The Somerville News Blog

Lyrical Somerville

Edited by Doug Holder

Michigan poet Jared Smith generously shared a poem with me during a recent interview at the office of The Somerville News. Smith, a former energy consultant with the federal government, who is now on the board of the New York Quarterly, has written policy, as well as a great deal of poetry. Here is a poem for a late winter’s eve. 

Dark Machinery of Maybe

The long eastern snow has slowed,
leaving only at last scattered tracks,
bud-swelled branches scattered broken,
mail boxes filled with empty envelopes,
homes with no one left to light the lights,
a swirl of missed meaning and metaphor.

I do not have to travel far today:
the flights to Boston, London, and Sydney
are delayed in the dark machinery of maybe.
A cup of soup steeped with seeds from Beijing
brought inside with pine logs from Wisconsin
brings the miles together between my fingers.

Bartok plays shocked digital destinations magnetically
in a living room where my hands are warmed before a fire.

—Jared Smith

Remembering our orchard

edited by Doug Holder

Now in the winter of our discontent we look to spring for rebirth and renewal. Like a bad depression, winter, when you are in the maw of it, seems to be endless. Somerville poet Michael Todd Steffen reminds us that what is barren now will be fecund in several months.

Remembering our Orchard

Trees stood all winter like cattle in the field
Naked of their leaves in wind and snow,
Their extremities advanced like blind men reading
Braille from the lines of wind which made them
tremble.

To look at them for long you would remember
How superficial winter’s hardest freeze
Compared to their roots deep as the cemetery’s
Shelters where uncles were stirring herring stew.

Dull-lidded looks as I walked home from school
With no more than a candle’s wit myself
Shook a head of disparagement at these
Wastes of nature, counting them for dead,

Blind to another evening I would wake
To wafts of blossoms through the open window
Recalling wicker baskets. I could just see
The swells of ripening in their fingers ache.

—Michael Todd Steffen

Aspiration

Local poet Molly Lynn Watt has a new collection of poetry out, entitled “Shadow People” (Ibbetson Street, 2006) www.ibbetsonpress.com. Of this collection, Fred Marchant, director of the Poetry Center at Suffolk University wrote, “Shadow People” begins far away and takes us on a journey home. We move from the Mendenhall Glacier in Alaska to the Red Line in Boston… We begin as observers, but by the end of this book we have joined with Molly Watt in the dance of her life, and our own.” This poem, “Aspiration” is excerpted from her new collection. --Doug Holder.

Aspiration

Confetti snow
danced into collapsing black holes
debris filled syringe after syringe
until the shadows
on the doctor’s face fell away
and the lab technician said
releasing my breast
from the plexiglass vise
for the fifth time that month
You’re ok, again—
don’t slip on black ice
I tossed the johnny into the bin of ghosts
stepped into pelting sleet—
exhaling.

— Molly Lynn Watt

She's not a good mother, Joe

Sometimes the most bizarre overheard conversation can make the most bizarre poem. Just ask Somerville poet and publisher Gloria Mindock. Check out Gloria’s Cervena Barva Press at http://www.cervenabarvapress.com

SHE’S NOT A GOOD MOTHER, JOE

[AN OVERHEARD CONVERSATION IN A BOOKSTORE IN ARLINGTON]

When a baby bites you, forget it!
It’s dangerous cuz once a baby bites your
hand, you’re in trouble.  They can’t tell if your hurt.
If she lets that baby bite Joe—
forget it!  She’s not a good mother.
That’s dangerous cuz once that baby bites his
hand, infection will set in the skin.  That’s
dangerous cuz once that baby bites your hand,
you’re in trouble.
They can’t tell if your are hurt.

Once they get a hold of you, they bite you good.
It’s dangerous to have kids because they change.
They grow up ugly and mean.
They grow up with tempers and get mean.
The baby could turn around and hate your guts.
They get uglier all the time.
Them and their ways!

If she lets that baby bite Joe, forget it!
She’s not a good mother.
Babies are at the biting stage.
That’s dangerous cuz when a
baby bites you, forget it!

— Gloria Mindock

Lyrical Somerville for the week of Dec. 28

Lyrical Somerville for the week of Dec. 28

You can tell a lot about a person by just sitting with them in a coffee shop, or in the case of poet Rebecca Kaiser Gibson, in a local Dunkin’ Donuts. Here Gibson studies the man behind the cup. To have your work considered for the Lyrical send it to: Doug Holder  25 School St. Somerville, Mass. 02143  [email protected]

Dunkin' Donuts - Somerville, Mass.

I was there with a guy whose uncles tossed him
into manhood and the shipyard in San Francisco
where men meant muscle
to hoist barrels, fists
for ropes and children's tricks
with hard candy. It's not like lawyers'
this wariness, or college politicians,'
no one talks. It goes without
saying. A woman, for instance,
was seen top to toe, stopping here and there,
didn't matter what she was wearing He knew
when to look eye to eye, when to cut off.
I was there with a guy southwestern in the butt,
tight as a prairie hare's, who knew
when to touch
me to say she's mine.
I'd seen the fence thin thigh
twined in jewelweed, And the still beneath
the peaty soil hid by rhododendron
in a West Virginia wood. I saw the pride
of hawthorn, isolate, Its tender limbs gone hard
for a season without ceremony.
He held a coffee cup.

Rebecca Kaiser Gibson

Lyrical Somerville

Lyrical Somerville

Cam Toner, our executive assistant at "The Somerville News," not only keeps the office running smoothly, but she also writes a mean poem. Cam talked about her poem "The Big Four Show,": "This poem is a stroll down memory lane for those of you that enjoyed listening to the radio and the music of the Fifties, and are of the sixty-plus age group. I wrote this poem in 1955. W.O.R.L. was a new radio station at the time, and they had four great disc jockeys, good music and plenty of laughs. They read this poem on the air." Cam is a long-time resident of Somerville, raised nine children here, and as she puts it: "I enjoy all kinds of music, poetry, and a good laugh." To have your work considered for the "Lyrical" send it to: Doug Holder 25 School St. Somerville, Mass. 02143 [email protected]

Lyrical Somerville for October 12

Lyrical Somerville for October 12

In Davis Square, in our fair city, there are any number of java joints where we can contemplate the dark waters in our ceramic cups. Poet Camille Marie Garcia gazes into her cup, and sees a submerged part of herself bubbling to the surface. To have your work considered for the "Lyrical," send it to: [email protected]
Doug Holder 25 School St. Somerville, Mass. 02143

The Dreaded Cup of Coffee
Mesmerized by its tangy complexion
The sipping oval-shaped container sat
It lured my tongue to brush its border
And spat straight into the cup
As I removed my mouth and tilted backwards
I sensed the heat of its tension
The humidity of its pore in my nose
Like a slap across my eyes
A sudden tear burning in fear
Spouted quietly
In a sweet escape
Past the darkness of its base
The fire rose in its inner core
The bubbles reaching the surface
Popping in disgust
Subsequently, a taste of cooling down
A comfort found in the calm surface
No longer dark
No more pain
Just a taste of desire
Calm swirls within
A laid back pleasure
Caused by this once dreaded cup of coffee

--- Camille Marie Garcia

Doug Holder

Diana Cole

This week our poet is Diana Cole of Arlington, Mass. Diana has chosen to write about the "Someday Cafe" in Davis Square.To have your poems considered for the "Lyrical" send them to:
DH, 25 School St., Somerville, Mass. 02143  or [email protected]

Lyrical Somerville

Our poet for this edition of the “Lyrical” is the late Ron Schreiber. Schreiber was a founding editor of the “Hanging Loose Press,” a U/Mass professor, a Gay activist, and for a long time a Somerville resident before he moved to Cambridge.The poem we selected “Somerville Saturday Night,” was from the anthology “Present Tense: Poets In The World,” (Hanging Loose Press, 2004). For more information about this book go to: www.hangingloosepress.com. To have your poems considered for the “Lyrical Somerville” send them to: Doug Holder 25 School St. Somerville, Mass. 02143 dougholder@post. harvard.edu

Lyrical Somerville

 Our poet this month is Marc Widershien. Marc is the author of the lyrical memoir of Boston "The Life of All Worlds," ( Ibbetson 2001). To find out more about Marc go to: http://www.marccreate.com  To have your poems considered send them via email to: [email protected]

Lyrical Somerville

Our poet this issue is Chad Parenteau.  Chad is a poet and freelance writer living in the Boston area. His poems have appeared in Ibbetson Street, Beacon Street Review, Meanie and others. He will appearing on Poet to Poet/Writer to Writer on SCAT, Channel 3 at 5 p.m.,  Feb. 8.  To have your poems considered send them to: Doug Holder  25 School St.  Somerville, Mass. 02143

The gift of poetry fo Christmas at Toast

Gary Duehr and Jacqueline Pope brought a Christmas gift to the Toast Lounge in Union Square, Somerville. It was their gift of well-crafted and thoughtful poetry to the audience at the Somerville News@Toast  Poetry Series.

Jacqueline Pope, whose husband, poet Don Share, read at an earlier “Toast” reading, is a freelance editor at Houghton Mifflin, and will have a book out this fall by the Marsh Hawk Press: “Watermark.” The book deals with her experiences as a bookseller in Amsterdam.

Lyrical Somerville

edited by Doug Holder

Our poet for the "Lyrical" this month is C.D. Collins. She writes -
For my community benefit project for the Somerville Arts Council grant which partially funded my CD "Subtracting Down"
I wrote a love poem ...to Somerville.
It is a short lyric poem that I have had translated into ten languages.
This was a complex and fascinating process in which the translators, all women as it turned out, were translating from English to their native languages, the language of their hearts.  I felt that each translation surpassed my original poem in content and musicality, and that together we were doing something that took on a life of its own, blending voices from cultures that are in conflict into a love poem and creating a multi-hued tapestry.
I got both written and oral versions of these poems and will use the oral versions in a song.

If you want to be considered for the "Lyrical" send your work to Doug Holder   25 School St.  Somerville, Mass. 02143 

[email protected] 

Off the Shelf by Douglas Holder

Poetry Night @ Toast Sept. 24

In the waning days of Summer, poetry can ease the painful transition from the lush life to the inevitable cold winter of our discontent.

Hopefully this was the case at the Toast Lounge, where The Somerville News presents its Friday Nights series. The poets at the Sept. 24 were Robert K. Johnson and Elizabeth Lund, who read from their impressive body of work.

Lyrical Somerville: Robert K. Johnson

Edited by Doug Holder

Our featured poet this month is Robert K. Johnson. Johnson taught courses in literature and creative writing at Suffolk University for many years. He has had several poetry collections published, the most recent: "The Latest News" ( Ibbetson 2002).

Johnson will be the recipient of the "Ibbetson Street Press Life Time Achievement Award" at The Somerville News Writers Festival in November. On Sept. 24 Johnson will be the featured reader at the Toast Lounge, along with Elizabeth Lund, as part of "The Somerville News @ Toast" series.

To have your poetry considered for the Lyrical send a brief bio, and two to three poems to: Doug Holder 25 School St. Somerville, Ma. 02143 [email protected]


A Matter of Time

I am punched breathless by the fear
a moment from now some country's first strike
will blow up the street where I live, cracking
the ceiling into flames, crumbling
the walls into heaps of plywood and plaster
my bleeding fingers will fling aside
as I try to reach the twisted leg
of what was once my wife.

Lyrical Somerville

This month our featured poet is Don Share. He will be reading at the Toast Lounge as part of The Somerville News@Toast Series Friday Sept. 3.

Edited by Doug Holder

Don is the curator of the Poetry Room at Harvard, where he also teaches and serves as Poetry Editor of the Harvard Review. His recent book, Union, was a finalist for the 2003 Boston Globe/PEN-New England L.L.Winship Award (the only book of poems so honored that year); other books include Seneca in English (Penguin Classics) and I Have Lots of Heart: Selected Poems of Miguel Hernández (Bloodaxe), which received a Times Literary Supplement Translation Prize and the UK Society of Authors' Premio Valle Inclan.

He is currently finishing a critical edition of Basil Bunting, and poems from a new manuscript are forthcoming in or have appeared in Yale Review, Fulcrum, Can We Have Our Ball Back, and other places.

To have your poems considered send a short bio, and two to three poems to: Doug Holder 25 School St. Somerville, Ma. 02143 [email protected]

Easter

I ate an egg my daughter and her mother
colored and hid and carried in a basket.
Hunting for them in the yard . . . the sky
was not pink, green, purple, or royal blue.
My daughter wanted to find the eggs --
and her mother wanted her to find them --
but it wasn't in my daughter's nature yet
to understand hidden things or birth
in this our microcosm.

The understander

The terrors of the Lord
are in abundance again.
What is the opposite
of joie de vivre --
letting off esteem?
This fundamentalism
is killing the tigers
of art and/or prophecy.
I'm reading Either/Or,
and have discovered
Either/Or, Part 2.
There goes another teacher
I'd thought to have emulated
in this our microcosm. . .

Off the Shelf by Doug Holder

After The Chinese by Joe Torra

Joe Torra is a poet who lives down the block from me in Somerville, Mass. Over the years our paths have crossed at coffeehouses, readings, you name it. And every once-in-a-while he drops a few books off at my house on School Street.

He deposited this gem, “After The Chinese” in my mailbox and I was damned glad he did.

Lyrical Somerville

This week our featured poet is Lo Galluccio. Lo is a vocalist/ poet who will be reading Friday July 23 8PM at the Toast Lounge in Union Square with poet Jennifer Matthews, as part of "The Somerville News@Toast series. Lo will be releasing a poetry collection this summer: "Hot Rain." For more information about Lo go to:
http://logalluccio.com  To be considered for Lyrical Somerville send your poems to Doug Holder  25 School St.  Somerville, Ma.  [email protected]