Lyrics as Poetry-Joni Mitchell

Where is poetry in our lives?  I think it is everywhere. One obvious place is in song lyrics. I chose to make this post about Joni Mitchell since she has a book out (well, its been out a long time) entitled The Complete Poems and Lyrics of Joni Mitchell. I've  linked a You Tube video of her singing one of her songs/ poems (not sure if it is in the book).   Read  All I Want.  Then listen to the song. Is it the same experience? If there was no music to the words, is this a poem?

 An Amazon Editorial  Reviewer  wrote 


" The sweeping imagery and confessional tone of Joni Mitchell's lyrics have made her a pop icon for decades. Her writing, like that of Paul Simon and Bob Dylan, helped legitimize song lyrics as poetry by adding sophisticated shadings and nuances that earlier rock and folk music often lacked. What's more, as a woman writing in a medium dominated by men, Mitchell became an important role model for young women trying to make sense of their lives during turbulent times.Given her importance as a pop poet and the care and craft with which she approached her craft, it is a treat now to have her work compiled in one volume. Mitchell's has been an aural art, but having the words to read on the page without benefit of melody heightens one's appreciation of the lyrics as poems."


 

Joni Mitchell: The Complete Poems and Lyrics

 

http://www.amazon.com/Joni-Mitchell-Complete-Poems-Lyrics/dp/0609600087/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_7


 Lyrics and Video from You Tube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq2jhs19_V8

  All I Want by Joni Mitchell

I am on a lonely road and I am traveling
Traveling, traveling, traveling
Looking for something, what can it be
Oh I hate you some, I hate you some
I love you some
Oh I love you when I forget about me
I want to be strong I want to laugh along
I want to belong to the living
Alive, alive, I want to get up and jive
I want to wreck my stockings in some juke box dive
Do you want - do you want - do you want
To dance with me baby
Do you want to take a chance
On maybe finding some sweet romance with me baby
Well, come on

All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you too
All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you
I want to talk to you, I want to shampoo you
I want to renew you again and again
Applause, applause - life is our cause
When I think of your kisses
My mind see-saws
Do you see - do you see - do you see
How you hurt me baby
So I hurt you too
Then we both get so blue

I am on a lonely road and I am traveling
Looking for the key to set me free
Oh the jealousy, the greed is the unraveling
It's the unraveling
And it undoes all the joy that could be
I want to have fun, I want to shine like the sun
I want to be the one that you want to see
I want to knit you a sweater
Want to write you a love letter
I want to make you feel better
I want to make you feel free
Hmm, Hmm, Hmm, Hmm,
Want to make you feel free
I want to make you feel free

"Life is a Mess and Art is Form" Conversation With Poet Billy Collins (Cortland Review Link)

Is life really a mess as someone told Billy Collins?  An enlightened being once said life is how you see it. Then there is that old familiar line about its not what happens to you but how you react to it that determines the quality of your experience. I think both are true. I also think personality, genetics, family systems and some luck play into  how we react to our lives. I do think it is hard to change basic things about yourself like if you are a half empty person or a half full one. Some people get rattled by everything, other people are laid back about  most things. The laid back people call the rattled people over- reactive and the  over- reactive people call the laid back people simple or procrastinators or insensitive. Is life a mess? I  go back and forth between the half empty and half full glass. In a "good"  poem the glass of life is always full for me. That is why I read and write poetry. It is an affirmation.

So where is my rambling leading me when it comes to the Billy Collin's interview?  When he mentioned that writers spend their time lying to people in a way to make them think the work is about the reader when it is really about the writer set me to thinking. When he said poets need only one story (their own) that they  vary  in each poem bells and whistles went off. That is what I do.  I tell my story over and over again with few exceptions. If I am not telling an actual story of mine every poem reflects my pov on all things.

Recently I  have been reading lots of  current poetry and find I don't like much of it.  Why? Well, I am not really into poetry that is so dense you need a jungle guide to plow through it or poetry that waxes poetic about life and death or poetry that is nature oriented that describes the breezes blowing or narrative poetry that could have been written as  prose.  Then there are the extremely crafted poems, I feel like they are in a straight jacket. I am looking for something new. I yearn for newness, freshness of language and vision. Not everyone feels this way about the poetry that is out there today. I don't mean to sound like the styles or themes of poetry I mentioned can't be inspiring or even great.  I meant to say that it is originality  within the style or theme I am seeking. Sometimes I find that newness or originality in prose poetry with its element of magical realism and sometimes I find it in Billy Collin's poems. He often just gets to the heart of an emotion and experience and it is clear and plain. I feel  yeh, that is life.

 Poets need to energize the word.

If anyone wants to suggest a poet to me, I'd be grateful. I want to find some nitty gritty down to earth poets or poets who are so sublime in their use of words or vision that I am  left breathless for a moment. The element of surprise is what I am seeking in a poem  these day.

The form  of a poem is vital as Collins said in the interview. That is perhaps what I am writing about, how to make the form vital and new and connect it to relevant content. It is a difficult task. It is often what is left out of the poem, the silent part that holds the most surprise. It is the part the reader has to fill in and this is where the poet  artistically lies to the readers skillfully pulling them into the poem until  they are almost hypnotized.

Poems, Never Read Them. They Have No Relevance to My Life.

 I want to ask people who never read poems or think poetry is some wacky esoteric thing, what is it in your life that fills you with happiness, peace, curiosity, anger, rage, envy if only for a moment? Because in that moment there is poetry and a poem. You have to be kidding.  No, I am not. Poetry is  about  how we respond to the moments of each of our lives whether it is about our reactions to external events or our inner feelings and thoughts. Isn't poetry about things no one thinks about like the significance of flowers and daffodils? It could be but it doesn't  have to be and anyways what is so irrelevant about thinking about flowers? Remember the time you bought a bunch of flowers at the grocery store or from a  florist or you picked them outside in  a field or you planted them? Flowers are part of existence and everyone has an opinion about them if only they would stop and smell the roses.

I think people are uncomfortable with poetry because  they have to stop and be thoughtful when confronted with language that is not a sentence or in a song. Granted some poems have so many metaphors in them and the language has no obvious or any content or the sound is more important  than the content that it is a hard to grasp what the writer is saying. Even readers  who enjoy poems  just close the book or website. I mean if you need a book to decode a poem , well, I agree who needs poetry unless you  like intellectual challenges. The poetry that works for me and I think for anyone who will give it a chance expresses universal feeling, thought or experiences. These poems are like great songs that you can't stop singing and of course one song or one poem is one person's treasure and another person's huh?

I'm going to write more posts about poetry and why I believe people avoid reading it or go blank when asked about a poem they've read, deciding it is not  relevant to them.  I think it is a cultural thing and it is also the result of the educational system that does not encourage students to value the arts. By devaluating the arts we are devaluating our humanity. I am not saying everyone needs to read poems or love them. Everyone has valid priorities.  But it is like beets. When I was young I hated them. I  never tasted them. I didn't like the color. I was beet prejudice. Perhaps poetry has been cast typed like the beets. Poetry is for people who have a lot of time and beets are for people whose mothers make them eat them.  That is so far from the truth.  I love beets now that my mother stopped telling me to eat them. If you have the time to watch the  news you have the time to read a poem.. Poetry has been at heart of many cultures even our modern one. It is just that not everyone knows it.


< a href=http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Poetry/WordsworthDaffodils.htm>poemaboutdaffodils

Spring is Coming

 Yesterday I  heard a cardinal singing.  What a beautiful sound.


http://birdsandbloomsblog.com/2012/01/03/video-the-cardinals-song/

Everyone Has An Opinion -"Richard Blanco's inaugural poem for Obama is a valiant flop | Books | guardian.co.uk"

Much of how we see the world (our reality) is subjective. That is a good thing when shared respectfully, many voices to be heard, many point of views, many possibilities for creation.  I often  marvel at how certain we are that our view is the right one. Often the only one.  There is no room for another's vision. It is like this big time  in our political climate today and also in the world of literature.

 I find myself " feeling" if a poem works for me or if it doesn't but that is my point of view based on my subjective experience of life, my preferences etc. I  think there are standards that make a poem  successful whether it resonates with a reader or not. Even if a poem doesn't resonate with me I  try to honor  the poet's craft, vision, experience.  I am not a great reviewer. I don't like to trash anyone's work.


 Richard Blanco's inaugural poem.

One Today

 by

 Richard Blanco 

"One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,
peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces
of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.
One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story
told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.
My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors,
each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:
pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,
fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows
begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper—
bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,
on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives—
to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did
for twenty years, so I could write this poem.
All of us as vital as the one light we move through,
the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:
equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,
the “I have a dream” we keep dreaming,
or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain
the empty desks of twenty children marked absent
today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light
breathing color into stained glass windows,
life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth
onto the steps of our museums and park benches 2
as mothers watch children slide into the day.
One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk
of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat
and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills
in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands
digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands
as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane
so my brother and I could have books and shoes.
The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains
mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it
through the day’s gorgeous din of honking cabs,
buses launching down avenues, the symphony
of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,
the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.
Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,
or whispers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open
for each other all day, saying: hello| shalom,
buon giorno |howdy |namaste |or buenos días
in the language my mother taught me—in every language
spoken into one wind carrying our lives
without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.
One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed
their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked
their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:
weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report
for the boss on time, stitching another wound 3
or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,
or the last floor on the Freedom Tower
jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.
One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes
tired from work: some days guessing at the weather
of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love
that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother
who knew how to give, or forgiving a father
who couldn’t give what you wanted.
We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,
always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country—all of us—
facing the stars
hope—a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
waiting for us to name it—together"

Blanco's poem was well received and praised by people who love poetry and those who never read poems. I think the poem has lovely moments and sentiment. The one thing I didn't like was the reference  to the Connecticut school tragedy. I felt it diminished the poem by injecting what has become a political symbol of what causes violence in our society and how to resolve it. This line felt out of place to me in the poem but this is my point of view.

"or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain
the empty desks of twenty children marked absent
today, and forever."

 Did this poem work for me. In some  ways it did. I will read more of Blanco's work. There is enough emotion, story, beautiful imagery and use of language and unity of thought in this poem to make me curious about his other poems. He was given a gargantuan task to write this public ceremony poem.

 Now read another person's point of view.
"The celebratory public poem is an extinct genre in our sceptical postmodern times, and probably ought to stay that way. It presents the writer with insurmountable challenges in form, tone and content. How do you praise your nation wisely – with honesty and caution? How do you root that public voice in the personal and private spaces where thoughts grow? How do you write a mass-market poem?"

 Read the rest of the article

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2013/jan/22/richard-blanco-inaugural-poem-obama-flop

 What do you think? 

Robert Pen Warren and W.B. Yeats Quotes on Poetry

The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful. And in the end, the poem is not a thing we see --it is, rather, a light by which we may see -- and what we see is life. 

  Robert Penn Warren

Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry. 

 W.B. Yeats

" What's Love Got To Do With It?" and Other Lyrics and Poems About Love. Happy Valentine's Day. May the Love Force Be With You.

 A Drinking Song

WINE comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

William Butler Yeats

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/william-butler-yeats

One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII

By Pablo Neruda

Translated By Mark Eisner

 

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,   

or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:   

I love you as one loves certain obscure things,   

secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries   

the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,   

and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose   

from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,   

I love you directly without problems or pride:

I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,

except in this form in which I am not nor are you,   

so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,   

so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

Pablo Neruda, “One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII”
 from The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems,
edited by Mark Eisner. Copyright © 2004 City Lights Books.

http://books.google.com/books?id=ajndQgAACAAJ&source=gbs_ViewAPI

"What's Love Got To Do With It?" sung by
Tina Turner

You must understand
That the touch of your hand
Makes my pulse react
That it's only the thrill
Of boy meeting girl
Opposites attract

It's physical
Only logical
You must try to ignore
That it means more than that

[Chorus:]
Oh what's love got to do, got to do with it
What's love but a second hand emotion
What's love got to do, got to do with it
Who needs a heart
When a heart can be broken

It may seem to you
That I'm acting confused
When you're close to me
If I tend to look dazed
I've read it someplace
I've got cause to be

There's a name for it
There's a phrase that fits
But whatever the reason
You do it for me

[Chorus]

I've been taking on a new direction
But I have to say
I've been thinking about my own protection
It scares me to feel this way

[Chorus]

What's love got to do, got to do with it
What's love but a sweet old fashioned notion
What's love got to do, got to do with it
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYSwQFybFnQ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_Love_Got_to_Do_with_It_(song)

Etta James sings "My Funny Valentine"

"My Funny Valentine" is a show tune from the 1937 Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart musical Babes in Arms in which it was introduced by former child star Mitzi Green. After being recorded by Chet Baker, Frank Sinatra, and Miles Davis, the song became a popular jazz standard, appearing on over 1300 albums performed by over 600 artists."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Funny_Valentine

My funny valentine
Sweet comic valentine
You make me smile with my heart
Your looks are laughable
Unphotographable
Yet youre my favourite work of art

Is your figure less than greek
Is your mouth a little weak
When you open it to speak
Are you smart?

But dont change a hair for me
Not if you care for me
Stay little valentine stay
Each day is valentines day

Is your figure less than greek
Is your mouth a little weak
When you open it to speak
Are you smart?

But dont you change one hair for me
Not if you care for me
Stay little valentine stay
Each day is valentines day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt7eqkPXO8A

When I Was One-and-Twenty

By A. E. Housman

When I was one-and-twenty

       I heard a wise man say,

“Give crowns and pounds and guineas

       But not your heart away;

Give pearls away and rubies

       But keep your fancy free.”

But I was one-and-twenty,

       No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty

       I heard him say again,

“The heart out of the bosom

       Was never given in vain;

’Tis paid with sighs a plenty

       And sold for endless rue.”

And I am two-and-twenty,

       And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.

Source: Father: An Anthology of Verse (EP Dutton & Company, 1931)


Poem to an Unnameable Man
 
By Dorothea Lasky

You have changed me already. I am a fireball

That is hurtling towards the sky to where you are

You can choose not to look up but I am a giant orange ball

That is throwing sparks upon your face

Oh look at them shake

Upon you like a great planet that has been murdered by change

O too this is so dramatic this shaking

Of my great planet that is bigger than you thought it would be

So you ran and hid

Under a large tree. She was graceful, I think

That tree although soon she will wither

Into ten black snakes upon your throat

And when she does I will be wandering as I always am

A graceful lady that is part museum

Of the voices of the universe everyone else forgets

I will hold your voice in a little box

And when you come upon me I won’t look back at you

You will feel a hand upon your heart while I place your voice back

Into the heart from where it came from

And I will not cry also

Although you will expect me to

I was wiser too than you had expected

For I knew all along you were mine

 

Hear audios of love poems 
at the Poetry Foundation 

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/browse/#subject=117

"The Voice of a Manuscript" Blog Post by Poet, Editor, Teacher Jessie Carty

Jessie Carty is a talented poet, teacher and editor. In this linked blog post she presents her thoughts about putting a poetry manuscript together whether a chapbook or full length collection.

''I’ve written fairly extensively on this blog about the process of putting together a manuscript: chapbook and full length. Even so, I find myself continuing to struggle a bit with the final organization for my second book (it will be out in September from Sibling Rivalry Press). Well, not so much the organization as which poems to leave in versus which ones to take out.''

Read the rest.
http://jessiecarty.com/2013/01/04/the-voice-of-a-manuscript/

 Notice this- 

"I also finished Elizabeth P Glixman’s chapbook from Finishing Line I Am the Flame which is a strong example of how to put together a shorter manuscript. These poems about maternal lineage were strong portraits that had me thinking even more about family."

This is great feedback. Thanks, Jessie!

Here is a list of Jessie's books.
http://jessiecarty.com/publications/poetry/


 

Hot Off the Press -I Am the Flame Poetry Chapbook Now on Amazon.com.

I Am the Flame can be purchased at Amazon.com.

amazon

Yes, my chapbook with poems that focus on my ancestors, mostly the women: aunts, grandmothers, great grandmothers, great aunts, is hot off the press from Finishing Line. Here is what I believe and why if you enjoy poetry, history, women's rights, are interested in immigration and inner peace or really loved your great Aunt Rose, you could find my chapbook a source of joyous remembrance, a reflection  on family and life cycles. We all have ancestors, some we know and see often, some we know and never want to see (eva) and others we never knew who lived long ago in places we never visited. We are connected to them all via DNA, learned behaviours, culture, hopes and dreams.The poems in I Am the Flame are universal. They show what  connection can mean. Perhaps after reading my poems you will write one of your own.

12/10/12 Grand Mal: Dennis Mahagin's Poetry Collection on Amazon. "Hip, eclectic poetry for lovers of smart literature" Time to Expand Your Minds and Read Poetry

"This review is from: Grand Mal (Paperback)

This briskly paced but well-thought-out book of poetry offers a twisty ride to clever, challenge-seeking readers willing to get aboard. No slight chapbook, "Grand Mal" is a full-length, 120-page softcover book that includes 50 hip, eclectic poems, many of them good-sized, and all of them packed with allusions and references to music, movies, TV, art, celebrities, writers, pop culture, newsmakers, history, places (notably Portland and Seattle)--and (seriously) a lot more.

It would be helpful to come to this book as a reader who has some knowledge about a lot of stuff--being a bit of a dilettante might, in this case, work for you--even still, there may be things you'll want to Google. (I, for example, had to look up the familiar-sounding name "Marcellus Wallace," and I found out--oh, yeah!--he's the gangster played by Ving Rhames in the movie Pulp Fiction.) Mahagin's pretty quick, he keeps you on your toes, and some of his zingers might get past you, but, after having read the whole book twice, and some parts of it more than that, I decided not "getting" all of it was OK. There's a line in the poem "Layers & Layers of Meaning": "Sometimes you don't have to know what someone is saying to understand everything."

  Read the rest.

http://www.amazon.com/Grand-Mal-Dennis-Mahagin/dp/1608640515

Bug Poems- Fall is a beautiful time of year. Along with trees changing colors, the animals and insects are getting ready for winter. Elderbox bugs invaded my space in fall last year and stayed the winter

Boxelder, Elderbox Bug Poems

**

Elderbox bugs invaded my space last year. This year there are fewer.  I feel bad for them. They are trying to keep warm, but hey, a person's gotta do what a person's gotta do.  I don't smuch bugs or spray them. I remove them peacefully from my space. Call me Ghandi. These poems were written when I was considering changing my name to Clint Eastwood. I won't post a picture of these little suckers.  They might think I like them and decide to stay around.

*I show them a pamphlet on insecticides
and the paper towel in my hand

Five elder box bugs are on the window
There is a blizzard on the other side
Their black red lined wings and long
thin muscle wasted legs crawl the glass
I don't understand what they are looking for
There is no heat
Why are you still here I ask them
as if they know English
I've been kind since fall
when they moved in with me
only taking out three of the multitudes
leaving the army of fast walking hibernators
alone watching them running from me
But today my warrior appears
This is my frozen kingdom
I tell them love doesn't live here anymore
hasta la vista baby

***

*The Invasion

Elder box bugs have invaded my space
There are groups of them
on the bathroom ceiling
on the phone receiver
in the shower.
When I turn on the lights.
I am in a movie about infestation
A.H.'s The Birds or 
I am  in the painting Edvard Munch’s

The Scream

Black and red bug bodies with wings
stay stationary until I poke them
I am not a swatter or smacker
They flutter fly do their kamikaze thing
I jump up
I am a yellow belly cat in a movie about infestation
A.H.'s The Birds or
I am  in the painting Edvard Munch's

The Scream

I call the maintenance men
They say Oh those bugs are everywhere 
Don’t worry honey be happy
They don’t bite or damage wood
They are not dangerous
There is nothing we can do
When it gets cold they will die or
You can kill them big squish
I am in a movie about infestation
A.H.'s The Birds or I am  in the painting
Edvard Munch's  
The Scream

I pray for the little flutterers to be gone
I hate flying and death
I  want  a real estate agent
to entice them to move
into a vacant condo streets away .

Tippi Hedren has nothing on me
except bloody
beak bites
blonde hair
a good job
a convertible
I am in a A.H. movie The Birds or in the painting

Edvard Munch's  
The Scream

from the poetry chapbook THE WONDER OF IT ALL by Elizabeth P. Glixman

http://alt-current.com/pp/pp_item.html#the_wonder_of_it_all 

* Poems copyrighted by E.P. Glixman.  Permission must be requested for usage in a commercial or educational venue
**
http://publicdomainclip-art.blogspot.com/2006/12/edvard-munch-scream-dance-of-life.html

 ***
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056869/
 

With Apologies to Mick Jagger, Other Gods, and All Women - A Collection of Poetry by Jane Rosenberg LaForge. Talented Poet- Intriguing Title

"Jane Rosenberg LaForge's poems read like a catalogue of the curious. She creates not one but many worlds with deft language , stark images and a wide, gaping eye. Nothing is off limits as these poems tackle Putin, ankles, youth, teeth, Jagger, old age, sisterhood and other delights and vagaries of the living and the dead. Part mythology and fable, part prayer and dirge , part telescopic and up close and personal, these magnificent poems resonate, throb, and fairly hum with the the fascinating details of the way lives are lived. ~ Michelle Reale" 

Read the rest

 http://www.amazon.com/With-Apologies-Jagger-Other-Women/dp/0615677002

 

 

   

One of Many of my Cat Poems - Mister Mister Simon

Mister Mister Simon

Poetry Chapbook Elizabeth P. Glixman- New Release - Finishing Line Press

Finishing Line Press

PO Box 1626

Georgetown, KY 40324

859-514-8966

Finishingbooks@aol.com

www.finishinglinepress.com

Finishing Line Press is proud to announce the publication of:

Publishing timeline.

Release date (books will be mailed):
Nov. 10, 2012

I Am the Flame is a new a collection of poetry by  
Elizabeth P. Glixman.

The poems in I Am the Flame are visual and poignant, holding moments of longing, tenderness, sadness, acceptance, humor and wonder. The poet revisits her female ancestral roots.

What Others Have Said About I Am the Flame

"In poems rich with evocative details and surprising turns, Elizabeth Glixman, through family stories, history, and an imagination brimming with wonder and wisdom, defines her place among her female ancestors. She solidifies her connection with them as she writes, "I am all these women / ... I am their flame." Later, she returns their "bones to the core of the earth / to the heat" where, with her flame of passion and new found understanding, they become a "new orchestra / of woman song."

Berwyn Moore, professor of English Gannon University and author of O Body Swayed and Dissolution of Ghosts

“I Am the Flame blazes a trail of poems that looks back upon one's roots. Through insightful vignettes, Glixman delves into the traditions and lives of her ancestors with the inquiring mind of "a child entering life shocked by light / remembering the womb from where we all came." A beautiful and riveting collection.” 

Arlene Ang, poetry editor The Pedestal Magazine, Press 1, author of Seeing Birds in Church is a Kind of Adieu

“With these poems, Glixman goes "to the outer edges of memory" to honor her ancestors. Even though "the people who know who they were to each other, what happened are gone," Glixman's songs "mix longing, imagination" to remember language, lives unspoken til now.”

Kimberly L. Becker, author Words Facing East, member of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers

Sample Poem

Did my Ancestors Travel

from China
to Mongolia to Russia to Eastern Europe
in time for the Holocaust?
Could a seed have escaped trauma
floated in the air before the annihilation
pollinate another ancestor?

Did a seed travel to India northern Africa Israel
to the Golden Age in Spain
flee the Spanish Inquisition to Europe
mingle on the way with pistils
stop to grow rice, live in a yurt, a Persian palace
hunt milk goats
do Sufi twirls
read Rumi
wail at the Wailing Wall
birth babies in beds made of hay?

There is a picture of my great grandmother
She is low and wide like a locomotive
I fill in the pieces
I see her in fields on horse back riding
carrying my Mongol brother
in her arms through the mountains
covered with blue skies

I see her criticize her husband
the one who is thin and angular
(in the picture where she is rotund)
for his weaknesses
his inability to do more than dream.
This is all make believe
The people who know who they were to each other
what happened are gone.

I mix longing, imagination, babushkas,
black hats with brims, long waistcoats and withered hands
wide almond eyes and yurts
prologue and epilogue
narrative and poetry- what I create are dreams.

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Writer Joan Hanna Interviews Me about New Poems “Summer Kitchen” and “Fishes and Their Fathers”

Interview  

“Summer Kitchen” and “Fishes and Their Fathers” poems in the July/r.kv.ry

 by Joan Hanna

http://rkvry.com/poetry/379-elizabeth-p-glixman

http://rkvry.com/poetry/378-elizabeth-p-glixman

JH   Can you share a little about the inspiration for these poems?

Elizabeth P. Glixman: Inspiration for these poems started with images. Years ago I lived in an old farmhouse circa 1800s. There was no central heating or plumbing. And of course no air conditioning.  This farmhouse like many others of that time had a summer kitchen. Summer kitchens were in separate buildings away from the house or off the main kitchen. That way the whole house would not heat up from the cook stove. Through the windows of this particular summer kitchen in winter (the windows faced maybe a dozen apples trees) I could see the bare branches of the trees at dusk against a purple, deep blue and pink fading sky. There was snow on the ground as well as the deep forest of dark green behind the trees. It was a stunning image that never left me. That image floated around in my mind for years until I needed  it to express a feeling I was having about another experience. 

On page five In The Triggering Town, Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing the author poet/ teacher Richard Hugo writes: “I suspect that the true or valid triggering subject is one in which physical characteristics or details correspond to attitudes the poet has toward the world and himself.”

 On page fifteen he writes: “Your triggering subjects are those that ignite your need for words.”

The image of that apple orchard through the seasons and in winter in particular ignited my need for words. But I had no poem to write at that time. Thirty years later as I watched many of my older relatives pass away, I walked through their homes before they were sold. Many objects including a blue milk glass shoe, the lamp that was left on with a timer for as long as I could remember were taken from the house by strangers or other relatives. No one was home anymore. The sense of place I had known for years was gone only to live in memory. Just like the sky faded behind the apple trees I watched from the kitchen in the farmhouse so do life’s season and situations change. That image lying dormant in my mind woke up. 

There is more to the creation of the poem “The Summer Kitchen.”

The couple that owned the farmhouse with the summer kitchen  moved to a home with electricity and central plumbing long before I arrived. The physical challenges of the house with the summer kitchen were beyond them as they aged. I understood this years ago. But now after years more of living I gained a greater understanding of the emotional challenges, what it means to loose a home, a person, a dream, your youth and be left with memories. Images, experience and memories were like a perfect storm and became the poem, a larger poem then if I had written one about the branches of the apple trees years ago. 

The unique and wonderful thing about creating poetry, art or fiction is that everything that is stored in a poet, writer, or artist’s mind can be accessed at any moment when it is needed to explore something. This usually happens when a feeling or an experience is ready to be expressed. It ripens. Time doesn’t matter. I think it is this way for everyone. Even if they do not create works of art. Everyone has “ah ha” moments. Creative people are able to unite all the elements and create something concrete to show others.

 About “Fishes and Their Fathers”

The image of my vail tail beta fish Benny (he was an indigo blue) was the triggering moment for the poem “Fishes and Fathers.” That fish lived in a bowl for over two years. I religiously cleaned that bowl weekly. I felt protective of that small fish. I was his caretaker. Number one trigger: the image.

Number two trigger:

I'd seen many single mothers while working as a preschool teacher. I saw and heard about the hardships they faced raising children alone. I saw their protective instincts toward their kids and their frustrations.  Since many meaningful conversations with young children can happen when doing a task together, I  added an imagined conversation of a single mother and her daughter as they watched  the fish and cleaned the fish bowl to the poem.  I gave the mother  the burden of explaining to the child why her father was not coming home. I didn’t clearly state if the father had died or left. The poem is about loss, coping, adjustment so that aspect was not important to me. The reader can decide and bring their own experience or imagination to the poem. I wanted to show a woman alone (similar to the woman in the “Summer Kitchen” poem) adjusting to change in her life, a different season in her life. And, show the relationship of caring she had with her child.

JH: I love your repetition of images in “Fishes and Their Fathers" like the curve of the fishbowl linking to “the curve of my belly” and “the roundness of your face.” Can you elaborate a little on this technique?

EPG: Being a visual person I notice repeated patterns of line, shape and color in my environment. In this poem I tied together images of a bowl, a belly a face by their common denominator curves and roundness. These images are more like metaphors or similes: the bowl is like a belly, the cheek is like the bowl, the cheek ‘s curve, the belly’s roundness, the fish bowl are all like each other.

Then there are the associations. I put these images to good use in my work. I associated the curve or roundness of the bowl with a pregnant woman’s belly and the curve on the face with the touch of a hand on a cheek to the protective tender maternal instinct. Curves are inherently feminine or organic. The mother was protective of her child in the womb as she was now when her child asked her a difficult question. The fish bowl was also pregnant in another way, it was the catalyst for the child’s question. I hope this is not confusing.  Sometimes it is hard  for me to explain "clearly" the workings of my own poems.

JH: Please share links to your website, publications or book links.

EPG:  Finishing Line Press will publish my latest chapbook, I Am the Flame, about my female ancestors, in November.

Here is the pre-sales link. https://www.finishinglinepress.com/index.php?cPath=4&sort=2a&filter_id=962&osCsid=ncnfta7mq08q45kqbdq7hbe8c1

Here are links with comments and reviews about my other chapbooks

 A White Girl Lynching

http://www.fullofcrow.com/crowreviews/2009/06/a-white-girl-lynching/

 Cowboy Writes a Letter and Other Love Poems

http://dougholder.blogspot.com/2011/01/review-of-cowboy-writes-letter-other.html

The Wonder of It All

http://alt-current.blogspot.com/2012/06/wonder-of-it-all-blurbed-by-dennis.html

I Am the Flame book cover blurbs to let readers know the overall theme of the poems.

In poems rich with evocative details and surprising turns, Elizabeth
Glixman, through family stories, history, and an imagination brimming with
wonder and wisdom, defines her place among her female ancestors. She solidifies
her connection with them as she writes, "I am all these women / ... I am their flame."
Later, she returns their "bones to the core of the earth / to the heat" where, with her flame
of passion and newfound understanding, they become a "new orchestra / of
woman song. -Berwyn Moore

I Am the Flame blazes a trail of poems that looks back upon one's roots. Through insightful vignettes, Glixman delves into the traditions and lives of her ancestors with the inquiring mind of "a child entering life shocked by light / remembering the womb from where we all came." A beautiful and riveting collection.  -Arlene Ang

JH:  Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on poetry, links to other chapbooks and the lovely book blurbs for your upcoming chapbook, I Am The Flame. Just one final question, what does recovery mean to you?

EPG: For me recovery is the process of moving forward to a more balanced self or life when you have been traumatized or affected adversely by experiences. It  can be a big event or addiction but doesn’t have to be. It only needs to be a deeply felt experience or condition, one that has altered your life kept you stuck. I think most of us are in some form of recovery from something whether is a relationship that didn’t work, a death of a loved one or issues with weight, lack of motivation, job loss, insomnia and unfullfillment (life offers a lot of possibilities). The women in both poems have lost their husbands and have to move forward. They are in recovery imo. In both poems the natural cycle of nature is significant as it mirrors the changes in their and our lives.

     

Joan Hanna was born and raised in Philadelphia and now lives in New Jersey with her husband Craig and rescued Beagle Odessa. Joan holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Ashland University and has published poetry, nonfiction, fiction and book reviews in various online and print journals. Joan is an Adjunct English Instructor at GCC and also works as Managing Editor for Poets’ Quarterly, Assistant Managing Editor for River Teeth, A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative and Assistant Editor, Nonfiction/Poetry for r.kv.r.y. Quarterly Literary Journal. Follow Joan’s personal blog at www.WritingThroughQuicksand.blogspot.com.

The Wonder of It All Blurbed by Poet Dennis Mahagin Author of FARE

 

           Read the blurb poet Dennis Mahagin wrote about  my chapbook The Wonder of It All 

http://alt-current.blogspot.com/2012/06/wonder-of-it-all-blurbed-by-dennis.html

 Then click on the other links to read about Dennis and his work and his latest chapbook Fare.
 After I read Fare I'll write a post. Dennis is a talented unique poet.

http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/author/dmahagin/

http://www.friedchickenandcoffee.com/manifesto/the-chapbooks/fare/

http://foggedclarity.com/2011/12/fence-fragment/

Poem "Roots" in Poetica Magazine. Poetica is Available on Kindle.

We all have roots. We all come from somewhere. Like many children and grandchildren of immigrants, I am drawn to explore my cultural identity. If you've watched the TV show Who Do You Think You  Are  you will see the journey famous people take to find their roots. I am not famous so no one invited me to go on this show. I reflect on my roots, my ancestors, how I am shaped by who came before me.  I reflect through pictures, letters, bits of information handed down by my parents and relatives. I think about (imagine)what my ancestors believed, where they lived and  ask do I believe these things.When I look at old photographs from the 1800s, I search for physical resemblances.

My poem  in Poetica Magazine is about a longing to return to the "source" of who I am. Once you know that source moving forward in life becomes easier. Parts of yourself all come together in an Ah Ha moment. That has been my experience.


 Take time to read my poem and all the other poems and stories in Poetica.

http://www.poeticamagazine.com/2012summeredition.htm