Quantcast

You Cannot Save Here by Tonee Moll

Source: Publisher
Paperback, 84 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

You Cannot Save Here by Tonee Moll, winner of the Washington Writer’s Publishing House‘s 2022 Jean Feldman Poetry Prize, opens with a quote from Ocatvia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, which sets the stage for the whole collection. Moll’s poems are about every day moments that each of us can relate to, such as days in which we have little energy to perform even the simplest tasks or are exasperated with the search for love and acceptance. The collection points to the gradual wearing down of ourselves.

In the first poem, “You Cannot Save Here,” the narrator begins with “the first day of The End,” which sets up readers for the journey through the apocalypse of life. “I don’t do anything just/sit in the dimness of midday/room with unopened blinds” Think about it, would we really know when the end comes? Do we even know when our end is near or that death has come for us? Not usually. This theme of not knowing if it is the end permeates the poems in this collection where the narrator realizes in “If You See Me, Weep” that lyrics about the end of the world and it “being later than you think” have been sung for decades.

Not only is Moll calling us to task about our obsessions with the end of the world and the death of ourselves, but he also is urging us to “be a whole oak enveloped in kind potential.” (“Fruit of the Unenclosed Land”). Through the title poems (yes, multiple poems are titled “You Cannot Save Here”), readers are immersed in the apocalypses that populate our lives. Humans are such dramatic creatures. Moll is meditating on what it means when we’ve past the point of no return and how do we live with where we are. But don’t expect all of these poems to be dark and dreary, because they are far from that.

You Cannot Save Here by Tonee Moll is a light in the darkness, teaching us to see what we have and rejoice in that moment. The collection asks what is our potential and how can we achieve it, despite our apocalyptic perspective.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Author:

Tonee Moll is a queer poet, essayist and educator. Tonee holds an MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts and a Ph.D. in English. They are the author of “Out of Step: A Memoir,” which won the Lambda Literary Award and the Non/Fiction Collection Prize. Their latest book, “You Cannot Save Here,” won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from Washington Writers’ Publishing House. They live in Baltimore, and they teach creative writing & literature as an assistant professor of English at Harford Community College.

Dear Selection Committee by Melissa Studdard

Source: Jackleg Press
Paperback, 132 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Dear Selection Committee by Melissa Studdard is a poetry collection that will have you on your toes, make you gape in awe, and have you wishing you kept some of your own boldness on the surface. These are poems of empowerment. In the opening poem, “Dear Selection Committee,” readers will see immediately that Studdard is bold and ready to ask for what she wants, whether it is a corner office or the ability to drink chardonnay when she wants.

In “My Kind,” the narrator says, “I’m building a life/out of sad songs, good friends, and leftover microwavable food./It occurs to me that I may be my own soul mate. That’s how I’ve/ended up in this body alone.” While there is a great deal of socialization, Studdard also brings to the forefront the inner life and loneliness of this persona. How do you fill those voids you experience? With friends, good food, pets? In “Untitled,” her persona’s “address is nostalgia/for things that never happened. I wander in/and out of coincidence, dragging a wagonful/of unrequited lovers behind me.” and later the persona says, “Oh — what we embrace/to avoid the life we’ve been given…Generate/a disaster in your life to sidestep/the true catastrophe of your life.”

The poems at first blush appear to be very tongue-in-cheek, with wild situations and imaginative conversations. Beneath the surface there is a powerful female voice carving out her due. From burying the past and digging it up to expressing exasperation with being human and all that requires. One of my favorite poems is Wrap it in Silk, which was published in The Los Angeles Review.

Dear Selection Committee by Melissa Studdard reminds us that we are center stage in our own lives and we need to live it boldly and without excuses. We can be kind, but also we can get what we want by going after it, not waiting for it to come to us. This collection is funny, sexy, and empowering. You won’t be able to put it down.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Author:

Melissa Studdard is the author of five books, including the poetry collection I ATE THE COSMOS FOR BREAKFAST. Her work has been published or featured by places such as NPR, PBS, The New York Times, The Guardian, POETRY, Kenyon Review, Psychology Today, and New England Review. Her awards include The Poetry Society of America’s Lucille Medwick Memorial Award, The Penn Review Poetry Prize, the REEL Poetry Festival Audience Choice Award, the Tom Howard Prize, and more.

Virtual Poetry Circle: Audre Lorde

Power
by Audre Lorde

The difference between poetry and rhetoric
is being ready to kill
yourself
instead of your children.

I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds
and a dead child dragging his shattered black
face off the edge of my sleep
blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders
is the only liquid for miles
and my stomach
churns at the imagined taste while
my mouth splits into dry lips
without loyalty or reason
thirsting for the wetness of his blood
as it sinks into the whiteness
of the desert where I am lost
without imagery or magic
trying to make power out of hatred and destruction
trying to heal my dying son with kisses
only the sun will bleach his bones quicker.

A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens
stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood
and a voice said “Die you little motherfucker” and
there are tapes to prove it. At his trial
this policeman said in his own defense
“I didn't notice the size nor nothing else
only the color”. And
there are tapes to prove that, too.

Today that 37 year old white man
with 13 years of police forcing
was set free
by eleven white men who said they were satisfied
justice had been done
and one Black Woman who said
“They convinced me” meaning
they had dragged her 4'10'' black Woman's frame
over the hot coals
of four centuries of white male approval
until she let go
the first real power she ever had
and lined her own womb with cement
to make a graveyard for our children.

I have not been able to touch the destruction
within me.
But unless I learn to use
the difference between poetry and rhetoric
my power too will run corrupt as poisonous mold
or lie limp and useless as an unconnected wire
and one day I will take my teenaged plug
and connect it to the nearest socket
raping an 85 year old white woman
who is somebody's mother
and as I beat her senseless and set a torch to her bed
a greek chorus will be singing in 3/4 time
“Poor thing. She never hurt a soul. What beasts they are.”

Magnetic Poetry Magic

I hope to provide some fun activities this month for you to think outside the box about poetry. Today, is magnetic poetry magic! I just love magnetic poetry tiles. You can put them on the fridge and let the magic happen.

What is magnetic poetry?

You can buy kits with words on individual tiles to place on your fridge. No, you don’t have to put the entire box on the fridge. You can change out words once a week, once a month, or even once a year. It doesn’t matter because the combinations are endless.

The beauty of these tiles is that they can be arranged and rearranged on the fridge to create phrases or sentences and full poems.

You can buy the magnetic poetry kits online at Amazon, or just about anywhere and start creating as a family. You can also give it a try online.

Here’s a word bank for you that I created, and I hope that you’ll share any of your poetic creations in the comments. Be crazy. Have some fun!

blue   canoe    orange   dog   there  here  is   as   the   balloon  help   slip   dump   rise  sunset  happiness

fuzz    slim   green   grass   spring  daffodils   life   love   crime   demolition   strike   gowns   goddess

phenomenal    crisp   wait   run   shrink   dwindle  laugh  yellow  was  forever   at  or  about  and  a  can

have   left  right   create   beauty   subtract  add  arrange  lift   bridge   train   lap  tree   shade   flight

I can’t wait to see what poems you come up with!

Dispatches from Frontier Schools by Sarah Beddow

Source: Publisher
Paperback, 124 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Dispatches From Frontier Schools by Sarah Beddow is an in-depth account of teacher in a poorly funded charter school and the pull of an educator to fulfill their passion in educating children and the tension it comes with when there is little funding, students are hard to reach, and family takes a back seat to her students. In the opening poem, “Dispatch for: [redacted]” the poet says, “I do not want    do not want cannot/stand this world/for them  So I touched/ her and listened.    She did/not dissolve    today but/surely she will/and/if I can   I will be/the nurse who notices   the silent shivering  the silent tears   and brings/an extra blanket//” (pg. 16)

Throughout this collection, readers will experience what it is like inside the classroom, dealing with managers, and caring deeply for students. She wants to reward her most engaged students, but the world seems to conspire against even the simplest rewards – a donut party. There’s a deep sadness in some of these poems. It’s clear the narrator of these poems is dedicated to her students, but teaching itself is hard enough without having to handle the pressures of the administration and compliance with rules. in “Dispatch re: Complaince” “I have / nothing else / to give   no ideas better than these / no students more woke / no donuts / no tears left to cry in the parking lot dawn / no me” (pg. 19)

Beddow tackles guns in school, education compliance, testing, inter-personal relationships between students, teen pregnancy, and how teachers must be involved but not be too involved in students’ lives. From “Dispatch re: Our Scholars” (pg. 55), “To take children of color and   performatively / age them into such series / stuffy  academics Lock them away in / an ivory tower  until they / emerge civil and / obedient  fit to meet the nation’s needs”

Dispatches From Frontier Schools by Sarah Beddow is a deeply moving collection of horror and beauty in educating students in a tumultuous time where students and teachers are under enormous pressures. Beddow is a masterful storyteller; she will have readers crying and thinking deeply about our education system.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Poet:

Sarah Beddow is a poet, wife and mother. She is the author of the book Dispatches from Frontier Schools (Riot in Your Throat) and the chapbook What’s pink & shiny/what’s dark and hard (Porkbelly Press). Her poems and essays have appeared in Bone Bouquet, Menacing Hedge, Entropy, GlitterMOB, and elsewhere. She has degrees in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University and Sarah Lawrence College. After completing her MFA in poetry, she earned an MS in Urban Education from Mercy College and spent nearly a decade teaching high school English. Though she now works in educational publishing, she looks forward to one day returning to the classroom.

String by Matthew Thorburn

Source: Publisher
Paperback, 84 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

String by Matthew Thorburn is a poetry collection that tells a story of a boy living through war and explores the thread of loss and memory with precision. Every moment with this boy is unexpected, and his pain becomes our pain. Through these poems, Thorburn gives us an intimate picture of this teenager’s life from the doctor with the cigarettes on his desk to Rosie, who catches his eye.

While there is memory that delights and makes this boy smile, there are other, darker memories that he cannot forget.

They (pg. 11)

liked to throw things
a man down a well a woman
through a window they

liked to know things
names and dates your hopes
what hurt my hiding place

the combination to Saltzman's
empty safe they liked to 
break things doors bicycles

legs and backs and necks
they liked to take things
money gold rings fingernails

and fathers they had
no need for her none for me
except they were hungry so

hungry and so angry
like shadows they liked to hide
behind my back they liked

to ride behind my eyelids
death was their dark horse
they never stood still.

Thorburn’s images bring the reader into each scene. It is harrowing; it is deeply depressing. But there also is light in the survival. What can survive a Holocaust? What can survive a war? What can survive genocide? Our memories, our connections, our stories. We merely have to share them.

Damaged Animal (pg. 12)

The poor white upright
piano scored with
bullet holes they shot it too

then tipped it off
the balcony mangling Rosie's

silver bicycle forever
after a damaged animal
the white keys broken

teeth in the gutter
where their piss trickled

the black keys like
fingers broken in 
black gloves

String by Matthew Thorburn is achingly beautiful and unforgettable. The story will have you turning the pages as if it were a novel. The imagery is searing and heartbreaking. If you are on the lookout for a narrative poetry collection with a cohesive story, this is one for you. Thorburn is at his best here.

RATING: Cinquain

Other Reviews:

About the Poet:

Matthew Thorburn’s new book of poems is String, published by Louisiana State University Press in March 2023. He’s also the author of seven previous collections, including The Grace of Distance, a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize; the book-length poem Dear Almost, honored with the Lascaux Prize in Collected Poetry; and A Green River in Spring, winner of the Coal Hill Review chapbook competition. ​His work has been recognized with a Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress, the Mississippi Review Prize, and fellowships from the Bronx and New Jersey arts councils and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. A native of Michigan and for many years a New Yorker, he lives with his family in small-town New Jersey.

Our Wolves by Luanne Castle

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 37 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Our Wolves by Luanne Castle is a chapbook that hinges on the tale of Little Red Riding Hood, in which Castle explores themes of identity, feminism, and gender. Red is no longer merely a victim in these tales, she’s feisty and strong-willed, and in some ways she’s manipulative. Granny even plays a more integral role and explores what it means to be the excuse in a story. Castle also brings to the fore the role of the hunter and/or wood cutter found in folklore.

From “A Snowy Night in Manistee River Valley” (pg. 10), “I need to get outside,/let the chill wind wake me to myself./If it gets me, I’ll be clearheaded enough/to see what has substance, sharp enough/” There are often wolves that lurk in the dark of our minds, and here we see that isolation can breed some of that darkness and fear.

From "School for Girls Who Shouldn't Trust" (pg. 13)

...
Just kneel them down to check their hems,
keep their thighs covered, their minds intent.
Let them learn karate and debate to live with
men and beasts without damage or regret.
Nobody warns them about the animal calls
or signs that susurrate through the drainpipes.
....

There is so much to love in this collection and Castle’s imagination. Her poems provide us an alternate story, but they are by no means a retelling of Red’s tale. It is more a psychological exploration of characters in a tale where a young girl becomes/is a victim. How tired are we of this trope as women? We need to be saved? We are only victims and incomplete without the man in our lives to save us. How many times have we been in charge of our own destinies for better or worse? Castle explores all of these questions and scenarios while illuminating the wolves we face within and outside of ourselves.

Our Wolves by Luanne Castle may be few pages but they pack a powerful punch. Castle never ceases to surprise me as a reader.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Luanne Castle lives in Arizona, next to a wash that wildlife use as a thoroughfare. She has published two full-length poetry collections, Rooted and Winged (Finishing Line Press 2022) and Doll God (Aldrich/Kelsay 2015), which won the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for Poetry. Kin Types (Finishing Line Press 2017), a chapbook of poetry and flash nonfiction, was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. Our Wolves (Alien Buddha Press 2023) is her second chapbook. Luanne’s Pushcart and Best of the Net-nominated poetry and prose have appeared in Copper Nickel, American Journal of Poetry, Pleiades, River Teeth, TAB, Verse Daily, Saranac Review, and other journals.

National Poetry Month 2023

Welcome to National Poetry Month!

I encourage everyone to read poetry this month or take in a reading near you.

Every day, you can get a poem in inbox!

On April 26 at 7 p.m., the Academy of American Poets will host its virtual Poetry & the Creative Mind gala. You can register for free or make a donation.

If you’re a teacher, here are some classroom resources to help your students celebrate poetry.

Virtual Poetry Circle: Kenn Nesbitt

April Fool's Day

Mackenzie put a whoopie cushion
on the teacher’s chair.
Makayla told the teacher
that a bug was in her hair.

Alyssa brought an apple
with a purple gummy worm
and gave it to the teacher
just to see if she would squirm.

Elijah left a piece of plastic
dog doo on the floor,
and Vincent put some plastic vomit
in the teacher’s drawer.

Amanda put a goldfish
in the teacher’s drinking glass.
These April Fool’s Day pranks
are ones that you could use in class.

Before you go and try them, though,
there’s something I should mention:
The teacher wasn’t fooling
when she put us in detention.

What April Fool’s pranks have you played on family, friends, and dare I say in school?

The Drowning House by John Sibley Williams

Source: the poet
Paperback, 102 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

The Drowning House by John Sibley Williams digs deep into masculinity’s myths and confronts its history of violence and of atrocities committed against people of different backgrounds. It is a look at America’s past that is coming into the light and begs us to reckon with it, acknowledge it, and move forward with forgiveness and compassion. For those in the current time who have not committed heinous acts, we still must face what we’ve inherited by the privilege of whiteness and maleness and seek the best path forward for the future or there may be little of it left for anyone.

In the “My American Ghost” section’s opening poem, “Pantomime,” the music of the wind is reviving the sheets into bodies as “We wait/for the well out back to//illuminate its drowned coins,/all the gods overrun by prayers//” (pg. 5) In this section, there are poems that try to tackle the issue of racism in this country with poems about Emmett Till//Edward Hopper, Prometheus//Trayvon Martin, Rosa Parks//Banksy, internment, and more. This section is a hard read as I think about whether we need another “white” man telling us about tragedy or civil rights, but these poems want us to question that and turn that questioning gaze unto ourselves as the privileged class of Americans who benefit the most from the systems of oppression. Hopper’s oil paintings of lone characters in dim settings mirror the shadows of Till’s murder and how “Skin can be its own//broken republic.” (pg. 7)

The Dead Just Need to Be Seen. Not Forgiven. (pg. 8)

That old man in the photo our family never talks about,
known best for tracking runaway slaves; tonight

we drag him from the basement up these loose
wood stairs & set out a plate of salted cabbage & rabbit--

so long since I've asked why the empty chair at our table.
With all the warmth a body has to give, we give up on

measuring the darkness between men. Dust & dusk enter
& are wiped from the room. The names we call each other

linger luminous & savage. Still. That tree I used to hang
tires from holds tight its dead centuries. The light

swinging from its branches we call rope-like,
which implies there's no longer rope. Tonight, we'll wash

the burnt out stars from his hair, all the crumbs from his beard.
The misfired bullet of his voice we let burn as it must.

It is clear that America’s past is part of who we are. In “Internment,” the narrator says, “This country goes/weak at the knees at the thought of you, how you nourish/the earth//” Further in this section, an abusive father appears in a story told to the narrator’s own children where the ending is changed to make it more palatable for kids’ ears. But we need to hear the full story, not just a rosy colored version, as the narrator reminds us in “My American Ghost,” “light strikes a coin/differently after a train/flattens its face:” … “our mouths, nestfuls of promises,/we shall open them almost/fully: swallow & speak for what/we’ve swallowed: a whole/new language of witness./” (pg. 30)

The Drowning House by John Sibley Williams is an America that fails to look its past in the eye, accept what has come before, and right that ship. “Is it true this ruin has been ours//the whole time?” (“Incendiary Device,” pg. 35) or can we be the narrator: “It turns out I was born with a matchbook/in my hands.” and “There’s a reason we refuse/to leave, even now.” (“Incendiary Device,” pg. 35). While exploring American darkness, Williams is reaching for the light with a hopeful hand for the next generation.

RATING: Cinquain

Other Reviews:

About the Poet:

John Sibley Williams is the author of seven poetry collections, including Scale Model of a Country at Dawn (Cider Press Review Poetry Award), THE DROWNING WORKS (Elixir Press Poetry Award), As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize), Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize, University of Nebraska Press), and Summon (JuxtaProse Chapbook Prize). A twenty-six-time Pushcart nominee, John is the winner of numerous awards, including the Wabash Prize for Poetry, Philip Booth Award, Phyllis Smart-Young Prize, and Laux/Millar Prize. He serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review and founder of the Caesura Poetry Workshop series. Previous publishing credits include Best American Poetry, Yale Review, Verse Daily, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, and TriQuarterly.

Sunday, May 1, 11-3 p.m. in Washington D.C.: Literary Hill BookFest

Even when National Poetry Month in April ends, there’s still more poetry to be had!

Literary Hill BookFest is on May 1 from 11 to 3 p.m. in Washington, D.C.’s Eastern Market. Address: 225 7th St. SE, Washington, D.C.

The Literary Hill BookFest is an annual celebration of books and authors held each spring on Capitol Hill.

I’ve only attended this festival online. You can see my video from 2021 on my Publication Credits page.

I hope to see some of you at Tunnicliff’s Tavern at 3 p.m. for the poetry open mic. It will be good to be around other poets at an in-person event! I’ll be reading with some fantastic poets:

Bring some cash or a venmo and you may be able to pick up some of their books at the reading.

In case you missed my recent online Zoom Reading: There’s a Poem in this Place, you can check it out here:

There's a Poem in This Place from Elizabeth Gauffreau on Vimeo.

Virtual Poetry Circle: Mary Oliver

Hello Everyone!

It’s National Poetry Month and in honor of April as National Canine Fitness Month, I’m going to share one of my favorite Mary Oliver Poems about dogs.

I’m sharing one of my favorite poems about dogs:

LITTLE DOG’S RHAPSODY IN THE NIGHT

He puts his cheek against mine
and makes small, expressive sounds.
And when I’m awake, or awake enough

he turns upside down, his four paws
in the air
and his eyes dark and fervent.

“Tell me you love me,” he says.

“Tell me again.”

Could there be a sweeter arrangement? Over and over
he gets to ask.
I get to tell.

Feel free to share your favorites in the comments.