Poetry of the People – Glenda Bailey-Mershon

This week's Poet of the People is Glenda Bailey-Mershon. I have known Glenda for only a year or two after she moved back to her home state. She is gifted poet and prose writer and gives back to the literary community with kindness and a wealth of expertise.

IN THE PHOTOGRAPH SHE LIFTS HER HANDS

unpinning long hair. Chestnut, I knew only because relatives said her hair and my sister's were the same. 

In sepia, her gesture asks to be admired. And who could not admire the luminous eyes of youth, the sensuous mouth, the heavy hair about to fall?

Yet her eyes say she is puzzled, unfamiliar with the procedure. Innocent as a fawn in sudden light.

What I remember is her stiff hands spinning, yarn spilling from pointed fingers, her sharp tongue calling down our rising spirits.

And yet the photograph . . .

Youthful beauty surprised by life.

Grandmother?

A “GYPSY” (ROMA!) POET WALKS INTO A COFFEESHOP

The audience gapes. What’s this woman doing,

singing when she should be droning poetry?

I warble about having rhythm. No one knows

that’s Manouche swing. It’s what they asked

when I booked: Tell what inspires you.

Everything’s a song, I say, letting loose again, whether dirge or dance or ballad beat.

I snap fingers, swish my skirt.

The woman at the first coffeeshop table

has stopped knitting, pokes her husband

who looks up from his golf score, sees

I am about to show them how once

I skatted a whole poem because I wanted

to say, we Roma are here, most of us 

are mixed, some got Africa in our bones,

Spain in our step, French lilac scent

beneath our nails and under our skin.

Farther away, the pulse of Rajasthan.

And if I really want to confound, I’ll say

we married Persian tanbur and chang,

Turkish oud, Greek lyres and Parisian

accordions, then swung it all on a reed with dancing keys, but I know

I only need say Django, and they will sit up. Guitars are what Americans fancy. Now

I have to bring them down to hear enjambed

lines, marching stanzas. Somehow they get it, smile, clap their hands to the rhythm when asked. Yet when I finish and take my turn for the proffered drink at the bar, people stare and point their chins, say “Gypsy.” That’s all they need to know. 

I sashay my way out of the shop, smile.

They will be pulsing in their beds tonight.

AN INCANTATION FOR MY GRANDMOTHERS

Corn mother

Earth heavy

Great Raw Woman

What you must have been in childbed! 

Birthing with the force of two hundred hurricanes, crouching low, arching high, pushing out

squalling life and catching it in two fiery, rough hands.

Rocking, rocking, face like the moon over ravaged land.

Each day, I see you, 

rivulets of water running out of your body  across scorched fields,

over red clay front yards singing orange zinnias.

Your daughters, we are feathers tossed by angry winds,

falling lightly

half a continent away.

Quiet strangers riding fierce city rails,

stepping unseen through snow-hushed streets,

dancing to rain drumming on roofs,

greeting the sun in glowing glass.

Watching the moon rise in canyons of steel,

we find your image in junkyard windows,

in our own eyes, mirrored

under fluorescent lights. 

We quick-step down long alleys,

flame incense in silent rooms,

fathom the earth beneath asphalt and brick, 

recognize its rhythms beneath the thrum of cars.

Even city towers gleam with your life.

Skyscrapers spark starlight in the eyes of the Ancient Ones.

Lesson

Daughter, this is your womb. She put her warm hand on the child's belly and drew the outline of a cave.

Out of this cavity you will draw that which is most precious to you.

Into this space

you will draw that which is mysterious, unknowable. She drew a line from  the womb to the heart.

This is the straightest of lines.

Do you understand?

BACK WHEN I WAS JUICY

Back when I was juicy I pried the lid off morning, knifed from my bed, onto cold floor boards, scattered pennies enough for coffee in the café,  or a luscious scrum of chocolat on a cold Sartre afternoon. 

Virgin among molded tomes,  I, willing wand of destiny, jumped to conclusions about infinity while frat guys in the booth behind bet on the constants of integration.

Down the long green moments I strode, confident, to and from  class, shouldering book bags,  tippling volumes from overhead shelves,  palming change like bribes for fortunes, assured of redemption in the hands of destiny.

Every Saturday, I rambled bookstore to bookstore among other explorers,  seeking keys to unlock furtive encounters behind mothers’ cast-off lace curtains.

Jampot oozing thick syrup seeds, I melted into one after another armored knight. Later, we read each other  tales we could not fathom back when I was juicy.

UNORTHODOX RHYME

Preachers tease us with heaven’s riches  Make us choose: wives or whores  Warn us, we’re too big for our britches 

Then forbid abortion, divorce

Warn us we're too big for our britches 

Want us to scratch all their itches 

Then forbid abortion, divorce 

Good men writhe with remorse

Want us to scratch all their itches 

Scratch our own, they call us witches  Good men writhe with remorse

Veils conceal life’s source

Scratch our own, they call us witches  Force us to choose: wives or whores 

Veils conceal life’s source  Camels pass by your riches.

NOTE: This poem is dedicated to the South Carolina Legislature, who apparently think their religious beliefs should control all women’s health care.

BIO:

Glenda Mariah Bailey-Mershon is an American poet, essayist, novelist, cultural historian, and human rights activist. Born in Upstate South Carolina to a family with roots in the Southern Appalachians, she has explored in poetry and fiction her European, Native American, and Romani heritage. Her published works include the novel, Eve's Garden, a family saga of three generations of Romani-American women; the full-length poetry collection, Weaver’s Knot, an exploration of millworker communities ; Bird Talk: Poems; saconige/blue smoke: Poems from the Southern Appalachians, which plumbs the ties between European and Cherokee cultures in the mountains; A History of the American Women's Movement: A Study Guide, and four volumes as editor of the Jane's Stories anthologies by women writers, including Jane's Stories IV: Bridges and Borders, which includes work by women in conflicts around the world.

Glenda has been a finalist in Our Stories fiction contest; featured author at the Illinois Book Fair, the Other Words conference; and the St. Augustine PoetFest. For the 2024 Associated Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) national conference, she chaired a panel entitled “Toward a Romani Women’s Canon.”

She is a former bookstore and small press owner, and has taught women's studies, writing, anthropology, and political science. She is the originator of the Jane's Stories anthologies and Jane’s Stories Press Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that offers the Clara Johnson Prize in Women’s Literature. As a tutor, she helps young people achieve their GED degrees and learn strong conversation skills in English.

Poet of the People – Susan Finch Stevens

This week's Poet of the People is Susan Finch Stevens. I first met Susan when Kwami Dawes resided in South Carolina and ran the South Carolina Poetry Initiative. She is a gifted poet and generous with her time and energy. 

Her leadership as president of the Poet Society of South Carolina drew me back into the organization when I was disillusioned with its leadership and direction. Susan Finch Stevens is one of the gracious, kind and skillful poets that the Carolina coast is known for.

Just Sayin’

with a nod to William Carlos Williams
 
I forget eggs boiling on the stove
when scores of cedar waxwings
begin their yearly ravishing
of hollies out front. I know full well
by midday all berries will be gone,
plucked from the evergreens
like last December’s ornaments
once the new year rolled around.
Tomorrow I’ll miss the yaupon’s
red adornments, the dahoon’s
crimson spangle, but today I delight
in gluttony, the riotous ecstasy
of waxwings more akin to Bacchus
than Icarus. I envy the drunken
throng’s frenzy as they plump
their bellies full, their habit
of choosing the tipsy dizziness
of overripe fruit over the dizziness
of attaining new and solitary heights.
Today I relish the marauders’ trills,
the sleek beauty of their black masks,
and the waxy red tips of their wings.
I take delight in tails edged with a yellow
somewhere between the sun’s bright heat
and the dull yolks of the overcooked eggs,
which I will discard this once without remorse.
I ask no one for forgiveness
when I take instead from the fridge
the bright berries I suddenly crave.
They are delicious, so sweet and so cold.
 

Sea-girls

Maybe the dark cursor of a boat moving
            along the horizon at the bottom
                        of the sky’s bright screen
            has caught the attention of two girls
heart-deep in the Caribbean Sea.
            Or perhaps they see frigate birds
                        at long last returning to land.
            From my dry vantage point
with these old eyes,
            I see nothing beyond the pair
                        but unfathomable shades of blue. 
            A rogue wave sends the two reeling,
heads thrown back in raucous laughter
            drowned from my hearing
                        by the salt-white noise of the sea.
            Footing regained, they link arms,
each to each, to brace themselves
            against another rush of water
                        clear enough for them to see
            the shell-pink of their summer pedicures.
Clear enough for me to see legs and feet changed now
            into sea tentacles by the smoke and mirrors
                        of water and light.
 

Apples for Athena

for Hope
 
Athena desired the golden apple
meant for the fairest goddess of all,
but Paris gave Aphrodite the prize
in exchange for the hand of Helen
whose face would launch a thousand ships
and lead to a horse of wood and deceit.
But enough about that!
I don’t mean to tell you today
about that apple or that horse.
I don’t mean to tell you today
about that Athena, but about
the Athena here in this barn
where I’ve brought my granddaughter
and her offering of apples.
This Athena would surely shun
the golden one, preferring instead
the succulent fruit to which she now
lowers her head. The mare works
her long jaws, rolling an apple
from side to side until a crunch
sweetens her mouth and even her breath,
which is already sweet with the ghost of hay.
I know this because I am standing here
close enough to feel the warmth emerge
from her enormous lungs.
They are as big as angel wings.
No, wrong mythology.
They are as big as aeon wings
or the wings of Nike, goddess of victory, 
who was close enough to that other Athena
for the two to become, in the minds
of many, melded into a single deity.
Just as this Athena, who now takes
a silver snaffle into her mouth,
becomes one with my granddaughter
Hope, mounted and ready to gallop—
if not to Mount Olympus, at least
to her own version of paradise.                

Scoliosis

My shadow stretches impossibly long and straight across my childhood
yard in the slant of late day sun. I am tiny and mighty with my towel cape
and that dark immensity emanating from my small feet. My shadow
is formidable, but
already my spine
is curving, refusing
its stature, pulling one
shoulder to hip, a body part-
ly bent on being closer to
the sticker-spiked ground,
a tension of opposites
embodied as I grow
taller and shorter
at once.

Death’s Door

Four catbirds in as many days
propel themselves full force
into the clear deception
of our front door’s glass pane.
Shadow-grey, darker skullcaps,
the birds arrive at the threshold
as though dressed in self-mourning.
One by one, I bury them in the yard
amidst the remains of hamsters and fish
and other small creatures who have died
in this place where we live. The dogs
are elsewhere. The dachshund’s bones
well settled beneath oaks in a beloved
country spot, his tombstone the arc
of his half-buried dish. The mutt’s
divided ashes scattered there in part
and also a stone’s throw away
in the plaid currents of a brackish creek.
The cremated spaniels, who never met
in life, wait patiently in death to be
unleashed together on the beach
where they both romped.
The Weimaraner, ash-grey in life,
joins me in this new ritual of burying birds.
By the third day, the dog knows the routine
and noses a covering of dirt and dead
leaves onto the lifeless form I drop
into the ground’s yawning furrow.
I hang an ornament on the door,
not in mourning, but in hope of exposing
the skulduggery of autumn light and glass.
But on the fourth day,
the dreaded thud once more.
That night we talk of the birds
but avoid all mention of omens.
Instead we speak of what we could buy:
perhaps a solid door to block all light
and reflection as though we might
put an end to this grave trickery.

BIO:

Susan Finch Stevens’ poems have appeared in journals and anthologies, including Connecticut River Review, One, Kakalak, and The Southern Poetry Anthology: South Carolina. Her chapbook Lettered Bones was selected as a winner in the South Carolina Poetry Initiative Chapbook Competition. She is a past president of the Poetry Society of South Carolina and served many years as the society’s recording secretary. She has been a featured reader in Piccolo Spoleto’s Sundown Poetry Reading Series, both individually and as a member of Richard Garcia’s Long Table Poets. She served as poet-in-residence at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Susan lives on the Isle of Palms, SC with her husband David and their mischievous Weimaraner Maisie.

Al Black's Poetry of the People with Marjory Wentworth

This week's Poet of the People is Marjory Wentworth. Marjory Wentworth was and is poetry in South Carolina. She inspired us to become more than we had been and even though she has relocated to Ohio she continues to return and uplift South Carolina poets. Her influence will resonate through the poetry of South Carolina for decades beyond our living. 

Talking with Marjory on the phone is a gift of light.

-Al Black

MARJORY WENTWORTH is the New York Times bestselling author of Out of Wonder, Poems Celebrating Poets (with Kwame Alexander and Chris Colderley). Her books of poetry include Noticing Eden, Despite Gravity, The Endless Repetition of an Ordinary Miracle and New and Selected Poems. Her poems have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize 7 times. She is also the co-writer of We Are Charleston, Tragedy and Triumph at Mother Emanuel, with Herb Frazier and Dr. Bernard Powers and Taking a Stand, The Evolution of Human Rights, with Juan E. Mendez. She is co-editor with Kwame Dawes of Seeking, Poetry and Prose inspired by the Art of Jonathan Green, and the author of the prizewinning children’s story Shackles. She served as the poet laureate of South Carolina from 2003-2020, and in 2021 she received The SC Governor’s Award for the Arts. Her archives are held at the James B. Duke Library at Furman University. Wentworth teaches at Wright State University. She was named a Black Earth Institute Fellow for 2022-25. For further information see marjorytwentworth.com.

The Architecture of Containment

Enslaved Quarters Part 1

In the small square bedroom

Above the kitchen, heat rising

From the stove in waves so heavy

It was almost visible. A family

trying to sleep here, would lie still

As long as possible, tossing

And turning beneath moonlight, pouring

Through the only open window.

Sometimes a breeze

Carrying the scent of the sea

Rippled through the thick air

As if it could change everything

But the window turned in

On itself, on them and their entire world

The city beyond the high walls

Was as far away as the moon itself

Even the horses, snorting

In the stables

Across the courtyard

Could sometimes see beyond these walls

Flocks of seagulls would often

Find their way here

Strutting across rooftops 

Then rising through the line

Of magnolias

High above the walls

some would hover, almost still

Suspended in the air like hope

For The Poetics of Witness program, the Gibbes Museum of Art, Sep. 20, 2023 

1937

I never imagined my grandmother at rest,

until I saw the Dorothea Lange photograph

of a sharecropper wife and mother of seven

children near Chesenee, South Carolina;

because this woman is so relaxed,

as if her endless work is done.

Sitting on a chair – one arm stretched across

her swollen belly, the other hand

holding her chin; deep in thought,

her eyes are focused on something outside

the frame, dreaming into the distance,

she looks as if she can see beyond

the cotton fields and the small town

where she was born,

before the babies came one after the other,

before the lean years, when the store

still had barrels full of flour,

oats, and rows of sugary canned fruit

lining the dusty shelves.

After the war to end all wars,

she was young, and life was sweet,

the way it must have seemed

to my grandmother, before giving

birth to eight children on the kitchen table

in the gabled house on a bog road

across the stand of apple trees

in West Bethel, Maine, where snowdrifts

reached the roof most winters

and mud clogged the roads each spring.

In Hebrew, Bethel means house of God.

Sometimes, she must have wondered

where God was in that house west of Bethel,

those grueling years of war and rationing,

when the babies came one after the other. 

My mother, number 5, was the fattest. 

After three boys in a row, she was adored –

the only one to find a tangerine in the toe

of her Christmas stocking, beneath peppermints

and a pair of red mittens knit by her mother. 

She had never seen a tangerine,

and did not know how to eat it. At first,

she thought it was a ball that she could roll

across the floor and watch the black barn cat

try to catch it. This story was her easy way

of explaining how poor they were,

and how my grandmother could make a holiday

out of almost nothing.  Like the mother

in the photograph in Chesnee, South Carolina,

who sat down at the end of the long day,

watched the sun setting over the peach trees,

this woman who believed that the pink light

spreading across the tops of the flowering

branches was shining just for her.

Inspired by the exhibition The Bitter Years:  Dorthea Lange and Walter Evans Photography from the Martin Z Marguiles/”Sharecropper wife and mother of seven children, Near Chesnee, South Carolina” photographer Dorthea Lange

Flight

Clouds disassembling

Breathless in sunlight

Solid as the afternoon

I am not a part of

That is the place

I am looking for

The earth’s magnet

Of troubles, spinning

As far away

As I am travelling

 Nothing is Abandoned

Lined with miles of tangled vines,

coconut palms and bananas

growing thick and green,

the dirt road to the market

climbs through clumps of tangerine

bougainvillea and trees

laden with lemons and limes,

passing pink painted box homes

where bright laundry is always

drying outside on the line,

and roosters pecking at the earth

announce the day triumphant.

The road is the color

of the sun rising over the sea.

There is smoke on the wind

and prayers playing on the radio,

as the road fills with people   

walking in the same direction.

Everyone carries something:

buckets of picked peanuts, 

a small child on her mother’s back,

bags filled with mangoes, sugar cane

stacked on a tray. An endless

array of items passes by, from loaves

of bread to used batteries;

nothing goes to waste

in this roadside economy.

And nothing is abandoned

on this road pulsing with light

and the gifts the world brings.

Ghana, 2014

Poetry of the People: Jesus Redondo Menendez

Our first Poet of the People of 2024 is Jesus Rodondo Menendez.

Jesus is a dynamo. He immigrates to this country in his 40s, becomes a successful teacher, works on an advanced degree in school administration, navigates the waters of marriage and writes delightful poetry.

Jesús Redondo Menéndez was born and grew up in Spain, developing a love for books as tools of learning, and as open roads for his imagination. He graduated in Psychology, in his forties decided to move to the United States and started a career as an educator in South Carolina. Now, almost ten years later, he is finishing the process to become a school administrator. He deeply thanks America for this transformational change. Now and then he enjoys writing poetry and short fiction, and experiencing new places in the loving company of his wife and their four legged child, Chomsky   

____

A belonging recipe: a bit of matter, time and self 

I've sat on 

the wooden bench 

in front of the river... 

Couldn't help but crying 

and gasping, 

overwhelmed by 

the daunting sense 

of belonging 

to just the 

intersection

of that moment, 

that place, 

and my most 

intimate 

and inner 

self... 

____

Bay of Dreams 

There is a picture 

I often like to revisit, 

and truly enjoy to see, 

one with my little dog 

watching us 

at the beach, 

his defenseless back 

pointing to the sea. 

I called it Bay of Dreams, 

because we always 

pictured our hopes 

somewhere overseas, 

in a sort of secret place 

where you could find them 

guarded by him, 

bathed and soothed 

by the lullaby 

of ocean beings. 

But as it happens in every dream, 

there are moments when 

the bay turns into a tree, 

and we, and our hopes, 

are together, 

embraced by its leaves. 

There’s an uneasy sense 

of uncertainty coloring the scene. 

And we can see the cloud 

that announces the storm, 

and we can feel the strong 

and chilly wind 

as it starts shaking the tree. 

And we see our hopes 

falling to the ground, 

as the cloud darkens, 

as the wind blows, 

as the leaves fly, 

as our fear grows… 

And we hold to each other 

and to myself I keep 

how much 

I would like to believe 

there is some purpose 

above us 

that is shaking 

the tree. 

_____

You make it easy (to Lola) 

There are some days, 

I have to say it, 

I don’t want to leave 

my bed, 

‘cause there lays 

everything that makes 

me feel safe: 

the woman that leads 

my boat, 

the pet that watches

my footsteps. 

Life can be wonderful 

you often can hear me say, 

sometimes a little bitchy, 

that I keep to myself, 

but every morning 

I walk to the mirror 

tying my tie, 

reminding to myself 

who I am. 

A person that may 

stumble and fall, 

but always stands up; 

that may need to 

try a thousand times, 

but never gives up: 

those and many more 

are the things 

that make me who I am. 

And there’s no day 

I don’t wonder where 

you get your strength from, 

how can you have 

such a clear mind 

to target all our goals, 

I don’t mind confessing 

something that I truly enjoy: 

I’m still figuring you out, 

because from all that breathes 

in this world 

you amaze me the most. 

And I think to myself 

that I don’t care whatever it takes, 

I don’t need to know what it is, 

it doesn’t matter the pain, 

because you make it easy. 

____

My people 

My people dared me 

to play kickball 

so I told my people 

I didn’t know the game. 

My people raised eyebrows, 

because, you know, 

it seems that 

my people know. 

My people don’t know 

that my people still 

blame me for what 

my people did 

500 years ago, 

while my people 

celebrate 

old fashioned speeches and parades. 

My people know 

my name when 

I ask to close the check, 

while my people 

keep reminding me 

that I am 

just another guy 

from 10 miles away. 

My people invite me 

to parties, 

bridal and baby showers, 

after work meetings 

poetry readings,

 and jazz, 

while I know 

about my people’s lives 

on Facebook or Instagram. 

My people ask me 

if I want to stay, 

and my contract 

waits to be signed 

on my desk, 

while my people 

keep asking me 

when I’ll go back home, 

how long I’m gonna 

be away. 

My people, one year ago, 

a 30 degrees morning, 

and short sleeved people 

had to show 

their best behavior 

to come to Español, 

but my people yesterday, 

last class of the week, 

didn’t care that much at all. 

And today my people 

are here in West Columbia 

listening to my words. 

Thank you for your patience, 

my people. 

____

Squeezing a verse (to Evelyn) 

And there she goes, 

a dynamic explosion 

of creative bangs, 

a swag of jeans, 

and bright lemons, 

squeezing verses 

like demons 

sliding down 

the darkness 

of his shirt, 

feeding our hearts 

with something mellow 

bringing light 

in the yellow shape 

of delicious fruits 

with citric flavor.  

Congratulations to the Accepted Contributors to Fall Lines - a literary convergence, volume X

On behalf of the Jasper Project, we’re delighted to announce that the following literary art was selected for inclusion in Fall Lines Volume X, releasing in spring 2024. These contributions were selected from several hundred poetry and prose submissions, and we couldn’t be happier to include them in this milestone tenth volume of Fall Lines – a literary convergence.

In early 2024 we will announce via the same website where and when we will hold our annual Fall Lines reading and awards ceremony, as well as the winners of the Saluda River Prize for Poetry, the Broad River Prize for Prose, and the Combahee River Prize in Poetry and Prose for a South Carolina Writer of Color.

Until then, congratulations and thank you for sharing your talents with the Jasper Project and allowing us to share them with the world.

Paul Toliver Brown – Digging to China

Allen Stevenson -- Shep’s Story

Bryan Gentry – Some People Never Change

Ruth Nicholson – The Red and Blue Box

Suzanne Kamata – Community Building

Evelyn Berry – Home Party

Randy Spencer – Next Day Now

Liz Newell – Red Hill Fans

Debra Daniel – Eve Purchases an Apple Watch

Shannon Ivey – As I Went Down to the River to Pray

Eric Morris – Straight Down Shadows

Lonetta Thompson – The Differences

Napoleon Wells – The Court of Thieves

Tshaka Campbell – Pews

Ann-Chadwell Humphries – Urban Eagle

Jacquelyn Markham – The persistence of limited memory  & Storage

Brian Slusher – *Improv 101 & What else for you darlin?  

Worthy Evans – *Blue Song for Bringing the Body Home & Blues Song for Never Having What I am Relative to Everybody Else

Rhy Robidoux –*Whereas

Nadine Ellsworth-Moran – *Nasturtium grows lush

Susan Craig – Migration & Treating our mother's last living friend

Heather Emerson – Divorce & Ceilings  

Joshua Dunn – Clearing House

Candice Kelsey – Chainsaws  & Renewable Energy

Terri McCord – Following a Blast

Randy Spencer – *Reading Ann’s Poem & In Passing

Debra Daniel – *Studies in Reproduction

Loli Munoz – Liminal

Frances Pearce – Strawberries

Ann Herlong-Bodman – One More

Jo Angela Edwins – A Neighbor Calls a Cool June Evening a Miracle

Kristine Hartvigsen – What I’ll pack for the apocalypse  & Inagaddadavida

Al Black –*Meditations on the Lawh-i-Aqdas & Midnight Call to Prayer

Tim Conroy – Journeys

Jessica Hylton – Space

Amanda Warren – Divination Road

Danielle Ann Verwers—How was your day

Libby Bernardin – Ode to the Santee Delta & Ramble of thought as I read an article in the New York Times

Ellen Blickman --The Mystery of Pomegranates

Allison Cooke – Whippoorwill Elegy

Julie Ann Cook --  Into blue

Bryan Gentry – Hail, Fuse

Kelley Lannigan – Aubade

Gilbert Allen -- T**** IS PRESIDENT

Jane Zenger – Choices

Anna Ialacci – Ruined

Nicholas Drake – The Space Beside Her  

Graham Duncan --  Exceptionalism

(* indicates finalists for the Saluda River Prize for Poetry)

Fall Lines - a literary convergence is made possible through a partnership between the Jasper Project, One Columbia for Arts and Culture, Richland Library, and the Friends of Richland Library.

Poetry of the People: Amy Alley

This week's Poet of the People is Amy Alley.

Amy Alley is a poet, writer, educator, and artist who I originally met through Cassie Premo Steele. She hosts poetry and art events from Greenwood to Newberry. She is a quiet, nurturing, and generous connector of people and talents and is the keeper of the poetry torch in her corner of South Carolina  . 

Amy is a talented freelance writer, poet, author,  artist, educator, and solo mother of one son who somehow managed to make it to University (hooray!) Because that isn't enough, she is currently training to become a certified yoga teacher. A so-called ‘curator of sophisticated chaos,' she knows what it is like to strive for balance in the throes of a busy, hectic life - but she has learned to breath deep and embrace the flow. She has a passion for service and enjoys helping others express the story they wish to tell through writing and/or art as well as discover new tools for creative expression to promote wellness and wellbeing. She also loves fashion and style, like, a lot.

If You Reached Out  

If you reached out 

While children clamor at our feet 

And on our laps 

And people chatter all around us 

In a language I fall in and out of understanding 

I would take your hand 

If you reached out 

I would follow you into your world 

I would let you lead me 

All the way 

Because I’m so tired 

Of being at the wheel 

If you reached out 

I would let you teach me 

The language of your ancestors 

So that I could speak to you 

With the same words that 

You dream in. 

If you reached out 

I would let you into my world 

Where the solitude you’ve never known 

Bears fruit 

In color that swirls on the canvases 

That you admire so much 

If you reached out 

I would take you to a place 

Where you can hear the owls 

Call to one another 

Their ancient language one 

With the sound of night settling 

If you reached out 

Across this table 

And these children 

And these worlds 

And languages 

And all that seems to lie between us 

I would fall into a space 

That seems to be as vast 

As the night sky  

We both dream beneath 

Counting the stars 

In different languages  

Living in worlds 

We both fall in and out of 

Understanding. 

Shoe Fetish 

I’ve kicked off more shoes than you could imagine 

Wasted, wanton shoes 

confining 

shoes that fit only for an instant 

and never 

never ever 

let me dance. 

I’ve kicked off more shoes that you could imagine 

and ran barefoot instead 

through meadows of clover and freedom 

where nothing is too tight 

and I can dance as much as l like 

 to the tune 

of me. 

MYCELIAL 

I wanted to write about me,
but I am possessive
so it comes out as my
and my mind goes to mycelium
and mycelium is another name
for God, I have been told.
And God was possessive, right?
The source of what connects us all
and it runs deep underneath,
connecting everything to itself.
The fungi know this. There’s
communication down in the deep,
dark spaces where the gods really live.
There’s magic in my and mine and
maybe not so much shame
in wanting to possess something
completely. Mycelial networks
are so intrinsic, a worldwide
web of their own. We don’t see it,
just like we don’t see the internet,
but it’s there all the same, sparking
magical mystical connections.
And there’s magic in me and mine
and he and his and we can’t own
each other but we can think about it.
We can go down deep into
all the dark places below where
the mycelial hyphae of our minds 

run like strands of Ariadne’s thread, 

under all the layers of us,

and earth is this space where
we finally touch one another,
touch the magic, and watch the light
of it spread to all of our parts.

Black and White Dream

Spring came too early,

again. It seeped in 

everywhere, overnight. Dew

glistening on green like 

sweat on skin after

making love. Sunny and 

74, too early. March 3

is not Spring. A long

afternoon walk leaves me

like dew on green - 

anew - as though everything 

wasn't breaking down,

as though I'd spent 

idle hours with 

Wang Ming's Humble Hermit

of Clouds and Woods,

having stumbled upon him

in a black and white

dream, making love between

cups of tea in his

thatched cottage, hidden

by ink branches and 

boughs of pine. And 

why not, when everything

is breaking, broken.  At least 

once before, this scene, in a 

dream, waking up

like dew on green

leaves - anew - but not

enough. I have spent days

in woods, in clouds, in

meditation, trying to find

my feet back on that

jagged path. Hermits like

to make us think that they

are wise, but I take 

my gurus with a grain of salt 

these days. Fragile as me

they are, and just

as broken. Spring has come

too early, again. And everything

is breaking,  broken, except

the black ink branches and 

pine boughs that hide 

a thatched cottage where

lives the man who

prefers silence and solitude 

to the chaos of Spring. Who

prefers his loneliness

to my black and white

dream. Who doesn't see 

everything breaking, broken, 

who doesn't see me

blinded is he 

by a warm Spring sun.

Too early.

Last Night I Dreamt of Pow Wows  

Last night I dreamt of friends long past 

Divorced from one another 

And otherwise scattered 

Lost to the winds of time 

Lost to the miles between us 

Lost to themselves  

And lost to me. 

But for a moment 

Together again. 

Some long ago powwow 

Where we laughed and sang together 

And danced under starshine 

To a drum as familiar 

As the beating of my own heart. 

I wake up  

Wanting to reach out 

Find everyone 

And bring us all together again. 

But my heart says no 

It is a time long past 

They are lost to the winds of time 

Lost to the miles between us 

Lost to themselves 

And lost to me. 

I begin my day nostalgic 

With the memory of moccasins on soft earth 

Keeping time with a drum  

That fell silent long ago. 

Making War 

The way of the peaceful warrior 

is not my way. I fight. 

Against the grain, against 

myself. Against the oppression 

of cultural expectations and 

societal norms. What is normal 

anyway, the collected insanity 

of the masses? Peace 

is not achieved without a fight. 

Inner, outer, it doesn’t matter. 

You have to slay the demons, and 

they fight back, scratching and biting 

and you bleed and your blood flows 

to all the inner and outer places. And 

They don’t go down easily, no. Begging  

and pleading and willing them away 

won’t work. You have to fight back. That’s 

why it’s important that you know how.  

You, sitting on your velvet cushion with your hands 

folded, thinking “Namaste,” you better know 

how to throw – and take – a punch. Because 

the way of the peaceful warrior is not 

achieved through the bliss 

of meditation, no. It takes the screaming of war 

to get to that place, inner or outer, 

where peace resides. It takes 

making war on yourself 

to stop making war 

on the rest of the world. It takes 

fighting back. Hard.  

And you get stronger, scrappier. And 

wounded. But the bleeding 

stops. And scarred, you put away your sword, 

for now. You can only be 

a peaceful warrior if you put 

it down completely.  

And you might. 

But I fought too long 

and too hard for the right 

to hold mine 

to just let it go. I’ll 

put it away, though. And I’ll sit 

on a velvet cushion, with 

my hands folded and think “Namaste” 

all day. I will 

be peaceful.  

I will. 

You should know, though… 

in a moment’s notice 

I can be armed  

and ready for war 

in the event 

that you choose 

to wage it. 

Poetry of the People: Jerred Metz

This week's Poet of the People is Jerred Metz. Jerred found and befriended me a decade or so ago and is my irregular lunch partner at Arabasque. We talk of poetry and prose, family and friends. He challenges me to become a better writer without losing my voice or becoming derivative of what I read; he is a gift to the poetry community of South Carolina.

Jerred Metz has had seven books of poetry, three non-fiction, and two novels published, and over one hundred poems and stories in literary journals. He taught creative writing at the University of Minnesota, Webster University, and Coker College. For fifteen years he was poetry editor for the Webster International Poetry Review. He has degrees from the University of Rhode Island (B.A., M.A., English) and the University of Minnesota (Ph.D., English and Philosophy.)

        Honey, My Muse

Her wild shadow wakes, rises, and

comes toward me. I love her,

frightening as she is, her eyes

the color of water,

her wings

battering the air.

When she flies the world unfurls

like a backdrop

behind and beneath her.

Benevolent bees

fill her hollow body

with hive and honey.

She tells me,

never minding the calendar,

“In 1929 I had to leave school to marry the banker who holds the mortgage on my poor mother’s homestead since we could no longer meet the payments. Believe me, life was no picnic, me only twelve and missing all my friends and my teachers and what if the townspeople learned that the banker had a twelve-year-old wife? I learned to cook, keep house, and please my husband in bed. Believe me, that was no easy task, me only twelve and him well into his fifties, his hair and moustache still shining black. There were no sex manuals then. Those few who had them considered themselves lucky to have books of etiquette. And this banker had been around and was particular about his sex. Oh, where could I turn? Who could I ask for help?”

           She brings me visions. 

In return, I show her

a new place to press

or kiss,

a new position,

a fresh phrase to

utter.

Muse, 

whose sacred body—

hive for queen and drone,

worker and larvae,

and honeycomb

rich with sweetness,

comes toward me

holding another poem. 

____

I created these “overheard” snatches and snippets of a private detective in Newark, New Jersey in the 1890s. Accounts of incidents in his career, each hinting at a “before” and an “after.” They are from Sad Tales and Sordid Stories: Interruptions. There are about 30 of them.

What was Not Her Astonishment 

Harland was a friend of Hattie's

of whom The night before Hattie had written to

 Charlotte of Harland, who was a friend—

"a very fine, spirited man

whom Charlotte would like,"

she thought and believed.

What was not Charlotte’s astonishment

when she found he was nothing

like the man Hattie described.

The Air was Unusually Mild 

Harland strolled out

with Charlotte before

going to the office.

The air was unusually mild

for this time of year,

such days being part of

the recent past

or far in the future.

Strange to say,

he was empty-handed.

The manuscript—

its worn wrapping

exposing some

of the contents

to public view,

which I expected

him to be carrying—

was nowhere to be seen.

I felt safe now;

I knew the lady’s name—

“Hattie the hat”—

an old schemer—

and proceeded to her boarding-place,

had her summoned,

introduced myself, mumbling

a name that sounded like that of a con

from Newark who she had heard of,

and began talking to her

about literary matters,

favoring the popular writers

over the serious ones.

Harland’s Henchmen in the Restaurant

Had they hunted her

or were they acquaintances of Harland's

who found her there by accident and

simply followed her down?

I wanted to speak with the proprietor,

but they might be customers

who always spent as much as tonight,

and clearly Charlotte was charmed by them.

I was a stranger here— 

why should the owner listen

to my meagre dribble of coin

against the music of

their smiling wallets?

“She is an Angel,” or,

"Her Eyelashes are Harpstrings Angels Thrum" 

In spite of all the assurances

I offered her Charlotte

would not single out

any of the men as her attacker.

She claimed not even to be sure

that any of them had been on

the trolley that morning.

But when I saw their shy glances

in Charlotte’s direction

I was certain she had made

An impression

upon their minds,

and now they wished

they were not thieves and murderers,

but pleasant young men

who might sit beside her and say,

"Your eyelashes are harpstrings

angels thrum.

Come with me to tented Elberon

and stroll the boardwalk,

sipping lemon ices,

sit in the breeze

at the edge of

the sea."

____

I call these epigramatics, by definition concise, clever, and amusing

1
             Homo Sapiens

       An
               Invasive
                               Species.
2

Technology
Every day
     I learn something
          I wish
               I didn’t
                    Need to know.
3
Our Quietest Meals
Are when we
eat fish.
Not that fish
makes us
more serious,
just more
careful.

4
A Simile on Free Writing
Like looking
For something
In an empty attic.

5
Catastrophe
—the Great Fuck-Up—
is Mother
and Father—
the Hermaphrodite—
of Invention.

____

Positano

Positano bites deep. It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone. 

                                                     John Steinbeck Harper's Bazaar, May, 1953 

I

In Ancient Days

Vesuvius’ razed Pompeii and Herculaneum

A rain of burning ash buried Positano.

Before then, on westward treks Greeks and Phoenicians

traded at Positano, so history says.

Named for the Sea God,

Poseidon in quiet and wrath—

the old cosmology still alive.

Or is this what happened?

Pirates stole  a thirteenth-century  

Black Madonna icon from Byzantium. 

When they reached the bay,

in anger at the theft, Poseidon

tore the waters in storm.

The thieves heard a shout, "Posa! Posa!”

“Put down! Put down!”

The storm-struck ship crashed,

a wreck on the shore.

Still alive, the pirates hauled

the Madonna up the steep cliff

to the village, delivered Her to

Santa Maria Assunta’s priest.

The storm stopped, the sea quieted, the sun smiled.

Good citizens of Positano ever after—the reformed pirates.

Posa. Posa. Positano

II

The Plate of Clay

Whole, then broken, buried,

unearthed, repaired with reverence.

The beauty of the broken,

The marvel of the restored,

marking its own perfection.

The border—geometry, repetition, variety,

the shapes of flowers—holds all the universe. 

The border beyond, before Chaos, its own beauty.

III

Praise Invention, Praise Conception

The artificer,

whose brush followed hand,

whose hand obeyed mind,

whose mind embodied the muse.

How much beauty can a wall contain

before bursting forth in song?

IV

Seven Sisters

The single band of cloth twirling, and breeze

 lifts to its own dance, tying sister to sister.

What song do they chant?

“Who are we?

Seven sisters, Pleiades

dance, dive,

divide and gather.

How are we called?

 Maia,

        Electra,

       Alcyone,

                            Taygete,

                           Asterope,

                Celaeno

Merope.

Seven daughters of father Titan Atlas, who holds up the sky,

and mother Ocean, Pleione, Mother to Sailors,

whose Fate she governs.

Zeus, Poseidon, and Ares fathered children

upon us, made us a small dipper

of stars in Taurus.

See us twinkle and nod,

sharing our songs in code.”

“Who are we? Half-sisters to the

seven Pleiades and the Hesperides.

We, the seven Hyades,

sisterhood of nymphs,

the rain-makers,

who fall as rain,

our weeping, rain.

When a wild beast killed the hunter Hyas we wept,

became a star cluster in Taurus’ head,

a dipper to hold our tears.

V

Perched Positano

Thanks to its location, Positano’s climate is mild—

winters warm, the summers long and sunny,

refreshed by sea breezes, and

by the landscape’s beauty.

Long, steep stair link the village high above

with the valley beneath, the sea beyond.

A hard walk down, a hard climb up.

Below, the happy throng at Positano, blissful,

bless the sea suspended in ecstasy,

bless the patient town,

the happy villas above which become

beckoningly real after you have gone.

Poetry of the People: Catherine Zickgraf

This week's Poet of the People is Catherine Zickgraf. Catherine, aka Catherine the Great is a mother hen of poets of all ages, educational backgrounds and genres and is a force in South Carolina and Georgia that reverberates throughout the spoken word and written poetry community. If you don't know her you have resided too long in your little office listening to your own voice or parrots who sound a lot like you.. I am honored to call her friend.

Two lifetimes ago, Catherine Zickgraf performed her poetry in Madrid. Now her main jobs are to write and hang out with her family. Her work has appeared in Pank, Deep Water Literary Journal, and The Grief Diaries. Her chapbook, Soul Full of Eye, is published through Kelsay Books.

 Find her on twitter @czickgraf. Watch/read more at www.caththegreat.blogspot.com

Poem to Lost Poems

At the riverbank, she writes

while her letters stretch wings,

slip wind, skim away.

So she shelters her words,

nails wood without hinges to the floor, 

singes the threshold and corners.

Groundwater carves the chalk rock.

She’s learning to find the darkness

in the humid chill of earth’s stone web,

in moss-floored pools that shadow-shift

with a breath of candlelight.

Still the arch outside connects the riversides,

brides of the rapids flow home to sea

with the surfaced words of she who

sees now with mind, not eyes. 

Where rivers scoop lakes at their estuaries,

a marble she holds encases the oceans. 

Seeking the self inside,

she polishes the sky’s eye.

Pulling rope up the riverside,

she swings into the long line of horizon.

 Yasou! A Celebration of Life, July 2020

In the Dilation of Eye

We chilled for three days.

But when you started staring

out my back windows into the woods,

I knew I had to return you to the wild.

You have eyes that can mirror earth or sky,

that hide in your environment.

You are oak leaf and grass, aqua and azure.

Take me with you.

Let me swim in your iris

and the well of your pupil

toward horizons and the trees.

 Vita Brevis, August 2020

Saving a winged animal 

that gets lured in by the porch light

requires at least three human hands:

mine to catch/seal creature from escape

and my helper’s to kill lights/open door

so I can release it into the night. 

It’s always been my job to rescue

beings that don’t belong inside

(unless its slithery, bitey, or stingy).

The cats help by gently delivering

me tiny, living lime-green lizards— 

so mostly all these complex little

things get returned to roam the earth. 

 Savannah Dusk

Now is the hour

when cypress trees dim into shadows.

The river is lingering along the bank

in puddles caught among braided roots.

Ageless sky deepens, wavelets go still,

the water seems to slow and fall silent.

This is the ceremony of sinking dusk—

when our reflections turn dark and

dim blues fade in the calmness of night. 

 Goodnight

Kira and I decided one evening before I had to go in

and get a bath that after bedtime we would call

out our windows to each other from across the alley.

First grade, I was still crazy awake when they’d

tuck me in, the sky so full of daylight. But having her

to talk to at night would be like double-dutching the

telephone lines that crossed the canyon between

our streets—I’d never be bored again. Yet from my

row of homes in my treehouse bedroom two and

a half stories up, the only word I heard was goodnight.

 Neuro Logical, January 2021

Somnambulant                                                                     

When they sleep down deep at night,

she tunnels out the powder room window     

into drizzle and mist, hops fence.  

She kicks through currents along the curb,                            

crosses street, descends the bank

toward the creek’s down-streaming sounds. 

Twelve and barefoot all summer,

she’s unafraid of treading the pebble beds,

leaps cold rocks to boulders,

splashing the stars of the water.

Breeze moves through the woods,

the moon-lattice shifts around her.

Though curtained with night and still invisible,

she slips back in through the bathroom window—

almost ready come pain of day

when they’ve opened wide their eyes.    

Overnight

Into my window fall stars long as dreams, I slip through the screen.

Night grows a poem stretching prima toes to cross street then creek

stepping soft on the forest floor. Over shivering beds of dark stones,

the sparkle-moon follows me home.

Even through moon and drizzle, the train plumes billowing into the

clouds navigate my backyard valley. They vibrate my candle flame

until its last breath sifts out the window, when whistles trail off and

tracks flow into the starlight horizon.      

The pines don’t drip with shadows behind our house, out of reach

of the streetlight. Past the creek line bordering our woods, the oak

leaves close their eyes. The creatures of the low sky hush us calm, 

I’m returning my mind to its dream.

 Origami Poems Project, April 2020

Minimal

In the fullness of summer, mowers decapitate green necks

            of dandelions and red clover,

            slicing their flowers between matted blades. 

We stop gashing our lawn as it’s shocked with October frost.

            When the winter wind spreads arms down the valley,

            my garden zinnias turn to death and skeletalize. 

On the back porch tonight, I reach through the atmosphere,  

            lengthening glowing arms into space. I ease the moon

            from its netted cradle, an egg nested in my palm.

I am minimal, though, under the sky’s dark quilt.

            I’m a speck in the weeds of my acre yard

            on a tiny rock rounding its ancient orbit.  

Visitant, October 2017

Poetry of the People with Kimberly Simms Gibbs

This week's Poet of the People is Kimberly Simms Gibbs. She is South Carolina upcountry poetry. She sees with an eye of southern cornbread sopped in pork drippings gravy. If you want to feel the Carolina hills and mountains read Kimberly Simms Gibbs.

Kimberly's literary voice is rooted in the Southern tradition of storytelling. Her passion for poetry from both the page to the stage has led Kimberly to garner titles such as former Carl Sandburg NHS Writer-in-residence, National Poetry Slam ‘Legend of the South’, TedX speaker, co-founder of CarolinaPoets, former Southern Fried Poetry Slam Champion, and award-winning teaching artist. In her first full-length collection from Finishing Line Press, Lindy Lee: Songs on Mill Hill, Kimberly chronicles the lives of textile workers in the Carolinas with historical accuracy and imaginative insight. Ron Rash, the award-winning author of Serena, says about Kimberly: "she writes with eloquence and empathy about an important part of Southern history - too often neglected."

                                  Trespassing after the Hysterectomy 

The Lily-of-the-Valley 

           pearly bells tremble 

            the way a child’s mouth brims 

                                   with laughter. 

Daffodils 

          headless green arms gesture 

          split-hearts subterranean 

                                leaves blackened. 

Mole, 

          how sweet is your tongue 

           after your feast of bitter 

                                 tulip daughters? 

Dark earth, 

           how do you embrace the emptiness 

            of your bloomless womb 

                                  your crumbling tubers? 

Lady Slipper, 

           my gloved hands long to plant 

            while your tendrils more exotic 

            unfurl sharp leaves, pregnant blossom 

                                   beneath the last living hemlock.  

                                                  Homestead 

                                 But nothing is solid and permanent. 

                       Our lives are raised on the shakiest foundations. 

                                   – Ron Rash, One Foot in Eden 

A bolt of barbed wire, black with age,

hints the way, jutting from the undergrowth 

like a wizened digit— the post long since decayed 

and lost to the crumbling host of litter. 

This sunken corner is a garbled message 

till we catch a tree pierced with another barb. 

A stone pile murmurs, entangled with the metal. 

This forest expands in every direction. 

Our eyes can see no horizon beyond it. 

Mountains surge as we weave 

up and down valleys, creeks, and ravines. 

Eighty years: a forest has fallen and regrown. 

Homestead cleared, tilled, planted, harvested 

then reclaimed by this hummocked beast. 

We follow the ancient line back to a single 

hearthstone and the outline of a foundation. 

A toppled stone wall, a brown bottle. 

All around us: a forgotten fence, an outpost of the past.

Wild Green Soup

          Newberry Cotton Mill Village

           South Carolina 1924  

Fingers of frost stretch across the windows.

Seasoned wood crackles in the wood stove

while I stir the last salty pork knuckle

with a handful of beans, wild greens

into a stock pot just off the boil.

Fall's harvest now a collection of empty jars;

the cupboards breath -- dust, dead moths.

Each stir is more a wish as the day considers

getting warm, sweet herbs summon cravings.

Morning casts its pink sap over frost-risen clay

as I shepherd this thinly-feathered brood

towards the cotton-strewn spinning room.

Today we will piece broken strings, weave

cotton scraps to make them something whole.

Liddy Lee Songs on Mill Hill (Finishing Line Press, 2017)

       Machine Tool Salesman

Bill run that grinder fo ten years

Machine bigger than a brown bear

in Manny's stretched machine shop

in the flats of South Carolina.

The metallic cold milled slack snow

big sloppy flakes. The guys put on

their coats and stuck out their tongues

for the rare southern crystals.

Scraping together snowball heaps,

they watched the yard go dark and drank

black coffee. They stomped their feet

and left their coats on cause the shop

was so cold. That year so metallic.

That's how it happened, the coat.

Bill knew better, but ten years

you get so easy. The machine caught

him-- metal grinding machine --instant.

I sold them that grindernew.

Just horrible, he had two little babies too.

Took a week to get him out of the wheel

but it still ran. Can't keep a machine

something like that happens. I sold

it down the coast. Just horrible, two little

babies too and that year so metallic cold.

                                                     Summer Swagger

Late August, we are still free summer children.

We run over the rocky banks laughing in some

chase game; muscles flex, tense, stretch, climb

the steep --- dig fingers into cracks, wrench ourselves up.

Mountain expanse of water calls to us. My skin

tingles with nervousness as I look down thirty feet.

"Take my hand," you tender, "We'll jump together."

Wind races around my feet! We send out seagull wails,

steal breath for the plunge. My body is a scream!

Down, down forever in bubbles, then buoyant, silent,

We are carp pulling ourselves up through the water.

We burst back into heat, hollowing out triumphant bellows.

Poetry of the People with Loli Molina Munoz

This week's Poet of the People is Loli Molina Munoz. Loli openly shares her otherliness and in the sharing becomes one of us.  Diaspora of a Spanish Tortilla (Recipe and Poem); is exquisitely simple in telling complex emotions.

IT’S THANKSGIVING AND I AM NOT AMERICAN

It’s Thanksgiving and I’m not American.

I have cooked turkey, mashed potatoes, 
collard greens, cranberry sauce, and stuffing. 

My husband has dressed up the house
with fall colors and he is not American. 

A friend has come to share this rainy
day and he is not American.

The dog is staring at us hoping to
get some table food and he is not American.

We have toasted and remembered some
old friends who are not American. 

We are thankful for having each other 
and we are not American. 

---

I HAVE AN ACCENT

I have an accent

When I go to the grocery store
and they ask me if I found everything I needed 
I answer “yes”
they say: you have an accent!

This accent is my grandmother’s sewing for the rich 
and waiting from my grandfather to return from Venezuela.

When I order a tall decaf coffee with milk 
and I spell my name
they say: you have an accent!

This accent is my mother’s cleaning houses
so I could fly abroad and improve my English.

When I read a poem 
and your faces change trying to understand 
what I say and 
you think: she has an accent!

This accent is their braided hands delivering the fruit
that I will place in your still empty basket. 

---

THE GOOD DISHES

“But they are grounded
in their God and their families 
they are grounded in their hearts and minds.”
-Nikki Giovanni

my mother keeps the
good dishes in an old
cabinet after fifty 

years hoping I have 
them someday, she also 
holds onto a coffee 

set and a quilt she
made before she got 
married, your dowry

she says while she shows 
one of her few smiles 
buried in a deep wide

hole digged by my father
covered with her dreams
and my nightmares

long lasting nightmares
my mother possesses 
the first and the last 

of my days, the 
first and the last of
my nights, the fist 

and the last of 
my 
thoughts. 

---

ON ALL SAINTS DAY

Don’t leave me.

Those were your last
words. 

And we left you.

We closed the door
and we went home. 

Your eyes were begging for more 
time with us, more time alive.

But we left you
abuela Lola.

And the morning after
you were gone.

And the memories became 
a attempt to order the chaos.

My chaos. 

---

Diaspora of a Spanish Tortilla

(Recipe and poem)

I
Ingredients for 4 people
2 cups of Spanish extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons of Spanish extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound of potatoes
6 eggs
Salt

II
My mothers tells me it’s time to go to bed before the Three Wise Men come with the presents. I have to cook the tortilla for them, she says, and I think it’s not fair I don’t get to taste the mixture before being cooked. I close my eyes and I think about the smell of the potatoes and the eggs before jumping into the pan. 

III
Heat 2 cups of olive oil in a medium pan, slowly fry the potatoes until beautiful golden brown. Drain the potatoes on a paper towel. 

IV
It’s 1997 and I am an exchange student in Coventry, England. The first week someone organizes a party at our house. I don’t remember who. It wasn’t me. Everyone brings something for their countries. I cooked tortilla the same way my mother taught me. We eat, we drink, and we sing songs that we all know. 

V
Beat the eggs in a bowl with 1 teaspoon of salt. Add the cooked potatoes to the beaten eggs and let stir for 1 minute. 

VI
Last night I went early to bed as my mother told me and this morning Melchior came home with a present for me. It was the doll I wanted. Her tortilla must have been really good this year. 

VII
Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a 6-inch pan over high heat. Once the oil is hot, pour the egg-potato mixture and reduce the heat to low. 

VIII
Last week I cooked a tortilla for lunch and he smiled when he saw it. This is so good, he said. You are even better, I thought. 

IX
Once it begins to set and the edges turn golden brown, place a plate over the pan and flip the pan and the plate so the tortilla ends up on the plate, uncooked side down. 

X
Wisconsin was cold, too cold for a Southern Spaniard used to the sun and the scent of the Mediterranean. Someone asked me to make a tortilla but this time it didn’t flip right. I had to go back to Spain. 

XI
Once the tortilla set, flip the tortilla again and transfer to a platter. Season with salt and cut into wedges to serve.

XII
In 2006 my mother confessed that she never cooked tortilla for the Three Wise Men. I was so disappointed that I cried. I was 32. I was 32 and I cried. And I never stopped making tortillas. 

---

 Bio

Loli Molina Muñoz is a Spanish teacher in Lexington, SC, with a Phd in Modern Languages. Her poetry has appeared in different Spanish and American publications and anthologies like VoZes, Label Me Latin and Jasper Fall Lines. In 2019, she published an essay on gender and sex identity in feminist science fiction as part of an anthology called Infiltradas. This anthology was awarded as Best Essays Anthology by the Spanish Science Fiction Society Awards in 2020.

The Watering Hole Announces Registration for The Listening Party throughout May

What is it?

↳ A FREE Virtual Craft Talk Series

↳ A peer-led group of 6-10 Tribe members, where each member presents a 15-30 minute Craft Talk to the group.

↳ At the end of the presentation, the group asks questions and gives feedback.

!

When is it?

↳ Zoom meetings will be 75 minutes once a month, scheduled around the availability of the group members.

!

Why do it?

↳ You’ll get to attend several sessions of Craft Talks and learn from your peers!

↳ You’ll create your own Craft Talk!

↳ You’ll get thoughtful feedback for revision!

↳ Hopefully, you’ll revise your idea and get it published or use it to for paid lectures. (Maybe TWH can even pay you to present the talk.)

↳ Plus, can (re)connect with Tribe!

!

Register HERE & Now

Registration should take less than 3 minutes

for most people.

A Playground in Kyiv

The year is ending and the war in Ukraine has been going now for more than 10 months. As we reflect on the blessings and losses of the past year, we think about the hardships of those suffering still from war, violence, and the struggle over national borders. As we reflect on the state of the world, we offer here a poem by USC student Alexander Seyfried.

Alexander writes, “I have been living in South Carolina ever since 2000. Part of my family on my mother’s side comes from Ukraine in the capital of Kyiv. Before 2014, when Putin annexed Crimea away from Ukraine, which was the starting point of the Russo-Ukrainian War, my mother and I would travel to Kyiv every summer to visit our family and friends since I was around four or five years old. Over those two or three summer months, I would make many precious memories with my family and friends and would travel visiting different parts of Ukraine. Today, some of my family members are still alive during the current war, as well as some of my friends who I still have contact with. I wish I could say I knew where the rest of my childhood friends are and how well they are doing right now. I would like to share a poem from memories of how each day I would be with my friends at the playground before these nightmarish events even happened.”

A Playground in Kyiv 

Overseas apartment in Kyiv
every summer when I was kid
two small playgrounds with old childhood memories.
Green and blue wooden benches
old broken wooden sandboxes under trees.
Jumping off blue metal color swings
flying high through the air
landing on soft sand underneath.

Climbing on big and small trees
eating chips while drinking bottles of Pepsi
acting like monkeys sitting on tree branches.
Having peach, pear, and spikey green chestnut trees
with thin paper birches and thick oak trees.

Red paint chipping from two tall metal slides
sliding down not with our butts,
but standing on our feet like surfers
riding down ten times in a row.
The only American kid from the friend group
wishing to reunite with my old Ukrainian friends once more.

Fall Lines Call for Poetry and Prose is Open

Fall Lines – a literary convergence is a literary journal presented by The Jasper Project in partnership with Richland Library and One Columbia for Arts and History.

Fall Lines will accept submissions of previously unpublished poetry, essays, short fiction, and flash fiction from April 1, 2022 through June 30, 2022. While the editors of Fall Lines hope to attract the work of writers and poets from the Carolinas and the Southeastern US, acceptance of work is not dependent upon residence. 

Publication in Fall Lines will be determined by a panel of judges and accepted authors (ONLY) will be notified by October 1, 2022, with a publication date in January 2023. Two $250 cash prizes, sponsored by the Richland Library Friends and Foundation, will be awarded: The Saluda River Prize for Poetry and the Broad River Prize for Prose.

Ø  POETRY: Up to five poems may be submitted with each submitted as an individual WORD FILE.
Include one cover sheet for up to five poems. Submit poetry submissions and cover sheet to FallLines@JasperProject.org with the word POETRY in the subject line.

Ø  PROSE: Up to five prose entries may be submitted with each submitted as an individual WORD FILE.
Include one cover sheet for up to five prose submissions. Submit prose submissions and cover sheet to FallLines@JasperProject.org with the word PROSE in the subject line.

COVER SHEET should include your name, the titles of your submissions, your email address, and mailing address. Authors’ names should not appear on the submission. Do NOT send bios.

ALL ENTRIES SHOULD BE TITLED.

There is no fee to enter, but submissions that fail to follow the above instructions will be disqualified without review.

Simultaneous submissions will not be considered. Failure to disclose simultaneous submissions will result in a lack of eligibility in any future Jasper Project publications.

 __

 The Columbia Fall Line is a natural junction, along which the Congaree River falls and rapids form, running parallel to the east coast of the country between the resilient rocks of the Appalachians and the softer, more gentle coastal plain.

POETRY: Three More from Al Black

Poem Before Dying

Lorca wrote of roosters,

of eating cemetery grass,

of weeping little boys,

of snow, of guitars, of murder,

of women dropping off to sleep,

of a resurrection that will never come,

and he makes me weep.

I write of barking dogs and feral cats,

of trash on asphalt courts,

of weeping little boys,

of warm summer nights,

of thumping bass and staccato beats,

of blue light custodians of violence

who sweep streets for casings

to put in envelops and file away,

of women dropping off to sleep,

of the resurrection that came

as a thief in night,

and still I weep.

Who will write our vignettes of revolution,

let barking dogs and feral cats come inside,

gather trash in the park,

comfort weeping boys,

organize funeral processions

on country roads where bodies lie hidden,

sip liquor from red plastic cups

at candle lit memorials,

clean the house and feed the children

so women can sleep at night,

sing the songs of freedom,

live scriptures left half-open on the night stand

revealed on scraps of light

before the rooster crows, again,

and who will dry our tears.....we will.

 ~~~

In My Veins

In my veins,

my parents walk hand in hand

reading letters written

across the ocean of a world war.

I look out with my father’s eyes

remarking on the country he fought to preserve

and the sad state of his Grand Old Party

or with my mother’s eyes

to see what season it is

and what flowers and vegetables

she needs to plant.

I see with grandfathers’ eyes,

two farm boys pushed from the land

now gardening their backyards.

My father’s father talks of fishing

and how Lake Okeechobee

is a fisherman’s paradise.

My mother’s father sees again

after decades of being blind,

still blames FDR for the loss of his farm,

ignores the greed of his brothers

and that he was going blind.

One grandmother looks in a mirror

to see how tall I’ve grown

and offers pastries.

The other stares in a mirror

no longer angry or judgmental,

but I still don’t know what

or how she sees the world.

In my veins,

run my parents’ blood

and their parents’ blood

and their parents’ blood

on and on through generations

I can’t decipher

and only blood knows

 ~~~

Chain Link Fence

She lives on a corner, her back yard a chain link fence Walks alone each morning six times around the park Cocked arms pump right angles, rapid short steps, eyes ahead, speaks to no one I don't know her name; someone told me once But I am horrible with names and forgot

She goes in her front door, lets her dog out the back If he barks too much at walkers, she comes to the door Hollers his name, goes back inside What she does all day in her house I don't know

This morning, I thought I'd go stand at the fence Call the dog's name, tell him he will be alright But I am horrible with names and forgot

~~~~~

The Jasper Project thanks board member Al Black for generously sharing his poetry with our readers. Watch for more in the Al Black Jasper Project Poetry Series in days and weeks to come.

Al Black is a writer, poet, host, and social activist. He is the author of two poetry collections, I Only Left For Tea (2014) and Man With Two Shadows (2018) and he co-edited, Hand in Hand, Poets Respond to Race (2017) and his work has been published in several anthologies and periodicals. Contact Al Black at albeemindgravy@gmail.com.

POEM: How Zappa Met Suzy Creamcheese by Al Black & Our 1st BOOMERPEDIA Entry

You climb out of bed, put on a tee-shirt, sweat pants and a ball cap

Walk to the corner store, buy coffee in a Styrofoam cup

Lady at the counter tells you to zip up

Instinctively, you reach down and zip your pants

She barks you could have turned around to zip your pants

You reply she had already seen you unzipped

She calls you rude

Trying to keep peace, you turn to leave

She raises her voice - your Zappa shirt is ugly, too

You turn back around and ask if she ever washes her shirt

Halfway home, you realize sweat pants don't have zippers, go back

Tell her you're sorry that you argued over non-existent zippers

She says it'd been a bad day and she apologizes, too

You realize she is naked from the waist up and ask about her shirt

She tears up, says it was filthy so she took it off to make you happy

You take off Zappa, tell her to put him on

She turns it inside out, puts Zappa next to her skin

You laugh and say that will make Zappa smile

Hand her a napkin from the sandwich display to wipe her eyes

She says quietly she gets off at 8

Back in bed, you wake from your dream, get up

And look for Zappa in the dirty laundry on the floor

The Jasper Project thanks board member Al Black for generously sharing his poetry with our readers. Watch for more in the Al Black Jasper Project Poetry Series in days and weeks to come.

Al Black is a writer, poet, host, and social activist. He is the author of two poetry collections, I Only Left For Tea (2014) and Man With Two Shadows (2018) and he co-edited, Hand in Hand, Poets Respond to Race (2017) and his work has been published in several anthologies and periodicals. Contact Al Black at albeemindgravy@gmail.com.

BOOMERPEDIA: FRANK ZAPPA

Frank Zappa was a multi-instrument musician, singer-songwriter, producer, and filmmaker. A penultimate non-conformist, Zappa injected satire into his art as his musical virtuosity spanned genres and decades. The enigmatic artist often juxtaposed sophomoric humor against cerebrally complex musical compositions and was heavily influenced by the dissonant sounds of composer EDGARD VARESE who he idolized as a child. With his band, MOTHERS OF INVENTION, the self-taught Zappa released more than 60 albums. One of the greatest guitarists of all time (Rolling Stone ranked him #22/100 in 2011) Zappa gave us the concept of PROJECT/OBJECT, or CONCEPTUAL CONTINUITY which means that he connected musical themes and phrases across albums, essentially making the whole of his life’s creative output one large project. In a March 1986 episode of CROSSFIRE, Zappa warned that the United States was on the road to becoming a “fascist theocracy.” Zappa was married to Gail Sloatman Zappa from 1966 until his death from cancer at the age of 52 in 1993. Their children are Moon, Dweezil, Ahmet, and Diva. - Cindi Boiter

POEM: Concrete Mary by Al Black

Concrete Mary

Against the chill of morning
I put on shoes and a warm jacket.
Robins and sparrows scavenge seeds;
Call back and forth from fence to ground

Squirrels in fur coats
Don't mind autumn's approach.
In high grass, a lone cricket
Chirps along the fence

Unafraid of the old man
With an empty coffee cup 
Four city deer snort and graze
On overgrown shrubs

Seven days remain of summer
One week, a quarter moon
Before earth tilts away,
Before solstice chases the sun.

As if she knows a secret, she cannot tell
Concrete Mary smiles her Mona Lisa smile
Practices yoga on the wall
And holds asana pose

Mary, when did you become holy?
Was it when they pulled you from the mold,
Loaded the truck, took you to a garden shop,
Tagged, sold and someone took you home?

Or was it the act of setting you on a wall where
Lichen took root and pulled substance from air?
How many tenants have you known?
Do you know movers come on Wednesday?

Sun peers through overcast skies
Warms Mary’s plaster gown,
Outstretched hands gather light,
Her face becomes a moon

Chipmunk chatters at plastic owl
Roosting on the patio wall
Red birdhouse in neighbor’s yard
Sits empty waiting for spring

Rain comes, drips from fingers
Concrete Mary holds her pose 
Somewhere Joseph
Holds the baby so nothing disturbs her peace

Rain comes, drips from finger tips,
Puddles at feet; she holds the pose 
she struck when she became an Italian citizen
And awaits her son’s reanimation 

The Jasper Project thanks board member Al Black for generously sharing his poetry with our readers. Watch for more in the Al Black Jasper Project Poetry Series in days and weeks to come.

Al Black is a writer, poet, host, and social activist. He is the author of two poetry collections, I Only Left For Tea (2014) and Man With Two Shadows (2018) and he co-edited, Hand in Hand, Poets Respond to Race (2017) and his work has been published in several anthologies and periodicals. Contact Al Black at albeemindgravy@gmail.com.

An Election Day Poem by Ed Madden

At the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge,

Columbia, SC, October 31, 2020

Across the parking lot, a man with a mic

is calling out drop, pop, and roll, and two

women just in front of us in line dance

along. It’s getting a little festive, a little

restless as we get closer to the door,

where they let in six or seven at a time.

One woman shuffles the heel-toe in fluffy

pink house shoes. They name the moves,

call out a few they don’t think quite right.

A golfcart bumps by with boxes of popcorn.

A church offers bottled waters at a table

where the line curls along the back fence.

It’s been a two-hour wait. We got here early

enough, but the line was already around

the building. Everyone is wearing masks except

a middle-aged white couple in black and

sunglasses, taking occasional deep pulls

on their electric cigarettes. Most of us look

at our cellphones as we wait, another

kind of social distance. The line wraps

around the building then coils around

an adjacent parking lot. An old woman

leaves crying because the county isn’t

providing provisional ballots for early voting

sites. I don’t know why. Once inside

we line up on the thick strips of gray

tape that mark off the floor. A poll worker

behind a plastic shield stares at my license

a bit—I can’t tell if she’s comparing

signatures or if it’s just the COVID hair. Finally,

she hands me a slip of paper, a cotton swab,

points me toward the wall of voting machines.

I use the cotton swab to touch the screen.

I get an “I Voted” sticker when I leave.

—Ed Madden

Ed Madden is the poetry editor for Jasper Magazine and Muddy Ford Press, a full professor at the Uof SC, the poet laureate for the city of Columbia, and the author of four books of poetry--Signals, which won the 2007 SC Poetry Book Prize; Prodigal: Variations; Nest; and Ark. His chapbook My Father’s House was selected for the Seven Kitchens Press Editor’s Series. His poems have appeared in Best New Poets 2007, The Book of Irish American Poetry, and in journals such as Prairie Schooner, Crazyhorse, Poetry Ireland Review, Los Angeles Review, and online at The Good Men Project.

Where is Your Next Stop? Launching Poets on The Comet This Sunday, November 1!

Rosa Rode the Bus Too A revolution began on a city bus. Where is your next stop? - Len Lawson

By: Literary Arts Editor and City Poet Laureate Ed Madden

On Sunday, November 1, One Columbia and The Comet will host the launch of our city’s first major poetry as a public art program—poems on city buses—with a rolling poetry reading on a downtown bus route followed by a celebration and reading at Tapp’s Art Center (1644 Main).

The rolling reading will take place on route 101—so we’re calling it Poetry 101. (Clever, right?) The route, which runs up North Main from the Sumter Street transit station, takes approximately an hour. There will be limited seating, first come, first served. Three sets of poets will read their work for Poetry 101, and thanks to the generosity of One Columbia, all rides on the 101 route will be free all day. For the Poetry 101 rolling reading, meet at the Sumter Street station (1780 Sumter) at 3:30. If you can’t join us on the bus, join us at Tapp’s Art Center for the celebration, with food and drink and readings by more of the poets.

The project is a collaboration One Columbia Arts and History and the Poet Laureate with the Central Midlands Transit Authority. Thanks especially to Lee Snelgrove at One Columbia and Tiffany James at CMTA.

This is my first major project as the city’s poet laureate, and I’m really excited that we have been able to do this. One of my charges as the city laureate is to incorporate the literary arts into the daily life of the city, and to get poetry into public places. The Comet project does that. We have poems on printed CMTA bus schedules (check out some online at: http://catchthecomet.org/routes/), we have poems on the buses themselves, and One Columbia has also published a small book of poems selected for this project—an exciting collection of South Carolina voices, and short poems ranging from the punchy to the political to the poignant. The books will be available at Tapp’s.

Earlier this year, 89 South Carolina writers submitted over 200 poems for Poems on the Comet. Our theme was “The Story of the City,” and poets wrote about favorite places, historical events, daily life in the Midlands, even poems about riding on the bus. We narrowed it down to 51 poems by 45 writers. There are poems by established writers, emerging writers, writers active in the local spoken word and arts communities, musicians, and young writers—seven of them students in Richland and Lexington County middle schools.

At Tapp’s we will also announce the theme for next year’s poetry project.

You can find out more at our Facebook event site: https://www.facebook.com/events/180667522270918/

Learn more about this project and get updates on what I’m doing as laureate at the laureate website: http://www.columbiapoet.org/2015/10/20/cometevent/

Here are a few poems featuring in this year’s project.

Sun

Jennifer Bartell

As a turtle suns on the boulders of the river so my soul stretches forth to face the day.

Downtown Grid

Kathleen Nalley

No matter your starting point, here you’re never lost. Each right turn, each left turn leads you to a familiar place. The city itself a compass, its needle, no matter the direction, always points you home.

Small Winds

Jonathan Butler

All morning the wind has collected the incense of fields, the smell of grass like the sweet breath of the dead, the scent of earth pungent with sorrow and hope, the perfume the rain shakes from its long hair.

The wind has collected these things in fields and forests, cities and towns, to bring them to you this morning, small winds carrying chocolate and smoke blown from the black lake of your cup of coffee.

Who Sees The City?

Drew Meetze (age 14)

Who sees the city best? The tourist, the resident, or the outsider? The tourist sees the bronze stars on the capitol, the cramped racks of key chains and postcards. The resident sees little coffee shops on Main Street and hidden alleyways. The outsider understands that everyone they see has their own lives, first loves, or tragedies.

haiku

K. LaLima

Time flows like water Eyes of Cofitachequi Watch the Congaree

*

Under watchful gaze Five Points remains guarded by That naked cowboy

Milltown Saltbox Bedrooms

David Travis Bland

You can dance in the passenger seat— I'll hold the wheel. Five in the morning traffic Between an emaciated bridge And chicken factory steam Blurring the red neon sky. We're vegetarians in a pork town Dancing in milltown saltbox bedrooms On the banks of a river we all cross.

A Poem for Leslie from John Starino

Like so many who make a difference by their humility and presence, Leslie Pierce was just such a person.  Here is a poem dedicated to her which appears in my second book Onion Season Pt. 2.  Because of her I participated twice in Frisson at the Columbia Museum of Art.  In my preparation by talking with her, this poem ensued.  - John M. Starino i come to do homework

frisson prepare cma the light plays a different way inconsequential of the lens

this muse this day setting, tenor articulation

leslie pierce brown hair exhibit brown eyes alive today i peruse even remark how vibrant you are

do you ever wish any one to sit down be at eye level that you do not have to look up to

since in essence i look up to you your difference is so obvious not like mine

and in further essence a difference only in appearance

entreat to enjoin compassionate, intelligent demonstrative, adept

so in this essence of humankind you are the standard that has been raised

astride your chariot every day

Call for Bus Poems!

Columbia. A city, a community, a home. Columbia has been a home to all of us and now it’s time to tell it’s story. What is your story of Columbia?. How would you tell the city's story? What story would you tell? Where did you go? What did you see? What conversation did you hear? What did you taste? What is your Columbia? Who is your Columbia? Columbia’s poet laureate, Ed madden is holding a poetry competition to put poems on Columbia Comet buses All are welcome to submit!

Madden originally had the idea because in major cities poetry is printed on lots of the major transits. He thought it would be cool to bring that to Columbia and show what a vibrant city Columbia is, with all its culture and art. Madden explains what he is looking for in the poems, “I love quirky and sonically dense poetry. Hoping for a diversity of voices. Poems that help us think about who we are and who we might be.” Madden really believes in the togetherness of Columbia. He’s looking for poems that really capture the voice of the city. Stories about places or overheard conversations. “I really want specificity, and I want poems that give me a very particular portrait of he city. Like what is your take on the city? What I want are honest, accurate, sensory descriptions of who we are and where we are”.

Madden became the Poet Laureate of Columbia this year and was excited to take on the role. He was selected in January 2015 by the City of Columbia. He is to serve for four years and is tor promote and and strengthen the arts of the city. A Laureate is expected to write poetry for different events and represent their particular area. It is a rather prestigious title. He says he doesn’t rely purely on inspiration though. He believes that poetry is work and comes about when you put something into it. He is hoping that the poetry submitted really gets to the heart of what Columbia is.

Poems can be a maximum of 10 lines and must fit the theme “The Story of Columbia”. Longer poems may be considered for a related book that will be published by OneColumbia. All poems must be submitted to poetlaureate@onecolumbiasc.com by July 15th.

by Grace Fennell