving hymns was written by Percival A. Chubb (1860-1960) with music by Praetorius (1599). Sing along here.

We lift our hearts in thanks today
For all the gifts of life;
And first, for peace that turns away
The enemies of strife;

And next, the beauty of the earth,
Its flowers and lovely things,
The spring’s great miracle of birth,
With sound of songs and wings;

Then, harvests of its teeming soil
In orchard, croft and field;
But more, the service and the toil
Of those who helped them yield;

And most, the gifts of hope and love,
Of wisdom, truth and right,
The gifts that shine like stars above
To chart the world by night.

As we receive, so let us give,
With ready, generous hand,
Rich fruitage from the lives we live
To bless our home and land.

Autobiographical Fiction: Emotions, Not Facts


A primary reason why I write is to understand myself, my life and my environment. Facts get in the way. I already know those, superficially at least. Creative writing inspired by my experience, but not literally descriptive or duplicative of it, helps me find the principles that underlie these events. I guess I’m still an Ayn Rand disciple in that sense, believing that the wise person should always try to deduce universals from particulars in order to find a rubric for maximizing good outcomes and avoiding repetition of the bad ones.

I prefer poetry and fiction for this purpose and avoid the personal essay form. But fiction can also slide into thinly disguised autobiography, with the same danger that the author will be distracted by the task of replicating key events, rather than exploring the emotions and insights that those events triggered.

Prizewinning author Eric Wasserman explores this dilemma in his article “Embracing Emotional Autobiography Over Factual Representation in Fiction”, published last year in Writers Ask, a writing advice newsletter from the literary journal Glimmer Train. He writes:

One of the most important lessons a beginning writer
can learn is that emotional autobiography should always
take precedence over factual representation. This took me
years of trial and error to grasp when I was first hungry
to become a writer. It’s difficult to convey to a young
writer that events that are deeply personal are usually not
going to be engaging to readers. For instance, all of the
salacious details of your own sexual history may be riveting
to you, but I guarantee they will not be to 95% of the
reading world. However, if one has something fresh to say
about the universal nature of sex, that’s a different story,
and where emotional autobiography becomes crucial.


Wasserman goes on to suggest some writing exercises that can help you differentiate

A Psalm by Lakota Chief Yellow Lark (1887)


For the past few years, our church youth group has made an annual pilgrimage to the Borderlands Education and Spiritual Center in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Along with hikes and ceremonies to help them encounter God in nature, the teens learn about Christian settlers’ oppression of the Native Americans, and potential spiritual common ground between the two cultures today.

Last week we heard about their transformative journey in a Sunday morning service that incorporated Lakota music and prayers. This poem was read in place of a psalm. I particularly like how it strikes a balance between personal tranquility and concern for the wider world (“help me find compassion without empathy overwhelming me”).

Oh, Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the winds.
And whose breath gives life to all the world.
Hear me! I am small and weak.
I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes
Ever hold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made.
My ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand
The things you might teach me.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden
In every leaf and rock.
I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother.
But to fight my greatest enemy, myself.
Make me always ready to come to you
With clear hands and straight eyes.
So when life fades, as the fading sunset.
My spirit may come to you without shame.

The Episcopal

Peter Damian Bellis: “God’s Anvil”


While we were corresponding about a promotional campaign for his new novel, The Conjure Man, author Peter Damian Bellis shared some of his evocative, earthy poems with me. He’s kindly given me permission to reprint “God’s Anvil” below. I loved the idea that God might do His transforming work through something more grounded and physical, and less glamorous, than the “sweltering winds of my beliefs”.

God’s Anvil

Today I am spread thin across God’s anvil,
my soul withering in the bellows of his breath,
my body melting, merging, the dust of
my purpose mixing with the desert of
my hope until I am one of the many
obsidian-like shards half-buried, hiltless,
in the blood-dry carcass of this once fertile,
crescent earth, mirror to the shimmering,
sweltering winds of my beliefs, yet also the dark-
heaving ripple of the camels as they settle
into the sand, indifferent, unimpatient,
unwashed, impervious; and the stench of their
dung-heavy breath washes clean this mirror,
leaving now a cloudless, distant, sheltering sky.

River Boat Books, publisher of The Conjure Man, is offering a contest with good-sized cash prizes for essays responding to Bellis’ novel. Check it out here.

Eric Weinstein: “Persistence of Memory”


Eric Weinstein’s poetry chapbook Vivisection won the 2010 New Michigan Press/DIAGRAM Chapbook Contest. The sample poem below is reprinted by permission from Issue 10.5 of DIAGRAM, a quirky multimedia online journal that features poetry, flash prose, and cross-genre work along with peculiar diagrams found in obscure reference books. (The current issue, for example, features a selection from a handbook with the frighteningly optimistic title Anyone Can Intubate.) Read more of Weinstein’s work here.

Persistence of Memory

You bury a light bulb in the yard
& grow a blown glass tree.

It’s all your parents talk about
for hours after you’ve gone to sleep.

By morning the branches are hung
with tungsten leaves. The neighbors

complain because it attracts lightning,
even though it glows like an echo-

cardiogram for hours after each strike.
You are asleep when your father rakes

a chainsaw across the trunk, but the sound
carries & you wake, you run out, shouting

I’ll never forgive you, not ever. Of course you do,
hours later. A persistent cough carries you

to the emergency room, or rather, your father does.
They remove a filament from your tongue,

a spun glass feather from your trachea.
There were never any birds, your mother says.

The fiberoptic bronchoscope proves
otherwise: they find a miniature light

bulb, glass sapling, copper wire nest
& remove them from your lung.

Imagine that, the doctors say, voices
carrying through the anesthesia.

Imagine that, your mother says, so you do,
or rather, you remember your tree.

It’s all the surgical team talks about
for hours while you’re asleep.

It’s all the surgical team talks about
for hours after you’ve gone home.

Resources for Transgender Awareness Week


November 13-21 is Transgender Awareness Week in Massachusetts. This week of remembrance and activism is dedicated to educating the public about the transgender community and the pressing issues that currently face transgender people in Massachusetts. These issues include employment discrimination, lack of access to healthcare, and hate crimes.

The calendar of events is posted on the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition website. Most events are in the Boston area, but there will also be Days of Remembrance held across the state to commemorate transgender people who were victims of violence. Northampton will host a candlelight vigil Nov. 21, 5:00-6:15 PM, on the steps of the Unitarian Church, 220 Main Street. (Photos or videos may be posted later on this blog if the participants feel comfortable with being recorded.)

Meanwhile, check out MTPC’s new public awareness project, “I Am: Trans People Speak “, which launches today. They’re creating an online archive of video, audio, photographic, and written stories from trans people, their families, and allies. Their mission statement says, “This collection of stories aims to challenge stereotypes and misconceptions of trans individuals by highlighting the realities of their lived experience. These voices span across a diversity of communities and intersecting identities.”

Kahlil Gibran on Death


Tonight, on Halloween, we will be in our old Victorian house by the graveyard, luring little children with candy so we can put them to work doing Winning Writers tech support. Maybe we’ll even watch “Rocky Horror” on Netflix, because we’re too Brad-and-Janet to go to the theater with all those icky people throwing toast.

Humor, masquerade, song — these things help us face death and even celebrate it (with fingers crossed). All Hallows’ Eve, and tomorrow’s All Saints’ Day, are times when we can throw off the stifling solemnity of grief, but opt for something a little darker and truer than sentimental consolation.

In memory of our friend, Roc Ahrensdorf, who died of cancer this summer at age 57, I’d like to share these reflections from Kahlil Gibran.

You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Roc working on our house, April 2008

Friday Non-Random Song: “He Included Me”


This lesser-known hymn from 1909 deserves to be rediscovered by progressive churches. Words by Johnson Oatman Jr., music by Hampton H. Sewell. Sing along at NetHymnal.

I am so happy in Christ today,
That I go singing along my way;
Yes, I’m so happy to know and say,
“Jesus included me, too.”

Refrain

Jesus included me, yes, He included me,
When the Lord said, “Whosoever,” He included me;
Jesus included me, yes, He included me,
When the Lord said, “Whosoever,” He included me.

Gladly I read, “Whosoever may
Come to the fountain of life today”;
But when I read it I always say,
“Jesus included me, too.”

Refrain

Ever God’s Spirit is saying, “Come!”
Hear the Bride saying, “No longer roam”;
But I am sure while they’re calling home,
Jesus included me, too.

Refrain

“Freely come drink,” words the soul to thrill!
O with what joy they my heart do fill!
For when He said, “Whosoever will,”
Jesus included me, too.

Refrain