Praise for Jelly Roll

I feel it is a rarity for poets to allow themselves to play linguistically with their poems, or maybe just play in general. So many poets take themselves and their work so seriously, somehow along the line their poems become a monotonous, intelligent whine. This is not, in any way, the case for Kevin Young's Jelly Roll. The collection of poems dance from page to page with simple colloquial language, effortless rhymes and tight lines. Jazz and blues rings out of each stanza, inciting one to desire to sing the poem while reading aloud.

Some reviewers of Jelly Roll have compared Young to the great Langston Hughes, while aesthetically their work doesn't seem to be alike, the musical prosody is much the same. The word choice, topics and internal rhymes of the poems are alive, youthful, sexy and exciting: "Gimme some fruit, baby/ Gimme some fru-uit/Something red/ & juicy I can sink/ these teeths into." Young's intelligence is seen in his ability to take language and break it down for the poems benefit, as poet he is not worried about what one may think of him, he cares about the music of the picture he is creating. He brings the sounds of the south alive with images and rhymes, " Who can stand/ spring? The weeping/ willows drooping/ The azaleas bright". This collection is a very important collection for young poets to read, to remember that though it may be 'easier' to take yourself seriously in your writing, it could be brilliant to break your language down and remember how to play.

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The Wild Iris

In terms of who I am indebted to as a poet, Luise Gluck just recently made the list. Her book of poetry The Wild Iris is one of the most brilliant collections I have read in a long time. I will be honest, the fact that I am whole heartedly obsessed with gardening may play into it. It is a desire of mine to one day live on a self sustaining commune, family only please apply, and no secret that gardening appears in most of my poetry. After I read Wild Iris, I had one of those 'Why didn't I think of that!?" moments.

The poems are in the voice of different flowers through out the garden, Gluck gives the flowers human thoughts that are explored through the flowers different attributes. In the poem The Wild Iris, the iris is a flower which blooms a part of the year, once it dies it's bulb lies dormant till the next blooming season, " Then it was over: that which you fear, being/ a soul and unable/ to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth/ bending a little." This flower lays underground, dormant while listening to life happen above it, as it is 'buried alive.' As Rilke explores death through angels and humans mortality, Gluck explores death through the rebirth of a flower. I am indebted to Gluck for letting my garden have a voice in my poetry, it is a conversation that will have life in my work. "Time to rest now; you have had/ enough excitement for the time being", the voice of the flowers is that of a wise sage, teaching humanity to be present and teaching poets to give the small things life.

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Howl- To See With the Eyes of the Angels

In William Carlos Williams introduction to Allen Ginesbergs Howl he says, "Poets are damned by they are not blind, they see with the eyes of the angels. This poet [Ginsberg] sees through and all around the horrors he partakes of in the very intimate details of his poem. He avoids nothing but experiences it to the hilt." If Howl by Allen Ginsberg is anything, it is alive. It's language, prosody and choice of words make the poem, as the title suggest, howl out to the world demanding it's presence be known.

"I'm with you in Rockland/ where we are great typewriters on the same dreadful typewriter." In the third section of howl, the poem becomes a loud chant. Begging for everything, specifically nothing and demanding understanding. The form of the entire poem is written as a rant, which many mistake for lack of attention to detail. However, the poem specifically breaks and rhymes, it has it's own form which was not developed within the first draft. This can be seen in compilations where Ginsberg's drafts are put back to back, he created the form to justify and blend with the content.

The poem is a complete commitment to detail, though the content is vast every idea introduced is specific and true; " who cut their wrists three times successfully unsuccess-/ fully, have up and were forced to open antique stores where they thought they were growings old and cried". The poem may be a howl, a rant, a cry for 'the best minds of a generation' but as an artist the poem reads a testament to the turmoil of artists in society. For the madness one must endure to give duende, life to creative works, for how an artist must go against the grain of the norm only to be called mad in order to give life to poems/sculptures/stage characters/novels/etc.

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The mastery of Rainer Maria Rilke

"For there are moments when something new has entered into us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy perplexity, and everything in us withdraws, a stillness comes, and the new which no one knows, stands in the midst of it and is silent." Rainer Maria Rilke said this to a 'young poet' in his eighth letter of Letters to a Young Poet. The irony and genius behind this statement, is that most young poets feel this way when they read their first translated version of Duino Elegies by Rilke.

In the series of ten elegies that Rilke wrote in Castle Duino, he explored something unknown and extremely perplex: "to sing/ to the secret and wicked river-god of our blood!" To be completely honest, though it may hurt my scholarly pride, I cannot say I completely understand what the elegies are about, what they mean as a cohesive whole. This, however, is the magic of the elegies. The mystery of how they are strung together keeps me coming back over and over to revisit the elegies.

I have yet to find a poem that makes me question the finite abilities within humanity the elegies do, "In the fullest flower we know our withering;/ yet somewhere still the lions walk and in/ their proud prime know themselves invincible." The philosophical journey of the elegies is one that every writer should take; what is the purpose of humanity, why are humans the only animal who can reason and relate all the while being fully aware of death? These ideas are only brought to life through images and musical prosody in Duino Elegies, which makes Rilke's poetry beyond brilliant.

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Tuesday; An Art Project

Tuesday; An Art Project is an independent literary journal that published biannually. Tuesday is very keen on letter pressing it artists’ works on to individual note cards. Tuesday accepts submissions of poetry, art and photography. As far as aesthetics are concerned the editors only ask for “your favorite poems. What else could we ask for?” Reading through the journal Tuesday is varied in the type of poems they take, there is no one type of poem that they take. Some of the poetry is experimental, others are prose, free verse, ekphrastic, etc. As far as submission guidelines are concerned Tuesday requires the following: 5 unpublished poems, in most cases no longer that 70 lines, must be submitted as a word document or RTF with name and poems (alechugapoems.doc) with a footer on each page with name and contact information. The link to submit is submit@tuesdayjournal.org or if you wish to contact them by mail:
Tuesday; An Art Project
P.O. Box 1074
Arlington, MA 02474

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Hechizo seco, de Kevin Young

The Dry Spell, en inglés, lo encuentras abajo)
Por Margarita Ruiz-Soto

Cuando no perteneces a un país, a una cultura, a una región, tu lectura de piezas poéticas como The Dry Spell, de Kevin Young exige proyectar sobre el texto los límites de tu propia historia (Tu propia ignorancia podrían decir algunos). Kevin Young (1970, Lincoln, Nebraska) se conoce como poeta del Blues y muchos de sus poemas reposan en la horma acústica de esta tradición.
La poeta Lucille Clifton dijo “El talento que tiene Young para narrar y entender la música inherente a la tradición oral de la lengua recrea para nosotros una historia íntima, tan poderosa como auténtica y norteamericana” (La traducción es nuestra; el texto fue tomado de www.poets.org)
EL poder cultural y familiar de la comida; la textura del clima estacional y el ritual del vestir al compás de los vientos locales y personales; el hábito amoroso de los cuerpos. El ciclo primigenio de regar y ser regada; la mirada del tercero, el poeta que atisba, que se deleita en la cadencia de los días, y se comprende en la tradición de sus mayores. (Allá el Blues; aquí sus abuelos).
Una voz narrativa en tercera persona, interpelada por el yo del poeta (“so can I”, tercera línea en la tercera estrofa) que se diluye en la palabra del abuelo. Tres estrofas; tres sucesos; tres presencias. Podríamos decir entonces que es un poema trinitario. Cielo y Tierra se bisquejan, de cuya unión provienen la semilla y la prole humana. Linaje, fluir de una historia que se continúa.
Volvemos al inicio: Young inscribe el jadear de sus versos en la corriente de celebración de la tradición a la pertenece. Y para lograrlo es abismalmente actual. Su lírica en Jelly Roll : A Blues (2003) es la evidencia. Actualidad que escapa a mi comprensión, su literalidad anglosajona desborda mi parco bilingüismo. Por ello les deseo con la mejor de las lecturas, aquella limpia de mi palabrear.

Abril 20 de 2010
Margarita Flora Ruiz-Soto
El Paso, Texas.

The Dry Spell
by Kevin Young


Waking early
with the warming house
my grandmother knew what to do
taking care not to wake
Da Da she cooked up a storm
in darkness adding silent spices
and hot sauce

to stay cool. She ate later, alone
after the children had been gathered
and made to eat
her red eggs. Da Da rose
late, long after
the roosters had crowed
his name, clearing
an ashy throat
pulling on long
wooly underwear
to make him sweat

even more. The fields have gone
long enough without water
he liked to say, so can I
and when he returned
pounds heavier
from those thirsty fields
he was even cooler
losing each soaked
woolen skin
to the floor, dropping
naked rain in his
wife’s earthen arms.

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La música de Kevin Young

Oscar Godoy Barbosa

El blues, esa música que encuentra sus raíces en África pero nació en América para expresar la angustia, la tristeza, el desamor, la decepción, la frustración y la rabia de los trabajadores negros, y que ha entrado a formar parte de la cultura occidental contemporánea en muy diversos géneros y subgéneros, es el ritmo que colma los poemas de Kevin Young en su libro Jelly Roll: A Blues.
El título del libro parece ser un homenaje a Jelly Roll Morton, reconocido pianista, compositor y cantante nacido en Louisiana, pero curiosamente son pocas las referencias que se hacen a este artista en los poemas. En lugar de eso, Kevin Young cuenta historias oscuras, explora sus sentimientos de rabia y decepción, o de exaltación amorosa, y captura el espíritu de esa música que seguramente hace parte de su formación como ser humano y como poeta.
¿Cómo se hace presente el blues en los poemas de Young? Lo primero que salta a la vista es la estructura escogida para darles forma. Cakewalk, Dixieland, Siren o Jive, por ejemplo, llaman la atención por su armado a partir de couplets (estrofas de dos líneas), con líneas muy breves pero cargadas de significado:

I want the spell
of a woman –her

smell & say –so-
her humid

hands and seek –zombied-
The bayou

(Dixieland)

A pesar de las líneas cortas, o como resultado de ello, Young acepta y da forma a una idea constante de encabalgamiento (“enjambment”) entre las líneas, aún si conforman estrofas separadas. Con este recurso, la tensión se mantiene tanto en el nivel horizontal (la fuerza de la línea) como en el nivel vertical, con una palabra que no se interrumpe y un interés constante que pasa de una línea a la siguiente. Al mismo tiempo, la separación en couplets marca una pausa reiterada, una especie de cadencia, un compás que el lector siente de inmediato. Música.
El logro musical de la forma se complementa íntimamente con los temas de cada poema, que son los mismos que han alimentado al blues desde siempre. Dixieland, por ejemplo, hace referencia a una especie de ritual en el que un hombre y una mujer se sumergen en un pantano y son encontrados luego por la policía; Cakewalk alude a ese estado de encantamiento que acompaña el sentimiento amoroso, siempre al borde de la fatalidad; Jive narra una situación de acoso de un ciudadano negro por parte de la policía; Can Can juega con las palabras de origen africano y la identidad, y Siren alude a las angustias del fuego y el incendio.
Son exploraciones en muy diversas direcciones, miradas del poeta hacia sí mismo y hacia las realidades (objetivas y subjetivas) de su entorno. Pero con un elemento que las cohesiona y sin ninguna duda las hace trascender: la música.

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Chroma

Chroma: A Queer Literary and Arts Journal is based in London and is published twice a year. Ben Fergusson is the editor. Saradha Soobrayen is the poetry editor and Andras Gerevich, Sophie Mayer, Mike Upton and Pascal O’Loughlin are the commissioning editors. Like many arts organizations in the UK, Chroma receives support from Arts Council England.

Noted gay literature pioneer, Richard Labonte, calls Chroma, “the premier print magazine for gay and lesbian prose writers, poets and artists.” Submissions are accepted from all people who identify as queer, regardless of their sexual orientation. Issues are themed and the scheduled themes are provided more than two years in advance. The next available submission deadline is August 1, 2010. The theme for that issue (#12) is Youth. The February 1, 2011 submission deadline is for Issue 13 the theme of which is “Faith.”

Chroma’s recent 2009 International Queer Writing Competition winners were announced on their website with prizes awarded to three poets and three short story writers. Additional contest submissions were acknowledged as “poetry shortlist” and “short story shortlist.”

Issue 7, the theme of which was “There” featured the work of LGBT writers and artists from around the world. Some represented writers received their first English translation with that issue.

The magazine appears to represent a full range of queer and LGBT sub groups rather than focusing on gay men or lesbians as is the case with some niche publications in the LGBT community.

There are very specific submission parameters provided by the editors. Submissions must be identified as either a prose, poetry or art submission in the subject line. Work must be submitted in Word (.doc) format or .rtf. No other formats are accepted. Prose writers may submit only one story at at time which may not have been published previously. 5,000 words is the maximum length. Poetry submissions may be no more than three poems at a time and poems should not exceed sixty lines per poem.

The notification time is within three months. The editors acknowledge that they wish they were able to provide more personal responses to submissions but, at present, they are not staffed to do so. If writers have not gotten a response before the issue for which they submitted work is published, they are no being considered for that issue. In some cases, a writer or artist’s work may not be able to be used in a current issue but the quality of the submission catches the eye of the editors. In those cases, the writer will be asked to submit additional examples of their work for possible inclusion in a future issue.

DB

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Deepstep Come Shining

POR: Rubén Varona

“Lead me, guide me to the light of your paper. Keep me in your
arc of acuity. And when the ream is spent. Write a poem on
my back. I’ll never wash it off.”


Como si se tratase de la película de una cámara fotográfica, cada uno de los poemas que componen Deepstep Come Shining, de la autora norteamericana Carolyn D. Wright, o C.D. Wright; ofrecen al lector una imagen, una sensación, una visión de las carreteras sureñas y rurales de Georgia, en los Estados Unidos. Cada poema o mejor, cada fotografía, construye un universo en sí mismo, autónomo, pero a la vez interdependiente, pues se perfecciona con la lectura secuencial de la obra; es decir, con el revelado de la película y la puesta en un álbum de cada una de las imágenes, para ser apreciadas en su conjunto.
En las imágines que encierran los versos, la sensación de movimiento, contrastado con algunas dosis de quietud, son una lectura muy aguda de la vida, de alguien que se hizo al lado del camino; que se detuvo para observar al detalle, con la lupa del demiurgo, del creador, para de esta manera seguir avanzando, haciendo partícipe al lector de sus visiones.
Los poemas de C.D. Wright contenidos en este libro, son el resultado de una continua experimentación tanto en forma como en contenido y lenguaje. La anterior es una de las razones por las cuales ella es considerada por la crítica como una artista irreverente, que encierra en su lenguaje poético la misma demencia de la vida que se siente al conducir a altas velocidades, atravesando diferentes parajes; pero también haciendo un stop, una parada para hacer propio aquel lugar, para que no le pertenezca a nadie más, diferente de ella.
El “boneman”, así como el “snakeman”, son alusiones recurrentes en el libro, son los demonios de la autora que hacen parte del imaginario recreado en su poesía, como si a través de ellos Wright se desdoblase para purificar su espíritu salvaje, vital e irreverente:
"In my book, poetry is a necessity of life. It is a function of poetry to locate those zones inside us that would be free, and declare them so."
El ritmo de su poesía se marca por la secuencia de ideas, por el universo de imágenes y símbolos utilizados insistentemente; por la repetición de objetos, personajes y lugares. Toda su poesía pertenece a un tiempo determinado; a un momento donde florecen sus visiones e ideas del mundo; donde la poeta llena su vida de sentido, y su viaje se catapulta de un plano físico a uno metafísico, de búsqueda constante de sentido en un mundo en construcción.
No queda más que disfrutar del lenguaje, de la lirica C.D. Wright, de su imaginario, que apropiamos al sentarnos como pasajeros y disfrutar de las caricias del viento.

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Boston Review

Boston Review is probably best known for its current fiction editor, Junot Diaz who received the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for his novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao in 2008. BR was founded in 1975 and is an independent, nonprofit institution. It aims to expand political debate combining politics and poetry down the page. It has a national readership, and currently seeks writers in both poetry and fiction. Submissions are accepted through the online submissions system, or by mail: Boston Review, 35 Medford St. Suite 302, Somerville, MA 02143. A self-addressed stamped envelope must accompany all snail-mailed submissions. Faxed or emailed submissions will not be accepted. Payment varies. Response time is generally 2-4 months.

POETRY:  
BR reads poetry submissions between September 15 and May 15 each year. Use the online submissions system.

FICTION:
  BR reads fiction submissions between September 15 and May 15 each year.

From Junot Díaz, fiction editor: “I’m looking for fiction that resembles the Thirty-Mile Woman from Toni Morrison’s Beloved: ‘She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.’ Or as Takashi Murakami puts it: ‘We want to see the newest things. That is because we want to see the future, even if only momentarily. It is the moment in which, even if we don’t completely understand what we have glimpsed, we are nonetheless touched by it. This is what we have come to call art.’ I’m looking for fiction in which a heart struggles against itself, in which the messy unmanageable complexity of the world is revealed. Sentences that are so sharp they cut the eye.” Keep submissions under 4,000 words and use the online submissions system.

BR also runs an annual short story contest. The 2009 contest is closed; the next deadline will be in Fall 2010.

-- Lisa Reyes

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