poems that dance on a faultline... @Mistress_Tweet on #That Strapless Bra in Heaven ...Mary Meriam-reviews #poems

That Strapless Bra in Heaven on Amazon. 

Thank you, Mary, although I'm really not erudite. I simply remember

books I read in college. Sarah 

 Mary Meriam

 5.0 out of 5 stars

 dazzling, intellectual, brave

 Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2020

 Mary Meriam

 5.0 out of 5 stars dazzling, intellectual, brave

 Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2020

Sarah Sarai throws her balls of erudition in the air and juggles them into poems that dance on a faultline between frolic and rage. What does “that strapless bra in heaven” represent? It’s a subversive, underwire, feminist image: breasts free of straps, comfortably supported, floating like angels. It’s also a lesbian image: a symbol of 

pink and lacy bliss. “Who wouldn’t want to spend millennia  / in a fine female breast?” Sarai asks queer questions and answers them in a dazzling milieu of her own creation. No one writes like Sarah Sarai.

Yet More on Compiling Poems into a Collection: Ask for Help

Last November I wrote how I went about ordering the poems in my new, and second, collection. I thought I accomplished the deed, finally, submitted the ms. to a few contests, was a runner-up at one, but, in fact, my collection wasn't accepted. Okay, three rejections is nothing. A sense that someone besides my solitary self could help--that's something.

This Winter I had a chance to work with some poets in a Sunday workshop. They are all wonderful. The workshop facilitator is amazingly adept at interpretation and a specific style of sophisticated insight. I understand why she's had the good success she's had.

Another poet in the workshop also wrote really smart comments on my poems. I've known her for a few years, feel comfortable that she understands or senses my underdogness and some of the beyond the pale events of my life. And if she doesn't, she does. I asked her to read my collection, for a probably too small fee, and give whatever feedback she felt it warranted.

Result? She civilized the book. Without making any specific comments, she divided the poems into three sections. Suggested three or four titles for each of the sections. Reorganized the poems (hard copy) with their new page number in the lower right corner. She tossed a few poems. I mainly agree with the toss. I fully agree with the new order.

6/4/2014:  THIS PARAGRAPH IS A LIE. That poem wasn't excluded. I simply misplaced it in my reordering of the pages.  It's back in, and my "wise" understanding of why it "should" have been excluded is b.s.  Makes Me Rethink Everything All Over Again. I am a sheep, no?  Ahem: One of the poems cut, and there weren't many, is "This Way and That," originally published in lovely Lavender Review (Mary Meriam, editor). At first I was surprised with that suggestion as the poem is a crowd pleaser at readings. Other of my poems aren't as accessible, easy, all neatly packed and ready to be heard. I like this poem but the door clanked shut on it. It will find another home.

My title had been But Then Again. The new suggested title is Unlucky Thumper.

I'm thinking.

Last November's posting on this:

Assembling my Poetry Collection So Each Poem's Comfortable with its Neighbors: take 3 with more to come 

 

Ms. Magazine...I'm in a Q&A with Stonborough and Meriam

by Andrea Heimer

Please take a look at the Ms. Magazine blog posting of April 23, 2012. [Link below.]

Mary Meriam, poet and editor of Lavender Review, poses questions for Elaine Stonborough, poet, and me, poet et al.  I'll let you follow the links on the posting (links which reveal splendid insights into Stonborough, who is English and a scholar, and Meriam, who is tri-state-al, those states being New York, New Jersey, and somewhere in a forest region in the middle of this continent).

"A Woman, A Lesbian, A Poet" on the Ms. Magazine blog.  I'm honored to be part of this.

Poem: Longing for a Blue Sky; a poem of circumstance & memory

Sangre de Cristos;
photo by Deborah Wolfe

One day in 1974 I stood at an overlook to the Hudson River. Greens, blues, earths. Quiet. Depth. I made a decision to, eventually, move so I’d live near the Hudson OR in northern New Mexico OR northern California.

Retirement, which was once a concept or option could or would be the trigger for such a move. Beauty. I wanted to be surrounded by beauty and those three geographies satisfy and are familiar.

So that’s part of the background here. Here's more. I was with a group of friends doing some free-writing when the first draft of "Longing" was a gleam in my eye. We knew the routine—be quiet and write for a set period of time. Someone new barged in, someone who demanded attention and would not humble himself enough to ask what we were doing or how he could be part.

And it isn’t hard to be part of this group. There are a few ground rules, like, please, hush, sweetheart, when we’re writing. I flustered and got flustered, but ultimately, it pulled together; worked to advantage. I mentioned the poem previously, in Lavender: new journal; new poem, but didn't include the poem herself.


Longing for a Blue Sky


I am goal-oriented like an orgasm,
exhausted already by details of your ego.
My details are colored "hesitation" and "confidence?"
though age, she educates.

My mood is London longing for a blue sky.
I take the Hudson River as my lover
the Southwest as my comforter
Mount Shasta as my tomb.
Who wouldn't want to spend millennia
in a fine female breast?

In my pain—everything I need to be pleased.
I am pleased already, could you shut up!
See me, in a woman's burial mound?
About your ego:
It destroys nothing, not even itself.

_______________
Sarah Sarai, Lavender Review, Issue #2, 2010

Lavender: new journal; new poem; was the Faerie Queen swathed in lavender?

Proud here, yes, but not too proud to reveal I did not know the meaning of epithalamion when Mary Meriam, in response to a comment I had made on a listserv, invited me to submit to issue #2 of the journal Lavender. The theme being Epithalamion, which, when last spotted by this blogger, was in the fine hands of Edmund Spenser, 1552–1599, in his poem entitled "Epithalamion."

Spenser died young, at age 41. And lived in different times. From wikipedia: "Through his poetry Spenser hoped to secure a place at court, which he visited in Raleigh's company to deliver his most famous work, the Faerie Queene." Poetry as political influence? Make it so.

I digress. The word epithalamion is generally used to mean a song or poem in honor of a bride or bridegroom. Editor Mary Meriam's comments are the theme she choose and response from poets are wry and can be read here, here being http://lavrev.net.

My poem (it's all about me, always has been, always will be until I catch on and God knows when that'll happen), "Longing for a Blue Sky," is there (click on the title), next to Emily Roysdon's very beautiful photograph, The Piers Untitled (#2), 2010. I write "I take the Hudson River as my lover / the Southwest as my comforter / Mount Shasta as my tomb."

While I don't want to tie down my meaning, I did have in mind when I wrote those lines an early decision of mine, in my twenties, to end my days/retire in one of the three beautiful landscapes I knew, the Hudson Valley, northern New Mexico, or northern California.

Other poets in this issue are Marilyn Hacker, Rose Kelleher, R. Nemo Hill and a host of others accessible through, ta-da, the table of contents.