Here’s how it happened, in more-or-less chronological order:
I met Steve & Kristi Nebel online at the FAR-West Campfire * virtual song circles. I fell in love with Kristi’s voice. I also fell in love with the entire community, and ended up at the FAR-West 2023 conference in person as emcee for Susanne Millsaps Memorial Coffeehouse. At some point, Steve Nebel materialized with his poetry chapbook in hand, aimed in my general direction. I had to reciprocate. A month or so later, Steve asked me if I’d like to interview for Sound Poetry**.
I am vain. Of course I would. Here’s the interview, which I will post before I have a chance to decide I said something I regret. Not that I would.
We love pages. The smell, the feel. The font is a tongue rolling out of a poet’s life, laying out everything they’ve tasted.
When I’m presented with a manuscript to be laid out for print, I become a forensic investigator. This is the scene of a crime; the words are a confession of…what? There’s music here, but I have to dig to hear it. I’m looking for the poet’s soul. As is the case for my musical collaborators, prosody is my responsibility. As is the case with designing an art exhibit, applying the wrong frame treatment, placing pieces in the wrong order, can ruin the narrative.
The manuscript is sent to me as a wildling, unpruned. I have to find ways to fit its true nature within the size of a poetry book. I read each word carefully, several times. The baby in front of me represents a man’s several lifetimes. He doesn’t say that in so many words, of course – this is poetry from a master. It’s like looking at a photo album made of words. I want to feel what he felt as he made decisions as to what, whom, would be included. He shared key events in his life, some painful, some beautiful, all of which made him somehow stronger.
When I’m working on a piece of art, I choose a “soundtrack” – sometimes it’s a song, or an album, or a movie. It’s an incredibly useful device for the times when life intervenes. I can regain my groove fairly easily if I know which song I was using. For this book, this man’s life which was lived in part before I was born, I decided not to find the music that was important to him, but what was important to me – what I listened to when I was a wildling, learning to be strong, falling often, finding strength.
Now See Hear has been connecting musicians with artists since 2015. Let’s mix in some poets, yeah?
by debora Ewing
It turns out I’m not the only person seeking out the confluence of art & music. Phil Ward’s collective project, Now See Hear, pulls creativity from all over, from soap to brownies — though not in the same pan. Now See Hear has been connecting musicians with artists, bakers, and makers-of-things since 2015. That was the year Phil handed out 23 “seed songs” by FAR-West musicians to a bunch of visual artists, craftspeople and artisans–amateur, professional, children, adults.
He said to the artists, “Can you create a new work of art (or a craft or whatever) inspired by this song I’ve given you?” And then, guess what? He gave that art to a bunch of musicians and asked the same:
“Can you create a new song inspired by this art I’ve given you?”
Phil Ward has spent his life refusing to choose between music and acting. He says: “…anybody who creates is doing it because there’s something in their blood that says ‘create this…’ The thing in my blood that I’m instructed to create is a song. I always fight the urge to say ‘Well it is poetry if you take away the music,’ but surely that can’t be true. I think poetry is out of my depth.”
Surely that can be true.
It’s all about trying to bring a message to people, right? I told Phil he can absolutely say that. Poetry and songwriting share a common backbone: distilling a story to its lowest common denominator, something rhythmic and repeatable.
Phil says, “I don’t think I have a message in my work; I’m just trying to make people laugh. I can understand poets saying, ‘Oh, writing a song is out of my depth,’ because it involves music. But the reason I think poetry is out of my depth is because I can use music as a crutch. If I can keep their attention with a catchy tune, my words don’t have to be as deep and meaningful as they need to be if you’re just writing poetry.”
So his message, then, is to find joy. Be happy for three minutes. This is a good message. It’s a worthy goal, even if the goal in the beginning is just to get the thing out – out of the blood, out of the head – you have to get it out.
“I’m going to give you something that needs a home,” he said. That’s perfect. I promise whatever I create will include teeth. Wisdom, eyes, canines, yes. Teeth.
Then Phil asked me a question: where would poets fit into this? Now See Hear is visual: everything from art to baking, but also Aural, with musicians and storytellers. “There’s no rule that says they can’t be on both ends of it…”
What do you think? Which end do you think poetry belongs on?
WHY NOT THE MIDDLE? Why not everything? To date, Now See Hear has one poetic collage by Sandra Moore, and two pieces by poets from Able ARTS Work. We’re underrepresented.
Write a poem to a piece of art. Record your voice. Make a performance video. I challenge you to have a look around the website & find something that speaks to you. Speak back to it.
We often learn to expect hiddenness from poems, and we go looking for it without seeing what’s right in front of us. Poetry becomes a game that a lot of people don’t enjoy. People attempting to write poetry might focus on the hiding and forget the framework.
Poetry is about emotion. We hide our emotions in tangible things: on the mantel, that delicate teacup I bought for a drinking habit I no longer have; this Mongolian sheep knee someone gave me when I asked for a rock. A pocket watch I gifted my husband every holiday because all he wanted was for me to stop spending money. I still have the watch, but not the husband.
You can see them, right? You could pick them up, examine each one, and put it back down, wondering why I keep any of these things.
We all have stories to tell; I sometimes tell mine with the vocabulary of paint or graphite instead of typeface. I like to place things in odd juxtaposition, the same way I find the world. I want to show you what I found out there. I found myself in the desert and I show you by drawing a coyote with an ocotillo tongue. It is a self-portrait.
When you tell your story, start with things your listeners can pick up. There’s a hidden message, too, perhaps, but if that’s the only reason we’re there we’ll be missing something important.
Today’s ruination of peace is this: there is no sign, but there is an opportunity to make a decision from a new perspective. This is what we (aim to) do with our encapsulated stories in song, art, or poetry. Hang up some signs to show your listeners which way you want them to walk. Use whatever vocabulary your story needs to tell itself.
Analog Revolution is a project spearheaded by Nadia Young. She has a strong connection to pre-digital, tangible things. She also has a cactus with suicidal tendencies. Watch out for her!
Eric Tucker is the editor at Plainsongs. I’ve had wonderful communications with him over the years. Have a look at this wonderful print magazine, which is now also available in .pdf. I think I need to send him something…
“Poetry has the capacity to hold a mirror to science, capturing its reflection warts and all.”
Sam Illingworth
Dr. Sam Illingworth’s intent is to foster communication both to and with non-scientific audiences by making science and poetry feel familiar. The end result – Science Communication Through Poetry – is brilliance.
Sam is an educator, researcher, poet and a scientist, in no particular order (I think.) He comes with a laundry list of qualifications: Associate Professor in Academic Practice at Edinburgh Napier University; internationally-recognised expertise in interdisciplinary studies; he earned a scholarship from the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation regarding the relationship between science and theatre in Japan; he is the founder of Consilience Science-based Poetry Journal and its sister site, ConciliARTe; he’s written several books and a blog, https://www.samillingworth.com/.
Sam uses Oxford commas. I love that about him.
“…who exactly is Sam Illingworth to be telling me how to use poetry to help communicate science?“
Like an educator, Sam outlines How to Use This Book – he intends it to be functional from the outset, not merely a monologue. I’m telling you as a reader that it’s a delineated guide for teaching poetry as science communication, either to a class or to yourself. You will learn about yourself while reading this book. That’s intentional.
He wants the book to be a roadmap.
“…is the best way to diversify science and stop it from ostracizing, excluding, and alienating to use a medium which is perceived by many to be similarly ostracizing, excluding, and alienating?”
People often encounter a specific type of poetry while in school, which they did not enjoy, either school or poetry. They were turned off from poetry before discovering its diversity. It’s the same with science. Limited exposure leads to exclusion.
Sam gives us new tools in the form of terminology to help build that bridge from science to poetry:
Inward-facing (academic papers, conferences) and outward-facing (policy documents, science festivals, collaborative workshops) dialogue between scientists and non-scientists.
Interrogate to define the relationship of poetry upon science.
He coins the acronym RAW Poetry: Read, Analyze, and Write science poetry.
“Individually, science and poetry both present a set of complementary methods that together can help us to better comprehend the world and our place in it, while also diversifying knowledge and understanding.”
One of the most important tools Sam gives us is this: Actively target the incubation period, the part of problem-solving during which your task marinates in the subconscious.
It’s common practice to step away from a difficult problem, to allow your subconscious to work while you focus elsewhere. Illingworth suggests, rather than passively letting a problem rest, writing a poem about it. Examine it from a different perspective but don’t let it rest. Let it speak to you with other words.
My poetry mentor Peter Kidd gave me haiku as a remedy against insomnia. “When you find yourself awake,” he told me, “Write a haiku and lie back down.” I did, sometimes as many as three times a night. I didn’t try to force a topic on the insomnia haikus, but sometimes one would manifest. Eventually the exercise became Pavlovian, in that my brain would know it could now rest and wait for the next time to wake up and craft a poem. I was able to sleep.
Sam begins with a very functional process: simply read the poem, in your head and then aloud, and find out how it feels. Don’t worry about what it means. What are the differences in the poem internally and externally?
“When you read a poem, you do so while simultaneously bringing all of your own lived experiences, knowledge, and identity to your interpretation, or analysis, of the poem.”
This book interrogates the reader, or implores the reader to interrogate herself. The order of his questions is interesting: 1. What do you think this poem is about? 2. How does the poem make you feel? 3. Do you like the poem?
“Is there something that you are bringing to the poem…” And then he gives context, and asks whether the context changes our impressions.
Questioning ourselves is the best way to start a dialogue with others.
It’s not until Chapter 3 that Sam helps us define a poem – an educational technique like teaching vowel sounds before the written alphabet of a non-native language. I think it helps disassemble preconceptions that might get in the way of our understanding something completely new.
Chapter 3 also spends time on techniques to identify your audience where you are in your process. I think we all need this tool. The author points out, wisely, that your audience is unlikely to remain consistent. Take that any way you like, but see the truth of it.
Sam uses terms like poetic experiments; I like this one. He chooses to introduce the formal poetic form ‘nonet’ which may have origins in music, thus crossing another boundary. This book is all about crossing boundaries – no, integrating disciplines. I was immediately inspired to try writing a nonet.
graphic depiction of the poetry form Nonet.
Each chapter suggests further reading to help enhance your understanding of what you’ve just done.
“…it is important to make the following distinction between a research method and a research methodology: a method is the research tool (e.g. interview, questionnaire, observation) that is used by a researcher, and a methodology is the justification for using this method.”
Hey, people who like finite parameters: you’re gonna LOVE chapter 4.
The author applies conventional, directed, and summative approaches to analyzing patterns of meaning in data – in this case, the data is poetry.
“Poetry offers a way for multiple audiences to engage with scientific topics, and toestablish their own common language in the process…”
Poetry can absolutely be analyzed as a data set to answer a research question using very specific methods, even accounting for words used in unique ways that might not be appropriate for the study. Sam recommends keeping a record of any poems removed or “cleaned” from the data set, and your rationale behind your decision. He explains why you need to be able to verify your findings, as science does.
Then he asks you to use what you’ve learned so far to examine your data: Read some poetry. Code some poetry. Check the auditing trail you’ve created through the process.
If we weren’t having enough utterly geeked-out fun yet, Chapter 5 addresses Poetic Transcription, or “found poetry” in scientific data. Again, Sam gives you clear steps to do this for yourself.
Don’t be Led by Aesthetics: The second core principle reminds us of the transcribed poem’s purpose: The poem should help clarify science’s story, rather than show off poetic skills.
In fact, the elements of this chapter may be surprising to the author, poet, or writer who’s not used to being a scientist. They make sense to those of us who believe art exists “out there” and it’s our job to convey it to others through language, aural or visual – through us.
This is where Sam says: Allow the poem to develop. We already do, right? It’s the hardest part of creating.
“Writing and sharing poetry can lead to an outpouring of (often unexpected)emotions, and so you need to make sure that you have a set of contingenciesto deal with this.”
Chapter 6 focuses on poetry workshops, but this data could be easily extrapolated to any sort of workshop. Sam Illingworth reinforces the importance of ethical actions. He identifies the risks of emotional distress and safeguarding information, based on his experience of running science-based poetry workshops.
The author gives very detailed points on creating and running a workshop from not only the cerebral and ethical perspectives, but the physical: talking to venue owners about logistics; finding representatives from the community to ensure inclusiveness; attending to dietary requirements. Compensation. He again asks you to self-reflect: What is your role?
“Academia has a nasty habit of sorting people into well-constrained silos, whichis in part to blame for the lack of diversity that we often encounter in science andscientific research more broadly.”
Sam identifies four personality types who may be interested in his book, and how they might best approach it: Scientist, Science communication practitioner, Science communication researcher, poet.
I am a poet. I’m immediately drawn to the two chapters he suggests I skip: 4 and 5.
Throughout the book there’s a recurrent impression on the future, on evolution, on legacy. I love this acknowledgement of both science and poetry as processes; it’s a theme throughout my own work and studies.
Science Communication Through Poetry reinforces the necessity of humility and feedback as a good means to that end. Not all feedback is positive; not all is applied, but even what isn’t applicable is still useful.
I recommend this book to anyone: scientists who want to become poets, teachers who want to impress curiosity upon their students, songwriters, poets and scientists alike who want to become better at what they do.
Poetry is for you. Poetry lives and breathes through all our lives. Like sparkling insect wings, like sunflowers on the side of a desert highway, it just takes a little attunement to recognize it wherever you are.
“Poetry, like science, should be for everyone”
– Sam illingworth
Further Reading:
The Poetry of Science – Sam Illingworth’s blog. Make yourself a cuppa and get lost in here on a rainy afternoon.
Why Poetry? by Matthew Zapruder. My book club, a bunch of coders, engineers, flight instructors, musicians, artists, two jugglers and a magician, felt moved to write poetry while reading Why Poetry? I can’t wait for them to read Sam’s book.
ConciliARTe – Please enjoy our science-based art, and by all means please consider submitting some of your own. If you’re unsure how your work connects to science, ask us! We want to encourage the connection.
For most of my life, the work of Richard Martin has been missing from my life. Or maybe, like a hobo, he was always there, just out of focus, making observations, waiting for you to notice or ask what he’s observed.
Richard Martin is the name on all the books –Boink!, Dream of Long Headdresses, Fungo Appetite, Under the Sky of No Complaint, Strip Meditation, The White Quartet, the recently released Chapter and Verse, among others – an impressive body of work spanning decades. I haven’t met him in person yet, so I don’t feel qualified to call him Dick, as his friends do. Dick Martin is almost another entity in my mind, a separate archetype, as a good friend to my friend & mentor, Peter Kidd. The way Pete said his name held import in lack of modifiers.
“Dick’s coming by,” he said with little explanation, but I could hear over the phone how important the visit was to Pete. Together in Canyon, Texas, they went over Pete’s magnum opus, The Human Condition, to be published posthumously by Spuyten Duyvil press.
Dick’s the guy who came through for me when I wanted a copy of Pete’s publication, Cells of Fancy.
grail sent to the author by Dick Martin, aka Richard Martin
“I’ll make you a copy,” he said, and he did. He included a handwritten anecdote, what Pete would call grail. In this way, Dick Martin introduced me to tiny publications like unarmed journal and Rinky Dink Press. I shared my findings in this blog post on micro-words. But that’s not why we’re here. We’re here to talk about The White Quartet.
White Quartet, 4 book series of poems by Richard Martin (Igneus Press, 2019-2022)
The White Quartet was conceived by Dick Martin with Peter Kidd. Hobo Return is the last in the four-chapbook series. The first in the White Quartet series, Hard Labor, came out in 2019, with Cosmic Sandbox released later that year. Sighting Icarus came out in 2020, with Martin dedicating this third in the quartet In Memoriam to Peter Kidd, a gesture of love and friendship for his fellow poet.
The final book in this series, Hobo Return (2021), rounds out the vision of a poet in awe of being in the world. Please join us Sunday, May 1, 2022 on Facebook LIVE for the launch of Hobo Return, with reading by the author Richard Martin and recording of his lifelong friend and our founder, Peter Kidd. Bring cookies; join in the discussion.
Just go to the Igneus Press Facebook, Instagram or Youtube page on . Sunday May 1st at 3:30 pm PST, 6:30 EST . Go to the Facebook LIVE launch: https://buff.ly/3KWPvca .
Richard Martin’s most recent work is Hobo Return(Igneus Press, 2021, the fourth in the White Quartet series begun with Igneus founder Peter Kidd in 2018), Chapter and Verse (Spuyten Duyvil, 2021), and Ceremony of the Unknown (Spuyten Duyvil, 2020). Martin is also the author of Goosebumps of Antimatter(Spuyten Duyvil, 2018), Techniques in the Neighborhood of Sleep (Spuyten Duyvil, 2018) and the short story collections Altercations in the Quiet Car and Buffoons in the Gene Pool from (Lavender Ink Press/Fell Swoop). Martin is a past recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship for Poetry. He lives in Boston with his family.
Rinky Dink Press presents ten new poets twice annually in their fantastic tiny earth-friendly format. Submit your work Here. You can purchase Series 5 – ten poets for $10.00, including Democritus Highball – here.
After the point at which I was fully vaxxed and boosted against COVID-19, the Editorial Freelancers Association asked if we, the members, thought they should be a presence at MLA 2022. I said yes—wholeheartedly yes! The Modern Language Association annual event brings visitors and exhibitors from around the globe. I really appreciate my EFA membership, and I was excited to explain why to anyone who would listen. Freelance editors for everyone!
And then things got worse.
It seems the omicron variant isn’t as deadly as previous waves of the coronavirus, but it’s more prolific. As I type, my daughter’s household is getting over it, and two of my very close friends are working through it in their families. Children aged 4–11 included, everyone is feeling sick and feverish without going to the hospital. I didn’t have these anecdotes to prep myself as the day came closer to arrive at Walter E. Washington Convention Center and convene.
I’d signed up for the teardown team. This gained me an all-access pass to the convention and the title of Booth Captain. Since I do not have a proper captain’s hat, I wore my thrift-store Stetson and proclaimed myself Booth Wrangler. Had more people come to #MLA22, I would have been a smash hit.
Some of EFA’s volunteers dropped out last-minute. I appreciate their efforts and the difficult decision to choose safety for their families. I, too, weighed the odds every day. I was betting on the number of participants, and thus my risk of exposure, being low. I was right—more right than I’d like to have been.
The convention population was sparse. We had 12 exhibitors, and maybe that many visitors on Saturday. Some of them had flown in from overseas; I was glad for their sakes that we showed up. My partner-in-crime, Liz Prouty, started out with the usual DC experience.
Liz’s parking update text
I was just really happy to be working with someone who uses words like that. Liz was great. We shared the details of our writing experience, of editing and our families. Liz said that at one point she’d considered bringing her husband and making it a night in DC, but decided to keep pandemic exposure to a minimum. I’d made similar calculations but chose to stay in a Chinatown hotel with good TripAdvisor ratings.
Per the instructions we were given, Liz and I took a tally of those who stopped to visit the EFA booth. We noticed right away that the coffee service was an appealing draw to our end of the floor.
You knew I was a writer, right? I can bollocks up any instructions.
Liz was easily recruited to my machinations. Here’s another example.
more fastidious notes
Most of our conversations were with fellow exhibitors who needed a walk or to vent, or both. One booth wrangler was increasingly frustrated with her university’s budget cuts, especially their refusal to help promote their authors. “Why do we have a marketing department? I want to say cut them from the budget!” We also talked to a few academics who were keen to know (and impressed to find out) what publishing services we, theEFA-ers, offer. Just about everyone who writes has a task they dream of outsourcing.
I, too made my way around the floor, trying to capture some of the excitement that’s expected at such a big event. Liz and I had noticed a scheduled talk with remote panelists; I peeked in, then let her know I’d be sitting in for a minute.
I kept my partner apprised of my whereabouts
My biggest takeaway was the model of “getting a band together” for publishing your book. I’d just said something similar to one of my editing clients as she was looking for a publisher to query. I told her to recruit the publisher like she recruited me: have a talk; feel if she’s on board with your vision. There were about four people live in the room; hopefully more were sitting in remotely. It was a really good talk. When I got back to the EFA booth, Liz was just texting me—she had to check her parking. In DC, this is the way.
I felt dangerous in a room with so many books. I wanted to bring them all home. I felt badly for them, the books, because they had nobody to read them. I found one (Modern Philology) that was irresistible and I tried to buy it.
“Just take it,” said the exhibitor, resignedly. I asked if I could take his picture. “Why?” he asked. For Facebook? He shrugged. I took it.
My nearest neighbor was kinder about my interest. “I’m giving them all away tomorrow. I’ll hold onto that one for you.” At times when he’d wandered off and a person wandered into his space, I would go and work his booth. (Why not? We freelance at everything.)
He was as good as his word: when I walked in on Sunday, he held out the metal stand with both hands and bade me collect my gift. As Sunday went on, I approached anyone I saw with a stack of books and insisted they take an EFA bag (complete with informational literature, a screen cleaner, and hard candies.) Insisted. Most of them were grateful.
I worked someone else’s booth while she went upstairs for a coffee run. She didn’t want to be photographed, but she did take this picture of a fellow exhibitor and me looking interested in her wares.
Your Booth Wrangler with another EFA Bag Model
I also managed to pick up an MLA stress-doggy. I really thought I had a picture of that. I came home with (only) two EFA bags full of books that my fellow exhibitors did not have to pack. I was helpful.
A District of Columbia employee was helpful when my driver showed up but did not help me move my bags & boxes. There was very nearly a skirmish on my behalf when the young purple-haired woman stood nose-to-nose with my driver, because he didn’t offer to help me with my boxes & bags. He’d yelled at her for yelling at him, and she squared off. His excuse: people sometimes don’t like a foreigner touching their stuff. I looked her in the eyes and thanked her sincerely. On the ride home, I told him he was wrong to yell at her. It’s better to ask someone, I said, before touching their stuff. I hope next time he asks.
Ultimately, we exhibitors and attendees felt it was important to make a presence this year—because we showed up, #MLA22 was a Thing Which Happened. Modern Language persisted through this very odd time. I don’t know how we’ll be represented in history, but I do know it’s important to keep using our words to tell how we’re living and breathing. Time changes the narrative. The onus is on us, now, to preserve what’s not in statistics: our feelings, our needs, and what we think is critical enough to do despite what’s out there.
debora Ewing is an artist, poet, songwriter and ruiner of peace for the greater good. She currently calls Annandale, Virginia her home base. You can reach her through EFA, or consider joining her platoon at patreon.com/debNation (like damnation, but with more deb.)
Liz Prouty is a certified copy editor in Huntingtown, Maryland. She believes fervently in science, chocolate, and the power of homemade soup. For editing help, please find her at slbooks@gmail.com.
Any emails sent through CJQ’s website, though, are answered by Steve Gillette, Charles John’s writing partner of many years. SG suggested I call or write to Charles. Then he told me about his own website: About the Song. I found so much good there. A year later, when I saw SG’s picture on a wall at The Birchmere, I wrote to him again and said,
“Looky what I found.”
We’re both fans of Carl Jung, for starters, if fan is the right word. As conversation unfolded, I gave SG a breakdown of why I think Wichita Lineman is a love song about processing grief. He directed me to a TedTalk by Daniel Sherrill which explored why, perhaps, people don’t connect emotionally with the concept of climate change. We thought a love song to climate change would be a good idea.
I connected with Tina Ross near the beginning of 2020, the year we’re still in (by my count it is now 2020.2.) We Belong to the DanFam™, a group that’s coalesced around prolific songwriter and voice actor Dan Navarro as he played from his living-room for something like 238 days under pandemic lockdown. Tina’s played Cantina Navarro, an annual hotspot during Folk Alliance International, even when it’s virtual. She’s played events alongside names like Severin Browne. Her music has depth and pith. Or pith and depth. But my favorite thing about Tina is that she’s a huge fan of my work. We fangirl each other.
Several emails into the conversation with Gillette, I messaged Tina:
When Tina heard ‘Home’, the song written by Stephen Gillette and myself, she asked to cover it.
Tina and had the following conversation via Facebook messenger:
Deb: Tina. He’s still tweaking the song! Steve ****ing Gillette! So it doesn’t matter what the medium, we never outgrow this tendency.
Tina Ross: It’s so hard to know when a song is done. The recording sounds nice!
Deb: it’s been a lot of learning for me.
Tina Ross: That’s the best part!
Deb: Yeah it is. I got to observe the whole process from someone who’s been doing this since I was born (1965.)
Tina Ross: He is a gem! So well respected and a songwriter’s songwriter!
Deb: I really look forward to meeting him and Cindy in person. The piano is her.
Tina Ross: So did you write all the lyrics? Tell me what the breakdown was.
Deb: It was a process of evolving conversation, such that I barely realized it happened. The first verse is very blended – I can say that “shock and awe has faded to gray” started with me. The concept “what will we do when we can’t come home” is mine. He seemed married to the rest of the chorus from the outset. I didn’t like it much at first and kept trying to change it! He would try some of my ideas, but always revert back to this. (editor’s note: he was right. I very much approve.)
HEY IS THIS AN INTERVIEW?
Tina Ross: Sometimes one person writes the lyrics and one music. But it sounds like it was a collaboration.
Deb: Very much so. The 2nd verse is all him. I had 2 other verses lined up; my 2nd was a young woman with 2 babies…
Tina Ross: Use that for another song. Nothing is ever a waste.
Deb: …and that was the point at which Steve Gillette told me that we may well be writing 2. I think we have 3. He said he and Charles John often found they were writing two songs. But he found inspiration, and emailed me a little of it. He was thinking a lot about endangered species and tangible effects of climate change. I had a few ideas there – like flowers blooming out of season – but the story of the Clarion Wren was very strong with SG.
I had suggestions on moving the words around because the rhyming pattern was completely different (from the first verse) and that irked me, but he found an excellent compromise. There’s a lot of play with near-rhyming and internal rhyme that we discussed, so I’d say I offered only contention to the 2nd verse, which is often helpful in creating. With my other collaborations I have supplied lyrics and left it to the singer to change what they wanted to change. Melinda (@sciencegeekmel) discussed changes with me, to make sure we were keeping to my original intent (referencing Big Love, my first collaboration.)
Tina Ross: Every moment matters. What you say leads to someone else’s ideas.
Deb: EXACTLY. Just existing matters. You may not be familiar with Cambridge mathematicians Hardy and Littlewood. They published several papers together, and they had 4 axioms they followed to do so. I have the axioms posted on my wall because I love them so much. Remember – these guys were using actual mail.
Tina Ross: I will look for that
Deb (obliviously transcribing what’s on the wall): 1. it didn’t matter whether what they wrote to each other was right or wrong.
2. there was no obligation to reply, or even to read, any letter <—-this is the important one, because just having a focus for your thoughts shapes them even if the other person never hears them. I have a song I’m working on about that: Unsent Letters.
Tina Ross: Yes, yes, yes and yes! YES. I LOVE THAT.
Deb (continuing obliviously): 3. they should not try to think about the same things.
4. to avoid any quarrels, all papers would be under joint name, regardless of whether one of them had contributed nothing to the work.
Tina Ross: This is co-writing, and life, in a nutshell! Or any collab.
Deb: YES totally. Melly and I use each other like notebooks. We use WhatsApp, and sometimes I just go “notebook” and she knows she doesn’t have to understand whatever. She’s nuts, man. She writes whole books on her phone. One is going to be published by Ellipsis, a small press based in London.
Tina: Great!! And she wrote it on her phone?
Deb: I may be exaggerating, but only slightly. Like today, she sent me an email with the subject line “I had ten minutes to myself” and it’s a chapter to her new book.
Yep. this is an interview. I want to use it on my blog, if that’s okay. That means I want to ask YOU questions: what struck you immediately about this song we call Home?
Tina Ross: Ok from memory: The gestalt of it! So first the feel of the words fitting well with music and the sound of it. The first line set a scene that I saw. Then when the woman came in I was intrigued. And the concept or question of having gone too far is compelling. Then lots of other points in the song pulled me in.
Deb: ooooh, you said Gestalt – one of my favorite things! I can’t remember if I told you our original idea was to write a love song that helped people connect with climate change.
Tina Ross: Well, a song is a great way to connect someone emotionally with any topic!!
Deb: Yes. We humans will fall for it every time!
Tina Ross: I’m gonna go time my set for Friday night’s Troubadour concert. Great talking with you.
Deb: Since we’re here, what was your biggest fangirly moment to date, as far as playing with or next to or on the same bill as someone?
Tina Ross: Well Bonnie Raitt once gave me a shoutout during a concert. Does that count?
You can catch Tina live any Sunday on Facebook here: Tina Ross Music I highly recommend subscribing to her YouTube channel, where you can hear Artemisia whenever you like. It’s gorgeous. You’ll be back.
You can’t hear ‘Home’ yet, though…we seem to still be working on it. Please start where I did, at About the Song, or where Tina did, with Songwriting and the Creative Process by Steve Gillette. It’s not just about songwriting, unless you consider that songwriting is about everything.
I would be remiss if I didn’t suggest you look for some #livemusicdelivered near you at www.dannavarro.com. Next thing you know, you’ll be in a 678-person big ol’ love-hug with @dannavarro and the rest of us.
Poet Richard Martin is connected to me via the constellation Peter Kidd, founder of Igneus Press. I heard the love in Pete’s voice when he told me Dick was coming out to Canyon for a visit. They planned to look over some of his poems for a project. Now there’s a lesson for everyone: even the guru needs another set of eyes.
Cells of Fancy is a rare publication of Peter Kidd’s works. While I’m waiting for The Human Condition to come into being, I started fishing around to see if I could find a copy of Cells for myself. Mr. Martin messaged me via Facebook to say he’d make me a copy. But that’s not why were here, exactly.
hear Sophia Kidd read Peter Kidd’s piece, “The Human Condition”
My envelope of grail included not only a staple-bound copy of Cells of Fancy, but several tiny publications by Richard Martin himself. I am fascinated and inspired.
Democritus Highball is a tiny book of micropoems printed on one carefully-folded letter-size sheet of printed paper, courtesy of Rinky Dink Press. It’s adorable. Fungo Appetite is an Unarmed Chapbook – 24 pages equalling six sheets of paper cut in half.
I reached out to these publishers of Dick’s microbooks in advance of writing this post. Michael of UnarmedJournal wrote back the most heart-wrenching email, both good and bad. He uses proper punctuation but no capital letters.
“i’m not sure what to answer,” he said, “since i’m in a quandary as to the continuation of unarmed…” He mentions COVID, doesn’t exactly call it an obstacle, but we already know, don’t we? It’s been an obstacle beyond explanation. Decades from now, historians will parse it for us.
Michael says of Richard Martin: “i am pleased to hear that you are to give attention to richard, the author of THE essential piece of americana, boink!” I got me a copy of boink! but I haven’t read it yet. It’s busy over here.
debora Ewing reads Rehearsed in Oblivion by Richard Martin. The cat is unrepentant.
I’m inspired. I see two ways to serve the greater good here: We, too, can make tiny books and we can disperse them by mail. Our society is so conditioned to instant response. Let’s bring back the anticipation of real paper envelopes coming in the mail from far-off places.
I’ll wrap up with the words of our Fearless Leader, Dr. Sophia Kidd, from October 2020:
I was talking with Richard Martin over the phone today, and he spoke of decades of collaboration with American small presses. At the end of his narrative, Dick said, “Everyone’s gotta have a church, man. Small press is MY church!” And I thought about how my dad, late publisher of Igneus Press, Peter Kidd, used to speak of small press as a form of tithing. My mind was going click. Click. Click. And my soul is going vroom. Vroom.
Further Reading:
We’d like to announce our latest Igneus title: Sighting Icarus: Poems by Richard Martin. This title is available in our online Igneus Bookstore, along with the first two chapbooks in the White Quartet: Hard Labor and Cosmic Sandbox. #4, Hobo Return, will be out early 2021.
Rinky Dink Press presents ten new poets twice annually in their fantastic tiny earth-friendly format. Submit your work Here. You can purchase Series 5 – ten poets for $10.00, including Democritus Highball – here.
Boink! Lavender Ink – You can purchase the .pdf version. Boink! is also currently available in paperback.
Vincent Ferrini, A Tale of Psyche (1st edition) English (buy this book) Review by deb Ewing
Poetry is infinite aiming toward finite, distillation of the poet’s mind, conveyance of a specific image which wasn’t given in words. Sometimes, and these are some of my favorite times, poetry is words sprinkled onto a page – a dance, performance art in two dimensions instead of three.
I sat in the virtual audience as Igneus Press interviewed poet/performance/artist Elizabeth Gordon McKim on Facebook. She knew Vincent Ferrini, and she told us (and by us I mean me) about him.
EGMcK: Vincent Ferrini…well, you knew Vincent, too, didn’t you?
Sophia Kidd: I met him. I knew him through my father for decades, and then I met him, I rode my bicycle down to see him.
EGMcK: Okay, he was a very instrumental person for me…He grew up in Lynn (Massachussetts); he was Italian, he came from anarchist roots, and he grew up in some of the tenements here. And his parents were shoe workers…(laughing) we recognized each other. We definitely recognized each other.
~let me, the narrator, interject here: Is this not an important aspect to poetry as well? Don’t we peek inside these chapbooks hoping to recognize another one of us, a kindred spirit, free or tortured, attempting to translate what doesn’t fit well in society’s language?
EGMcK: …he was just a big force; he took up a lot of space, it was always kinda good space, it was great space with Vincent. There was so much history there, and poetry, and learning, and sexuality; inquisitiveness and curiosity and barbs…”my life is a poem…life is a poem…”
SK: (arms outstretched) “I AM THE POEM!” My dad used to tell this story, and I can’t really do it well, because you need to be able to see my feet…Vincent stood up one day and said to my dad, he put one foot over here, and one foot over here, and said “I HAVE ONE FOOT IN THIS WORLD, PETER, AND ONE FOOT IN THE OTHER WORLD. AND I CAN TELL YOU ONE THING. I AM THE POEM!!!!”
~and this is when I knew I had to go back and read A Tale of Psyche from the top.
EGMcK: (laughing) That’s Vincent. And it’s so wonderful to see where I live here, in Lynn, if I just walk down one block this way, it’s this big public mural and we have people like Frederick Douglass and various people that lived in Lynn…and there’s Vincent! He’s on the mural with his black hat and everything, sort of peeking over everything…he’s so much part of the spirit here. And just as for all of us, we’ve had people who have influenced us, some of them well-known, and some of them familial; you know, from our everyday lives. And Vincent was a person, certainly, from a time in my life…there were so many questions I had about who I was, and Vincent helped for me to feel myself as an artist and as a poet, and to be just part of that big stream.
~ and here we come to the point, don’t we? We want to feel ourselves for what we are, and also to feel ourselves part of that big stream.
This bigger-than-self drawing of Vincent Ferrini translates onto the pages of A Tale of Psyche. He plants a foot firmly on this part of the page, and another here, and another over there. A Tale of Psyche is unconventional – it comprises eight poems, but some of them cross several pages like rabbit-tracks in fresh fallen snow. Ferrini talks a lot about dual states: in and out, between, like a shoreline.
I keep A Tale of Psyche in my purse these days – poetry living my life with me. It has crumpled pages, dog-eared corners, food stains. This book has to be lived, breathed, moving, because to read it aloud for you (and I will) doesn’t give the whole picture. Here, let me show you how he nearly draws a tree’s purpose:
from ‘Adytum’, A Tale of Psyche, Vincent Ferrini
…and how he approximates a wandering, wondering psyche:
from ‘Adytum’, A Tale of Psyche, Vincent Ferrini
…so when I read the poem, I cannot just convey to you the words used to create it, because a space creates it, too.
debora Ewing reads Mirandum by Vincent Ferrini
Vincent Ferrini is the poem. With this in mind, you can read the words of a shoemaker’s son as they perform on each page and understand it’s true
William Kemmett, Hole in the Heart (1st Edition) English (Buy this book) Review by deb Ewing
I feel a trend in literary publication as the capitalist world strives to honor diversity: Tell us your story, they say; We want to know what it’s like to be Brown, to be Transgender, to be Marginalized. That with a capital M – Marginalized. But isn’t asking for what lies outside the margin in fact reinforcing the existence of what has been exclusionary until now?
We have enough power to ask about you, they say, in this nonwhite light. That’s how it feels to me, a white woman. Please explain clearly, to make sure we get it. No. That’s not how poetry does. Pay attention to the things not said.
Poets have always been outliers. They weave stories that can’t be told in a fairytale or parable. Poetry either enforces rigorous parameters, like sonnets, or openly defies them, like free verse. Poetry is digging something out of your heart before it chokes you. And, very often, that choking comes from a society that will not accept you as you are.
Just be normal, they say.
Normal has, for all of the United States’ history, been the perspective of White Patriarchal Male. And in the normal way of white men, we seek to rectify the disparity by taking charge, grabbing the bull by the horns, snatching up what’s been pushed aside and setting it in the middle of the table in plain view.
We fixed it, they’ll say. But it won’t be fixed.
The missing piece to this faulty equation is that life for the Other has been happening all along. Pulling out a shiny piece and slapping on an award is a momentary distraction. Human beings outside the margin were living real lives before the focus shifted, and continue to do so. Even poets.
William Kemmett’s picture is on the back of Hole in the Heart. He looks like a normal white guy. He tells tiny snapshots of the seaside, of fathers with sons away at war. He imagines the story of a gull with half a wing missing who tries to keep up with the flock. Turtles laying their eggs in the sand, because that’s what life asks of them. A cricket calling for her mate, empty webs enjambed, a dewdrop, a leaf. Is it the privilege of a white man to have time for these thoughts, to write them down? Surely not.
Once you get past the stories of how it feels to be brown, or transgender, or marginalized — from the perspective of not being white — and if you haven’t lost interest, if you’ve been authentic, you may get to hear the real stories. Loss of more than identity in a fractured society. Reconnection to the earth mother by obsessing over birds or ants. Deep-diving into science, looking for roots.
A multiracial bisexual falls in love with the wrong person and knows what a hole in the heart feels like. Living by the coast is not a shape or color. Two women in love go to a different church because they also love God. A white man sometimes contemplates his whiteness.
I read Hole in the Heart for the first time when I came home from a trip to Canyon, Texas; Peter Kidd gave me that book. The bite-size worlds were perfect for digesting between work duties, when I wanted to escape my office cube to somewhere else. I kept it on my desk through the busy season, even referenced it in one of my pieces, ‘A Murmuration’:
Hole in the Heart lies on my desk like a noose in my trunk
– from A Murmuration, debora Ewing
Peter Kidd in Canyon, Texas, November 2018
The language is clean and precise – I draw each picture in my mind, smell the air, feel the feathers – and easily transition back into my day. Many of William Kemmett’s poems end in departure, stepping off printed word toward something undefined. That’s how living feels to me.
I am not a white man, but I could insert myself, map those narratives over the life I was living. I get the feeling that William Kemmett also plays with inserting himself in his poems, as an outsider. He writes about entities who come into contact with the walls of privilege and yet persist: In ‘Petition from Purgatory’, he writes from the perspective of something bound, in the line of fire, and a monk ascending a staircase. He sets up the conflict and backs out, leaving us to examine where exactly we stand.
In his piece ‘Five Reasons’, Kemmett seems to enumerate privilege. ‘Three in a Row’ has only three stanzas, wry examination of his childhood…or is it? Is he calling White Patriarchy what it is? He draws a picture of a boastful white man — we know he’s white because he isn’t labeled — in ‘Narrowback Talking to the Indians’:
“They buy me a drink, and toast to my brave heart.”
That’s how the piece ends. But can you hear the tone of voice? Read it again, and see. Feel for it. You wonder if, by the time that man gets home, the message has sunk in.
Have we become too accustomed to having things labeled for us? Why do we need people who aren’t like us to define their humanity? If we do, then I think poetry is a good teacher…maybe even a healer. Hole in the Heart is a tribute to the missing piece, to the words not said, maybe leaking out the hole.
Poetry isn’t a popularity contest, but a way to stop the bleeding…and we all bleed. But there’s a lot of catching up to do while those of us who have been comfortable with normal learn to see those of us who haven’t. You have to open your heart – to what can fill the hole.
the door to my cage is open and I approach in due time…
