Maria Loves Words

Mother Contemplates Divorce at Creek with Son

2012-02-05T18:06:00.000-08:00

Mother Contemplates Divorce at Creek with Son

Red-haired boy in pith helmet: “Shard of pottery forgotten by time. Draw me mom, draw a drawing of me.” Mother perched at edge of creek looks up from her reading.

“Lookit this rock mom,” Walking through creek, stamps his feet on a sandbar, now wading over rocks into the shimmer and splash.

“Lookit mom, something man made, whaddya suppose it is?” Ducks under a fallen tree, roots exposed like spokes.

“Lookit this rock,” Throws it. Heavy splash, ripples percolate. Skips a flat stone, 2 skips.

“See, isn’t this such a good idea mom? Lookit this skipping stone, it’s practically perfect in every way.” Skips 3 times, then bends to creek, comes up.

“Lookit this rock mom.”

Mother looks up says:

“It’s leopard skinned.”

“Way to be a poet mom. Hey! Got my first decent skip. Dog truffle hunts under Mother’s chair, nose sandy, snorts, digs. Splash, clack of two rocks, boy examining intently.

“It’s really light too . . . lookit this one.” Creek eddies to the left, ferns sprout from the embankment.

“Oh my god, lookit this mom, it’s quartz, it’s pink, are you writing this down? It’s pink. You’re such a writer.” Pause, boy ankle deep, contemplating rocks. Looks up.

“I’m glad it’s just us two here mom, cuz we get to keep all these treasures.”

I Race a Train

2012-01-12T08:28:00.000-08:00

I Race a Train

I race a train to erase the day

tough graffiti, I tap my foot to the chuga-chuga,

count each day unsolved like the box cars,

which are full of the lumber

we used to call trees.

I race clouds in canals next to the harbor,

watch seabirds watch

frigatebirds dive into toxic tides.

I race rows and rows of lettuce,

Lettuce rises like a choir of voices: steam

above each head, sound

is drowned

by the thwack-thwack of a helicopter rotor

hiss and spray over the fields,

I cannot outrace this fog

of filth,

and try not to breathe as I enter my house.

Outside my window

a valley of wind and lettuce

in a sea of earth.

Off in the distance

a helicopter

no bigger than a spoon is headed toward my table.

Photo Credit: Stewart Ferebee

In Salt Water

2011-12-28T03:56:00.000-08:00

In Salt Water

The sea. He came up from the sea. His voice green, water tones, splash of froth, spray, and crash, crash. I’d swim on my back and listen, legs and arms out, listen. Tentacles tipped. A clown fish with intelligent eyes looks into my eyes. Questioning. A hatchet fish frightens me so I swim on.

And then he’d speak. I’d often cut my feet on his words sharp like urchins, and get pinned in by the tide. My footprints a lexicon of glyphs on rocks, slap, smack, splat.

He would leave me then and return. Where eels arrow their way across fields of vision, I’d kayak, and cast a net to catch the giant fish. But no one goes as deep as he does. But stay in the shallows, where light refracts and turns the ocean blue. The sun cannot reach his home, only elongated eels to conduct electricity. I almost caught this fish once. But capsized, swallowed salt water, coughed up foam on the shore like some wide-mouth gulper eel, sucked air, blacked out, woke up aglow, coughing, choking, coughing, until I coughed up a lantern fish, death-twinkle.

A Triangle of Palm Fronds In the Window Means it's Morning

2011-12-16T14:35:00.000-08:00

A triangle of palm fronds in the window means it’s morning

A colony of souls

awaken

to a murder of crows fighting over coconuts.

Boats waffle blue waves.

Signs say:

Noel Coward fucked in this hotel.

And white sheets froth the bed.

Somerset Maugham

masturbated

here to the batik face of Gauguin.

You use a straw as a snorkel

to navigate the day—

A cruise ship cuts through the champagne cake

but this is the year of no cake,

only salt and

the one tooth left a ravenous dog.

Come, dogs, a triangle of palm fronds

in the window

means it is morning

“You can’t keep me from drowning if it’s what I choose”

2011-11-09T13:36:00.000-08:00

“You can’t keep me from drowning if it’s what I choose.”

your voice is an osprey’s

plunge

to catch a fish.

The answer of nests

on telephone poles.

The blue lilt of my sigh,

on this kayak

slapped by the sea, I tilt.

At the last gulp of salt water:

my stubbornness

a hammerhead

circling

a vortex

buoys me up

into the day’s

long light.

slap my silver

self on board,

ungaffed

and gasping--

East Coast Release Party was Amazing!

2011-11-07T12:02:00.000-08:00

On November 7th Ping-Pong magazine once again took NYC by storm with its annual release party, this year it took place at the One and One Lounge on the Lower East Side.
Much fun was had by all!

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2604702715364.2145391.1188755942&type=1&l=8554b56035

Henry Miller in NYC (again) Ping-Pong East Coast Release Party!!!

2011-10-29T11:01:00.000-07:00

Thaddeus Rutkowski and the late Cheryl Burke with friends at last year's reading

One and One Bar

Saturday, November 5 · 7:00pm - 10:30pm

76th East 1st Street, New York, NY 10009

A comedian, a burlesque dancer and 8 poets walk into a bar... It's the Ping-Pong East Coast Launch Party! One & One Bar (1st Ave & 1st St. on the LES), Sat., Nov. 5, 7PM. Featuring BRANDO! the funky No Cal band, Leta LeNoir, the fancy dancer, and Kathy Smith, the family-friendly comedian. With readings by Ping Pong contributors Cynthia Cruz, J. Hope Stein, Phyllis Wat, Sara Goodman, Joanna Fuhrman, Whitney Porter, Thaddeus Rutkowski,and Mark Lamoureux, as well as editors Maria Garcia Teutsch and Christine Hamm. Performances begin at 7:00. The event is free and open to the public. Pushing the envelope till it bleeds!

Bios:

Thad Rutowski: Thaddeus Rutkowski is the author of the novels Roughhouse, Tetched and Haywire. Haywire reached No. 1 on Small Press Distribution's fiction best-seller list. Both Roughhouse and Tetched were finalists for a Members' Choice Asian American Literary Award. He teaches literature at City University of New York and fiction writing at the Writer's Voice of the West Side YMCA in Manhattan.

Cynthia Cruz: Cynthia Cruz’s is the author of Ruin. Her second collection, The Glimmering Room, will be published in fall of 2012 by Four Way Books. Her poems have been published in the New Yorker, Paris Review, Boston Review, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review and others. She has been the recipient of fellowships from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and a Hodder Fellowship. She currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.

Joanna Furhman: Joanna Fuhrman is the author of four books of poetry, most recently
Pageant (Alice James Books 2009) and Moraine (Hanging Loose Press 2006.) A new chapbook The Emotive Function came out in June. To learn more, please visit her website JoannaFuhrman.com.

Mark Lamoureux: Mark Lamoureux lives in Astoria, NY. He is the author of thee full-length collections of poetry: Spectre (Black Radish Books 2010), Astrometry Orgonon (BlazeVOX Books 2008) and 29 Cheeseburgers / 39 Years (Pressed Wafer, Forthcoming 2012). His work has been published in print and online in Fence, miPoesias, Jubilat, Denver Quarterly, Conduit, Jacket, Fourteen Hills and many others. In 2006 he started Cy Gist Press, a micropress focusing on ekphrastic poetry. He holds an MFA from the New School and teaches in the CUNY system.

J. Hope Stein: J. Hope Stein is the author of the chapbooks Talking Doll (Dancing Girl Press) and Mary, both forthcoming in 2012, and her chapbook Light’s Golden Jubilee was a finalist in the 2011 Ahsahta Chapbook Contest. Her short film, The Inventor’s Last Breath, based on her full-length manuscript about Thomas Edison, was screened at the 2011 Cinepoetry Festival at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur. (More information
on this project is at http://jhopestein.wordpress.com/) J. Hope Stein is also the author of poetry/humor site eecattings.com, editor of poetrycrush.com, and a member of Calypso Editions artist co-op. Her work can be seen in various journals and anthologies,including Poetry International, The Boog Reader: Boog City Anthology of New York Poetry, Web Del Sol and Ping Pong. She is a member of the faculty at the Chicago School of Poetics.

Sara Goodman: Sara Goodman graduated from Purchase College in 2005 with a B.A. in Creative Writing with her concentration on poetry. Her poetry has been published in several journals and has been defined as a melding of the romantic with science fiction. She currently teaches workshops in New York for adults and children on poetry and art.

Whitney Porter: Whitney Porter is originally from Houston Texas; however for the last 17 years she has resided in Brooklyn. She has done undergraduate work at the University of Houston and Brooklyn College and finally after many years of slogging from one university to the next has just this last year received her Bachelors Degree in Journalism. She is now currently studying with Phillip Schultz at the Writers Studio, in Manhattan. She has publications in Battered Suitcase a quarterly webzine from Vagabondage Press, Ping Pong Literary Magazine, and Craniotomic, a webzine out of Chicago.

Phylis Wat: Phyllis Wat is the author of three poetry books, "Shadow Blue" (Hot Water, 1988), "The Fish Soup Bowl Expedition" (Ten Pell Books, 2000), and "The Influence of Paintings Hung in Bedrooms" United Artists, 2007), with a fourth on the way. She is a poetry co-editor of the online magazine "Press 1," and publisher of Straw Gate Books (distributed by spdbooks.org).

Maria Teutsch: Maria Garcia Teutsch is a Santa Cruz poet. She has recently been published and has forthcoming publications in anthologies Conversations at the Wartime Cafe, and Eighteens, and Two Review. She has been editor of the Homestead Review for the past eleven years. She also serves as president of the board of the Henry Miller Library where she is editor-in-chief of Ping-Pong journal of art and international literature. mariateutsch.blogspot.com

Christine Hamm: Christine Hamm is getting her PhD in English Literature, and teaches at CUNY. Nominated four times for a Pushcart, her poetry has been in Rhino, Stone Canoe, Pebble Lake Review, Women's Studies Quarterly, Blue Earth Review, Rattle, and many others. She has published three books of poetry, and the most recent, Echo Park, was just released from Blazevox. Christine is the east coast poetry editor for Ping*Pong, a literary journal published by the Henry Miller Library of Big Sur, CA.

(The Dancer) Leta LeNoir: Hailing from the great state of Michigan Leta LeNoir has been dancing on stage since she was five years old. She has been performing Burlesque and gogo in New York City for over three years. Miss LeNoir studied the great art of the strip tease at the New York School of Burlesque and can be seen showing off this exquisite talent at venues all over the city.

(The Music) Dan's Guerra's Band: Brando from California. We are gonna melt faces!

(The Funny) Kathy Smith: Kathy Smith has been doing stand up comedy for a little over 10 years. She’s performed regularly at Caroline’s on Broadway and Don’t Tell Mama’s. She’s currently a regular at the Laugh Lounge and has been a MC at office gatherings on request. Kathy’s comedy is good clean fun, sexy and relatable across generations.

Me and Christine Hamm

Ping Pong Party (PPP / P3) in SF tomorrow. It’s a perfect “first date” – we even have an itinerary laid out for you. | The Henry Miller Memorial Library Blog

2011-10-21T11:52:00.000-07:00

Ping Pong Party (PPP / P3) in SF tomorrow. It’s a perfect “first date” – we even have an itinerary laid out for you. | The Henry Miller Memorial Library Blog

Beat Museum Loves Henry Miller!!! Ping-Pong journal Party!!!

2011-10-17T14:01:00.000-07:00

PRESS RELEASE: WEST COAST PING-PONG JOURNAL LAUNCH PARTY

The Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, California is pleased to announce the annual publication of Ping•Pong, a journal of the arts. The editors continue to serve up the best artists from the global art and literary scene by publishing a vibrant group of poets, writers, artists, and photographers. This issue continues Ping•Pong’s commitment to a cultural dialogue between contemporary artists and the aesthetics set forth by Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin.

Miller was and is as much an international literary figure as he was/is an American one; therefore, Ping•Pong reaches beyond our shores in order to bring unknown, or lesser known, writers from around the world into more prominence in English.

The 2011 issue of Ping•Pong features an interview with Ruth Stone, and international collections from French-Canadian poet Guy Jean as well as translations from Japanese. Ping•Pong offers the finest in American writers including Brian Henry, Eleni Sikelianos, Katie Farris, Bruce Covey, and Sesshu Foster, among many other luminaries.

Ping•Pong’s award winning writers and artists have been featured in Rolling Stone, The Wall Street Journal, Harper’s, Time, The New Yorker, and Newsweek and have exhibited at the J. Paul Getty Museum, The National Gallery of Art, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

The Ping•Pong West Coast Launch Party will take place at the Beat Museum on Saturday, October 22nd and will feature the notable MC Magnus Toren, with readings by Jesse Nathan, Dana Teen Lomax, Christine Hamm, Daphne Gottlieb and Sean Labrador Y Manzano, with a screening of Maria Garcia Teutsch's Cinepoem: Chronicles on Violence, based on poems published in the anthology: Conversations at the Wartime Cafe. Readings will begin at 7:30 pm. The event is free and open to the public.

Ping•Pong’s release party is in conjunction with Conversations at the Wartime Cafe anthology.

Come by and have a glass of wine with us and marvel at the wonder of the Beat Museum,
and swing your hips to the music of DJ Dan Guerra.

------

Book information:

Ping•Pong
A Literary Journal of the Henry Miller Library
2011
ISSN #1083-0944
Paperback, 220 pages, $12.00

------

Contact Information:

Maria Garcia Teutsch, Editor-in-Chief

Magnus Toren 667-2574 (Executive Director, Henry Miller Library)
Highway One, Big Sur, CA 93920
www.henrymiller.org

Christine Hamm, Poetry Editor

Reader Bios:

Dana Teen Lomax is the author of Curren¢y (Palm Press), Room (a+bend press), and the co-editor of Letters to Poets: Conversations about Poetics, Politics, and Community (Saturnalia Books, 2008). Her documentary poetics manuscript Disclosure is forthcoming from Black Radish Books in 2011. Her work has most recently appeared in UbuWeb, Jacket, Poets & Writers, The Bay Poetics Anthology and will be included in Against Expression (Northwestern University Press, 2010). She is working on a book of poems entitled Shhh! Lullabies for a Tired Nation, editing a Small Press Traffic-related project, Kindergarde: Avant-Garde Poems, Plays, & Stories for Children, and teaching writing at San Francisco State University and Marin Juvenile Hall.

Jesse Nathan’s poems have appeared in the Nation, Agriculture Reader, Hot Metal Bridge, and a number of other places. He is co-editor, with Dominic Luxford, of the McSweeney’s Poetry Series, and managing editor of the Best American Nonrequired Reading. He’s also poetry editor at California Northern. He was born in Berkeley, grew up in Kansas, and lives now in San Francisco.

San Francisco-based Performance Poet Daphne Gottlieb stitches together the ivory tower and the gutter just using her tongue. She is the author and editor of nine books, most recently the poetry book 15 Ways to Stay Alive as well as co-editor (with Lisa Kester) of Dear Dawn: Aileen Wuornos in her Own Words.? She is the editor of Fucking Daphne: Mostly True Stories and Fictions and Homewrecker: An Adultery Reader, as well as the author of the poetry books Kissing Dead Girls, Final Girl, Why Things Burn and Pelt, and as the graphic novel Jokes and the Unconscious with artist Diane DiMassa.

Sean Labrador y Manzano has an MFA in Poetry from Mills College (2007). His column "Conversations at a Wartime Cafe" appears at http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/wartime/. He is the poetry editor of Tea Party Magazine and the San Francisco literature editor for L.A.-based Forth Magazine. He is published in Beeswax, Leonard Cohen: You're Our Man, Chain, Bay Poetics, The Best American Poetry 2004, and elsewhere.
Dana Teen is the author of Curren¢y (Palm Press, 2006) and Room (a+bend, 1998), a chapbook which was awarded the San Francisco Foundation’s Joseph Henry Jackson Award. She is a is a fourth generation Californian who teaches poetry and writing at several institutions. Her writing has been supported by the California Arts Council, the Peninsula Community Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, the Marin Arts Council, and others. Currently she is making Q, a series of "home movies" about raising her daughter on the grounds of a prison. She lives with her family in northern California.

Christine Hamm, serves as Ping-Pong poetry editor. She is a PhD candidate in English Literature. She won the MiPoesias First Annual Chapbook Competition with her manuscript, Children Having Trouble with Meat. She teaches English at CUNY, and has performed all over the country. She has three books, The Transparent Dinner, Saints & Cannibals, and her recent book is now out: Echo Park. Christine was a runner-up to the Poet Laureate of Queens.

Maria Garcia Teutsch is Editor-in-Chief of Ping-Pong magazine. She also serves as president of the board of directors of the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, Ca. She is widely published, and has four poetry chapbooks, Surrender Dorothy, Fractured Fortunes and there are no cars on this highway, and Chronicles on Violence. She is an MFA candidate at New England College.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”- Anaïs Nin.

Ping-Pong Release Party--West/East

2011-10-14T10:54:00.000-07:00

Henry Miller Slept Here
West/East Release Parties

Two fabuloso parties will take place to honor the yearly publication of Ping-Pong journal of art and literature by the Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur, California.

This year's West Coast party will take place at the uber-cool Beat Museum in San Francisco, California
and
The East Coast event will be at the One and One on the lower east side in NYC.

The West Coast Release Party for Ping-Pong will feature readers Jesse Nathan, Dana Teen Lomax read, as well as our East Coast Editor, Christine Hamm, with a Cinepoem by Maria Garcia Teutsch.

Sean Labrador Y Manzano, editor of the anthology, Conversations at the Wartime Cafe, will read as will Daphne Gottlieb.

Booze,(wine), snacks and music will be provided.

Magnus Toren, Executive director of the Henry Miller library, and all around dilettante will be our MC.

Promises to be a good time! Starts: 7:30 pm, October 22, 2011

The East Coast Release party will feature a comedian, a burlesque dancer and 8 poets at the One & One Bar (1st Ave & 1st St. on the LES), Sat., Nov. 5, 7PM. Featuring BRANDO! the funky No Cal band, Leta LeNoir, the fancy dancer, and Kathy Smith, the family-friendly comedian. With readings by Ping Pong contributors Cynthia Cruz, J. Hope Stein, Phyllis Wat, Sara Goodman, Joanna Fuhrman, Whitney Porter, Thaddeus Rutkowski,and Mark Lamoureux, as well as editors Maria Garcia Teutsch and Christine Hamm. Performances begin at 7:00. The event is free and open to the public. Pushing the envelope till it bleeds!

The new Ping Pong - the HML literary mag - is out and it is bright and lemony-yellow and it is fabulous

2011-09-20T13:01:00.000-07:00

The new Ping Pong - the HML literary mag - is out and it is bright and lemony-yellow and it is *fabulous*

Trinity River Poem

2011-09-14T10:12:00.000-07:00

Trinity River

All its weight channels between

slender shoots of rock. Fast molasses.

Each drop careens toward the sea

past my fly-fishing husband

hand lining a spent trout into his net.

He’s a shallow pool I cannot float upon.

Our currents in opposite light:

his in speckled shade, mine in full sun.

Our son sifts gold dust through his shirt as he swims,

then flops goose-pimpled on a white boulder.

A glint that binds, gold in black water,

the brilliance that blinds makes me see--

we’ve been mining this river for years,

but there’s nothing left that sparkles, only sparks.

Originally published as "El Rio" in Two Review

My September 11th Story

2011-09-09T16:02:00.000-07:00

Washington Square Park, September 16, 2001 NYC
photo credit: Jim Gavenus

You Cannot Measure Your Life In Coffee Spoons

Maria Garcia Teutsch

On the morning of September 11, 2001, as usual, my five-year-old son woke me up before the alarm went off. His joie de vivre something I’d learned to cherish, though it never quite infiltrated my inherent need for quiet and solitude in the morning. I tried to hide it as best I could, offering a cookie until I could get my first cup of coffee down, and enter the world of the living which in my case involved teaching at my local community college.

I walked into the living room, coffee in hand and my then-husband had the T.V. blaring as usual, much to my annoyance. (Again, hadn’t finished my first cup). I saw a clear blue sky and two tall buildings that were immediately recognizable, I had been in one of these buildings--had a glass of champagne at the Greatest Bar on Earth at age 19--and then I saw a huge plume of smoke as a plane smashed into it. My knees gave out and I fell onto the ottoman, coffee slopping my robe. I could not look away, I could not think, and soon thereafter, footage of the other plane. I live in California so I was seeing images that had already happened, were not in “real time.” When I could think again my first thought was that I did not want my son to see these images.

I did what most Americans did that morning--went to work. I dropped my son off at kindergarten and went to teach my creative writing class. I felt as though I were walking through butter, and when I entered my classroom, the faces of my students were stunned, one student crying and being consoled. Her brother was flying back to California that morning, no one could get a hold of him. No one could get any calls through to New York. I told them they did not have to stay, they could go home, but no one did. We had already created in this space a safe place where we could talk about our fears.

My next class was a literature class and these students all looked at me as though I was some kind of scary prophet. You see, the week before I had done a workshop on the Taliban, bringing the attention of my students to the plight of women in Afghanistan, and the organization RAWA, which helped Afghani women and sought to create international awareness of their plight in an effort to end their brutal oppression.

The week after the attacks I asked my students to write letters doing what I have just done here, reflecting on the events of that day. We made a 20-foot-collage of these letters framed by pictures of historical buildings in New York City, including the World Trade Center, interspersed with pictures of all of the presidents of the United States. It was beautiful and sad and cathartic.

That morning I realized that even before my first cup of coffee, I was connected to this greater beast of humanity, in all of its beauty, in all of its horror.

The Homestead Review I edited dedicated to the victims of 9/11

Fairy Tale Journal

2011-09-07T18:41:00.000-07:00

How to Keep Your Fairy Tale Journal

Follow Directions Here

Little Red Riding Hood versions here

Poetry Night with Philip Glass

2011-09-03T14:33:00.000-07:00

On August 31st we had a wonderful evening of poetry and theatre with Philip Glass on piano and the Youth Orchestra of America string quartet. It was amazing. This evening was a part of the Days and Nights Festival which runs from August 19th to September 4th.

photo credit: John Sorenson

graphic design: Jenny Donegan

KUSP Poetry Show Tonight!!

2011-08-28T11:02:00.000-07:00

Francesco Levato, Maria Teutsch, Philip Glass

Listen to us tonight on The Poetry Show on KUSP talking about our performance at Philip Glass' Days and Nights Festival, show begins at 8:00 pm, Wednesday, August 31st at the Henry Miller Memorial Library.

Featured: Francesco Levato
Eleni Sikelianos
Jerry Quickly
and me (a-hem)

Poetic Terminology

2011-08-25T09:07:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to some poetic terms
Here is a link to your paper handout for When Living was a Labor Camp

Ping-Pong Magazine at the Beat Museum October 22nd!

2011-08-18T17:20:00.000-07:00

Mark your calendars for this most special event!

Red Hot Chili Peppers at Henry Miller Memorial Library

2011-07-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

Rolling Stone article
Spin Article

Blondie y Los Tres Osos

2011-07-11T10:21:00.000-07:00

Blondie y Los Tres Osos

Rubia awoke curled between two Hefty sacks smelling of bread and day old fish. She punched into one and found a roll she could eat, and a plastic knife that seemed clean enough.

She’d never been in this barrio before but knew that left of the mural of Xochiquetzal, she’d find the apartment with the blue door and a place to sleep.

She touched the letter folded inside her bra, and tried not to think of the desert, the truck driver who picked her up, or the payment she’d made for the ride.

Soon she arrived at the blue door and knocked, but no one answered. She saw three windows. The first was too high, the second too narrow, but the third one seemed like she could fit her way inside. She took out her plastic knife and pried off the screen and slipped inside. The house felt as though a mad mariachi band had just finished playing.

A piñata in the shape of a bear lay on its side, a hole in the belly revealing atomic fire balls, tootsie rolls and bubble gum whistles. The table spread out before in a feast: enchiladas, chicken in mole sauce, and chile verde. Her mouth watered. She stuck her finger into the chile verde.

“Fuck that’s hot.” Her taste buds felt as though they’d been gone over with a very sharp razor.

Then she took the cake knife and carved out a hunk of enchilada.

“¡Ay de mí! She yelled, tears streaming down her face.

Then Rubia grabbed dipped a wooden spoon it into the velvety mole sauce. The chocolate coated her seared tongue and she gorged herself, then began to look around for somewhere to sleep.

The couch’s springs poked into her like a cattle prod. She went into the bedroom and leaped onto a double bed, but it reminded her too much of sleeping on a slab of rock. She rolled off and saw a small bed. She slipped under the crocheted blanket and fell asleep.

The Osezno’s, Pablo, Luz and Junior, arrived home and noticed something was wrong. Pablo signaled to his wife and child to go into the kitchen area and pulled a gun out of the back of his jeans. He padded silently across the room and pointed at the table. Enchilada and verde sauce speckled the table, and what was worse the mole was almost gone. Suddenly he heard snoring in the bedroom and walked inside.

“Who the fuck are you bitch, coming in our house eating our food?” he boomed.

Rubia opened her eyes to the barrel of a homemade zip gun. Just then Luz and Junior poked their heads around the corner.

“Who’s this blonde puta Pablo?” she screamed.

“Fuck, I don’t know, some stupid bitch in Junior’s bed. I’ve never seen her before, back off woman.”

Just then Junior pointed a finger and said, ”Look.” They all followed his finger to where Rubia’s blanket had dropped away. A necklace of bruises trailed down to arms riddled with what appeared to be cigarette burns.

She looked into Luz’s eyes and said, “Luzita, don’t you recognize me?”

And just then Luz did, it was her cousin Ruby from Juarez. She sat down next to her on Junior’s bed and started crying. And that’s when Rubia told them her story. By the time she finished, Pablo had called some of his Quarteño friends and said he’d be back that evening to celebrate Junior’s birthday.

That night, when it came time to hit the piñata, Ruby beat it with a baseball bat so hard its head split open on the sidewalk and the candy spewed everywhere. That’s when Pablo returned with his friends, ready to enjoy the feast.

Amy Killed a Goat

2011-05-27T10:56:00.000-07:00

Amy Killed a Goat

She slit its throat.

Her hands ribboned

in red streamers.

Drains the goat upside down,

and doesn’t let them use

the testicles to make a purse.

Amy slit a goat’s throat.

Carried peanuts on her head

dug an aqueduct, rested under a baobab tree.

They celebrated with drums--

orange flames ate the black cookie of night.

The goatskin drums were

not from Amy’s goat.

She slit the throat quick,

slicked in blood.

Amy.

Goat.

Slit.

Throat.

She did it.

Then she flew away.

Her friend gave her

a purse for farewell

pink and soft--

full of petals.

Photo Credit: Climbing Goats of Morocco

A Day of Poetry! A Night of Films! A day and night of poetic films!

2011-05-13T14:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's poetry events reminded me of why I love this genre, why I love to teach, why I love to be involved with the Henry Miller Memorial Library, both as a board member and as editor of Ping-Pong magazine of art and literature.

The day started off with Christine Hamm, Francesco Levato and Jenn Hope Stein doing a poetry workhshop for my students. Christine introduced them to fragmentation, and many wonderful poems emerged from this exercise wherein they take five poems, exchange them with a partner, that partner picks out 3 lines from each poem, and then they create a poem out of the fragments. A rebirth of wonder for sure.

Next Francesco talked about Cinepoetry and then showed them this most amazing form through two short films, one made by yours truly (you can watch it below if you click the "Chronicles on Violence" link under the Verrückter Schwanz Cinépoetry schedule. We also watched J. Hope Stein's wonderful film based on her manuscript collection, The Inventor's Last Breath, that includes archival footage of the first moving pictures ever made.

Then we moved on to the Poetic Voices Poetry Festival, now in it's 11th year. This festival awards prize money to student poets. The Faith Webster Fraser award doles out 500.00 to two students, not bad. This year's recipients were Karina Hernandez and Alisa Rodriguez. Circo Award winners included Sergio Perez, Galdino Guijosa and Andrei Juezan. The student readings were followed by readings from Francesco Levato, J. Hope Stein and Christine Hamm.

Then we were off to Big Sur and an early dinner at Nepenthe. Big Sur is like this gift you give to everyone who's never been there before. No one can be unimpressed by the power of this beauty.
We went to the Henry Miller Memorial Library where we grooved to the band, Songs that Hotbox Harry Taught Us, munched on sushi, drank wine, and then watched the Cinépoetic masterpieces.

All in all and spectacular way to spend a day.

Verrückter Schwanz Cinepoetry Festival Schedule

2011-05-09T18:28:00.000-07:00

Verrückter Schwanz (Crazy Cock) Cinepoetry Festival Schedule: Henry Miller Memorial Library

First Hour

Variations on Want: Sequence II, by Francesco Levato

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished, by Antonello Faretta, poem by John Giorno

Mirror, by Kylie Hibbert, poem by Sylvia Plath

Love Song for Cells, by Jillian Brall

Sucks Her with Fiddle, by Jillian Mukavetz

Two films from The Pond, by Zachary Schomburg

The Inventor’s Last Breath, by J. Hope Stein

The Three Organizations of L.R. Levato, by Chris Hefner

Die Pretty, by LaDonna Witmer

Who Says Words with my Mouth, by D J Kadagian, poem by Rumi

Chronicles on Violence, by Maria Garcia Teutsch

Passage, by Kurt Heintz, poem by Quraysh Ali Lansana

Tyger, by Guilherme Marcondes, based on The Tyger by William Blake

Short Intermission/Poetry Reading by Christine Hamm

Second Hour

Entanglement, by Ed Bowes, poem by Anne Waldman

PRESS RELEASE

Verrückter Schwanz Cinepoetry Festival at the Henry Miller Memorial Library

The Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, California is pleased announce the

Verrückter Schwanz Cinepoetry Festival, on May 12^th at 7:30 pm, it will be an evening where audience members will meet visual artists at the intersection between cinema and poetry. Cinepoetry is a relatively new genre of visual poetry where the audience is taken on a journey through words and images shot on film.

This event is brought to you by Ping-Pong, the magazine of art and literature published by the Henry Miller Memorial Library. The evening’s films will begin at dark and will be preceded by live music provided by Songs that Hotbox Harry Taught Us.

The film festival will feature works by Anne Waldman, Jenn Hope Stein, Francesco Levato and many others. The focus of cinepoetry is as a genre of visual poetry made into a short film and shown on a screen focusing its images and sounds around the poem. This event is curated by Francesco Levato and directed by Maria Garcia Teutsch.

The Verrückter Schwanz festival will take place at the Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur, California on Thursday, May 12th, and will feature many films from around the world. The festival begins at 7:30 pm. The event is free and open to the public. Food and wine will be served.

The evening of short films also serves as a kick-off of sorts for the soon to start 6th Annual Big Sur International Short Film Screening Series. The final selection of films for 2011 will be posted on www.bigsurfilm.org on May 20. The first screening in our twelve week series is Thursday, June 9th.

Magnus Toren 667-2574 (Henry Miller Library)

Highway One, Big Sur, CA 93920

www.henrymiller.org/ping_pong.html

Poet, translator, and filmmaker Francesco Levato is the author of three books of poetry: Elegy for Dead Languages; War Rug, a book length documentary poem; and Marginal State. He has translated into English the books of Italian poets Tiziano Fratus, Creaturing, and Fabiano Alborghetti, The Opposite Shore. His work has been published internationally in journals and anthologies, both in print and online, including Drunken Boat, The Progressive,Versal, and many others. His cinépoetry has been exhibited in galleries and featured at film festivals in Berlin, Chicago, New York, and elsewhere.

Christine Hamm is a PhD candidate in English Literature at Drew University, where she was awarded a Caspersen Scholarship for Academic Promise. In 2007, she was a runner up to Queens' Poet Laureate. Her poetry has been published in The Adirondack Review, Pebble Lake Review, Horseless Press, Lodestar Quarterly, Blue Fifth Review, Poetry Midwest, MiPoesias, Rattle, Snow Monkey and Exquisite Corpse, among others. She has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize, and once for "The Best of the Web". Her work has been anthologized in Homewrecker: An Adultery Reader and The Murdering of Our Years: Artists and Activists on Making Ends Meet, both by Soft Skull Press. Her first book of poems, The Transparent Dinner, was published by Mayapple Press in October '06, and her second book, Saints & Cannibals was published by Plain View Press in Spring '10.

Maria Garcia Teutsch is Editor-in-chief of Ping-Pong magazine. She also serves as president of the board of directors of the Henry Miller library in Big Sur, Ca. She is widely published, most recently her poems have been anthologized by Knives, Forks and Spoons Press’ Eighteens, with forthcoming publications by McSweeney’s Conversations at the Wartime Café, and the Sylvia Plath anthology, Fat Gold Watch. She is the author of three chapbooks: Chronicles on Violence being the latest. mariateutsch.blogspot.com

Think Big Sur needs more sushi, art, and poetry? Then there won't be much in this blog that you'll disagree with

2011-05-09T13:14:00.000-07:00

Think Big Sur needs more sushi, art, and poetry? Then there won't be much in this blog that you'll disagree with

A Review of Tomaž Šalamun's Woods and Chalices by Maria Garcia Teutsch

2011-04-20T02:25:00.000-07:00

The Republic of Tomaž

Reading Woods and Chalices is akin to entering another world of phantasmagorical renderings of reality, or non-reality. There is a rejection of syntactical cohesiveness that is clearly intentional. In this regard he reminds me of bell hooks who disregards rules governing language as a rebellion against the “slavemaster’s tongue.” Šalamun takes his syntactical rebellion a couple of steps further. His poems are like a vast canvas by Pollock or Kandinsky, who create first and then worry about meaning, or, more to the point, allow their audiences to shape their own meaning without imposition beyond the artist’s impulse to create.

Translating such an amphigouric artist from his native Slovenian into English seems a daunting task at best. Pierre Joris translated Paul Celan’s later work and produced an English version of Threadsuns in all of its disjointed beauty. What is remarkable in the translation of Woods and Chalices is the integrity of the word play and the wonderful sounds and at times anagrammatic expressions. The translator, Brian Henry said of translating Woods and Chalices “Another difficulty, perhaps just a personal one for me, was that Salamun views the beginnings of lines as more important than the endings (thus the prevalence of traditionally weak line breaks throughout the book), whereas in English-language poetry, line endings tend to be more important. So I had to constantly battle my own poetic instincts with line breaks” (Letter to the author).

The first few poems immediately engage the reader’s ear. In “The Clouds of Tiepolo” the alliterative lines and partial consonance of the first stanza bring you to the land of Šalamun, “The flock fell behind a hill. God/tottered. I chased a stall. Faded . . . (4) His skill with language is apparent; no small feat for a translation piece where the cleverness of the poet as wordsmith is often lost. The same is true in “The Edge from Where we Measure’ with the assonance and partial rhyme of “wheat /cleaved” (5); and in “Ferryman” “toil and loiter” and the partial consonance in “then within vineyards” that ends the piece. When I read translations like this I always wonder if the translator changed the original words to make them more poetic.

What is also true is that the rhetoric of the republic of Šalamun, unlike the harmony found in Walt Whitman’s poetry, is an element of disharmony. There appears to be a conscious effort to play a discordant chord on the cello of history; how else to prod people out of their collective stupor? For its conventional object, the Šalamunian subject substitutes a new object such as in “Fiery Chariot:”

The bull’s berry walks on wires.

The windowpanes are wounds.

They hiss when the jet streams from the silver

Kettle and a giant flings a discus.

It turns its head. The helmet touches the tip. (51)

Šalamun takes the “I” out of the equation, and by so doing allows his reader into his world of unconventionality. It is the everyday experience he turns upside down, sideways or looks at through a lens made of Jello. His poetics is an anti-poetics. Like the great Byronic hero, his speaker is a mischievous satyr playing with all preconceived notions of reality, whether sacred or profane. His poetry reminds me of a Dionysian orgy where one gorges on different visions of a world at once familiar and frightening.

The reading of Woods and Chalices has given me a freedom in my writing to stay true to my own sometimes warped and wobbling rendering of reality. It also gives me hope as a future translator of texts that I will be able to craft, in conjunction with the poet, an English version that retains the poem’s intent while also dazzling the reader with the beauty of the text.

photo credit: Jon Howell

Immerse yourself in the art of the sublime: the Cinepoetry Festival (May 12th) at the Henry Miller Library!!

2011-04-11T08:54:00.000-07:00

Immerse yourself in the art of the sublime: the Cinepoetry Festival (May 12th) at the Henry Miller Library!!

Novica Tadic's Dark World

2011-03-31T13:26:00.000-07:00

Sticks for the Roasting

Novica Tadic’s collection, Dark Things is an ode to Memento Mori. His collection reads like an old German woodcutting from the 15^th century come to life in words. But Tadic doesn’t just remind us of the death that awaits us all, he presents a world of utter hopelessness where to survive is to somehow be complicit in the miserable world of his wandering speaker.

Perhaps my favorite poem and the one mentioned by Charles Simic in the introduction, “Armful of Twigs, Dream,” exemplifies this idea of complicity. The speaker carries an armful of twigs to a communal roasting of someone he can’t see, and “doesn’t know who is being/burnt alive or why” (5-6). This kind of involvement is evident in my poem, “I am Birdshit and Bits of Twine.” It is in one sense becoming the thing it detests while critiquing it. The speaker is BP, the speaker is the bird ingesting the oil. But what Tadic is able to do with this collection is much more refined. It is the difference between a pelican’s gawky plunge into the ocean to catch its prey, and the osprey who glides down feet first, snatches its prey and flies away all in one great swoop: Tadic naturally being the latter of the two.

Tadic’s speaker is tormented by the “Midnight Lady” who sits on his bed “as if it were her work table” (21). The poem offers the picture of a someone almost paralyzed by fear, reading the piece, one can almost taste the metal of fear in one’s mouth. It is true that the end of Tadic’s poems may offer a kind of “silence” as Timothy Henry points out in Verse, but for this reader, at least, the silence is almost always pregnant with the possibility of violence. It will not be quiet for long. At the end of “Midnight Lady,” is the beginning of the horror.

This silence/violence dichotomy informs my poem, “Night Noise and Rabbit Twitch,” which was inspired by my reading of Dark Things. I am working on this idea of writing a collection on gender-based violence. “Night Noise” chronicles the terror of the victim who knows what’s coming and the inability to do anything about it save wait. There is no “gun to start a fire” nothing to defend against the predator at her door. She can struggle and fight, and will—but ultimately, I think the poem shows she will lose this battle. The speaker is left to the mercy of her tormentor, or as Tadic writes in “About the Knife,” “mercy walked away from me/now, quickly, you do the same” (10-11). There is no god of redemption, what is crucified in the poem “Soldiers Song” is “nothingness” (13).

Tadic’s speaker may identify himself as “god’s messenger” but after reading the collection one must ask, god of what? What this reader came away with is that there is true evil in the world. In “You are Mighty” a title reminiscent of something one might find in an Evangelical hymnal, the thing that had no motherly birth is also the thing that would rip out human flesh “with pliers” (10).

There is much beauty in Tadic’s poetry too, if one takes Keat’s notion of beauty into account. It is a world devoid of hope, a kind of existentialist dream filled with “bottom creatures and venomous stars” (“Hatred” 10). I return to my 15^th century woodcuttings and engravings. They are beautiful--even in the terror they evoke, and there’s no question these are responses to a Christian god of love. What the 15^th century Europeans knew and what we sometimes forget in our shiny world of material things, is that the world is full of pain. Tadic’s collection seems to posit that there just might be something out there keeping a record of whate we do and we will be punished—here or hereafter. The only hope present here is that of the existentialist—that there is nothing after, but I am not convinced this is Tadic’s message. Pain and suffering seems to be the norm here, not the exception. The final poem offers us “the Lord’s breath,” but this is not a rope from which we can climb aboard a boat safely, it just may very be the rope the lord of dark things will tie into a noose.

photo credit: Stewart Ferebee

Ways to Divert Rainwater

2011-03-09T14:16:00.000-08:00

Ways to Divert Rainwater

First shellac your hat.

Affix it with tubes attached

to your belt. Take tea,

empty remaining tubes

and go walk in the rain.

Feel the mud suck at your

shoes. Gravity slurps

laces off, tongues

flap out in cotton fields

riven by the rain.

Build scaffolds for your shoes.

Go inside, take tea,

empty remaining tubes

and go walk in the rain.

Build your roof in the shape

of a funnel. Take a bath, bring in your

purple octopus with the suction

cups. Affix it to the side of the tub.

Perhaps some pink bubbles.

After you dry yourself,

wait for the sun’s

diagonal slant. Consider

thirty-eight proposals for steep slopes.

Ocean Dream #48

2011-02-18T10:15:00.000-08:00

Ocean Dream #48

He came from the sea. His voice water, splash, spray, and crash, crash.

A lull sometimes when I’d swim on my back, legs out, arms out, starfish to his sparkle. I’d float in perfect balance when still, and then I’d dive into his lexicon. Small fish in jewel colors with intelligent eyes looked back at me, questioning. I was scared of a clown fish, swam away from it. It did not chase me as I thought.

And then he’d speak from a mount of rocks, sea-glass words in blue, brown beer bottle glass, sometimes a broken shard from a perfume bottle that smelled of oyster shells. I’d often cut my feet on his words and get pinned in by the tide, wait on a rockery, watch condors fly with their absurd wings, wait for the ebb to dash back over to the sound’s mud. My footprints embroidered glyphs on rocks.

He would leave me then with a few foamy words, green at the tips. I’d kayak over the wakes of this language. Sometimes I’d make it all the way in, but mostly I’d capsize, swallow salt water, cough up froth and spit and pant on the shore like some gill-less angel fish, mouth open sucking air. Then I’d wait for the storm he’d become, rainy words drizzled me and I sat in silence and listened.

Ping-Pong Magazine at AWP! An afterword…

2011-02-10T10:02:00.000-08:00

Ping-Pong Magazine at AWP! An afterword…

Chronicles on Violence: The Congo Sequence

2011-02-07T09:35:00.000-08:00

Eve Ensler and River

Dr. Denis Mukwege and River

Brandi Walker, me and my son

Chronicles on Violence: The Congo Poems with a forward by the author:

The following series of poems is for publication in an anthology of 18 word poems. Each of the eighteen poets is submitting 18 poems. My poems are a sequence based on gender-based violence--a cheerful topic I know, but one which needs much, much more discussion. I have previously published the first 10 or so pieces. Here is a sample from the section on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. One of my dearest friends, Brandi Walker (in above photo) works in the Congo against gender-based violence and volunteered at Panzi Hospital for 2 years. Two years ago I was fortunate enough to meet Dr. Denis Mukwege of Panzi hospital when he was out with Eve Ensler. This picture is of him and my son, and Eve with my son. He should win the Nobel Peace Prize for his work. Mark Cobley of Red Ceilings Press in the UK was kind enough to ask me to submit, check him out: The Red Ceilings. The anthology will be published by Knives, Forks and Spoons Press. For more information about the Congo please go to: Friends of the Congo

Chronicles on Violence: A Poem Sequence (con't)

Democratic Republic of the Congo I

So many shadows

the moon sharpens

into light.

Your body hard-packed

mud, against their

thrust and heave.

Democratic Republic of the Congo II

“They killed my brother

because he would not

have sex with me.”

No answer

in Swahili

or French.

Democratic Republic of the Congo III

Firewood bends her

to the child

of the soldier

who killed

her brother.

Here’s an X for him.

Birdsong

She paints

hours into

finch’s wings--

watches them float

in linseed oil.

Throws

her bed

away.

Sleeps

on the

floor.

Hey DC-ers! Ping Pong's at the Association of Writers & Writing Conference!

2011-02-03T20:09:00.000-08:00

Hey DC-ers! Ping Pong's at the Association of Writers & Writing Conference!

Poetry and English 1B 2011 Syllabus

2011-01-24T20:28:00.000-08:00

Poetry Students click here for your syllabus, if you are in my English 1B class you must scroll down to the bottom of the page to find your syllabus, after the list of poetic terms and the picture of the sailboats on the bay.

January in California

2011-01-23T13:34:00.000-08:00

January in California

January’s daffodils are absurd.

The trees already bud with fall’s dead leaves

still clinging. The giant sycamore dwarfs

all the sweet gums in the neighborhood,

and these, our neighbors, never rake their yard,

a rebellion of sorts, brownie piles heave,

ruffle. Grasses choke asters under eaves,

oranges are suffocated by blue mold.

He and I pull, chop off, prune and collect:

Dandelions, crabgrass, henbit, hawkweed.

We will the dogwood to bloom and expect

The lemon to offer its first fruit. Hands bleed--

blisters from the butterfly bush unchecked

by frostless winter, and spring at full speed.

Mother and Son at Creek with Small Dog

2011-01-17T17:40:00.000-08:00

Mother and Son at Creek with Small Dog

Red-haired boy in pith helmet: “Shard of pottery forgotten by time. Draw me mom, draw a drawing of me.” Mother perched at edge of creek looks up from her reading.

“Lookit this rock mom,” Walking through creek, stamps his feet on a sandbar, now wading over rocks into the sparkle and splash.

“Lookit mom, something man made, whaddya suppose it is?” Ducks under a fallen tree, roots exposed like spokes.

“Lookit this rock,” Throws it. Heavy splash, ripples percolate. Skips stone, 2 skips.

“See, isn’t this such a good idea mom? Lookit this skipping stone, it’s practically perfect in every way.” Skips 3 times, then bends to creek, comes up.

“Lookit this rock mom.”

Mother looks up says:

“It’s leopard skinned.”

“Way to be a poet. Hey! Got my first decent skip. Dog truffle hunts under Mother’s chair, nose sandy, snorts, digs. Splash, clack of two rocks, boy examining intently.

“It’s really light too . . . lookit this one.” Creek eddies to the left, ferns sprout from the embankment.

“Oh my god, lookit this mom, it’s quartz, it’s pink, are you writing this down? It’s pink. You’re such a writer.” Pause, boy ankle deep, contemplating rocks. Looks up.

“I’m glad a lot of people don’t come to this creek, there’d be less treasures.”

Best/Worst List

2010-12-31T16:18:00.000-08:00

Best Food:
The Edge Restaurant, Rodney Bay, St. Lucia-the Tri-Ceviche was to die for.
Flagstaff, Boulder, Co. Great service, great wine, yummy food. I had the pan-seared halibut.
Paris/Moskau, Berlin, Germany
Le Central, San Francisco-real French Country cuisine
Mix, The Hotel at Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, NV
Biggest Poseur Place to eat:
Manresa, Los Gatos, Ca. Gave new meaning to fish stew, no stew was harmed in the making.
Best Outfit:
Tracy Reese dress with my old combat boots for the Ping-Pong release party at the Beat Museum, second only to the Anna Sui dress with the super high Stevie Nicks Jeffrey Campbell boots worn at the Happy Ending Lounge for east coast release of Ping-Pong.
Best Concert:
Arcade Fire at the Henry Miller Library
Best Opera:
The Magic Flute at the Berlin State Opera House, (Staatsoper Unter den Linden)
Best Castle:
Hohenzollern in the Schwäbische Alp
Best Potato Pancake:
Munich, Germany at the Christmas Market, the people were Russian who sold them to me. Man, that was good eats.
Best Laugh:
Camping with my son River in Big Sur when we were starving and he tried to pretend he was part of our neighbor's family to get food. You had to be there.
Best Shoes:
Still the Green Metallic Dior's, second are my Moschino Booties.
Scariest Moment:
Aside from family concerns which are none of your beeswax, it had to be walking into our bathroom in St. Lucia to a giant brown tarantula.
Best Hotel:
1. Rasa Sarang in Batu Ferinnghi
2. Suite at the Palms in Vegas-the view from the glass corner room was great from the tub.
3. Suite at the Hotel Rivington-city scape with two bridges.
4. Tikaye Village in St. Lucia, not only were we perched right on the cliff edge of the bay, but we had a hammock and two rocking chairs with little stools to rest our feet on.
Best Pool after International Flight:
Hotel Adlon in Berlin, Germany, underground and all white marble. They gave us little snacks and Bloody Mary's-yumm.
Best Massage:
Rasa Ria in Borneo, Malaysia, they start you off with a scented bath with flowers floating on top.
Best Poetry collections I read this year:
Collected works of Cesar Vallejo.
Dark Things, NovicaTadic
Mr. Cogito, Zbigniew Herbert
Saints and Cannibals, Christine Hamm
Ruin, Cynthia Cruz
Quarantine, Brian Henry
Best Poem:
The First Line is the Deepest, Kim Addonizio
Best Books:
The Millenium Trilogy, Steig Larson
Stones into Schools, Greg Mortensen
Love in Infant Monkeys, Lydia Millet
Best Magazines:
Ping-Pong
Homestead Review
Best Wine:
A French burgundy we drank with Neil and Michele in Boulder at the Flagstaff, now that was some good wine and good food. Really, every time we get together with those folks good wine is had.
Best Reporter:
Jeremy Scahill (and foxiest)
Best News Coverage:
Democracy Now
Best Humanitarian
Dr. Denis Mukwege at Panzi Hospital in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Brandi Walker
Amy Davis Kruize
Best Library:
Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, Ca.
Best Fashion Reporting/blogging:
Krystal Simpson at What is Reality Anyway?
Best Blog Exposure of a horrendous act of hubris:
We Who Are About to Die, regarding the Paris Review's decision to not published those poets who had already been accepted by the previous editor. Ego much? The sun has set on the PR as far as I'm concerned anyway. After George died, so did the beating pulse of the magazine.
Best Husband:
Mine
Best Son:
My boy
Best Sister:
Mine
and my sistas: Suzanne, Jamie, Amy, Melanie, Krystal, Christine and Brandi-san.

Worst Taxi Service,
San Jose International Airport in California. Can you say misogynist?
Worst Food:
Chinese Buffet on the corner of Water and Market in Santa Cruz, vomitoidnal.
Worst Outfit:
I didn't wear it I can promise you that. I wasn't really into that meat thing Gaga wore, but I like her.
Most Condescending:
Mainstream publishing houses and their old boy networks
Talks the loudest and makes the least sense:
Glen Beck
Worst Oil Spill:
BP-they should be boycotted.
Worst news coverage:
Fox of course, it is for those who like their news reporting to be baseless, senseless and full of as many logical fallacies as one can think of.
Worst Shoes:
Crocs in every color, if you're not gardening, don't wear them--they are an affront to every foot in the world. Well, babies look cute in them, but hey, they look cute in most things.

Chronicles on Violence

2010-12-13T09:53:00.000-08:00

The following series of poems is for publication in an anthology of 18 word poems. Each of the eighteen poets is submitting 18 poems. My poems are a series based on gender-based violence--a cheerful topic I know, but one which needs much, much more discussion. Here is a sample. Mark Cobley of Red Ceilings Press in the UK was kind enough to ask me to submit, check him out: The Red Ceilings

Afghanistan and Iraq, with Apologies I

Floor of stones

where children sleep

to escape the heat.

Drone overhead

drops splinter bombs

shards of sovereignty

Afghanistan and Iraq, with Apologies II

Call it freedom.

Small fingers point

a scoped stick at me.

Mercenaries

spell my name

in spent shells

Afghanistan and Iraq, with Apologies III

Spent shells

Mine-poppies

A foot here

A hand there.

Scream Maria.

Name.

I say

No more

Afghanistan and Iraq, with Apologies IV

No more

bombs

no more

jack-boot theocracy

no more

looting

no more

medals of honor

I salute nothing

Taliban Fighters

Her skin flowers

when battery acid

blossoms her face.

No school today.

Teacher’s tears

blur the kalashnikov

mosaic.

Local Poets, Local Inspiration!

2010-11-27T11:48:00.000-08:00

The Santa Cruz Weekly chose my poem, Sparkle in this week's Local Poets, Local Inspiration section, check out the link below. Here's the poem:

Sparkle

At the edge--

spotted stones

and roiling kelp.

The day facets me in its diamond.

Wind-chimes are silent,

Buddha’s stone head bows.

A gap in the fence could tell--

mouth opens,

closes on a dahlia,

on a rosebush stripped to thorns.

A beheaded sunflower stem

holds a hummingbird’s silhouette.

Bees comb and primp the blonde sky.

Waves fall down--

spotted stones

and roiling kelp.

Shadows slink and slip

with the earth’s music.

With a mouth full of stones, I sing.

Local Poets, Local Inspiration

Chronicles on Violence

2010-11-19T11:00:00.000-08:00

Chronicles on Violence I

Grandpa’s daddy raped his mother.

Here’s an X for him.

No peonies.

El nopal.

Whiskers burn.

Never speaks.

Chronicles on Violence II

Never speaks again,
tongues a torture of words.

He sutures her lips
with black thread
a silver needle

Chronicles on Violence III

Uses a silver needle
to cross-stitch his name.

Cross beams
cannot support

what he plants
with his fist.

Chronicles on Violence IV

With his fist

Vato loco

tightens a red bandana

around your throat.

A tattoo of

your name bleeds.

Chronicles on Violence V

Bleeding

she unties

the goat of the past.

A rat’s skeleton

crunches underfoot.

His dark shadow

rustles black.

Ping-Pong Magazine at the Beat Museum tonight! November 12th

2010-11-03T10:50:00.000-07:00

WEST COAST PING-PONG Release party!!!! in conjunction with Parthenon West

The Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, California is hosting the West Coast Release party for Ping•Pong, a international journal of the arts and literature at the Beat Museum.

The Ping•Pong West Coast Launch Party will take place at the Beat Museum on Friday, November 12th and will feature the notable MC Magnus Toren, with featured reader Kim Addonizio. There will also be readings by the editors: Christine Hamm, Jessica Breheny, James Maughn and Maria Garcia Teutsch, as well as contributors, Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts and Judy Halebsky. Readings will begin at 7:30 pm. The event is free and open to the public.

Ping•Pong’s release party is in conjunction with Parthenon West magazine. Parthenon West’s readers include the fabulous Erica Lewis and outstanding Russell Dillon.

Come by and have a glass of wine with us and marvel at the wonder of the Beat Museum,

and swing your hips to the music of DJs Krystal Simpson and Aaron Gonzalez. Paintings on exhibit by Paris-based artist Jean-Noel Chazelle.

------

Book information:

Ping•Pong

A Literary Journal of the Henry Miller Library

2010

ISSN #1083-0944

Paperback, 161 pages, $12.00

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Contact Information:

Christine Hamm, Poetry Editor

inktastesbitter@yahoo.com

Maria Garcia Teutsch, Editor-in-Chief

maria@henrymiller.org

831-755.6943 (office)

Magnus Toren 667-2574 (Executive Director, Henry Miller Library)

Highway One, Big Sur, CA 93920

www.henrymiller.org/ping_pong.html

Reader Bios:

Kim Addonizio is the author of five collections of poetry including Tell Me, a 2000 National Book Award Finalist. Her work has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, two NEA Fellowships, the John Ciardi Lifetime Achievement Award, and other honors. She has published two instructional books: Ordinary Genius, A Guide for the Poet Within; and The Poet’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry (with Dorianne Laux). She has a word/music CD with Susan Browne, “Swearing, Smoking, Drinking & Kissing,” available from CDBaby.

Russell Dillon was born in New York during the mid 70s and hasn't been able to get over it. However, in an effort to put the past behind him, he's attended a number of schools in various places, learned things at each one of them, and received degrees from Emerson College and the Bennington Writing Seminars. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Alligator Juniper, Big Bell, Forklift, Ohio, and Tight, among others. He currently lives in San Francisco, where he does almost everything life asks of him.

Erica Lewis is a full-time fine arts publicist in San Francisco. She received her MFA from Mills College and received the 2008 Mary Merritt Henry Writing Prize for Poetry. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in P-Queue, Ur Vox, alice blue, Work, The Walrus, and Outside Voices 2008 Anthology of Younger Poets

Christine Hamm, one of the Ping Pong poetry editors, is a PhD candidate in English Literature and an MFA candidate in poetry. She won the MiPoesias First Annual Chapbook Competition with her manuscript, Children Having Trouble with Meat. She teaches English at CUNY, and has performed all over the country. She has two books, The Transparent Dinner and Saints & Cannibals, and her third book is forthcoming from Blazevox. Christine was a runner-up to the Poet Laureate of Queens.

Maria Garcia Teutsch is Editor in Chief of Ping-Pong magazine. She also serves as president of the board of directors of the Henry Miller library in Big Sur, Ca. She is widely published, and has three poetry chapbooks, Surrender Dorothy, Fractured Fortunes and there are no cars on this highway.

Jessica Breheny is the author of a chapbook of short
stories, Some Mythology. (Naissance Press, 2010) She
teaches writing at San Jose City College and serves as the
fiction editor of Ping Pong : The Literary Arts Journal of
the Henry Miller Library. Her work has appeared in elimae,
580 Split, Fugue, LIT, Other Voices, and Santa Monica
Review and is forthcoming from Avery. She is the author of
a collection of short stories and a young adult novel.

JAMES MAUGHN lives in Santa Cruz, CA, where he a poetry
co-editor for the literary arts journal Ping Pong,
published by the Henry Miller Memorial Library. He also
coordinates A New Cadence Poetry Series out of the Felix
Kulpa Gallery in Santa Cruz. His first book, Kata, was
published by BlazeVOX Books in 2009. Work has appeared in
Otoliths, Lungfull, Parthenon West Review, TinFish, Big
Bell, Sentence, Moria, Poetry Salzburg Review, Dusie,
MiPoesias, and Horse Less Review. He is a member of the
Black Radish Collective, and his second book, Arakaki
Permutations, will be published by Black Radish Books in
2010. Another book, These Peripheries, will be published
by Ahadada Press.

Judy Halebsky the author of Sky = Empty, the 2009 winner of
the New Issues Poetry Prize, judged by Marvin Bell. She is
a contributing editor and translator for the bilingual
poetry journal Eki Mae. Residencies at the MacDowell Colony
and the Millay Colony have supported her work. Originally
from Halifax, Nova Scotia, she spent five years in Japan
studying art and literature on fellowships from the
Japanese Ministry of Education. She teaches writing and
world literature at Dominican University of California and
is artist-in-residence at Theatre of Yugen.

- Show quoted text -

Group Presentation Questions from Fire and Ink

2010-10-25T17:59:00.000-07:00

Chicano Perspective Group Presentation

Click the above link to find your questions for each group presentation. These are student generated questions. I think you did a great job!

Poetry Reading this Thursday, October 21st at 7:00 pm!

2010-10-19T11:11:00.000-07:00

Maria Garcia Teutsch, Jennifer Fellguth and Kathryn Petruccelli Poetry Reading

The Circumnavigator

2010-10-07T16:05:00.000-07:00

Circumnavigator

When we showed our scars
you always won.
My brother never killed himself.

Never dressed up like a mosquito,
and jumped from a car
to prove he could fly.

My father never cheated
on my mother--
and she is no saint.

We never found a pile
of nude photos, neighborhood women,
your best friend’s sister.

My father never hid his Playboys--
still keeps them in the trashcan
next to the toilet.

I never kept a vortex of icons.
Never had to escape my Catholic youth,
or feel guilty about sex.

Your self-portrait still
hangs over my bar. Tornado face--
eyes whip feet,
penis in the foreground.

Now, a thousand years later,
a picture of you--
fragile as a mosquito’s wing--

holding out skinny arms.
Your face a storm
I circumnavigate.

Photography by Stewart Ferebee

Tuesday Poem

2010-09-29T15:11:00.000-07:00

Check out this cool website out of New Zealand that just posted my "After Tomato Picking" poem. Just across this other pond.

Night Noise and Rabbit Twitch

2010-09-22T11:32:00.000-07:00

Night Noise and Rabbit Twitch

He comes at 3 am.

Bamboo rattles, clicks, no cricket sound.

Wears a suit of night noise and rabbit twitch--

his foot falls are a flute full of roaches.

Moonlight

strings her

between trees.

Shadows of wings trace

books on the nightstand,

no knife glint,

no gun to start a fire.

She coils against spiders

who’ve stopped their spinning--

who suck beetle fat and watch.

Night of terror

don’t you know a song cannot prevent

the wasp’s repeated sting?

The door frames nothing

but the strangle-knot

you pull

into a snare.

A link to a great website

When the Wind Ceases

2010-09-01T11:22:00.000-07:00

I.
Ophelia knows what it feels like, but you don't do you?
Fathers die when love blooms--
intensity like the insanity
of a bird of paradise all orange crowned and pointing.
She escapes to her herb garden
the only place isolation is allowed away from
the Panopticon                                the male gaze.
Her engagement apparent as she holds pruning shears in one hand,
rosemary for remembrance in the other. Snips and tends pansy faces,
listens and hears his voice                          {or is it from her chorus of voices?}
        "is that you?" she asks,
and hears him in drops of rain on a thousand leaves.
II.
Ophelia stands in headwaters                      her hips buoy left and right
as though being bumped by exiting train passengers.
Rubber gaiters slick and seal-like, trout swim beneath
her reflected face                                 a dark shape above.
Prisms slick on silver skin swimming in thought-streams                      disappear
before the brain registers the image, an imprint here:
not reality
this seeing and not seeing.
Many wonders are beyond our philosophy.
Fish beyond reach.
Rapids bubble gray tracers               shadows of bears
stare at her back; she can feel them watching her,
       "he cannot save me,"
       she thinks in the gloam.
The water lifts her and she floats
and says:
                                          "he still loves me,"
to no one at all;
except the cedars
who give many their ear
but no one their voice.

Chicano/a Perspective English 1B-Poetic Terminology

2010-08-31T11:56:00.000-07:00

Poetic Terminology

Class Syllabus for Chicano/a Perspective Class Fall 2010

2010-08-25T11:39:00.000-07:00

Chicano/a Perspective 1B Class Syllabus

Chicano/a Perspective 1A Class Syllabus

Interview by Jean Vengua

2010-07-12T12:44:00.000-07:00

Jean Vengua interviewed me for her blog: Local Nomad. It took me about a month to complete, check it out: here

Sketched by Sunlight

2010-07-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

Rustle of black crinoline brushes the tangy scent of tea.

White cranes fly across her breasts.

She breathes the day.

Tulips, daffodils, and calla lilies there.

She exhales her pale self amid blossoms.

The new leaves on the trees

are a sieve of jade light.

Her body chiaroscuroed.

The day’s speckled show cannot stop her

pitching filament into black.

Photo Credit: Stewart Ferebee

After Tomato Picking

2010-06-15T09:21:00.000-07:00

After Tomato Picking

In fourth grade

I picked tomatoes

to make money.

The night before, we packed

our lunches with anticipation

and American cheese sandwiches.

We left at dawn with the sun

slithering across the desert,

twisting the horizon into slivers of gold.

The drive out to the farmland

was filled with yawns and coffee.

I leaned against my brother and dozed.

On our way we passed farm workers,

their painted signs blurring by.

I catch one word, strike.

My brother yells, Viva la Raza

but don't yet know what it means.

He raises his chin and smiles.

In the field the smell

of disturbed earth and sweat mingles

with the sound of giggles

from my sister’s friends.

I stand in between rows,

a bucket full of green tomatoes

too heavy to lift, my brother

carrying it to men sitting

in precious shade.

We left as soon as the thermometer

moved above 100.

The others stayed.

Others.

I worked to buy a new

outfit for my Barbie,

and dreamed of making

enough for her pink corvette.

After three days with the

pubescent hairs of the vines,

I developed a rash

and had to ponder

my three-day career

under the lace

of my canopy bed.

I never went back.

I think of those others

honed by a desire

to feed the hunger

that could never

be sated earning

five cents a bucket.

I couldn’t even lift that nickel.

Photo Credit: Stewart Ferebee

I am Birdshit and Bits of Twine

2010-05-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

I am Birdshit and Bits of Twine

I am made of birdshit, sticks, bits of twine, and a bunch of black/white feathers

I am an eggshell spotted and slick warm underneath my mother, my father

I am hiding in reeds, like baby Moses, you have to look to find me there

I am flying, pinion wings tilt and I land splat, blobs and blobs where water should be

I smell now, I am cold, feel the shiver through you, feel the tremble where my wing

Meets your blue waters, your petroleum nightmare, red eyes peering out of a hollow egg

The crack is in your left tibula, the crack is an alligator’s egg, the crack is its open maw

Drinking your soccer mom soup, your big bad ass SUV, your yellow stickers, your son

At war, and still it pumps in my veins, pumps in the sperm of the sperm whale,

Turtles who do know something about truth are dead now, the silver fishes in poems are dead now, the ocean has leukemia and it’s contagious.

I am a spawning loggerhead, I am plankton--

Here’s your blue plague in the iris of a blue fin tuna, here’s your black plague all over my scales, my mouth is a beak, the nipple my baby sucks is coated with ooze, my milk is

thick and wet like turpentine, come, drink a toast with me, pump and pump, it’s time

to stop now, but still you pump, you won’t stop will you?

Here’s a vast canvas, a swath of ducks trying to get up, keep warm, not die

Here’s me falling as I stand up, I smash each egg, dolphin skull, seal and water lily,

I painted all of the Monet’s in the National Gallery black. They are black now, it is

Truth, but there’s no beauty there. Beauty is pumping through my veins, through

My ocean, through my webbed feet, my toenails are blackened half-moons, and they are,

They are not, beautiful.

Photo Credit: Dan Linehan.

Four Iggy Pops

2010-05-19T08:33:00.000-07:00

The fourth time I saw Iggy Pop was at the Ritz. I flew up to New York City with my boyfriend Tom, an artist who painted large abstracts and always smelled a bit of turpentine and linseed oil. Two of our other friends were with us, Mimi, a make up artist and dancer, and Dicky, a chubby heroin addict who was clean at the moment. The plan was to stay with one of Tom’s rich ex-girlfriends who attended FIT and whose parents had a nice place in Brooklyn Heights.
My only reference for Brooklyn Heights came from the knowledge that Walt Whitman began Leaves of Grass there and worked for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. As a burgeoning poet, this was enough to make me feel I could go there and write and write. Not only would I see Iggy, I’d be able to walk the same streets as that other anarchist poet, Walt. And I wasn’t at all concerned about staying with my boyfriend’s ex. At nineteen, I wasn’t the jealous type, I was more of the “we can stay for free who gives a fuck who lives there” type.
Tom, Mimi and Dicky were all twenty-six, and we lived in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Tom and I had dated for a year and though he was a consummate flirt, he had yet to cheat on me. He was everything I thought an artist should be, he was the Henry Miller to my June, the Sartre to my de Beauvoir. He maitre’d at a posh restaurant and then stayed up all night painting. He’d come in the bedroom while I slept, rip the blankets off me and in the morning there’d often be a picture of me leaning against his dresser, large and thick and wet.
Tom’s ex, Michelle, came and picked us up at the Port Authority. Her intentions were obvious from the start. He tried to stealthily flirt back once we got to her place. I figured I’d let him have his game and Mimi and I split and went shopping at Fiorucci’s and Trash and Vaudeville. Seeing Iggy Pop mattered to me—I had to have the perfect outfit if I was going to meet Iggy.
When we returned to Michelle’s place, Mimi and I locked ourselves in the bathroom and began our transformation. I bought a white mini skirt with black polka dots and a matching top—both made of paper. At Trash and Vaudeville I purchased a pair of red leather roach killers with six shiny silver buckles wrapped around my ankles. Mimi did my make-up and I have to admit to feeling pretty foxy. Mimi wore a gold lame wedding dress and spiked her hair. She looked frightening and beautiful. Tom knocked on the door and fed us margaritas.
When we emerged Tom was sitting on the couch with Michelle and her friend. They were both wearing variations of Kelly green and pink Izod shirts and pants, with Etienne Aigner loafers and matching bags.
Mimi and I detoured into the kitchen. “Did you see that fucking alligator?” I said to Mimi and we laughed until we almost peed ourselves. Tom had wrapped himself in Hefty bags and duct tape over an Elvis Costello suit and then spray painted the whole ensemble. He decided to be the grafitti one sees when flying past a building on a subway. Dicky sat on a love seat looking forlorn and hawkish. The wish on his face plain to me: that Michele or her preppy friend would throw him a bone, but girls like that never went for Dicky. I went and sat on his lap and he tried to bite me on the breast.
“Fuck off Dicky” I said as I pushed him away. “Let’s get out of here.”
We left and took the D train into Manhattan and soon arrived at the Ritz. Mimi and I left Tom, Dicky and the two preppies downstairs before anyone could identify us as knowing them and proceeded to find the backstage area. A strung out blonde approached us and asked if we had a pin, she said Iggy needed one to hold his vest together.
I handed over my Gang of Four button and said, “here, but you’ve got to let us come backstage.”
And like that we were back there. Mimi sat down on a table and said she was spinning. I walked around and saw Iggy emerge onstage and soon all I could see was his thighs in a garter belt gyrating and falling down and popping back up as if on a string and the crowd moved like a great beast come round and round and I danced with him for two hours until my outfit disintegrated like a paper towel around my black garter, red bra. He sang, “I Wanna be Your Dog” and I did. After the show, I remembered Mimi. I found her stretched out on a banquet table in a state of seeming catatonia. I left her there and went back out for the encore.
He was so beautiful out there dancing, all sinew and insanity. I could see why that waitress at CBGB’s did him onstage: watching him was like sex. He came offstage and walked right past me, his eyes unfocused, sweat dripping from every orifice of his body.
I never met Iggy, though we were invited to party with him afterwards. I got Mimi up from the table were she’d stayed the entire show, looking like the bride of Frankenstein on Quaaludes. She sobered up, but couldn’t forgive herself for missing Iggy’s show.
We found Tom outside standing next to Michelle and her friend. He was pissed we’d ditched him for the whole show, but I didn’t care because I’d sacrificed going to party with Iggy to find him and then when I did he had his arm around his ex.
“Where’s Dicky?”
“I think he’s on the shit. He met a girl and last time I saw him he said he’d see me in the morning,” said Tom.
“Let’s get outta here,” I said.
When we got back to Michelle’s we started mixing up margaritas again. I carried my margarita into the bathroom and took a hot bath and read passages from Leaves of Grass and then passed out.
Tom came to bed soon thereafter, and tried to fuck me, but I wouldn’t have sex with him. Sometime around three in the morning the creak of a chair woke me. I got up and saw Tom trying to sneak into Michelle’s room. I probably should have let him go on in, but I didn’t, instead I said,“Tom!”
He froze, turned around.
“What’re you doing?”
“I’m going to the bathroom” he said and released the doorknob to Michelle’s room.
“Isn’t it the room to your left?” I asked and we exchanged knowing glances.
He gave me a Cheshire grin and came back to our room. I knew he would have cheated on me that night, but he didn’t. And I had Iggy all to myself, could have partied with him, maybe even have gotten his eyes to focus on me for a minute. I didn’t want any more from him that what he was willing to give. Tom’s potential infidelity didn’t mean much to me at that point and so, well, when he climbed into bed, I fucked him.

Fruit Trees

2010-04-29T10:42:00.000-07:00

Grandpa painted cars for a living,
carried a switchblade which
I saw him produce once as we walked
into a bakery between the vatos
who wore intimidation across
their faces, red bandanas like bullfighter’s flags,
and bulges beneath faded chinos.

He lived in a “bad” neighborhood
between an alleyway
and the Catholic church
we attended on the Sundays
that I stayed over, even though
my mother told me I was Protestant.
I loved wearing a bit of lace
on my hair as though I really
were a bride of Christ. The priest
performed in Latin, and I made up
the words I did not understand,
and asked my grandmother
if the water was holy.

At night the stained glass
Mary filled my bedroom window;
fragments of purple, scarlet, and indigo.
I bore her name and often
wondered about her, wanted to be her,
have God as my lover,
and feel the weight of His child
inside of me, growing
like a ripe pomegranate.

Under the plum tree I gorged
on fruit that stained my lips.
The alleyway was forbidden, so I pressed
my ear against chain-link and listened
to the clamor of teenage boys,
and watched them as they sweated
under basketball hoops.
I tingled and ate kumquats.

Photo Credit: Stewart Ferebee

Upcoming Events: Reading at Bookshop Santa Cruz

And: Women and Food Reading and Art Installation

Upcoming Readings for Maria: Bookshop Santa Cruz and Women and Food

2010-04-21T13:54:00.000-07:00

Poetry Reading at Bookshop Santa Cruz Tuesday May 11th

Women and Food Poetry Reading and Art Installation Friday May 14th

Horarium of the Nuns

2010-04-16T11:23:00.000-07:00

Horarium of the Nuns

5:30 Rise

Bones creak

as feet slide

into cotton slippers,

movement of bodies hum

like moths eating white wool.

6:00 The Angelus (Lauds)

Blessed art thou

Lady of Shadows

long suffering,

perfect pain,

your womb an echo

canyon for the lost.

6:20 Prayer (An Hour)

Forgive the lust that eats away

the soul like rust

on a tin watering can.

She longs to touch

the callus on the hand

of the Mexican man who cuts

branches off rose bushes

and keeps the red petals.

7:20 Great Silence Ends

Words form on lips,

speckled stones

dropping into lakes

of sound.

8:00 Conventual Mass

The Virgen Santisima de Guadalupe

in painted squares, a mosaic:

stars on her, mirrored

by the sea, she is sky;

creeping golden vines on her

burnt sienna dress, she is earth.

8:45 Eucharist (Thanksgiving)

For the hummingbird

who stares questions

and twists her neck to show

a ruby hiding there.

9:00 Breakfast

The egg,

essence of life

like the purple coneflowers

crushed between palms,

seeds broadcast

on salty wind.

9:30 Manual Work

Her nails are blackened half moons.

She weeds roses and whispers

their names: Peace,

Sheer Bliss, Rhapsody.

At the bottom of the hill

a beach: divers suit up like black seals,

artists with easels upon sand

paint the yellow monastery.

Noon (Sext)

Hymns in honor of our Lady

the ever-virginal mother.

3:00 Prayers for the Dying

Tears form an apricot pit

in the throat.

5:00 Prayer

A prayer for the brother

who drinks from 2:00 to 8:00 pm

and on the seventh day rests.

Brown eyes once clear

now tarnished by thunder

that haunts his sleep.

6:00 Evening Prayer

For the mother

whose bitterness is uncooked

chocolate, the wafer

one cannot swallow.

7:30 Recreation

Braids hair like

a rosary, copper snakes

around sandpaper fingers.

8:30 (Matins) Night prayer

Knees creak on a pew

of stars. Shoots arrows

at the moon, climbs

to the place where she thinks

her sigh escapes God’s notice.

9:10 Great Silence Begins

Photo Credit: River Tabor

Der gruene Weg/This Green Road--German/English Version

2010-04-12T15:40:00.000-07:00

Der gruene Weg

In den letzten Wintertagen
kamst Du mit den ersten Blaettern des Fruehlings.

Es gab Hoffnung auf Frucht—
fleischig, aufregend und suess.

Die Trauben wuchsen mit dem Saft des Sommers,
und wir verliebten uns, gingen auf dem gruenen Pfad.

Im fruehen Herbst reiften dann die Beeren,
faerbten sich tief rot mit goldnen Blaettern.

Wir pflueckten unsere Trauben, lagerten sie auf Eiche
in Hoffnung auf einen edlen Wein

Spaeter liessen wir das Buket im Kristallglass kreisen.
Der Geruch Deiner Heimat—
und die berauschende Frucht einer neuen Liebe

Wir fuelleten den Wein in Flaschen
und sahen ihn reifen mit dem Alter,
mehr komplex, mehr ausgewogen.

In der Nacht wanderten wir auf dem gruenen Pfad.
Zwischen gewundenen Reben kam die Erkenntnis,
dass das Ende des Weges der Anfang sein kann.

This Green Road

In the last days of winter
You appeared with the first leaves of Spring,

A hope there for fruit—
Succulent, sweet, intoxicating.

The grapes swelled with the juice of summer,
And we fell in love, walked the green path before us.

In early fall the berries firmed up,
Changed color to deep red, the leaves golden.

We picked our grapes, casked them in oak
And waited to see if they’d turn to a palatable wine.

Later we twirled this bouquet inside
crystal glasses. I could smell the land
of your birth—
and the heady fruit of new love.

We bottled this wine
And watched as it deepened with age,
Became more complex; balanced.

At night we’d walk the green path
between twisted vines with the realization
that the end of the road might just be where it begins.

L’Affaire de Dieu/God Business

2010-03-25T16:28:00.000-07:00

L’Affaire de Dieu

Je mets ma chaussette dans ma chaussure de Dieu,

marche au travail sur l’eau

divine, je berce mes hanches de Dieu

aux Muddy Waters dans ma tête,

bleus comme la mer écartée.

Je suis

merde d’ours, pas plus, pas moins

je suis Ellla Fitzgerald dans la douche

shoobedowaa—dotdeetdeetdobedo

je fais bulles aux cheveux avec savon de Dieu

chaque mèche chante comme chorale

je me sens Dieu qui coule au bas de ma jambe

dans le tuyau d’écoulement en argent dans mon jardin de derrière

s’infiltre dans les racines

envoie en haut une pousse

je suis une collectionneuse pour Dieu

un pin Lodgepole

(on dira, «regardez comme elle grandit tant droit»)

je ferai passer mon assiette de pomme de pin,

la remplirai avec manzanita, pennyroyal, lupin

et l’offrirai à Dieu

où elle sera portée sur le vent

qui serra à une tornade

démolira ma maison enchaînée

me soufflera à l’endroit

où je trouverai mon bébé

endormi par le fleuve

sur un oreiller de roseau

en bavant la bave de Dieu

je le réveille alors que je l’essuie

et je suis

finie

avec cette affaire de Dieu.

God Business

I put my sock in my godshoe

walk to work on water

divine, I rock my godhips

to Muddy Waters in my head

blue as the parted sea.

I am

bear scat, no more, no less

I am Ella in the shower

shoobedowaa--dotdeetdeetdobedo

I bubble my hair with godsoap

each strand sings backup

feel god run down my leg

into the silver drainpipe in my backyard

seeps into roots

sends up a shoot

I am a solar collector for god:

a lodgepole pine

(they'll say, "look how straight she grows")

I'll pass my pinecone plate around

fill it with manzanita, pennyroyal, lupine

and offer it to god

where it'll be carried on wind

that will tighten to tornado

tear my shackled house down

blow me to the spot

where I'll find my baby

asleep by the river

on a reed pillow

drooling god-drool

I wake him as I wipe it,

and

finish

with this god-business.

Painting by: Jean-Noel Chazelle

Expressio Unius est Exclusio Alterius

2010-03-15T11:44:00.000-07:00

Expressio Unius est Exclusio Alterius
(The expression of the one is the exclusion of the other)

It’s too late,
because
you’re already reading this poem,
and it’s too late to say
it’s not a poem,
because I just said it was.

You can hate it or
by extension, me,
but you are reading my poem,
here, right now.
You say, these black characters,
are words, and I say,
it’s a poem.
You begin to believe me,
You begin,
to believe.

Originally Published in Otoliths

Photo Credit River Tabor

Hands

2010-03-08T10:32:00.001-08:00

Smooth hands are suspect.

I love the roughness of your touch,

the way your hands snag my silk blouses.

Sandpaper man, your calluses un-seam me.

I have tortilla-making hands, but don’t make them.

My fingernails have chipped blue polish

from Saturday night, are cut short for typing,

are tattooed with the ink of poems.

My hands touch moonlight on your cheek while you sleep.

Originally published by The Sierra Nevada Poetry Review

Photo Credit: Stewart Ferebee

Girls and Horses

2010-03-03T10:17:00.000-08:00

Girls and Horses

My father’s stone agenda
did not include horses for girls,

or playing pool, or going shirtless
at the age of four, even though

my brothers could. I somehow knew
writing could get me that horse.

A redwood fence contained my world,
so in my backyard I wrote a letter.

Dug a hole with my mother’s
silver serving spoon,

bent to the chore in a crinkled cotton dress,
with my knees in dirt and sun on my neck.

I couldn’t spell,
but felt certain my hieroglyphs

would be deciphered.
Words folded into white paper.

I thought, "when people are buried
they shoot right up to God like bottle-rockets,"

so I planted my letter, shaped a mound,
and placed a handful of dandelions on top.

Photo Credit, Stewart Ferebee

Paradise of Fools

2010-02-24T10:45:00.000-08:00

Jon puts the peels from his tangerine in my pocket. That day he’d just come from delivering a colt. We met each other by a dried-out riverbed and walked it until we found water. Three months pregnant, I felt safe from his charms.

We stare at a lone water lily, and he put his arms around me from behind like he did when we were eighteen and stood at the end of Huntington Pier. I lean into him and feel the same stupid lust. I think, “I should be impervious.” I am thirty and pregnant.

I cannot look him in the eye. I talk about why I’m in California, the Milton conference, the paper about Eve and the serpent. How the serpent licked Eve’s shadow and how she fell for his flattery. How Adam’s uxoriousness deserved punishment from the god’s or god as the case may be.

I am married, I am pregnant, but I am not happy. I know this, but what I lack in marital bliss is compensated by blind loyalty to an ideal. Jon moves boulders that have been dormant for years. Stuff happens. I fall, but I do not leave my husband for another 5 years. And I end all contact with Jon, even though I’m pretty sure I loved him for a long time.

That day, hours after he left, I reach in my pocket and find the peels like slivers of light shed from a too-bright star.

Photo Credit: Stewart Ferebee, "Girl with Horse"

Boom, boom, boom, satelite of love . . .

2010-02-18T08:00:00.000-08:00

She hands him a tiny poem on a small card. He looks at her and says, “You really are a poet, do your parents know this?” He’s a physicist, the small kind of physics, like angstrom small, not astro big.
He tells her ether is an invention of poets. She says if you think it’s real then it’s real. He laughs, says he’s too rational for her. Brings her flowers tied with a purple ribbon. She resists for a while but then succumbs. They create a tiny universe too small to be seen without a microscope. They float out on a dust mote where galaxies swirl within galaxies.

The Past is a Whore

2010-02-15T09:42:00.001-08:00

The past is a whore insisting you notice her red silk dress.

The past is boring, it’s over now, why come here begging with your empty cup?

The past splashes soot on day dreams, invades with a baby’s lip wet

with milk suckling in sleep.

The past is leather shoes with golden buckles, one lost in a cotton field, the other

muddied and hidden under my bed.

The past is my mother finding it and not saying a word.

The past is her silence, her leopard skin jumpsuit, her pale hands carrying Valentine’s cupcakes.

The past is a mirror, a pretend lake where we make pretend wishes and believe they’ll come true.

The past is an angry man come to tear my ginger house down, once all the sweet things have been sucked away.

The past is your sister’s curly hair in summer sunlight, her body an arc, diving.

The past is the ripple from the splash you dip your toe in.

The past is not water, the past is not stone, the past is a dirt clod

thrown in a game of war with your brother, your sister.

The past is her brown eyes smiling at you with a headless doll in her hands.

The past is a dog in heat that’s run away, you no longer chase it anymore, though you still throw it a bone now and then.

Photo Credit: Stewart Ferebee, "Hamburg"

Not Some Wet Ophelia

2010-02-03T10:56:00.000-08:00

Not Some Wet Ophelia

You cannot turn her into some wet Ophelia,

even if her gown drips pansies and the purple flowers of Diana.

She is not a Sappho fragment to be translated by some man

who thinks he knows her. Who thinks she only has one breast.

Who doesn’t care what Wittig thinks

or thought or wrote about language.

Pygmy chimpanzees are not patriarchal. They would tell

you that if you only listened, but you are too

busy, camellias bloom and die

before you even notice.

Her wedding gown is not a shroud made of dragonfly wings.

Her ring is not a sign of ownership—o.k. who are we fooling here?

Maybe it is, but she is not owned like a McDonald’s.

You cannot franchise her, coat her in sugar for the masses to swallow.

She wears combat boots and pearls--

and if she commits suicide, it’s not about you, it’s for herself.

Photo Credit: Stewart Ferebee, "Citroen"

The Soldier

2010-01-29T11:13:00.000-08:00

El Soldado (The Soldier)

A mother’s womb contracts

the day her son goes off to fight,

remembers a crown of twigs in his hair,

chubby fingers pointing a branch at her,

“Bang-bang, Mama, you’re dead.”

She tries to tell him, “War is a breakdown of reason.”

But he’s a citizen of a world that kills

women bent at rivers, children curled in blankets.

The weight of metal warming in his hand

makes him feel he’s a man.

Originally published in the Monterey Poetry Review

Photo Credit: Stewart Ferebee, "Clasp Variation"

The Taste of Metal

2010-01-24T13:09:00.000-08:00

Your water-dream paints white-stripes on stones.
Uncertainty growls in the throat
of a dog asleep on the shore.
The slick-eels
with rows of teeth are a memory.

Sharp arrowheads bite your feet,
and the water turns red.
You awake to the tin taste of metal
on your tongue.

You skip stones and cut
the water’s surface
like it means something,
like it will bring you back from the edge.

Mermaids

2010-01-23T12:31:00.000-08:00

Everything you ever heard is true.
Waves of raven hair ripple down her spine,

nipples point to the sky like absurd
compasses. You will go to her,

feel the crack of bones against rock.
Her beauty blinds you like a blade,

abalone in the sun, the light
off every one of her scales,
a star of your circumscription.

Published in the Anthology of Monterey Bay Poets

Rainy Day Woman Poem--The Piñata

2010-01-19T09:54:00.000-08:00

The Piñata

Cold rain turned my shirt
into paper mache.

I tried to hold it away
from the mound of each breast.

Your warm palms traced their shape,
and you told me I was beautiful.

All wet and streaming,
I believed you.

Originally Published in Two Review

Ping-Pong Magazine on KUSP Poetry Show

2010-01-17T12:34:00.000-08:00

Tonight I will be on the KUSP poetry show at 9:00 pm. Will talk about Ping-Pong magazine's unique aesthetic. Joining me tonight is poetry editor, James Maughn and host Dennis Morton.

Podcasts of past shows are available.

Muse and Twilight

2010-01-16T10:29:00.000-08:00

I never heard of the Twilight books until my son brought one home and told me it was about vampires. I promptly forgot about it. Then the students in my creative writing class repeatedly named it as their favorite book/series. During winter break 2008. The first book sucked me in as that genre can do, but I was a bit sickened over the simpering heroine.
But the truth is, gothic heroines are always a bit simpering, I suppose by their very nature they must be, how else could Victorian writers get it on without being "taken" as it were. I mean, gothic novels were like Victorian soft-porn, and female novelist were still trying to shrug off the "scribbler" appellation attached to them by that giant ass Samuel Jackson--I think it was him.
Since then I have read all the books voraciously, if a bit embarrassed, (especially when I bought the hard-cover of the last title).
I noticed that she thanked the band Muse, and Radiohead, which, if you've read my previous posts, are my Gods.
I picked up the latest issue of Muse cuz I liked the song "Uprising." There are at least 4 songs that seem a bit original. The rest owe a huge debt to Todd Rundgren's "Hermit of Mink Hollow," and, to anyone with ears, "Queen." I think that Muse has the potential of becoming a great band, once they grow into their own.

Henry Miller Slept Here

2010-01-15T09:19:00.000-08:00

Henry Miller Slept Here

I know some famous writers
whose egos are equal to or greater than
their talent.
And some of these people
come to read for my students,
but some won’t unless they get paid
huge bundles of cash,
which makes them whores doesn’t it?

Not that there’s anything wrong with being
a whore. I think it should be legalized,
like in Berlin, where the whores have little
huts provided for them by the city,
where they can do “whatever” and still
get health insurance. They also get to wear
super-high Stevie Nicks white patent leather
platform boots too. John Updike
says he writes reviews for the New Yorker
for the health insurance, and I believe him,
because I’ve written some reviews about books
I really liked, and wanted to poke my eyes out
afterwards with a really hot piece of rebar.

So back to the whore writers.
There’s nothing wrong with making money;
we all love capitalism don’t we?
But 15,000 dollars, come on, and then
they’ll cancel on you. And I don’t blame
them if they’re feeling bad and all,
but they kind of suck, and we nurse
their egos with big paychecks.

So, since all us writers teach, (and we do),
can’t we just pay for their food and flights? A room.
I have a big house. Writers sleep on my sofa,
they sleep on my bed, they steep like teabags
in my Jacuzzi, but some don’t, and I guess that’s
O.K., but Henry Miller would’ve fucked on my couch,
and if I fed him, he’d have come talked to my students
gratis, because that’s the way he was,
and he had a big ego, though if the rumors are true,
a smallish cock, (crazy though it may have been).

Originally published in Otoliths

How The Mind Works

2010-01-13T13:03:00.000-08:00

How the Mind Works

1) The quantity of nerve cells in the brain is in direct relation to need.

The sea nettle jellyfish spends

little on the purchase of nerve cells for his brain.

He is bell shaped and bold beauty

lace of tentacles

exquisite

to passive prey.

2) To hunt active prey you need more nerve cells.

Consider the flatworm,

following sunlight, humidity,

the warmth of leaves.

His brain weighs data

which trigger the oozing of juice

onto a hapless earthworm,

who is dissolved and consumed.

3) Social animals have larger brains.

Two weeks before death

a honeybee is set free

from currying combs, setting wax.

Now a forager

he fluffs food from purple coneflowers

reads the sundial

times the flower

for nectar signals

and takes note

in a flower diary.

Returns at the precise moment

the petals open for penetration.

4) Survival depends on our ability to learn.

My last boyfriend painted large canvasses.

He’d come to bed smelling

of linseed oil

and turpentine.

Once he’d aroused me,

he’d return to his paints.

In the henna of daybreak

I’d consider my naked form,

full moon breasts, burnt sienna hair

thick with the wet oil of color.

One day

I noticed the hair in a painting

was red, yellow, cerulean,

the eyes chartreuse, with teacup breasts,

not like mine.

5) To kill a scorpion you crack its husk. Once you figure this out, you’ve mastered the technique for life.

(Originally Published in the Cafe Review)

The Congo

2010-01-12T08:46:00.000-08:00

My friend Brandi Walker has been working for Dr. Mukwege at Panzi Hospital for the past two years. The atrocities she has reported to me are horrific. Women forced to watch as their children are killed, gang rapes with all kinds of objects forced into women's vaginas and etc. Whatever horror you can imagine has be perpetrated on these wonderful women. And Dr. Mukwege (who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize) does his best to stitch these women up and repair their lives. Brandi also helped in this endeavor. We need to ask more questions and get involved. Here is an article to get you acquainted with some of the issues by Brandi Walker and published in the Homestead Review.

Music/Poetry/Fashion/Food/Travel--These are a few of my favorite things

2010-01-11T09:40:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my blog.
You are invited in unless your are a pedophile or a racist, then you can piss off and go away.

So, this is a space to write about my favorite things as listed above, but my most favorite thing is writing.

Music--Radiohead--why they rule
Radiohead's music is like a strong drug. It overwhelms the senses. Once when I had the flu really bad I took this codeine cough medicine and hallucinated to Radiohead. There were Aztec images and ferris wheels and cats who were rugs but meowed when you stepped on them.
more on them later . . .

Poetry--The art of . . .
I edit two magazines, The Homestead Review, currently in its 10th year of publication,
and
Ping-Pong magazine, published by the Henry Miller library in Big Sur, California.

I also teach poetry, not that one can teach poetry, but we have a good time and lots of poetry is generally generated.

I also write poems and get them published on a regular basis, unless I don't send any out, which often happens though I've determined to be better at that this year. I often feel my life is too busy and there's lots of truth to that.

Here's a recent poem, it's like, you have to defend yourself for wearing high heels if you live in Santa Cruz, California, I guess this is my reaction.

I Love High Heels because They Make my Ass Look Good

I love high heels because they make my ass look good.

I know you think it’s a kind of foot binding and I can’t

really be a feminist if I rock the 5 inch stilettos, that I need

long gray hair and no make-up and Birkenstocks and a hemp-

seed vest. But, I have a pair of platform sandals that are all silver glitter.

In the swirl of the asphalt night, stars fall from my feet.

Fashion--baubles, bangles, beads, and shoes, yes lord, shoes
so in my profile picture I'm wearing a Hugo Boss dress and shoes by Steve something--not Madden, that I got in Rome. I love clothes, shoes, jewelry, and the whole gestalt of femininity. Not that I subscribe to anyone else's notions of it per se, just my own. I mean, my mom took me to kindergarten in a leopard skin jumpsuit, not a tacky huchie mama jumpsuit (though admittedly they have their place) but a classy, "I have a hot body and have no desire at all to look like all the other moms who are not wearing leopard jumpsuits. My mom was and is smokin' hot, though she's toned it down since becoming a grandmother. Here's a picture of her when she was seventeen.

Food-Hello, my name is Maria and I'm a foodaholic
I love to cook and eat good food. More on this obsession.

Travel--I just returned from Germany last week where I visited Munich, Neustadt, and Berlin. In 2009 I traveled to France:Provence, Paris, Mexico: Quintana Roo and the Yucatan Peninsula. I visited NYC twice, once with a sidetrip to Montauk to visit my friend Stew-bob and where my physicist husband was the featured speaker at the FEE conference sponsored by the Brookings institute. I also spent 10 days in Berlin this summer. My travels are legion.

Welcome!
Maria