"...SWIMMING TOWARD YOU / THROUGH / THE PAST"

Was it deliberate, if unconscious, on my part to wait deliberately until this week to read Kathleen Jesme’s poetry collection meditating/witnessing her mother’s dying?

Tomorrow I leave for Southern California to join my family in burying my mother’s ashes into the same gravesite where my father was buried.

My mother is ashes...?

Perhaps, when they sit the urn on Dad’s corpse, Dad will quip, “Mama! You’ve lost weight!”

Anyway, I did wait until this week to read MERIDIAN by Kathleen Jesme. Which is also to say, perhaps I’ve placed the harshest (?) critical eye one can place on this poetry collection. Because surely, if the poems are effective, they cannot fail to speak to me … this week?

Well, speak they did. Actually, sing they did. And so, kudos to Jesme, for achieving what I cannot (yet) do – creating art from this type of life. This type, being the process of dying:

Fetal horses

gallop in the womb

I am swimming toward you

through

the past

which clings to me

and holds me

back and up

--“MERIDIAN,” Kathleen Jesme

 

Here’s one more update of my Recently Relished W(h)ine List below before my trip. As ever, please note that in the Publications section, if you see an asterisk before the title, that means a review copy is available for Galatea Resurrects! More info on that HERE.

PUBLICATIONS
MERIDIAN, poems by Kathleen Jesme (language up to its material: the dying of a mother. Searing, as it should be …)

LOST BOOKS, poems by Adrienne J. Odasso (this poet is new to me and I am blessed to discover her. These poems are fine and delicate – they’re a marvel to read)

* BRUSHSTROKES AND GLANCES, poems by Djelloul Marbrook (sagacious ekphrasis)

BASEBALL CANTO, poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti in the exhibition announcement of “OUT OF THE PARK: The Art of Baseball,” April 4-May 25 at George Krevsky Gallery in San Francisco (more exhibition announcements should utilize poems—this is particularly well-done, and a fine poem to boot!)

PRIOR, poems by James Berger (a meaty first collection that charmed me into writing a review for the next issue of Galatea Resurrects)

SHADES OF BROWN, poems/poetry/poetics by Angel eFe Sandoval (moving)

BETWEEN TWO HOUSES, poems by Ed Baker (a whole lotta charm!)

REALISM, poems by Tom Mandel

* USO: I'LL BE SEEING YOU, poems by Kim Rosenfield

* TINY GOLD DRESS, poems by John Godfrey

* RADIO AT NIGHT: RECENT & SELECTED WORK, poems by Laurie Price

OTHERWORLDLY, poem by Karyne de Contreras (fabulous! go to link!)

BLUE BLEU BLU, visual poetry by Alice Brody (fabulous! go to link!)

TO THE EDITOR WHOSE NAME WILL APPEAR ON MY NEXT REJECTION LETTER, by G. Murray Thomas (fabulous! go to link!)

THE TRUTH, by Ted Joans (fabulous! go to link!)

PICASSO, illustrated essay by David Hockney (the 1990 Hanuman Books presentation. SitWithMoi gave me a reason recently to read it again, and it is just magnificent! Go to link!)

SAFE IN HEAVEN DEAD, selected interview excerpts of Jack Kerouac curated by Michael White (Hanuman Books No. 42. I always find inspiration in Kerouac. Fabulous! Go to link!)

HOUSE ORGAN, No. 82 Spring 2013, literary zine edited by Kenneth Warren

CHAIRMANIA: FANTASTIC MINIATURES by George M. Beylerian

MAN AT WORK, art monograph on/by Cesar Galicia

MODERN COUNTRY: REINTERPRETING A CLASSIC STYLE, interior design by Nancy E Ingram and M.J. Van Deventer with photography by Jenifer Jordan (excellent doctor’s office waiting room reading)

THREAT VECTOR, novel by Tom Clancy with Mark Greaney

SPENCERVILLE, novel by Nelson DeMille

THE LION’S GAME, novel by Nelson DeMille

WILD FIRE, novel by Nelson DeMille

THE THIRD BULLET, novel by Stephen Hunter

THE LINE BETWEEN HERE AND GONE, novel by Andrea Kane

DOWN THE DARKEST ROAD, novel by Tami Hoag

SLEEP NO MORE, novel by Iris Johansen

THE RED BOOK, novel by Deborah Copaken Cogan


WINES
2010 Argiano Rosso Toscano (good thing this Super Tuscan was so yummy as I have to be off alcohol now for the next three months as part of a medical check-up. Groan…)