GLINTS is hot off the press. The 13th in our WinteRed chaplet series, GLINTS is a fantastic long poem in fragments by Twin Cities performance artist and poet, Gabrielle Civil. Here's an excerpt:
***
at the edge of the firewall
dark skin exaggerated like a church
stacks of books.
the scruff of deer.
fucked up
around the lake
It is Already Morning.
your brain feels and feels
like gold lining
on a rooftop
turned inside out.
reverberation
****
GABRIELLE CIVIL is a black woman poet, scholar, conceptual and performance artist originally from Detroit, MI. She received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from New York University and currently teaches literature and writing at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, MN. The goal of her work is to open up space.
Order GLINTS by sending $1.39 to WinteRed Press, 2306 27th Avenue South, Mpls. MN 55406
Friday, June 16, 2006
Song On, Thomas Sayers Ellis
Song On, by Thomas Sayers Ellis, offers six new poems that soar with inventive music and syntax. An excerpt:
Afro(Fisted) Pick
A symbolic growth tender-headed as protest,
The genre beneath
Blackness.
All red, black and green
Without being
Red, black and green.
All social work
And struggle.
The revolution at the root
Of every groove
Of grooming.
Soul wouldn't be Soul
Without it
And neither would America
Or where America
Bogarts peace.
THOMAS SAYERS ELLIS is an Associate Professor of English at Case Western Reserve University and a faculty member of the Lesley University low-residency M.F.A. program. He is the author of a chapbook, The Genuine Nego Hero (Kent State University Press 2001), The Maverick Room (Graywolf Press 2005) and the editor of the forthcoming Quotes Community: Notes for Black Poets (University of Michigan Press 2006). His poems have recently appeared in Fair Trade, Lit, Mosaic, Tin House and Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century. Visit his website: http://www.tsellis.com/
Afro(Fisted) Pick
A symbolic growth tender-headed as protest,
The genre beneath
Blackness.
All red, black and green
Without being
Red, black and green.
All social work
And struggle.
The revolution at the root
Of every groove
Of grooming.
Soul wouldn't be Soul
Without it
And neither would America
Or where America
Bogarts peace.
THOMAS SAYERS ELLIS is an Associate Professor of English at Case Western Reserve University and a faculty member of the Lesley University low-residency M.F.A. program. He is the author of a chapbook, The Genuine Nego Hero (Kent State University Press 2001), The Maverick Room (Graywolf Press 2005) and the editor of the forthcoming Quotes Community: Notes for Black Poets (University of Michigan Press 2006). His poems have recently appeared in Fair Trade, Lit, Mosaic, Tin House and Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century. Visit his website: http://www.tsellis.com/
I Promise, Fanny Howe
Eleventh in the WinteRed series, I Promise is a broadside elegantly designed and printed on 8.5 x 14" paper.
An excerpt:
It is winter. Thick wet snow padding. Branches are broken, trees cracked by a recent ice storm. I cross over the bridge. On the right and below, where the river flooded and now is thick and iced, I see a deer hanging over the branch of a tree.
Velvety, frozen, not even the birds have set to eating it. The deer hangs like the fate of beauty among the branches and snow.
FANNY HOWE is the author of over twenty books of poetry and fiction, including On the Ground, Gone, Saving History, Famous Questions, and The Quietist.
An excerpt:
It is winter. Thick wet snow padding. Branches are broken, trees cracked by a recent ice storm. I cross over the bridge. On the right and below, where the river flooded and now is thick and iced, I see a deer hanging over the branch of a tree.
Velvety, frozen, not even the birds have set to eating it. The deer hangs like the fate of beauty among the branches and snow.
FANNY HOWE is the author of over twenty books of poetry and fiction, including On the Ground, Gone, Saving History, Famous Questions, and The Quietist.
Balm to Bilk, Rodrigo Toscano
Rodrigo Toscano's Balm To Bilk (a poem for two voices) riffs and rhymes its way through a playful discourse on language, politics, and the aesthetics of the poem. An excerpt:
exactement. when they blurt, we brandish
when they brandish, we blurt.
on the level of aesthetics you mean?
yes. but how do you pare the imperialist
from the imperialist aesthetic,
and the imperialist aesthetic
from the imperialist?
not an easy 'formula' as you say.
RODRIGO TOSCANO is a 2005 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Poetry. He is the author of To Leveling Swerve (Krupskaya Books, 2004), Platform (Atelos, 2003), The Disparities (Green Integer, 2002) and Partisans (O Books, 1999). His work has recently appeared in Best American Poetry, 2004 (Scribner) and War and Peace (O Books, 2004) and In the Criminal's Cabinet: An Anthology of Poetry and Fiction. He lives in New York City.
exactement. when they blurt, we brandish
when they brandish, we blurt.
on the level of aesthetics you mean?
yes. but how do you pare the imperialist
from the imperialist aesthetic,
and the imperialist aesthetic
from the imperialist?
not an easy 'formula' as you say.
RODRIGO TOSCANO is a 2005 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Poetry. He is the author of To Leveling Swerve (Krupskaya Books, 2004), Platform (Atelos, 2003), The Disparities (Green Integer, 2002) and Partisans (O Books, 1999). His work has recently appeared in Best American Poetry, 2004 (Scribner) and War and Peace (O Books, 2004) and In the Criminal's Cabinet: An Anthology of Poetry and Fiction. He lives in New York City.
Sleep/Echo/Song, Dan Beachy-Quick
Ninth in the series is Dan Beachy-Quick's Sleep/Echo/Song. This chaplet mixes lyrics and lullabies written after the birth of the poet's daughter. An excerpt:
When a child I thought myself
A thought--
Then thought became my home--
When thought became my haibt
The ocean grew
Absent above the stone
DAN BEACHY-QUICK teaches in the MFA Writing Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has two books: North True South Bright (Alice James) and Spell (Ahsahta). A third volume, Mulberry, will be published in the Spring of 2006 by Tupelo Press.
When a child I thought myself
A thought--
Then thought became my home--
When thought became my haibt
The ocean grew
Absent above the stone
DAN BEACHY-QUICK teaches in the MFA Writing Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has two books: North True South Bright (Alice James) and Spell (Ahsahta). A third volume, Mulberry, will be published in the Spring of 2006 by Tupelo Press.
Paradise, Wang Ping
Eighth in the series is Wang Ping's Paradise, a series of poems and oral histories that chronical the effects of globalization on Chinese workers. An excerpt:
My Mountain Lotus,
Is this the paradise you've been seeking--
sweatshop, factory, restaurant, hair salon, house cleaning?
You wept in each letter: lonely, tired, broke, broke.
"Come home," I said, "better poor together than rich apart."
"Only fools like you plough the fields," you wrote back.
Then no words or money, only cousin's message:
"She rubs foreigners' feet in hotels
and hangs with fat old men.
Earrings, bracelets, hair like a bird nest . . .
Oh man she look shot, but not for you.
Hurry, claim your right as a man.
Enclosed is travel money.
Work on construction sites to pay me back."
WANG PING was born in Shanghai and grew up on a small island in the East China Sea. After three years of farming in a mountain village, she attended Beijing University. In 1985 she left China to study in the U.S., earning her Ph.D. from New York University. She is the acclaimed author of the short story collection American Visa, the novel Foreign Devil, the poetry collection Of Flesh and Spirit, the cultural study Aching for Beauty: Footbinding in China, and most recently The Magic Whip, a second collection of poetry. Wang is also the editor and co-translator of the anthology New Generations: Poetry from China Today. She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, and teaches at Macalester College.
My Mountain Lotus,
Is this the paradise you've been seeking--
sweatshop, factory, restaurant, hair salon, house cleaning?
You wept in each letter: lonely, tired, broke, broke.
"Come home," I said, "better poor together than rich apart."
"Only fools like you plough the fields," you wrote back.
Then no words or money, only cousin's message:
"She rubs foreigners' feet in hotels
and hangs with fat old men.
Earrings, bracelets, hair like a bird nest . . .
Oh man she look shot, but not for you.
Hurry, claim your right as a man.
Enclosed is travel money.
Work on construction sites to pay me back."
WANG PING was born in Shanghai and grew up on a small island in the East China Sea. After three years of farming in a mountain village, she attended Beijing University. In 1985 she left China to study in the U.S., earning her Ph.D. from New York University. She is the acclaimed author of the short story collection American Visa, the novel Foreign Devil, the poetry collection Of Flesh and Spirit, the cultural study Aching for Beauty: Footbinding in China, and most recently The Magic Whip, a second collection of poetry. Wang is also the editor and co-translator of the anthology New Generations: Poetry from China Today. She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, and teaches at Macalester College.
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