The Madonna in Sorrow Giovanni Battista Salvi (1609-1685)
gentlemen of the old school
those devotees of Mary …
Mother of Christ, Handmaid of the Lord
seeing her in every woman …..generously
even me – daughter, mother, niece, friend –
protagonist, antagonist,
on-again off-again wife
simmering slowly in the broth of the cosmos
never quite done, never quite done …..but they were … ………they were
gentlemen of the old school
dedicated to the real men in my life from whom you will not hear “locker room” talk
a tattered memoir in sepia tones
hanging on the wall of your office
a tiny plump sparrow of a woman
by a lone stone cottage
toothless, poor old thing
a warm shawl pulled to cover her head
an apron, worn shoes
from a time long past
from another world
my Turkish grandmother what was her name?
you never said
i never asked
– Jamie Dedes
WRITING PROMPT
My paternal grandmother never made it to the United States and died before I was born. I remember my father mentioning her only once and saying that when his father died he was sad that his mother never wore colors again. She only dressed in black. In some times and places, it’s customary for women to wear only black after the death of a husband – not just for a mourning period, but for the rest of their lives.
A sepia photograph of her hung in my father’s office. I knew she was his mother and never thought to ask her name or to ask about her life. That’s something I regret. Because of this I think, she comes to mind more often than the only grandparent I ever knew, my mother’s mother, Adele.
Write a poem, creative nonfiction piece or fictionalized account of a grandparent or other relative. Perhaps there is a mystery – something specific you wish you knew and had asked about – or perhaps there’s something you wish you’d done with him or her.
“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” Joseph Brodsky
Well life happened – as it usually does until it doesn’t – and I missed Banned Book Week, September 25- October 1 – but it’s never too late to ponder banning and the unreason that often leads to it. One of the more humorous examples is:
How Not to Have to Dry the Dishes
If you have to dry the dishes
(Such an awful boring chore)
If you have to dry the dishes
(‘Stead of going to the store)
If you have to dry the dishes
And you drop one on the floor
Maybe they won’t let you
Dry the dishes anymore
– Shel Silverstein from A Light in the Attic (Harper Collins, 1981)
I wouldn’t blame you if you are surprised to think that a work by the recipient of a Golden Globe Award, an Academy Award and two Grammy Awards would be banned. Consider also that Shel Silverstein’s books have been translated into thirty languages and have sold over twenty-million copies. He may have written for children but adults are enamoured of his writing too. So why was A Light in the Attic banned? According to Cunningham Elementary School in Wisconsin, Shel’s book would encourage children to break dishes in order to avoid having to dry them. Apparently some people are missing a funny bone.
Ginsberg’s Howl was famously condemned as obscenity. Publisher Lawrence Ferlighetti and City Light’s Bookstore Manager Shig Murao were arrested, Ferlighetti for publishing obscene literature and Murao for selling it. There was a protracted and very public trial. Ultimately, it was determined that the book was protected under Freedom of Speech. The judge also pronounced the book “not obscene.” Here is a clip Howl, a movie about the trial. James Franco plays Allen Ginsberg.
If you are reading this post from an email subscription, you’ll likely have to click through to the site to view the video.
Not too long ago we celebrated the life and work of Gwendolyn Brooks. In this video she reads her poem We Real Cool and explains why some chose to ban it …
Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass was withdrawn from libraries for “explicit language. Six poems from Les Fleurs du mal by French poet Charles Baudelaire were considered an insult to public decency. Baudelaire and his publisher were fined and the poems suppressed. The Roman poet Ovid’s Ars Amatoria – essentially a relationship guide in a series of three books compossed in elegiac couplets – was considered “licentious.” Some speculate that Ovid was banished from Rome for it.
Some poets suffer worse than banishment, banning and fines. PEN America reports HERE (scroll down) on writers and poets around the world who are on trial, imprisoned or murdered for the perspectives revealed in their work. Such poets often remind us of social injustices that remain simmering but unaddressed in a back corner of our minds. They create awareness of current injustices and inspire us to act. They call on us to hold ourselves and the powerful to account, often pointing out the ways in which we are complicit. That these poets and their work are found so threatening is a testimony to the power of words. There’s some solace in that.
VERITY LA welcomes “submissions from all writers, whether you’re emerging or established. Our mission is to publish as many new writers as possible, so even if you don’t yet have a publishing track-record we’re eager to hear from you. Read on for more on how to submit, including what we do and don’t publish, and what you can do so we might just fall head-over-heels with your work.” Submit short fiction, nonfiction, poetry and art. Details HERE.
THE BeZINE theme for the October is Rituals for Peace, Healing, and Unity. If you would like to submit something, please send it to bardogroup@gmail.com. If you are new to The BeZine, please include a short bio. Or, if you’ve been published with us before and you have an update to your bio, go ahead and pop it along. Terri Stewart (Beguine Again and The BeZine) is the lead for the October issue. The deadline for submissions in October 10. Please read the zine and submission guidelines before submitting.
FJORDS REVIEW is published twice a year and features book and art reviews and essays. It also publishes creative nonfiction, fiction, poetry, flash fiction and translations. There is a reading fee and payment is copies. Submission Guidelines and other details HERE.
THE HUFFINGTON POST OffTheBus submission guidelines are HERE. “OffTheBus (OTB) is a citizen-powered and produced presidential campaign news site sponsored by the Huffington Post and NewAssignment.Net. Inspired by Timothy Crouse’s “Boys On The Bus,” an account of the 1972 contest between Nixon and McGovern that chronicles a campaigns’ ability to manipulate the press and orchestrate campaign coverage, OTB was founded to better presidential campaign reporting. The project depends, in large part, on its on-the-ground citizen reporters and on cutting-edge distributed reporting techniques.”
THE SATURDAY EVENING POST accepts submissions for Nonfiction, Fiction, Lighter Side, Cartoons and Post-Its Jokes. Details HERE.
THREE DROPS FROM A CALDRON“an online journal for poetry and flash fiction (or any hybrid of the two) involving myth, legend, folklore, fable and fairytale. There is no deadline on web journal submissions. Details HERE.
SHENANDOAH, a publication of Washington & Lee University,is open for fiction through November 18 and or poetry from October 1st through December 18. Details HERE.
FORBES MAGAZINE advice on how to submit a guest post to them HERE.
ROOM invites women to submit fiction, nonfiction, poetry and art. This is a paying publication. Details HERE.
CONTEST
Opportunity Knocks
ISLAND VERSE STORY LAB, Creative Writing Literacy, Verse Poetry Prizes “are awarded to honor a poet’s chapbook. Winners are selected from a competitive pool of manuscripts by nationally recognized poets and the Island Verse editorial board. Winners will be published within the Island Verse Editions Chapbooks of Maine Series.” Deadline is November 30, 2016. Details HERE.
EVENTS
POETRY READING, STONYBROOK, NEW YORK ~ hear the poetry of Russ Green and Douglas G. Swezey, including a recorded poem by David Whyte! Saturday, October 8 at 11 AM – 1 PM in EDT, All Souls Episcopal Church, Stony Brook, 61 Main Street, Stony Brook, New York 11790. The Facebook page for this event is HERE.
MICHELLE BITTING AND EWA CHRUSCIEL, SAN RAFAEL, CA Hosted by Marin Poetry Center, an evening of poetry, light refreshments, and lively company. Michelle Bitting and Ewa Chrusciel will read from their recent books. Doors open at 7:00, reading begins at 7:30. Falkirk Cultural Center, 1408 Mission, San Rafael. $5 non-members, $3 members, students are free.Thursday, October 20 at 7:30 PM – 9:30 PM
THE CROSS BORDER NETWORK FOR JUSTICE AND SOLIDARITY, KANSAS CITY, MO presents Women of Resistance tomorrow Monday, October 3, at 7 p.m. at the Black Archives of Mid-America.
RITA DOVE AND ROBIN COSTE LEWIS, NEW YORK, NEW YORKThursday, October 13 at 8 PM – 10:30 PM in EDT Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y 1395 Lexington Ave, New York, New York 10128 Tickets Available HERE.
Rita Dove’s newly published Collected Poems is “an absolutely astounding body of work,” wrote the Los Angeles Times. “The lyric beauty of her poems makes them unforgettable; their deep knowledge of history and its ongoing consequences makes them permanent.”
Robin Coste Lewis won the 2015 National Book Award for Voyage of the Sable Venus, her first collection of poetry. “Altogether new, open, experimental and ground-breaking, Lewis privileges real life in all its complications,” wrote Claudia Rankine.
BILLY COLLINS AND BARBARA HAMBY, NEW YORK, NEW YORK, Thursday, October 6 at 7:30 PM in EDT, Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave, New York, New York 10128, Tickets Available HERE.
Billy Collins’s new book of poems is The Rain in Portugal. Collins is joined by Barbara Hamby, whose latest collection is On the Street of Divine Love: New and Selected Poems. “Her poems are wild, outspoken, seriously funny, motor-mouth rambles that take us through hoops of association to places both unexpected and unimpeachable,” wrote Collins.
KEYNOTE POETS OF SACRAMENTO, CA presents an evening Mariam Ahmed and Open Mic, Friday, October 14 at 7 PM – 10 PM Stellar Studios 202 23rd Street (23rd and C), Sacramento, CA
THIRD WEDNESDAY OPEN MIC, CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA
INVITATION
We’ve almost put a wrap on 100TPC 2016 and we’re nearing the end of the year. It’s time to start thinking about possible themes: * for 100TPC 2017 and * for the monthly themes used for The BeZine.
You are invited to suggest themes of global significance and having to do with sustainability, social justice and peace. Leave your suggestions in comments below. The core team will review them and make final decisions. Thank you for your participation, support and interest in making this a kinder world through the connections, information and concerns shared through 100TPC and The BeZine. The zine is an interfaith multicultural and multinational effort. We are sisters and brothers and citizens of the world. May peace prevail.
SECOND LIGHT NETWORK FOR WOMEN POETS announced its winners for Long & Short Poems by Women 2016 HERE. (Scroll down the page.)
SEPTEMBER 27TH WAS THE ANNIVERSARY OF T.S. ELIOT’S BIRTH.Here he is reading The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Thanks to Silva Merjanian (Rumor, Cold River Press, 2015 – recommended). If you are viewing this post from an email subscription, you’ll likely have to link through to view the video.
I think this is absolutely lovely and just had to share it. Wendell read one of his poems and that is followed by a musical rendition.
THE POET BY DAY SUNDAY POESY
Submit your event, book launch and other announcements at least fourteen days in advance to thepoetbyday@gmail.com. Publication is subject to editorial discretion.
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 