Jennifer Firestone, from Holiday

The cloud’s outline
defines itself

A kiss is a ghost
is a branch
is raking

Eyes closed
out come more stories

The idea is to love wholly
a punctured tube bleeds
red, yellow, green
[smear]

Ancient intellectualizing

Abstracts
depend on my life

Ink scrawls a message
Let love be animals, weeds

Holiday is Firestone’s fourth collection; Shearman Books has prepared a PDF sampler of the opening poems. Other Firestone poems online include “Sun Stream” (from The Cortland Review), Purposeful” (from Moria), and an excerpt from from Flashes (from Alice Blue).

Firestone is also the co-editor of Letters to Poets which, as she explained to HOW2, was inspired by Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet:

“[Dana Teen Lomax and I] were curious about this book’s easy appeal and particularly the omission from the book of the letters of the young writer, Franz Xaver Kappus. We hadn’t heard people speak about this omission and it was difficult for us not to see it as part of the problems embedded within a “mentoring” relationship. Perhaps Kappus’ letters weren’t all that compelling. Perhaps he didn’t want to see them in print. Whatever the case may be, we wondered what Kappus actually asked Rilke and how much Rilke’s responses about writing and his two cents about love, among other things, spoke to Kappus’ queries.”

Firestone exchanged letters with Eileen Myles, while Lomax corresponded with Claire Braz-Valentine; the book contains a dozen other epistolary pairings.

7 April 2009 | poetry |

D.A. Powell, “confessions of a teenage drama queen”

I was a male war bride. I was a spy
so I married an axe murderer. I married Joan
I married a monster from outer space

I am guilty, I am the cheese, I am a fugitive from a chain gang
maybe I’ll come home in the spring. I’ll cry tomorrow
whose life is it anyway? it’s a wonderful life

I want to live. I want someone to eat cheese with
who am I this time? I am cuba. I am a sex addict
why was I born? why must I die? I could go on singing

I’ll sleep when I’m dead. I know who killed me
I was nineteen, I was a teenage werewolf, just kill me
kiss me, kill me. kill me later. kill me again

give me a sailor, if I had my way, I’d rather be rich
I wouldn’t be in your shoes. I wish I had wings
I wish I were in dixie (I passed for white) I was framed

I was a burlesque queen, I was a teenage zombie
I was an adventuress, I was a convict, I was a criminal
I did it, I killed that man, murder is my beat, I confess

(for David Trinidad)

Chronic is the fourth collection from D.A. Powell; Poetry magazine has run several poems from this collection, including “crossing into canaan,” “corydon & alexis,” “corydon & alexis, redux,” and “republic.” See also the earlier poems “[listen mother, he punched the air: I am not your son dying]” from Blue Moon Review and “[dogs and boys can treat you like trash. and dogs do love trash]” from The Boston Review.

In an interivew with The Southeast Review, Powell explains his belief that “much of art, and much of life, is simultaneously funny and horrifying”:

“Both humor and horror are expressions of the irrational. In either case, we’re unable to make sense of events. Often, the triggering device in both humor and horror is exactly the same: surprise. It’s a terrible movie, but a good example: in Lady Sings the Blues, when Richard Pryor’s character, Piano Man, dies, Diana Ross’s character… doesn’t know how to respond; she’s uncertain as to whether Piano Man has really died or is just faking… Normally, we experience a surprise and then get to decide immediately whether it’s a good surprise or a bad surprise. Half the time I’m writing, I feel like Billie Holiday. The other half of the time, I feel like Diana Ross performing ‘Good Morning, Heartache.’ I never know if I’m making people sad or making them laugh. Hopefully, it’s both, but I’ll settle for either.”

6 April 2009 | poetry |