Our neighbor plows
down-hollow and back,
his wife riding shotgun.
The old plow truck hasn’t left
the mountain in years,
bound to its one road.
In each yard,
it raises white ramparts
from the fallen enemy.
Luisa Igloria wins the 2014 May Swenson Poetry Award
I want to congratulate my Via Negativa co-blogger Luisa A. Igoria for winning the 2014 May Swenson Poetry Award. Her manuscript Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser was chosen by Mark Doty, a poet I greatly admire, from among 25 finalists — which had in turn been winnowed by preliminary readers from a field of nearly 700 entries. It will be published in hardcover, paperback and ebook later this year, with a preface from Mr. Doty.
Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser will be Luisa’s 15th full-length book of poetry, and her third (with The Saints of Streets and Night Willow, forthcoming from Phoenicia Publishing) to include poems from this website. Luisa estimates that about 75 percent of the poems in the book first saw light of day at Via Negativa. That includes the title poem.
Needless to say, this is another huge vindication for Luisa’s daily poem-writing practice. I hope it might encourage other poets to be a bit more open about sharing poems on blogs, as well, and to stop worrying that A) writing every day might mean compromising quality, or that B) regular online self-publishing might preclude other opportunities. Personally, I know I wouldn’t be writing either as much or as well without Luisa’s daily example as a guide and inspiration. I hope she’ll continue to share her work on Via Negativa as long as she is able.
If you’d like to study writing with Luisa and her colleagues—John McManus, Michael Pearson, Janet Peery, Sheri Reynolds, and Tim Seibles—at Old Dominion University, their MFA Creative Writing Program is currently accepting applications for next fall (deadline: March 1).
Funny tastes
Early up to Court with Sir W. Pen, where, at Mr. Coventry’s chamber, we met with all our fellow officers, and there after a hot debate about the business of paying off the Fleet, and how far we should join with the Commissioners of Parliament, which is now the great business of this month more to determine, and about which there is a great deal of difference between us, and then how far we should be assistants to them therein. That being done, he and I back again home, where I met with my father and mother going to my cozen Snow’s to Blackwall, and had promised to bring me and my wife along with them, which we could not do because we are to go to the Dolphin to-day to a dinner of Capt. Tayler’s. So at last I let my wife go with them, and I to the tavern, where Sir William Pen and the Comptroller and several others were, men and women; and we had a very great and merry dinner; and after dinner the Comptroller begun some sports, among others the naming of people round and afterwards demanding questions of them that they are forced to answer their names to, which do make very good sport. And here I took pleasure to take the forfeits of the ladies who would not do their duty by kissing of them; among others a pretty lady, who I found afterwards to be wife to Sir W. Batten’s son.
Home, and then with my wife to see Sir W. Batten, who could not be with us this day being ill, but we found him at cards, and here we sat late, talking with my Lady and others and Dr. Whistler, who I found good company and a very ingenious man. So home and to bed.
Ice and snow
go into a tavern—
people demand them.
I kiss a lady on a card
and talk with a whistle.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 4 February 1660/61.
Spell
Nothing you’ve learned has taught you
how to bring back the dead
father so you can thank him
for the only inheritance
he could leave you—
dubious talent for stringing
words in every weather: twigs
dark as grief to rub together
in heartbreak, vowels shredded
for kindling or confetti; short-lived
brilliance to loft like soap
bubbles above a clothesline
before the wind breaks them open
and the sidewalk’s printed
with a line of Os, their ink
disappearing along the road
he used to walk with you,
mornings, to take you to school.
In response to Via Negativa: Secondary school.
Rabid
The gray fox sat
and gazed at us like an angel—
one that foamed at the mouth.
I refuse to write
another poem about
the goddamn crows.
Holding a rifle
is like holding an infant,
wary of setting it off.
Public servant
(Lord’s day). This day I first begun to go forth in my coat and sword, as the manner now among gentlemen is. To Whitehall. In my way heard Mr. Thomas Fuller preach at the Savoy upon our forgiving of other men’s trespasses, shewing among other things that we are to go to law never to revenge, but only to repayre, which I think a good distinction. So to White Hall; where I staid to hear the trumpets and kettle-drums, and then the other drums, which are much cried up, though I think it dull, vulgar musique. So to Mr. Fox’s, unbid; where I had a good dinner and special company. Among other discourse, I observed one story, how my Lord of Northwich, at a public audience before the King of France, made the Duke of Anjou cry, by making ugly faces as he was stepping to the King, but undiscovered. And how Sir Phillip Warwick’s lady did wonder to have Mr. Darcy send for several dozen bottles of Rhenish wine to her house, not knowing that the wine was his.
Thence to my Lord’s; where I am told how Sir Thomas Crew’s Pedro, with two of his countrymen more, did last night kill one soldier of four that quarrelled with them in the street, about 10 o’clock. The other two are taken; but he is now hid at my Lord’s till night, that he do intend to make his escape away.
So up to my Lady, and sat and talked with her long, and so to Westminster Stairs, and there took boat to the bridge, and so home, where I met with letters to call us all up to-morrow morning to Whitehall about office business.
I go forth
in my coat and sword
to drums and other drums,
a vulgar audience
making ugly faces,
not knowing the wine
where I kill the clock
that talked on
about business.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 3 February 1660/61.
Last Call
“Let the pursers and clerks
make up their accounts…” – D. Bonta
Will it be held against me
that I have three rhinestone hairpins,
red Converse sneakers, and not a single
karaoke machine? Who will testify
to the justness of keeping a half-
slip embroidered with rosebuds
in the bottom of the sock drawer,
or that it was last worn at a First
Communion? Will the Bank of Final
and Never-to-be-Repeated Disastrous
Experiences agree to cashing one
more check, or better still, absolving
all debt? And when all offices close
for the rest of the season, will they
let me wait with a hopefully handsome
escort in the gazebo, instead of
in the sauna of no return?
In response to Via Negativa: Initiation.
Secondary school
I grew up with a woodstove
instead of a TV. I know all
the theme songs of oak.
If I could unlearn
the names of the birds,
how much freer their flight!
In a dream, I run
through my half-remembered high school
to catch a bus.
Initiation
Early to Mr. Moore, and with him to Sir Peter Ball, who proffers my uncle Robert much civility in letting him continue in the grounds which he had hired of Hetley who is now dead.
Thence home, where all things in a hurry for dinner, a strange cook being come in the room of Slater, who could not come.
There dined here my uncle Wight and my aunt, my father and mother, and my brother Tom, Dr. Fairbrother and Mr. Mills, the parson, and his wife, who is a neighbour’s daughter of my uncle Robert’s, and knows my Aunt Wight and all her and my friends there; and so we had excellent company to-day.
After dinner I was sent for to Sir G. Carteret’s, where he was, and I found the Comptroller, who are upon writing a letter to the Commissioners of Parliament in some things a rougher stile than our last, because they seem to speak high to us.
So the Comptroller and I thence to a tavern hard by, and there did agree upon drawing up some letters to be sent to all the pursers and Clerks of the Cheques to make up their accounts. Then home; where I found the parson and his wife gone. And by and by the rest of the company, very well pleased, and I too; it being the last dinner I intend to make a great while, it having now cost me almost 15l. in three dinners within this fortnight. In the evening comes Sir W. Pen, pretty merry, to sit with me and talk, which we did for an hour or two, and so good night, and I to bed.
Let him continue
in the ground, he
who is now dead,
where all things hurry—
a strange company
who seem to speak.
Let the pursers and clerks
make up their accounts,
the parson rest, and
the great night come
to sit with night.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 2 February 1660/61.
Subnivean
Like varicose veins
in the thinning snow, the dark
tunnels of the voles.
My garbage is nothing
but coffee grounds, each morning
wrapped in its filter-shroud.
I miss summer:
those small millipedes that glide
across the bathroom floor.