Review of Poetry Magazine

Poetry Magazine, published by the Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org, is one of the oldest, most respected U.S. poetry journals. Founded in 1912 by Harriet Monroe, the journal has published works by famous poets such as T.S. Eliott, Anne Sexton, Joyce Kilmer, Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams before they were established.

The journal takes great pride it’s “open door” publication policy. Poetry encourages submissions from all poetry genres and schools, and chooses not to set themes for each issue like many journals. I think this is terrific, because it leaves poets unconstrained in what they choose to write and submit. Since Poetry was established, the publication’s mission statement expresses their desire “to print the best English verse which is being written today, regardless of where, by whom, or under Poetry is well known and is easy to locate -- it consistently lands in the top fifteen entries when you search Google for “poetry.”

Each issue of Poetry contains numerous poets’ works, reviews of poetry and letters to the editors, mostly comments on poetry and our society. While there are exceptions, the majority of published poems appear to be no longer than an 8 ½ by 11 page, for example the following two poems:

I knew something was wrong

by Dorothea Grossman

I knew something was wrong

the day I tried to pick up a

small piece of sunlight

and it slithered through my fingers,

not wanting to take shape.

Everything else stayed the same—

the chairs and the carpet

and all the corners

where the waiting continued.

Source: Poetry (March 2010).

In the loop

by Bob Hicok

I heard from people after the shootings. People

I knew well or barely or not at all. Largely

the same message: how horrible it was, how little

there was to say about how horrible it was.

People wrote, called, mostly e-mailed

because they know I teach at Virginia Tech,

to say, there’s nothing to say. Eventually

I answered these messages: there’s nothing

to say back except of course there’s nothing

to say, thank you for your willingness

to say it. Because this was about nothing.

A boy who felt that he was nothing,

who erased and entered that erasure, and guns

that are good for nothing, and talk of guns

that is good for nothing, and spring

that is good for flowers, and Jesus for some,

and scotch for others, and “and” for me

in this poem, “and” that is good

for sewing the minutes together, which otherwise

go about going away, bereft of us and us

of them. Like a scarf left on a train and nothing

like a scarf left on a train. As if the train,

empty of everything but a scarf, still opens

its doors at every stop, because this

is what a train does, this is what a man does

with his hand on a lever, because otherwise,

why the lever, why the hand, and then it was over,

and then it had just begun.

The publication prints eleven times a year and digital editions are available online for 1987 and the years 1999 to the most recent March 2010 publication: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/index.html

Also helpful for poets considering submission, online are monthly podcasts from the editors speaking about the most recent publication. These podcast give insight in to the nature of the publication.

Individual copies of the journal are $4.25 each, and a year’s subscription costs $35. They do offer a student subscription – 11 issues for $17.50. Poetry does solicit advertising -- to those who prefer an ad-free literary journal.

To submit your work to Poetry, set up an online account at submissions.poetrymagazine.org. They only accept unpublished work, and submission response time is 6-8 weeks. If your work is accepted, Poetry is a paying publication ($10 per line, $300 minimum and two copies of the publication) and you will be eligible for the magazine’s prestigious annual prizes. Only poems accepted for publication in Poetry are considered eligible for their contest.

I leave you with my one of my favorite poems from the March 2010 issue:

I have to tell you

by Dorothea Grossman

I have to tell you,

there are times when

the sun strikes me

like a gong,

and I remember everything,

even your ears.

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Journal Review: Blazevox

BlazeVox literary magazine is listed with Poets and Writers and is the only magazine that I have yet to come across that actually provides author feedback although I’m sure there are more out there it just seems almost a nice novelty. They accept simultaneous submissions in poetry, fiction, experimental and literary reviews and have a small publishing press that produces ebooks and chapbooks. I even found a short movie produced by one of their editors, Geoffrey Gatza, in the last issue of a man ( I cannot say for sure if this was Geoffrey himself) smoking a bowl , listening to classical music, and obsessively moving around scissors, tape, pen and Kenneth Goldsmith’s book “Day”. The climax for me was when he finally begins to cut apart “Day” with a sharpie tool and a ruler.
One sign of the ‘experimental’ is in their publishing poetry by artists such as Christina Manweller’s poems which include interesting language, squiggles, brackets, em dashes and ampersands along with sections of poems whose lines consist of one to two words. Heather Fowler’s poem “Love Child” reads more like a 12 page short story than prose in its style rendering the speaker’s parents meeting and their love relationship.
BlazeVox is even bold enough to include rhyming poems whereas many mags shun them like a girl in striped tights. April A’s two abab rhyme scheme poems “The Voice of Despair” and “Nothing Else Counts” seem to struggle for a more complex form.
BlazeVox does boast an impressive array of chapbooks, one of which is Jennifer J. Thompson’s Naming God where she goes anywhere from variations on villanelles to prevailing themes of flowers and the sensual power play between the sexes and dialectic from the biblical to VanGogh. One line I cherish from her collection is found in the final poem, “I Am Certain That This Is My First Love Poem,” Simplicity can be a virtue, but unrelieved simplicity/begins to seem simple. This sort of insight, raw humor and wit is found throughout the work.
Another of their highlighted authors, Joe Milford has multiple volumes published Volume 1 of which is titled, Cracked Altimeter and shows a playfulness of language and rhyme in the poems “maybe in me” and in “I invite you into me.” In the 23 section poem “Nomad’s rags” some of the complexity of his lines and language can be seen: born postmodern, abortion post-partum/I, a speaking morgue of a thousand axioms skinned/seasoned with the need to icon, carrying the pelts/ of culture-killed myths, and I will deliver/ this unidentified object to you, try to/ figure it out, try to fly it. And later within the same poem the spirit of experimentation which becomes more recognizable as integral to getting published here surfaces: I am an anarchanachronometricist---/I made this word up, this occupation/ out-of-context with timelines.
BlazeVox currently discovered it is deficient in their publishing and is now in the process of “promoting the work of women who are courageous, innovative, definition defying writers.” And all BlazeVox says you need to do to meet their criteria is not produce work that “sucks,” I suppose one author review and you will know if you are in that number or not. Email submissions to: editor@blazevox.org

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Journal Review: 2River

The literary magazine, 2River, is listed with both Poets and Writers and New Pages.com Literary Magazine Listings. and has been publishing four times a year since 1996. The magazine now includes poetry chapbooks and multi-media presentations of poetry completely archived and available online. Email submissions are accepted but simultaneous submissions are discouraged and if you’ve been hoping to get your work ‘out there’ on a blog or personal website then don’t bother submitting it here, 2River wants only unpublished work.
Many chapbooks feature artistic covers and a number are available for listening to as an audio file. Detailed attention to meter and form prevail through the works. Precision and attention to the containment of the poem leave little room for whimsical meanderings. One example is Peter Weltner’s poem “Clothes like a dove” which consists of seven sections of ten line stanzas, each neatly tucked and broken at nearly the same length with little variation.
2River seems to favor strongly thematic, unified, and cohesive work in which it is easy to match the poet with the poem such as in the chapbook,“Color Field,” by Mark Cunningham. The chapbook is composed of thirteen prose poems aptly named after individual colors. Each poem breaks free in looser associations within their form using the color as a starting block, a configuration of premeditated thought.
In Christien Gholson’s chapbook, “How the world was made,” Gholson gracefully leaps from working in factories and taking smokebreaks to girls selling pamphlets in a casual conversational tone of the speaker, I kept her talking because I/wanted her to stay the night. She wasn’t bad looking. I imagined her/ standing next to the bed, streetlight falling across her naked body. She knew what I was doing but she was tired from walking to door all/day, so played along. Only two lines later he has brought the reader to a much less comfortable place of murder, though not that of the expected girl selling pamphlets as a victim. Gholson continues in his stark and bleak frankness in the poem “Patterns.” Some tell the future by examining entrails. Examining what’s in the/stomach will tell you something about the land around you. With complete surprising yet congruent shifts he moves the poem forward. Something’s been circling over the river these past few nights. It’s no bird. And maybe in summation is the line from “I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,” I am the last. I am writing a poem tracing the genealogy of the garbage I/ collect. I am stealing back everything that has been stolen from me.
While 2River describes itself as “preferring poems with image, subtlety, and point of view, a surface of worldly exactitude, as well as depth of semantic ambiguity; and a voice that negotiates with its body of predecessors,” I found that they are also open to the plain and honest voice that isn’t always so subtle. But if you want to be published here you should heed their advice overall regarding the quality of work.

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Journal Review: Burnside Review

Review of Burnside Review (Bob Lucky)

1. I learned almost simultaneously about Burnside Review through the link to poetry journals Professor Pimentel-Chacón sent us and through some fairly random research I was doing on poetry contests. Matthew Dickman’s name came up as a judge in an upcoming chapbook contest, so I decided to check out the journal.

2. I don’t feel well placed to comment on the respectable nature of the journal, but I was attracted to the mix of familiar and unfamiliar names in the table of contents. While it appears to be open to new writers (at least writers I’m unfamiliar with), it also attracts many established writers. To name a few: T.E. Ballard, Ray Gonzalez, Michael Dickman, Rob Carney, Alan Shapiro and Kate Nuernberger.

3. The aesthetic arc: The journal does not have a mission statement or aesthetic statement on its website. They suggest poets read the journal or at the very least the poems that are available to read on the website. It is predominantly a journal of freeverse, though I did come across a sestina. Fiction is also published in the journal, but they do not accept unsolicited submissions for that. (Get an agent or wait for an invitation!)

If you look at the selection of poems I’ve included below, I think it’s fair to say that the editors go for poems with arresting images and descriptive details. Although it’s not clear from my selection, from all the poems I read, there seems to be a bias for poems of about 20-30 lines (a page, roughly) and of single stanza pieces. The poems I’ve included below show more of the variety they publish. They also publish translations but there is nothing about their preferences on the website.

4. A selection of poems from Burnside Review:

A PIGEON SEEKING YOUR PROTECTION

by Marlys West

Seriously, j’adore the French; their early automaton
built in 1738 by Jacques de Vaucanson, a duck able
to eat and digest grain, flap wings, excrete. Jacques,
Jacques, I, too, have wished for company. When
you wake up and the doves coo, you have yourself
to thank. Her hair is three distinct colors and held
in place by wax. She is asking her friend a question
about fashion; both too skinny, wearing all black.
These girls, L’Americains. I love them, too. We
are a little bit common, it’s true; skinny and pale;
Long Island Ducks, Rock Doves. Big triangular
head of the Belted Kingfisher vs. the fat ass of a
California Quail. Urban but really more suburban,
I don’t speak Pennsylvannia Dutch. A rural people,
the Amish skill in farming is exemplary. The rest
of us? What the fuck? Good at shopping? Good
at yapping on the phone? Good at people-watching
in the coffee shop and never going home? If only
I could sew or cook. If only I did something worth-
while. At least birds do not submit; they fly off like
pretty, young girls who inherit money but haven’t
married yet. They look at us and scoff. You who
budget for your second cars. The truth is cocaine
is fun. Everyone knows it. Press your hair between
the hot, metal plates of a flat iron. I mean before
you go out. I mean to look good. Why feed birds?
Buy seed? Because look! It eats! From my hand!
Now they will dig up Houdini; a dark day, my friends.
Was he not a bird? Nimble and light? El milk dove?
Crows fall from the sky looking like the working
end of small, black brooms. Each penny its pocket,
they say. Each minute its clock. I’ve seen desperate
men drinking eau de cologne, aftershave. Take them
under your wing, the criminals, fools. Once in a hotel
they followed a trail of red petals to the tub and there
she was, resplendent in grayish feather, head bobbing
up and back, white breast bared and love call crackling
though the damp. He sings it now; kack-kack-kack-kack.

---------

FORK

by Larissa Szporluk

Today I found an egg
and broke it open.
It’s trailing me now,
the cartoon of a bird,
its oversized eyes and fetal curl.

It isn’t love if it’s banging away.
It isn’t love if it’s incendiary.
It isn’t love if it leaves traces.

Today I am a giant ignoramus,
the stopped flight
of a warbler’s life
in the palm of a hand I can’t explain.

What loves loves to ravish.
What is loved loses consciousness.
There’s love in the fiery river.
There’s love in the furious house.

I did without thinking.
I did it like a mortal.
I took the left-hand road
and now I’m out of lightning
and the ear has fewer notes
and I wonder when they’ll figure out
I murder when I’m normal.

-------

5/28

Noel and Tarisai come to my house
after basketball. They have an idea
how to earn school fees that they’d like to discuss.
Please sit, I say. No, we should walk to where
we can make US Dollars. They tell
me to bring my camera. We go for a walk
through the woods. Noel has a plastic ball
and we play pass, pick wild fruits, talk
in Shonglish, share jokes. We stop at a cave
and they ask if I’ll take a photo of
them. Is this how you’ll make money, I say.
Of course not, says Tarisai, zviri fun
chete. I take a few and we continue
on our way. Noel has questions about
America. I want to know is it true
that every one has a water spout
and that they eat dogs in China. He throws
a rock at a tree. A bird flies away. This
is it, Tarisai says. We wanted to show
you this. He points at a young, naked
boy – dirty and covered with flies. Come, take
a photo of this one, he says. Send it
to USA. Tell them to send money – save
a poor, dirty boy’s life. They are having fits
of laughter, slapping each other five.
Send them my name, says Tarisai. No, wait,
first let us go and gather some more flies.
I take a picture of them laughing. Take
one of this half-built hut. Show them how poor
we are. Let’s go, I say. We walk to Noel’s
house and have sadza with his grandmother.
His aunt gives me roasted corn and boiled
groundnuts.

Ben Berman

--------

pour another round for the fiddle player

she's the best I've ever heard.
One of her hands is a sparrow in the house

and the other's a bad-ass cat,
and the flying feathers are her music,

and her music is a zigzag flight--in one ear
and out the other, in my mouth

and out again; it's an open smile right now.
It's a damn good reason for teeth.

She's up there, kicking, in her cowgirl boots
and quick with her bow as a ricochet

off the banjo, bass line, drums, and lead guitar.
She makes me lie down in green pastures,

makes me sidearm the moon like a boomerang,
makes the Moose of Tomorrow

come down out of Canada
and set a rack of antlers on my head.

She makes me lie down in green pastures,
stuff dirt clods in my pockets,

dirt I'll carry home to sift around my plants.
They'll grow to the ceiling like the tune she's playing,

tall enough for a bird to nest in.
I'll call it the Bird of Tomorrow.

And hope it's got half the voice
she keeps finding in those strings.

Rob Carney

---------

EATING HIGH SCHOOL

by Dennis Caswell

There’s nothing like the sound
of cheerleaders on a hot griddle,
though you do have to keep them
covered until they quit kicking,
or there’ll be grease everywhere,
and that fishy smell can linger for days.
Before you coat the football team in beer batter,
arrange them on a flat surface,
leave them alone for an hour,
and they’ll tenderize each other.
Any remaining pretty and popular girls
should be boned and ground to pink paste,
the paste pressed into a brick,
and their boyfriends inserted, supine and whole.
Then thinly slice, for a piquant pimento loaf.
And what do you do with the left-over bushels
of faceless pupils and faculty,
abundant as summer zucchini?
You can’t even give them away,
so you shred them and bake them
in breads and casseroles.
If you add enough butter or cheese,
you can make anything go down.

--------

Puke

by Norman Dubie

John Law is eating hot purple beets
in the poor house
in a dark corner of Alsace-Lorraine
where the lamps weaken
while he suffers a vision of complexity,
of paper money falling
upon rats
swimming in the long canal
of next winter’s early rains.

John Law is a membrane
of least fact—the idea of paper money
is Chinese, just
as animal crackers are Sumerian and puke
to most dogs
is a late least fact of appetite
all over again—

it is strange
that the financing of the American Revolution
and John Law’s printing machines
led to the bankruptcy
of the entire French nation
and hundreds, perhaps thousands,
of headless aristocrats
as if money were a kind of contingency
like rain.



5. Submission information (from the website):

“Submissions for issue 6.1, due out April 2010, are now closed. After the release of the issue we will be announcing a theme for issue 7.1.

Please read through our guidelines before submitting.

Burnside Review Please send 3 to 5 poems and a brief bio. Poems and bio should be sent as single attachment (this means everything as a single file). Word documents or Rich Text Files are the only acceptable format for attachment (no PDF’s and DO NOT paste poems into the body of your e-mail). The subject line of the e-mail should read: Poetry Submission-Your Last Name (i.e.: Poetry Submission-Miller).

Send them to: submissions@burnsidereview.org

Average response time is 2-4 months.

Simultaneous submissions are fine. No previously published work.

Please note that we do not accept unsolicited fiction submissions.

Payment comes in the form of one contributor’s copy. Burnside Review assumes the right to publish poems on their website as well as in the physical issue. All rights revert back to the author after printing.

We suggest reading a copy of the issue before submitting. At the very least you should read the poems here on the website, to see the kind of work we’ve published in the past.”

6. Pertinent deadlines:

There seems to be no deadline for submissions, though a notice on the website notes that submissions for the upcoming issue (April 2010) is closed.

The 6th Annual Burnside Review Poetry Chapbook Competition is accepting manuscripts from 15 March to 30 June 2010. (Please see the website for guidelines.)

7. Contact information:

submissions@burnsidereview.org

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Journal Review: Modern Haiku

A Review of A Literary Journal: Modern Haiku

Bob Lucky

1) how you came to know about this journal/publisher: This is the grand-daddy of English language haiku, having weathered several of the shifts in haiku practice in English since it began publishing in 1969. Like many people, I was introduced to haiku, the old 5-7-5 pedagogical model, in elementary school. I’ve been dabbling ever since. I probably first came across Modern Haiku in my college library, and I would read it whenever I was in a library that had a copy. I currently subscribe to and am happy to say occasionally publish in the journal.

2) why this journal/publisher is "respectable" among its publishing peers: Haiku and other short-form Japanese poetry in English is a bit of the fairytale stepchild in American poetry – ignored and not given much credit. Modern Haiku may be the only haiku journal to attract mainstream attention and poets. Poets such as Billy Collins and Gary Snyder publish there, and if my memory isn’t completely shot, others such as Robert Bly and WS Merwin as well.

I think what gives this journal its “respect” is that it has managed to give voice to the different trends and movements in short form verse without losing touch with the historical consciousness of haiku’s roots. Morever, the essays published in the journal are in themselves incredible documents on the history of haiku in America.

3) what kind of poetry the journal publishes: Modern Haiku publishes haiku, senryu, haiku sequences, haibun, and haiga.

Most of the haiku/senryu examples below are traditional three-line pieces, though one-line are common, two-line occasional, and variations on that. Some haiku will often borrow a page from concrete poetry. Lee Gurga, one of the editors, publishes his haiku in a kind of cross form, the 1st and 3rd lines vertical and the 2nd or middle line horizontal.

Traditional haiku is often defined as three-line haiku with a seasonal or nature reference. Contemporary haiku may or may not have the seasonal reference, and may be three-lines or more, or less. Senryu is often seen as the satirical version of haiku and deals with human nature, its frailties and foibles. Some editors are picky about the differences. Others see humans as a part of nature and prefer not to make any distinction. Modern Haiku publishes both but leaves it up to the reader to determine what is what; in other words, they’re published in the same section.

Haibun is a combination of prose and haiku that was pioneered by Basho, the poet who more or less gave us haiku as we understand it today. This is a very evolving form in English. Some haibun read very much like prose poems. Along with a few other poets, I’ve published “haibun” that are a combination of free verse and haiku. The prose often sticks to the present tense. It’s the relationship between the prose and the haiku that seems to be the theoretical issue of the day. It pays to read the type the journal publishes.

Haiga are haiku and illustration combinations (drawings, cartoons, sumi-e, photographs, etc.). I don’t really know much at all of this genre, its history or aesthetic. I’ve never done it and most of what I see/read is too close to greeting cards for me. However, I have seen some wonderful work.

4) a selection of poems published by Modern Haiku:

The website posts selected haiku/senryu, haibun, and an essay from the current and several back issues. This is a good shortcut to what they are looking for, examplars, though many of the haibun they publish are longer than the haibun they post online. (The one I’ve published there and another forthcoming both have multiple haiku.)


all the trees bare
moonlight fills
the laundry basket

Judson Evans (41.1, Winter-Spring 2010)

all the geese at once and still the wind

John Barlow (41.1, Winter-Spring 2010)

taut strands
of the barbed wire fence . . .
so much left unsaid

Charles Trumbull (40.3, Autumn 2009)

layoffs
the blow-up santa
buoyant as ever

LeRoy Gorman (40.2, Summer 2009)

as their boat floats
out of the tunnel of love
they move apart

Cor van den Heuvel (39.3, Autumn 2008)

Silence this morning—
only the Buddha twirling
a flower in his fingers.

Billy Collins (33.3, Autumn 2002)

spring moon
I bend to touch my daughter's name
on the tombstone

Lenard D. Moore (38.1, Spring 2008)

making our bed
the way you used to insist

Christopher Hornbacker (33.2, Summer 2002)

Chainsaw dust
clay-clod stuck spade
apple blossoms and bees

Gary Snyder (32.3, Fall 2001)
-----

Reality Check

When I first took the personality test, I tested one way then,
after reflecting some more, I decided that some of those
categories tested that way as a result of my fourteen years
of having to fake it.

local cafe
full of college students
I used to know

by Carolyne Rohrig (39.1, Spring 2008)


Last Rites

“First time in twenty years he lost one,” his wife sighs. The old farmer in faded coveralls chugs past on a red tractor, his shoulders slumped. From a perch high in the front scoop, a black and white sheepdog rides along, before surrendering his seat to the motionless ewe, still heavy with her breeched lamb.

far from home —
through the twilight mist
a sheep’s bell

by Renée Owen (40.3, Autumn 2009)


5) guidelines for submission:

Submissions must be the author’s original, unpublished work. The submission should be mailed and include an SASE. The one exception is for authors living outside North America; they may make email submissions. (That exception is on the website but not in the print version of the journal.)

There is no stipulation on the number of poems an author can send. Haiku journals tend to prefer between 5 -10 haiku and/or senryu and 1 -3 haibun. For haiga, it’s best to check with editors first about technical requirements.


6) pertinent deadlines:

Modern Haiku is published in February, June and October. Deadlines for receipt of submissions for those issues is November 15, March 15, and July 15, respectively. However, you may submit material at any time.


7) contact information:

Modern Haiku
PO Box 33077
Santa Fe, NM 87594-3077

www.modernhaiku.org

Charles Trumbull, Editor (send haiku and senryu to him); trumbullc@comcast.net (for authors outside North America)

Lee Gurga, Haibun Editor and Editor

There are various assistant editors, art and book review editors, etc.

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Ariel o el lento proceso de tocar fondo.

Es inevitable cuestionar, gracias a su publicación póstuma, si Ariel alcanzó tal grado de celebridad por su calidad literaria o por los trágicos eventos en los que se vio envuelta la aparición de este poemario, mismos que continuan alimentando la fascinación mórbida del lector: Ariel fue escrito durante los últimos meses anteriores a su suicidio, hasta que una mañana de invierno, Silvia Plath se levantó a preparar el desayuno para sus hijos y, después de llevárselo a la cama, se encerró en la cocina donde metió la cabeza al horno y abrió el gas, manchando así su muerte de terrible cotidianidad.

Sin embargo, tras leer las primeras páginas, es fácil advertir la enorme calidad literaria que lo han colocado como referente obligado. Uno no puede sino sentirse atrapado en la dura realidad reflejada en las imágenes tan personales que construye la autora. Cada uno de los poemas de Ariel evocan la pena y fatalidad de vivir, a la vez que muestran el lento descenso de Silvia Plath hasta llevarla a considerar la muerte como única forma de liberación.

Las alusiones a la muerte en este poemario son constantes: en Lady Lazarus, uno de sus poemas más conocidos, Plath expone irónicamente, a través de su personaje, la opresión de la cual era objeto. Resulta interesante también el cómo entrelaza sus previos intentos de suicidio con la referencia bíblica a Lázaro de Betania: tal como Lázaro fue resucitado de entre los muertos, también Lady Lazarus renace después de cada intento de suicidio. “Morir / es un arte, como todo / Yo lo hago excepcionalmente bien”, le dice al doctor que se empeña en salvarla de la muerte, a la vez que hace alarde de sus talentos letales, haciendo patentes así su perfeccionismo masoquista.

La musicalidad, el dominio del lenguaje figurativo y el vocabulario, siempre tan preciso, de Silvia Plath, hacen de este poemario una plétora de combinaciones inusuales y metáforas sorprendentes. Imágenes de una fuerza brutal que quedan fijas en la memoria y resuenan como una dulce y sutil mezcla de dolor y belleza.

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Bocados negros en sangre dulce
Un comentario a Ariel de Sylvia Plath (1962)

Margarita Ruiz Soto

Desde su título, el poema Ariel de Sylvia Plath me aleja del mundo en que se inscribe la verdad personal que tortura a la voz poética. Su misterio me expulsa y me exige indagar por la historia personal de la poetisa. Por ello Ariel es un poema que entrega demasiado a la interpretación caprichosa de quien lo lee.

Se presenta en diez tercetos y un verso suelto, barridos contra la pared izquierda. Versos cortos que sugieren reserva, temor, en una voz poética que sale, se arriesga, se detiene y se repliega; delimita su territorio y se encripta. Para el lector, queda el resto de la página en blanco como un vacío de sentido, un enigma.
El juego de descubrimiento-ocultamiento propio de la poesía confesional es llevado a cabo de manea maestra. Tan pronto creemos estar dentro de las imágenes y dentro del sentir del poema somos expulsados y repudiados como fisgones, ajenos a la tragedia que avanza en la vida de Plath. Por ello, sólo puedo hablar desde la emoción que despierta el poema en mí. Me repele; inevitablemente, me repele. Entonces, hago consciencia que no simpatizo con el suicida que fracasa, pues mancha la dignidad del suicidio con su regreso. En Lady Lazarus, Plath afirma irónicamente que morir es un arte que ella actualiza excepcionalmente bien cada diez años.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

La magnificencia de la muerte reposa en su carácter único. Quien verdaderamente muere lo hace una sola vez. Pero Sylvia Plath se engolosina con el suicidio, le canta una y otra vez con la fuerza de sus versos. Así se erigió como un ejemplo incontestable, como un vulgar mal ejemplo para momentos de flaqueza. El suicida exitoso es valiente; el fracasado es cobarde, llama al lastimero para que lo contemple. Leer Ariel nos obliga a hurgar en la vida de Plath, a contemplarla.
Ariel era el nombre de su caballo. ¿Acaso allí descansa la imagen central que conecta la desnudez contestataria de Lady Godiva con la desnudez confesional de la poesía de Plath? Aquella fue obligada a tomar su caballo como podio público para ofrendar su pudor en sacrificio y así redimir a su pueblo del abuso; Plath parece tomarlo para sentir el vértigo de la carrera, que desde sus talones sube por sus rodillas y sus muslos hasta entregar su cabello al placer de sentirse una con el aire, cerrar los ojos, soltar el freno y jugar con la muerte, allí donde la vida se suspende, donde la sombra llama y el abismo aparece. ¿Acaso, en su ritual ecuestre Plath celebraba el goce supremo de la fuerza del animal entregado a la carrera, en simbiosis amenazante con el vértigo de la caída mortal?
¿Es acaso la ofrenda de vida sobre sus monturas lo que hermana a la Plath con Lady Godiva? Posiblemente así sea para Plath. Pero el sentido de sus ofrendas parece opuesto: Lady Godiva expuso su pudor y con ello hizo una ofrenda por la vida; Sylvia Plath expone su deseo de abrazar las sombras y ofrenda sus versos como canto confesional del suicida.
Ambas, God’s lioness, erigen su feminidad sobre una cabalgadura como símbolo contestatario en rutas inversas. Por ello el contraste entre Godiva y Plath forma parte del
juego de contrarios que atraviesa el poema:

Stassis in darkness vs. White
Dead hands, dead stringencies vs. The child’s cry
Nigger-eye vs. Eye, the cauldron of morning
Sylvia Plath vs. Lady Godiva

Antes que continuar, prefiero confesar que no logro amar este poema. Quizás porque no logro admirar al suicida que exhibe su condición, pues respeto profundamente el silencio que lleva al suicida hasta su propia muerte. Parodiando el verso de Plath, puedo afirmar que el poema se presenta como bocados negros de Sylvia Plath que tragan la sangre dulce de Lady Godiva.

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Ariel

Ariel immediately involves itself in breaking down abstractions by using physical notions, only to rearrange them into abstract illustrations once more. Throughout the book, the use of the physical and the abstract is constant, often rendering the poems as illusive peeks into an over-all cohesive narrative. Plath often further complicates matters by mixing senses- a “cry” becomes “bald.” (pg 5) It is in this way that the poetry utilizes imagery and abstraction to weave a many textured harmony. Although it would seem that the word “harmony” is misleading, there is nothing harmonious about what the poems express, I would use it in the sense that there is a certain musical composition that the poetry takes part in.
Aside from images and abstractions, the author uses various types of references throughout. There are cultural and historical, such as Klu Klux Klan; there are mythological, as in Nike and Magi; there are literary, as in her references to William Blake and Richard Wilbur. This gives the poetry a space that is both contemporary and transitory- between a here and now and a then and there.
The poetry discusses very personal and yet common issues. Two of the most apparent are sexuality and gender norms and “purity.” These references can both be subtle and brazen. In the case of the poem “Lesbos” or “Barren Woman”- it is clear what the poet will be discussing. In other works such as “The Jailer”, there are phrases and sentiments that make the matter both skillfully crafted and significant.
I have been drugged and raped.
Seven hours knocked out of my right mind
Into a black sack
Where I relax, foetus or cat,
Lever of his wet dreams. (pg 23)
It is the intricacy with which Plath manages image and abstraction, that allows her to create a kaleidoscopic landscape which her readers are willfully forced to enter. There are no pretensions to neutrality or objectivity. These purely personal and pensive accounts of Sylvia Plath’s perspective, of her life, are artfully crafted and stunningly portrayed.

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Crítica Sylvia Plath

Ariel, de Sylvia Plath

Oscar Godoy Barbosa

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963), escritora y poeta nacida en Boston, ha sido considerada como uno de los más claros exponentes de la llamada poesía confesional, es decir, aquella que explora y revela los detalles, aún los más escabrosos, de la intimidad del poeta.

Para escribir esta nota me apoyaré en la lectura de dos poemas que hacen parte del último libro de Plath, Ariel, pues entre los dos se establece un contraste que vale la pena resaltar en el intento de conocer la poesía de esta autora.

El primero de estos poemas es Lesbos (1962), que relata lo que puede ser una relación de amor entre dos mujeres casadas y con hijos. En este poema podemos encontrar una buena muestra de lo que sería la poesía confesional, pues sus versos ponen de manifiesto la complejidad de sentimientos que se desatan alrededor de una relación amorosa. La voz narradora se desprecia a sí misma (“And I, love, am a pathological liar”), se muestra hastiada de lo que la rodea, como su casa y sus hijos (“Meanwhile there’s a stink of fat and baby crap”), y confiesa, en consonancia con la mujer amada, sentimientos que bien pueden acercarse al odio y conducir al homicidio, así sea metafórico (“You say I should drown the kittens. Their smell! / You say I should drown my girl”).

Plath explora en estas líneas la desesperación de la mujer atrapada en una vida convencional, y las emociones extremas que pueden cocinarse en su interior. Para ello, se vale de tres estrofas largas, irregulares en la extensión de sus versos y en el número de versos por estrofa, en la falta de rimas, con un ritmo que llega a hacerse pesado, denso, como para dejar en evidencia la intensidad de los sentimientos expresados (“The smog of cooking, the smog of hell”…”I’m dope and thick from my last sleeping pill”… “The impotent husband slumps out for a coffee”).

La estrofa final, la cuarta, es la más corta del poema (apenas 7 líneas, y luego una línea suelta, en contraste con las otras 3 estrofas de más de 20 líneas), como si la autora deseara marcar formalmente el contraste entre la pesadilla que rodea el amor, y el amor mismo. Esta última parte, de hecho, se concentra en la necesidad de continuar la relación: “I say I may be back. / You know what lies are for / Even in your Zen heaven we shan’t meet”. El amor pone en evidencia la frustración de la vida, pero se ofrece también como la posibilidad de la evasión, de salir de sí mismas.

El segundo poema es Ariel, el que le da título al volumen. En contraste con la densidad del anterior, en la forma este poema transmite una sensación de ligereza. Plath compuso este verso con diez estrofas cortas, de tres versos cada una, algunos de los cuales son de una sola palabra (“Hooks––––“ … “Shadows.”), y un verso final, de una sola línea.

Un elemento formal que llama la atención es el encabalgamiento entre las líneas, aún si estas corresponden a estrofas diferentes, lo que crea un manejo especial de la pausa y un sentido de movimiento, de continuidad en todo el poema. Así por ejemplo, la línea final de la estrofa 8 (“The child’s cry”) conecta, luego de un espacio en blanco, con la primera línea de la estrofa 9 (“Melts in the wall”). Este recurso cobrará una importancia vital hacia el final del poema, como veremos más adelante.

¿Cuál es el tema del poema? Un nombre propio que aparece hacia la mitad nos brinda la clave para armar el entramado: Godiva. Lady Godiva, la mujer que aceptó montarse desnuda en un caballo y recorrer las calles de una población, para que el gobernante rebajara los impuestos a la gente. El otro nombre propio está en el título, Ariel, y tal era el nombre del caballo de Lady Godiva.

El poema, entonces, está contado desde la perspectiva del caballo, de sus impresiones mientras es montado y se prepara para salir a la calle con Lady Godiva. De ahí su ritmo nervioso, sus líneas breves, el encabalgamiento de sus líneas, que captan apenas impresiones del lugar que oscuro en el que se encuentran antes de salir a la luz de la mañana.

Ariel siente la piel, los muslos de la mujer, percibe el llanto de un niño en las cercanías, sabe que va a salir. Y las últimas líneas marcan ese justo instante antes de salir, el arrojo del caballo, casi como en un éxtasis orgásmico (“And I / am the arrow. / The dew that flies / Suicidal, an one with the drive / Into the red / Eye, the cauldron of morning” “Y yo / soy la flecha / el rocío que vuela / suicida, al unísono con el camino / dentro del rojo / ojo, el caldero de la mañana”).

Plath nos regala aquí un instante previo a la historia. A diferencia del tono confesional, intimista, de Lesbos, aquí estamos ante un poema que es pura forma, instinto, ritmo. También se mira hacia adentro, en la medida en que intenta captar las impresiones del caballo, pero no las racionaliza ni profundiza en ellas. Se trata, entonces, de dos interioridades distintas, aunque tal vez complementarias: el hombre y el animal, el raciocinio y el instinto, captados desde una sensibilidad única.

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Enésimo apunte beat

Música y beatniks no son conceptos excluyentes.

Existe una leyenda que se esconde detrás de la historia de En el camino, quizás la gran novela de este grupo literario. Dicen que Kerouac, aventurero y bohemio, escribió su libro más famoso en tres semanas de 1951, mientras escuchaba jazz en un cuartucho. Para no interrumpir su proceso buscó un largo rollo, apergaminado, en donde tecleó la gran excursión de Sal Paradise y Dean Moriarty (o de él mismo y de su compañero Neal Cassady) sin necesidad de cambiar las hojas en su máquina de escribir. En el exorcismo utilizó como mantra la frase: “primer pensamiento: el mejor pensamiento”. De allí que el espíritu de la novela despida cierto aire de improvisación y espontaneidad, como un dejarse llevar, como algunas canciones de free jazz en el bajo de Jaco Pastorius.

Tampoco para nadie es un secreto la predilección que sentía Kerouac por esta música (en su libro Mexico City Blues el experimento con el ritmo es incontestable). En los 40, cuando conoció en Columbia a sus amigos de generación, William Burroughs y Allen Ginsberg (Old Bull Lee y Carlo Marx, en la novela), los garitos de Nueva York eran dominio de Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie y Miles Davis. Ellos experimentaron con las formas, abolieron los arreglos clásicos y dejaban todo en manos de la improvisación. Lo suyo terminó por llamarse jazz bebop. Beat era la palabra que mejor encajaba en sus maromas musicales, al ser considerada por los jazzistas como el pulso del acento rítmico sobre el cual se improvisaba. Kerouac no dudó en apropiarse del término hasta afirmar que él formaba parte de la Generación Beat, con todas las ambigüedades que el nombre traía consigo.

Los beats fue un conglomerado surgido con el desencanto de la guerra. Sin embargo, buscaron la libertad y las nuevas sensaciones, en todas sus formas, como contrapeso a la aplastante realidad. Por eso no es descabellado pensar que, dentro de la improvisación de su estructura, existan detalles premeditados.

Cuando se está ante Aullido de Allen Ginsberg las resonancias cobran más significados. Ahora, en el terreno poético, Neal Cassady vuelve a ser un espectro creador, una musa, la gasolina que hace posible el poemario. Es Ginsberg quien describe su primer contacto sexual con este personaje. Tomado de la mano de Cassady reconoce en Burroughs a su amigo y gurú, al hombre que le regalo el titulo de su volumen, y con esto se atreve a atreverse. Se lanza en el tobogán del jazz y comienza un viaje sin freno, lleno de miasmas, fluidos, vergas y garitos. Un grito que encierra otros gritos en una humanidad que nadie quiere leer de esa forma. El chofi es puñal, por ejemplo. Resulta increíble que este libro haya sido perseguido, cercado y juzgado con la misma severidad destinada a un ciudadano.

Como siempre, el arte queda y los intríngulis se vuelven eso: anécdotas. Aullido levanto polémica y no es una lectura complaciente, pero es muy posible que en este poemario se concentre toda una propuesta grupal. La sinceridad comprimida de todos los beatniks. La eucaristía de una generación.

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