April 2015 – The Red Wheelbarrow Poets

RWB Workshop Poem of the Week – April 29, 2015

Janet Kolstein

Don’t Eat the Daisies

Quietly to myself,
I was humming Please, please don’t eat the daisies
the way old men whistle nameless tunes,

adding another mantra
to the long soliloquy
that spools itself in silence;
tumorous words, and worlds, lost
when the host dies:

haunted people holding films
that show their insides
stop-in for a cup of soup, a sandwich
before, or after, the portentous news
of the doctor’s views.

The shamans can see right through them —
through to the other side.

In my mind, I repeat mulligatawny as a crutch
until it just rolls off my tongue,

and I’m trying to be a saint,
to feel tough tenderness,
to celebrate, and elevate
the patterns of pedestrians
and the shapes shadows make
as the sun crawls across the city,
the life being given me,
trying not to cling
too desperately.

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RWB Workshop Poem of the Week – April 22, 2015

Claudia Serea

Questions for the Holy Ghost

Did she say yes?

And were you gentle
when you descended like dawn
upon a closed tulip?

Was she ashamed
when she opened her petals
just a little?

Was she afraid?

Did she ask why?
Why me?

Or was she happy
and humbled to be chosen
to wear her pain proudly,

a necklace of fire
around her neck?

Did you lie next to her
without a word, knowing
this cannot be undone?

And did you tell her
her son will die a violent death
to save some strangers?

And still, she said yes?

Knowing all,
how history unfolds,

would you do it again
for us?

Would she?

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WCW – Amy King

Wednesday, May 6, 2015, 7 p.m.

Williams Center for the Arts
One Williams Plaza, Rutherford NJ

Plus the words of William Carlos Williams
and open readings from the floor

Is it possible to write something visceral by distorting grammar into a new language? Find out at May’s Williams Reading, when the Red Wheelbarrow presents Amy King, our featured poet for the month. From such a successful poet, you might be surprised to hear such daring and challenging work.

Of I Want to Make You Safe (Litmus Press), John Ashbery describes Amy King’s poems as bringing “abstractions to brilliant, jagged life, emerging into rather than out of the busyness of living.” Safe was one of Boston Globe’s Best Poetry Books of 2011. King teaches Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College and serves on the Executive Board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts.

King joins the ranks of Ann Patchett, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rachel Carson and Pearl Buck as the winner of the 2015 WNBA Award (Women’s National Book Association). She was also honored by The Feminist Press as one of the “40 Under 40: The Future of Feminism” awardees, and she received the 2012 SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities.

Contact: John Barrale – john.barrale@gmail.com

Your mouth is full of noise and I live the anomaly.
That’s why I’m currently drinking. And making more
fuckworthy art. Because the rest is truly useless.
I cut myself and no one will recall the time the poet cut
her flesh or ripped her heart’s skin to tell them something.
Our limits may not be expandable, but before you say,
“Blood and sinew,” remember you’re making a mistake.
We are not edges of limbs or the heart’s smarts only.
We are kiss times kiss with tree-lined lungs
(yes, we are the fucking trees) that sprout with purveyors
of knowledge

RWB Workshop Poem of the Week – April 15, 2015

John Barrale

Cat in the Moon

The moon is curled up in the sky.
Tonight she is African, a leopard
with a tail of clouds.

I detect a smile on her golden face.

Is it because she knows
I’d leave it all for her?

Sexy cat. I smell rain.
Your cloud tail swishes yes.
Let’s get wet and romp
in the night sky jungle.

Are you hungry?

One by one and real slow,
I can feed you the small animals
that hide in my soul.

* * *

The Cat in the Moon wakes me
by reaching under the covers
and wiggling my toe.

Let’s hunt, she purrs.

I take her paw
and slip like a ghost
through the grass.

We catch and eat ten mice.

Now you know where the little ones hide,
she says.

In the morning, I remember everything
and regret nothing.

* * *

She is so bright, just to look at her
makes my eyes hurt.

Unhurried, she hunts me.
I am the mouse cut cold.

Her paws
fill the night.

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GV – A Look at Neptune and a Jack Bruce Tribute

The Magic Circle returns to GainVille Café in Rutherford, NJ on Friday, April 24 for the launch of ANTON YAKOVLEV’s new book of poetry Neptune Court. Anton has a poem forthcoming in The New Yorker and has been published in The Rutherford Red Wheelbarrow, Instigatorzine, and other publications.

Our musical feature will be a tribute to the late great bassist JACK BRUCE, by frequent Magic Circle performer VICTORIA WARNE (The Victoria Warne Band) and poet/musician MARK FOGARTY, plus special guest CATHY VITA and a Victoria original written to be debuted this evening! .

The Red Wheelbarrow Poets’ Bring-Your-A-Game open mic will follow, with generous reading times.

17 Ames Ave, 7 PM.
$7 donation includes coffee/tea and dessert.
(201) 507-1800