TURTLE ISLAND QUARTERLY 16
Winter/2019
Chapter four:
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TURTLE ISLAND QUARTERLY 16
Winter/2019
Chapter three:
2 poems by Kirtland Snyder, poem by Janet McCann,
poem by Pepper Trail, poem by Paul Willis, and a poem by Martin Willitts Jr
2 poems by Kirtland Snyder
CONFUSION OF INFLUENCES
Here in our new home we must be
On a flyway, judging from the herds
Of birds making the trek to Florida,
East Texas by way of our backyard.
Today, a mild day in mid-October,
I sat in early sun and read Selected
Poems of James Tate instead
Of earning a living but what the hell.
Because it was a mild day my
Thoughts were also on the Bronk book
By that name in which it is written:
“It’s time to move bemused in the mild day.”
Bemused is about as good as it gets
I was thinking when all at once
A dark cloud accompanied by a dark
Beating of wings scudded above me,
Caught in the tops of lindens, aspens,
Arbor vitae, apple trees, white pines,
While some flew down to lawn
To have a go at worms and grubs.
They made a terrible racket against which
The poems were no contest so I listened
Instead to their voices which grated on me,
Shocked me, really, they were so
Harsh and loud and irritable. And then
I knew without doubt they were grackles,
Knowing the poem “The Voice
Of the Grackle” in which Marge Piercy
Describes a rasp, a screech, a creaking,
A cracking voice making off-color comments.
Just to be certain, to get the scientific proof,
I grabbed my Audubon Handbook and sure
Enough, grackles they were, black and shiny
In their cheap suits, their most common call,
It said, a clack.
THE SQUIRREL SUICIDES
You know summer’s over when squirrels
Begin throwing themselves
Under the wheels of passing cars.
You see them all along the roads,
Flattened and bloodied, skulls crushed,
Plumed tails scraped into gray pavement,
Or lying on their backs, their tiny paws
Clawing the sky, rigor mortis twisting
Their snouts into un-squirrel-like grimaces.
Some seem to do it for the sport—
Testing their speed and timing by darting
Through the briefest of intervals.
Others seem to be testing us—
Who has heart enough to hit the brakes
As they scurry across?
Maybe they’ve simply had enough
Of this nutty world, and fall appears to be their last
Best hope for self-immolation.
Watch out! There’s one now, a gray pelt on hind legs
In the pale grass by the edge of the lane,
Daring you to slow down and give way—or else.
Kirtland Snyder has published 3 chapbooks, won the Stanley Kunitz Award for Excellence in Poetry, been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and had the distinct pleasure and honor of reading with Galway Kinnell at the University of Massachusetts some years ago. His Holocaust poetry is among the work of American and British poets examined in Professor Susan Gubar’s book, Poetry After Auschwitz (Indiana University Press, 2003). He has also published in Ms., Midstream, Stuff (The Boston Phoenix), Exquisite Corpse, notus/new writing, Modern Haiku, Longhouse, Poet Lore, The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, The Café Review, Shirim, The Adirondack Review, Flumes, New Works Review, Sanctuary, The Hartford Courant, Paramour, aspen leaves, The Boston Monthly, The Ardis Anthology of New American Poetry, Blood To Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust, and Veils, Halos and Shackles: International Poetry on the Oppression and Empowerment of Women.
Poem by Janet McCann
SLEEPING IN A COLD ROOM
amid blankets and dozy dogs
griefs fade the politics blank
air fills with invisible snow
body sinks into the bed
exhales the day and all its threats and burdens
cold air replaces passion
moon shines in on humped up pillows
sounds of triple breaths
the white darkness almost solid
she will wake at dawn
with a cold nose
a clear head
inhabiting herself again
Journals publishing Janet McCann’s work include KANSAS QUARTERLY, PARNASSUS, NIMROD, SOU'WESTER, AMERICA, CHRISTIAN CENTURY, CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE, NEW YORK QUARTERLY, TENDRIL, and others. A 1989 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship winner, she taught at Texas A & M University from 1969-2016, is now Professor Emerita. She has co-edited anthologies with David Craig, ODD ANGLES OF HEAVEN (Shaw, 1994), PLACE OF PASSAGE (Story Line, 2000), and POEMS OF FRANCIS AND CLARE (St. Anthony Messenger, 2004). Most recent poetry collection: THE CRONE AT THE CASINO (Lamar University Press, 2014).
poem by Pepper Trail
The Trout Quintet Beside the River
Alone in the forest, on a bluff above the river
October – gray sky, maples red and orange
beneath the green black conifers
all silent but for the constant river
the scolding jay, the occasional raven
I thought of Schubert, his Trout Quintet, its perfection –
and there it was, in my pocket, on my phone
and so I set it free, and it flowed around me
like water around a stone, this conversation
joining the others, the cello and the raven
the strings and the wind in the bright leaves
the piano and the river
and I thought of my life
began to make metaphors of everything
the autumn leaves my dwindling days
the beloved birds my uncaptured words
the bluff the moraine of memory, leaning into collapse
the river time itself, ceaseless, beautiful, indifferent
but then a rippling run of the piano pulled me back
carried these banalities away around the downstream bend
returned me to this earthen seat
my head full only of music
seeing nothing but the beauty before my eyes
Pepper Trail's poems have appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Borderlands, Ascent and other publications, and have been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net Awards. His collection, Cascade-Siskiyou: Poems, was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry. He lives in Ashland, Oregon, where he works as a biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
poem by Paul Willis
Aeolus
Morning wind in the live oak trees,
moving them in bosomy ways,
one part pulsing, then another.
The breeze blows in
from Cold Spring Saddle,
thence from north of Point Conception,
the open sea, gathering freshness
from whales, olives, ceanothus,
billowing the breasted branches,
scattering the hooked green acorns,
planting them with warm, full breaths,
with little sighs.
Paul Willis’s recent collection, Deer at Twilight: Poems from the North Cascades (Stephen F. Austin State University Press), was a finalist in this year's book awards at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Forthcoming in 2019 from White Violet Press is Little Rhymes for Lowly Plants. Individual poems have appeared in Poetry, Ascent, and Los Angeles Review.
poem by Martin Willitts Jr
The Grasshopper’s Song
A grasshopper was bringing music,
but I wasn’t listening.
Instead, I heard the lament of someone
in anguish, almost begging to be understood,
insisting, You never loved me. It chirruped,
Love is such an antique desire.
This is the one song the grasshopper wanted to tell,
to fill to overflowing, but also, it wanted me to empty.
Since I had ignored both messages, the grasshopper
whizzed around me, scolding, Listen, listen, listen!
Light was snapping, so I listened
to that exquisite green music.
The song was like smashing pots,
but also like mending them.
I had to know and understand the difference.
I had to listen closely if I ever expected to learn.
The earth and sky were bearing down on me
all the time, and I never noticed. I wasn’t hearing
what they were singing.
They were chanting, Love me, Love me.
Martin Willitts Jr has 24 chapbooks including the winner of the Turtle Island Quarterly Editor’s Choice Award, “The Wire Fence Holding Back the World” (Flowstone Press, 2017), plus 11 full-length collections including “The Uncertain Lover” (Dos Madres Press, 2018) and “Home Coming Celebration” (FutureCycle Press, 2019). He is an editor for Comstock Review.
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TURTLE ISLAND QUARTERLY 16
Winter/2019
chapter two:
poem by Mike Lewis-Beck, poem by Sara Backer,
poem by Changming Yuan, and poem by Gerard Sarnat
poem by Mike Lewis-Beck
LORCA AS TURTLE
A las cinco de la tarde,
at five in the afternoon
a turtle crosses the road
lumbering to the far side
to bajar al pozo, to reach the well.
A Vermonter stops her car
to ask de dónde vienes, amor,
from where do you come, love?
Me he perdido muchas veces por el mar,
I have lost myself many times by the sea.
But where do you come from, love?
Mi corazón reposa junto a la fuente fría,
my heart rests next to the cold fountain.
Alas, as Lorca, I left Lake Adam long ago
cuando la luna negra salío, when the black moon rose
y voces de muerte sonaron,
and voices of death sounded out.
I gave a cry.
What did you do then, love?
Que yo me la llevé al río,
then I took myself to the river.
Verde que te quiero verde,
green how I love the green
of the meadow I must reach over there.
Ay! qué trabajo me cuesta,
Oh! what work it’s taking
to cross this road before that bus.
Mike Lewis-Beck writes and works in Iowa City. He has pieces in Alexandria Quarterly, Apalachee Review, Big Windows Review, Cortland Review, Chariton Review, Pure Slush, Pilgrimage, Iowa Review, Rootstalk, Seminary Ridge Review, Taos Journal of International Poetry and Art, Writers’ Café and Wapsipinicon Almanac, among other venues. His short story, “Delivery in Göteborg,” received a Finalist prize from Chariton Review, 2015. His essay, “My Cherry Orchard in Iowa,” received recognition as one of the ‘Notable Essays’ in Best American Essays of 2011. His poetry book manuscript, Wry Encounters, was a Finalist for the 42 Miles Press Poetry Award 2016.
poem by Sara Backer
Pencil Leaf
Leaves drawn with plastic pencils
look like wallpaper.
Wood pencils lead the lead into the woods
where leaves become leaves.
One summer, she says she wants to do nothing
but draw the veins of leaves.
She doesn’t.
She irons red maple leaves between waxed paper.
Leaf ignores pencil.
Pencil calls leaf Mother.
Bio:
Sara Backer, an MFA candidate at Vermont College of Fine Arts, has published two chapbooks: Scavenger Hunt (dancing girl press, 2018) and Bicycle Lotus (Left Fork) which won the 2015 Turtle Island Poetry Award. Her writing has been honored with eight Pushcart nominations and residency fellowships from the Norton Island and Djerassi programs. For more information and links, visit sarabacker.com
poem by Changming Yuan
Towards Dataism
1/ The End of a Beginning
Given each organism as a biochemical algorithm
Your life is a programed process proving
Your consciousness is actually far less
Valuable than a fucking Frankenstein’s AI
2/ The Beginning of an End
Through human-computer interface
My mind has become part of a robot
While the robot part of me
As data exchanges with my consciousness
Or flow between each other on their own
Where can I find my true self?
Yuan Changming published monographs on translation before leaving China. Currently, Yuan lives in Vancouver, where he edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Qing Yuan; credits include ten Pushcart nominations, the 2018 Naji Naaman's Literary Prize, Best of the Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline and others.
BANGLADESH [3]
i. Oy 1.0
While
My son,
Otherwise
Known as
The Bug Boy
Conscientiously collaborates
With colleagues toying at Japan’s
fab Okinawa Institute of Science/
Technology (OIST) -- not to make
Mountains out of a cut-open anthill
But below is Bangladesh where men,
Not euscocial insects, flatten high terrain
So some Muslim Rohingya refugees fled from
Buddhist Burma can avoid drowning soon in a race
Against monsoon rains made worse by Homo sapiens.
ii. Oy 2.0
Rain
Gullies
Creeks
Ponds
Lakes
Rivers
Oceans
Overflow
Shores
Though
Buddha’s
Intention
Signaled
Compassion’s
Rainbows
Consider
-- Organize
Anti-Global
Warming
Coalitions.
iii. OyOy
While
My son,
Otherwise
Known as
The Bug Boy
Conscientiously collaborates
With colleagues toying at Japan’s
fab Okinawa Institute of Science/
Technology (OIST) -- not to make
Mountains out of a cut-open anthill
But below is Bangladesh* where men,
Not euscocial insects, flatten high terrain
So some Muslim Rohingya refugees fled from
Buddhist Burma can avoid drowning soon in a race
Against monsoon rains made worse by Homo sapiens.
Gerard Sarnat won the Poetry in the Arts First Place Award plus the Dorfman Prize, has been nominated for Pushcarts plus Best of the Net Awards, and authored four collections: HOMELESS CHRONICLES (2010), Disputes (2012), 17s (2014) and Melting The Ice King (2016) which included work published beyond medical in academic journals such as Oberlin, Brown, Columbia, Virginia Commonwealth, Wesleyan, Johns Hopkins and in Gargoyle, American Journal of Poetry (Margie), Main Street Rag, MiPOesias, New Delta Review, Brooklyn Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, San Francisco Magazine, Voices Israel, Muse-Pie Press, Blue Mountain Review, Canary Eco, Military Experience and the Arts, Tishman Review, Suisun Valley Review, Fiction Southeast, Junto, Lowestoft, Heartwood, Tiferet, Flash and Cinder, Foliate Oak, Parhelion, Bonsai plus featured in New Verse News, Eretz, Avocet, LEVELER, tNY, StepAway, Bywords, Floor Plan, Good-Man-Project, Anti-Heroin-Chic, Poetry Circle, Fiction Southeast, Walt Whitman Tribute Anthology and Tipton Review. “Amber of Memory” was the single poem chosen for my 50th college reunion symposium on Bob Dylan. Mount Analogue selected Sarnat’s sequence, KADDISH FOR THE COUNTRY, for pamphlet distribution on Inauguration Day 2017 as part of the Washington DC and nationwide Women’s Marches. For Huffington Post/other reviews, readings, publications, interviews; visit GerardSarnat.com. Harvard/Stanford educated, Gerry’s worked in jails, built/staffed clinics for the marginalized, been a CEO and Stanford Med professor. Married for a half century, Gerry has three kids/ four grandkids so far.
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