tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-138232972024-03-05T10:09:18.017-08:00gravity and lighta blog of poetry and meanderingschellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00394845386063563451noreply@blogger.comBlogger206125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-69869114243681565582012-09-11T15:27:00.000-07:002012-09-11T15:27:17.356-07:00THE POLITICAL POEM THAT WAS BULLIED OUT OF ME<br />
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THE POLITICAL POEM THAT WAS BULLIED OUT OF ME<br />By Molly Meacham<br /><br />I had never been small<br />until I heard how evil I am<br />for being a teacher. With the lie levels<br /><div class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">
rising in newspapers, emails,<br />interviews, announcements,<br />the steady flood of anti-<br />teacher propaganda<br />dissolves dignity<br />past patience<br />until I am in-<br />visible and<br />taste of<br />salt.<br /><br />Me—<br />the frightening muse of room 202<br />is this incredible<br />shrinking<br />violet.<br /><br />I’ve often told students to absorb<br />environment and squeeze it<br />into writing, but I, hypocrite, cannot<br />check my mail without earplugs<br />and blinders now. There is always a top<br />story that burns my cheeks ashen,<br />and I am scattered by breath.<br /><br />But there’s no headline for me<br />or for colleagues who’ve sold houses,<br />who’ve taken on loans and grey-streaked temples<br />to brace for the fight.<br /><br />These headlines are about these politicians,<br />their pockets, and their pride. Articles<br />full of double speak and forked tongue<br />hissing. The mayor and the board deal students<br />as playing cards in stacked decks.<br /><br />They know nothing of the kids themselves:<br />Her grammar jokes, his zombie impression. That he’s afraid his father<br />is never getting out of jail and his mom has breast cancer.<br />That she is the first in her family to go to college<br />and got a full ride. That he came out of the closet, and his mother is praying<br />for evil to cease its possession. That she reinvents the world<br />on the page and then stages it. These kids swirl<br />in cutbacks, media overload, starved affections, and poetry.<br />They swear and swagger and smile metal.<br /><br />The fact these kids are alive and breathing knowledge<br />in deadly communities is more miracle<br />than Lazarus rising. And they do—they baptize<br />their papers in ink and wash drafts clean<br />with red. They highlight, spotlight, moonwalk. I mean,<br /><br />they are teenagers…there are mad dashes through<br />the halls, too many tardies and dress code violations.<br />But they are green and sprouting: dandelions<br />and dahlias, ivy, wisteria, and willows.<br /><br />I am a simple gardener, tilling<br />with words, preparing the ground—<br />loam, sand, silt, clay. The clay models itself<br />into familiarity. Into the expression<br />of understanding that’s unique to each child.<br /><br />The board wants me to see only numbers,<br />to measure the kids with percentages,<br />to see them as payment and value-added.<br />But I am an English teacher.<br />Numbers have never been my thing.<br /><br />I see that their learning is the shape of a yellow raft<br />on a green river. We are the river dwellers.<br />There is no salt in our water.<br /><br />It feels wrong to hate politicians who have never met me,<br />but they made us feel miniscule—buzzing winged<br />things like gnats or mosquitoes—for being teachers.<br />It makes me hunger for Biblical<br />retribution. So I will be an insect…<br />in a plague of cicadas. We will be dressed as<br />a river of blood, a torrent of chant and noise.<br /><br />There is no poem for this fight, for watching<br />the mild mannered lose their voices<br />from screaming chants, feet raw with marching.<br />Hands, callused for chalk, will be rubbed with new blisters<br />from holding signs.<br /><br />If we are faceless, let us be the drought, the blight,<br />the salt in this freshwater city<br />so our students will not be nameless, faceless scores<br />in a city that hunts them for statistics.<br /><br />We will be living the politics.<br />Not writing a poem.<br />I invite you (and ask you) to stand with me,<br />for them.</div>
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chellacourington@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429392737148060836noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-10675245134243656602012-06-05T12:51:00.002-07:002012-06-05T12:51:26.943-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">"All oppression creates a state of war." Simone de Beauvoir</span>chellacourington@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429392737148060836noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-86872744975574303292012-06-03T10:39:00.000-07:002012-06-03T10:39:58.288-07:00We are still in the French Open, and I love anything French though it all started with Proust:<br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom , my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it; perhaps because I had so often seen such things in the meantime, without tasting them, on the trays in pastry-cooks' windows, that their image had dissociated itself from those Combray days to take its place among others more recent; perhaps because of those memories, so long abandoned and put out of mind, nothing now survived, everything was scattered; the shapes of things, including that of the little scallop-shell of pastry, so richly sensual under its severe, religious folds, were either obliterated or had been so long dormant as to have lost the power of expansion which would have allowed them to resume their place in my consciousness. But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">And as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated segment which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I used to be sent before lunch, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine. And as in the game wherein the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little pieces of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch and twist and take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, solid and recognizable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">from <i>Swann's Way</i>, <i>Remembrance of Things Past </i>(Vol 1)</span><br />chellacourington@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429392737148060836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-80804508110215025082012-05-06T08:55:00.001-07:002012-05-06T08:55:45.617-07:00Demeter to Persephone by Alicia Suskin Ostriker<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" style="font-family: verdana, arial, 'lucida sans', helvetica, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><tbody>
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<tr><td colspan="2" style="font-family: verdana, arial, 'lucida sans', helvetica, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;" valign="top"><pre style="font-family: verdana, arial, 'lucida sans', helvetica, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I watched you walking up out of that hole
All day it had been raining
in that field in Southern Italy
rain beating down making puddles in the mud
hissing down on rocks from a sky enraged
I waited and was patient
finally you emerged and were immediately soaked
you stared at me without love in your large eyes
that were filled with black sex and white powder
but this is what I expected when I embraced you
Your firm little breasts against my amplitude
Get in the car I said
and then it was spring</pre>
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</tbody></table>chellacourington@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429392737148060836noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-41984157939265864432011-10-23T15:04:00.000-07:002011-10-23T15:04:27.927-07:00Indigo Ink Press Launch Party for Paper Covers Rock, Oct. 21<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Here's the video I made for the launch party. I read two poems from <i>Paper Covers Rock</i>: "Poland" & "Forty." My first self-made video that I also uploaded on You Tube today.chellacourington@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429392737148060836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-24297066793206938952011-09-30T20:55:00.000-07:002011-10-01T10:55:36.933-07:00My Latest Chapbook of Poetry<b>September 30: Official Launching of My Chapbook: <i>Paper Covers Rock</i></b><br />
<br />
<b>Indigo Ink</b><br />
<a href="http://www.indigoinkpress.org/flip-edition/">http://www.indigoinkpress.org/flip-edition/</a><br />
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<b>Amazon</b><a href="http://www.indigoinkpress.org/flip-edition/"> </a><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Paper-Covers-Rock-Triplicity-Threes/dp/0982833016/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1317491677&sr=8-2">http://www.amazon.com/Paper-Covers-Rock-Triplicity-Threes/dp/0982833016/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1317491677&sr=8-2</a><br />
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Dave Bonta's Videocast</h3>
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<a href="http://www.vianegativa.us/2011/09/woodrat-podcast-44-reversible-books/">http://www.vianegativa.us/2011/09/woodrat-podcast-44-reversible-books/</a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #101010; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #101010; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><br />Reviews of <i>Paper Covers Rock</i> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #3b4548; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"></span><br />
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 20px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #3b4548; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">“A dazzle and a delight, Chella Courington’s poetry will carry you through the brave discoveries of adolescent sex, then turn around and chill you with what she knows of being a grown woman, then turn again and fill you with compassion for human distress. Travel with her on these journeys and you’ll be going with beauty all the way.”</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #3b4548; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: inherit;">Alicia Ostriker, author of </span><i>The Book of Seventy</i></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #3b4548; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">“Crisp narrative lines filled with energy, indignation, and fierce beauty. The images can take your breath away, and the title poem is one I’ll never forget.”</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #3b4548; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: inherit;">Dinty W. Moore, author of </span><i>Between Panic and Desire</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: inherit;"> & editor of </span><i>Brevity</i></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #3b4548; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">“In Paper Covers Rock, Courington narrates familiar poetic scenarios— adolescent girls exploring their sexuality; a poet/teacher observing her students in a prison—but always with bright, surprising details: one girl doesn’t just kiss the other, she ‘uncloses my eyes with her tongue,’ and a confident, authoritative tone that brings readers back ‘to the point of mooring.’ In this collection, loss is described with ‘words / like sour tree roots’ and trouble becomes so appealing, one can’t help but wonder ‘if Satan’s the hero’ in her story.”</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #3b4548; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: inherit;">Sara Tracey, author of </span><i>Flood Year</i></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #3b4548; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">“Chella Courington’s voice of quiet reflection leads us through sensual memories of youth, struggles for affirmation and the middle-aged acknowledgment of frailty. These poems together form a tight weave of body-knowledge, experienced through time and the pull of first relationships.”</span></div>
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #3b4548; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px;">Jen Pearson, reviewer, </span><i><b style="line-height: 18px;">PoetryLog</b> </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #3b4548; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
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</span>chellacourington@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429392737148060836noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-87422348399353390442011-09-28T12:12:00.000-07:002011-09-28T12:12:19.725-07:00Tom Waits on Being Called a Poet<br />
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Inebreational Travelogue: Tom Waits on Being Called a Poet</h1>
<span class="author" style="color: #4d493f; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; letter-spacing: 0.05em; line-height: 24px; list-style-type: none; text-transform: uppercase;">BY <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?author=137" style="color: #043d6e; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;">HARRIET STAFF</a></span><div style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Georgia; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 15px;">
Nancy Smith wrote a review at <em>The Rumpus</em> that celebrates Tom Waits and the book <em><a href="http://www.chicagoreviewpress.com/catalog/showBook.cfm?ISBN=1569763127" style="color: #045482; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Tom Waits on Tom Waits</a></em>. In said book Waits weighs in on the many things he’s been called over the years, namely “poet.”</div>
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See:</div>
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It’s almost impossible to write an apt description of Waits, but every journalist in this collection makes a worthy attempt. Some of my favorites: “A mumbling sot on stage.” “A collector and researcher of bawdy stories.” “A half-buzzed derelict with the voice of a bulldozer.” “A gruff-voiced romanticizer of the seamy side of urban life.” “A practitioner of the fine art of conversation” “A Depression-Era hobo ridin’ the rails toward some unforsaken land.” “The teacher we wished we had.” “The greatest entertainer on Planet Earth.”</div>
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However he is described, Waits’s magnetic stage presence draws people to him. His live shows take on a theatrical quality, complete with spoken-word ramblings, chain-smoking, dramatic movements, and a lot of jokes. Waits is often referred to as a poet, a term he was quick to toss off in the early days.</div>
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“Poetry is a very dangerous word,” says Waits, “It’s very misused. Most people when they hear the word ‘poetry’ think of being chained to a desk, memorizing ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn.’ When somebody says that they’re going to read me a poem, I can think of any number of things that I’d rather be doing. I don’t like the stigma that comes with being called a poet—so I call what I’m doing an improvisational adventure, or an inebriational travelogue, and all of a sudden it takes on a whole new form and meaning. If I’m tied down and have to call myself something, I prefer ‘storyteller.’”</div>
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Then, a bit on his process:</div>
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For a long time, Waits admits, he was in danger of being overtaken by the low life he wrote about. He drank too much. He made bad friends. “I wanted to experience what it was like to be on the road the way I imagined it would be for the old-timers that I loved, so I would stay in these down joints because I was absorbing all the atmosphere in those places; the ghosts in the room. You want to be where the stories grow, and you think if you live in those places they’ll come up through the sidewalks and out of the cracks in the wall—and they do. But you have to be very clear about who you are and who it is you’re projecting, and there was a time when I was very unclear about who I was and I became a caricature of myself.”</div>
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Over time, Waits’s persona becomes both clearer and even more difficult to define. It’s a strange contradiction. Each of his albums are so profoundly different, it’s as if we learn about a new side of Waits with every album. Some of the most interesting interviews include insight into his creative process:</div>
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“The creative process is imagination, memories, nightmares, and dismantling certain aspects of this world and putting them back together in the dark. Songs aren’t necessarily verbatim chronicles or necessarily journal entries, they’re like smoke, it’s like it’s made out of smoke.”</div>
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from The Poetry Foundation<br />
original interview in The Rumpus 9/26/11<br />
chellacourington@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429392737148060836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-9087242418769209472011-09-19T09:54:00.000-07:002011-09-19T09:54:54.890-07:00"Poems are a form of texting"Dear Readers,<br />
<br />
About two weeks ago, the Poet Laureate of Great Britain, Carol Ann Duffy, said: "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">"The poem is a form of texting ... it's the original text. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">It's a perfecting of a feeling in language – it's a way of saying more with less, just as texting is. We've got to realise that the Facebook generation is the future – and, oddly enough, poetry is the perfect form for them. It's a kind of time capsule – it allows feelings and ideas to travel big distances in a very condensed form." </span><br />
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> I thought about Duffy's assertion and then began wondering how we writers & writing teachers can turn texting into poetry exercises and assignments. I would appreciate any ideas you may have. The full article can be accessed at <http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/sep/05/carol-ann-duffy-poetry-texting-competition>. </span>chellacourington@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429392737148060836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-42323462146150401302011-09-17T17:09:00.000-07:002011-09-17T17:45:11.052-07:00Paper Covers Rock<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;">Dear Readers,</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><i>Gravity and Light</i>, my blog of poetry & meanderings, is back. During my hiatus I published a book of prose poetry, <i>Girls & Women, </i>with Burning River; put together another book of poetry, <i>Paper Covers Rock</i>, coming out with Indigo Ink in thirteen days (September 30); and wrote a prose poetry novella, <i>Talking Did Not Come Easily to Diana</i>, being issued as an ebook by Musa Publishing November 11. Indigo Ink has produced a lovely video of the poem concluding <i>Paper Covers Rock, </i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(26, 26, 24); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Bell MT'; ">[</span>A GROUP OF JELLYFISH IS CALLED A <span style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Bell MT'; ">‘‘</span>SMACK<span style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Bell MT'; ">.’’ </span>A GROUP OF LAPWINGS IS CALLED A <span style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Bell MT'; ">‘‘</span>DECEIT<span style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Bell MT'; ">.’’]. Y</span></span></span>ou can watch it by clicking on today's title. On that site is also a poem previewed here almost two years ago, "Lynette's War." Because writing is a communal experience once the author releases her/his writing, I am interested in how you respond to my work. Please feel encouraged to leave comments.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;">Your Author,</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;">Chella Courington </span></div>chellacourington@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429392737148060836noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-81097545723753149372011-05-08T19:37:00.000-07:002011-05-08T19:38:51.483-07:00Nursing You by Erica Jong<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 16px; "><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">in memory of my mom: Tommie Dorris Williams Courington</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; "><br /></p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">Nursing You by Erica Jong</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; "> </p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">On the first night</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">of the full moon,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">the primeval sack of ocean</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">broke,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">& I gave birth to you</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">little woman,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">little carrot top,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">little turned-up nose,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">pushing you out of myself</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">as my mother</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">pushed</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">me out of herself,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">as her mother did,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">& her mother's mother before her,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">all of us born</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">of woman.</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; "> </p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">I am the second daughter</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">of a second daughter</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">of a second daughter,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">but you shall be the first.</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">You shall see the phrase</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">"second sex"</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">only in puzzlement,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">wondering how anyone,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">except a madman,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">could call you "second"</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">when you are so splendidly</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">first,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">conferring even on your mother</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">firstness, vastness, fullness</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">as the moon at its fullest</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">lights up the sky.</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; "> </p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">Now the moon is full again</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">& you are four weeks old.</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">Little lion, lioness,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">yowling for my breasts,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">rowling at the moon,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">how I love your lustiness,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">your red face demanding,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">your hungry mouth howling,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">your screams, your cries</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">which all spell life</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">in large letters</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">the color of blood.</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; "> </p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">You are born a woman</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">for the sheer glory of it,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">little redhead, beautiful screamer.</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">You are no second sex,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">but the first of the first;</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">& when the moon's phases</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">fill out the cycle</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">of your life,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">you will crow</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">for the joy</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">of being a woman,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">telling the pallid moon</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">to go drown herself</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">in the blue ocean,</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">& glorying, glorying, glorying</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">in the rosy wonder</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">of your sunshining wondrous</p><p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">self.</p></span>chellacourington@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429392737148060836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-24124435767213112522011-03-16T08:34:00.000-07:002011-03-16T08:36:09.603-07:00Ghetto: Two Living Children by Anna Swir<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; border-collapse: collapse; "><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font: inherit; "><div><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr><td style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 10pt; "><div>Ghetto: Two Living Children</div><div>Anna Swir</div><div> </div><div> </div><div>Screaming ceased long ago on that street. Only the wind sometimes plays with a torn-out window in which the remnants of a windowpane still glitter, and carries over cobblestones feathers from ripped-open eiderdowns.</div><div> </div><div>At times the same wind brings a sudden shout of many people from far away. Then it happens that from a cross street two living children walk out unexpectedly. Holding each other's hands they escape silently through the middle of a deserted street.</div><div> </div><div>Up to the spot where, hidden behind a street corner wrapped in mist, a German soldier at a machine gun watches day and night on the border of the ghetto.<br /><br />--tr. Czeslaw Milosz, Talking to My Body (Copper Canyon)</div></td></tr></tbody></table></div></td></tr></tbody></table></span>chellacourington@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429392737148060836noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-89837935853287230322011-02-06T16:46:00.000-08:002011-02-06T16:52:34.429-08:00Redder Than Diane's Lipstick<div><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 24px; ">The paper blot melted on my tongue in a piazza near Lake Cuomo. The man at the next table tapped his glass of Pernod and water at my ear. Did he know? Did he see the guerilla girls catching their blood in glass vials and spraying the canvas pink? Did he taste Pernod in a paint bucket? Diane MacPhear said her father was reincarnated in the old flesh, cracked and blue from blood thinners, skeletal fingers, and bulbous nose. He stood two days in Ethiopian tea, Diane said, with a reduction of rubber bark. On the third day his flesh turned pink and he flew to Our Lady. We flew behind him. Rains washed away baby powder, roughened our skin. My arms chaffed with the currents. But I knew all the Pernod in Italy would not keep us up. It wasn't a matter of drugs. It was a matter of time before my skin would slide from the bone like the skin of the girl with the fat face in fourth grade. Epithalamium tissue moved in waves from the forehead over the eyelids and down the cheeks until it hung like a colostomy bag under the chin. Her Cherokee bones glistening.</span></p> <!--EndFragment--> </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>First Published: <span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Gargoyle </i>(Summer 2010). Eds. </span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size: 15.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:Times-Roman;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language: EN-US;mso-bidi-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Richard Peabody & Lucinda Ebersole.</span></div><!--StartFragment--><!--EndFragment-->chellacourington@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429392737148060836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-68205107808907677622011-02-03T15:21:00.000-08:002011-02-03T15:31:36.134-08:00Toucans & Reindeer<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%">The day after Thanksgiving, her mother mounted the singing reindeer with flashing antlers above the toilet, and Diana filled her ears with Angel Soft. She cringed at the trappings—tinsel strand by strand on a tree turning brown, stuffed turkey, musical chairs with cousins she saw once a year. But the holiday changed when the cousin with luscious lips like Danny Zuko handed her dried cannabis wrapped in paper. At fifteen she had no idea what lay ahead—hours waiting for vowels and consonants to catch an upward drift and tumble down before she took another drag, holding it so long she could hear toucans screech from the den below. Their big green beaks tipped in red. Her science teacher said they were tissue thin on the outside. Yet inside, honeycombs of bone. Ridges and hollows of white calcium twirling into a playground of hexagons for no one except Diana and the boy on Christmas Eve.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes">First published in </span><i>riverbabble 17 (</i>Summer Bloomsday 2010), Ed. Leila Rae<i> </i></p> <!--EndFragment-->chellacourington@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429392737148060836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-12443315673681103392010-07-02T12:31:00.000-07:002010-07-02T12:36:19.654-07:00Pyromantics by Chella Couringtonthe father<br />shouldered <br />the boy <br />who twirled a baton <br />tipped in red <br />while the father <br />swallowed <br />long rods of fire <br />snuffed out somewhere <br />past lips <br />and over tongue<br />hidden behind teeth <br />yellowed from nights<br />tasting sulfur<br />as giants and dwarfs<br />with floppy orange shoes<br />snaked <br />into dollhouse windows<br />dangling toes <br />between me and the boy, <br /><br />who looked about nine<br />when I was nine I<br />walked <br />over hot coals<br />dumped <br />from the grill by dad<br />who bet ten bucks<br />i couldn’t do it<br />and i said i would<br />if he would <br />and i did<br />and he laughed<br />wiping his hand across his mouth<br />me standing in burnt feet<br />crying<br /><br />and saw myself<br />branding his back <br />as skin sizzled <br /><br />his fingers <br />tapers in a church<br />that i lit<br /><br /><br />First Published: Oregon East Magazine 37 (2006). <br />Ed. Caitlin Mack.chellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00394845386063563451noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-77593645583070566132010-06-18T17:43:00.000-07:002010-06-18T17:50:20.366-07:00Blood Moon by Chella CouringtonSophie tickles my cheek with her tongue, and I give her my right arm. Like the Virgin’s mantle sliding over my shoulder, she rolls her muscles to the drummer’s heartbeat, washing me in light. Mama calls my boa a serpent, and me a dirty coochie dancer. Jesus lives in covered-dish suppers at the Boaz Baptist Church. But I believe Jesus lives in Sophie. At the Bottoms Up Bar she first appeared—eyes milky, scales ghost white. Just slept on a cover under the sink and refused to eat for six days. On the seventh, clouds evaporated. Clear dark eyes and bright brown body. Three days later, she rubbed and pushed her nose against the back screen until the skin broke. All day she pressed against the linoleum floor, never letting up. At night a translucent ribbon lay on the quilt—eye caps on top.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Doorknobs short fiction first-prize winner, Doorknobs and BodyPaint (Issue 55, August 2009).chellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00394845386063563451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-83395277164939616812010-06-08T17:01:00.000-07:002010-06-08T17:05:48.317-07:00September by Chella CouringtonFog on the horizon <br />hides hard island edges. <br />Close to the patio <br />sprinklers swish: streams rise <br />in sun before falling in the garden. <br />Six plastic-pink flamingoes <br />parade by the sago palm.<br />A pair of dolphins, together<br />still after twenty years, watch<br />from the granite fountain.<br /><br />Stripping an apple, peel swinging<br />in air, I think of Mother <br />who sliced what grew around her.<br />From wood the size of playing cards <br />she whittled small animals: <br />our cat on haunches, neck turned. <br />She carved a woman <br />on her knees, mostly stomach, <br />hands buried her bowed face.<br /><br />Santa Ana winds blow dry <br />and scatter dust in their wake. <br />Hummingbirds circle coral bells.<br />Their wings, shadow puppets <br />on stucco. Heavy with petals, <br />dahlias bend to rocky dirt. <br />Once I caught a Regal Moth— <br />panes of ruby and jade.<br />For three days, she flew.<br /><br />Tonight my namesake calls<br />like Linda Blair from The Exorcist:<br />voice gravelly, emerging<br />from Minnesota. At 25 Satan<br />and God crowd her head.<br />No meds can wash them out. <br />God will kill you for leaving me.<br />I squeeze the receiver<br />not forgetting her butterfly nightshirt—<br />wings pressed against me.<br /><br /><br />First Published: Touchstone (2007-2008). Ed. David Murphy.chellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00394845386063563451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-62686908417337801562010-05-26T14:45:00.000-07:002010-05-26T15:07:01.971-07:00When Berryman Died by Chella CouringtonHe left his shoes, scuffed loafers, <br />on the bridge. A cordovan pair <br />he could have shed <br />anywhere: at the university, <br />beside his desk, under Tate’s coffee table,<br />at the foot of a lover’s bed. <br /><br />Every night he thought, tomorrow. <br />Mornings, he remembered<br />his suit at the cleaners, his essay<br />on Marlowe, students waiting <br />outside his office. January 7<br />reasons ran dry. <br /><br />He bathed and trimmed his beard, <br />put on a new shirt. <br />In eight degrees he walked <br />to the bridge.<br /><br /><br />First Published: Touchstone (2007-2008). Ed. David Murphy.chellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00394845386063563451noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-18406774931353937532010-05-10T10:52:00.001-07:002010-05-10T10:54:35.552-07:00From the poem, "Under Siege," by Mahmoud DarwishIf you are not rain, my love<br />Be tree<br />Sated with fertility, be tree<br />If you are not tree, my love<br />Be stone<br />Saturated with humidity, be stone<br />If you are not stone, my love<br />Be moon<br />In the dream of the beloved woman, be moon<br />(So spoke a woman to her son at his funeral)<br /><br /><br />Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) was a very highly esteemed & prolific Palestinian poet.chellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00394845386063563451noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-74225916379431568302010-05-07T11:18:00.000-07:002010-05-07T11:19:37.723-07:00Prairie Spring by Willa CatherEvening and the flat land,<br />Rich and sombre and always silent;<br />The miles of fresh-plowed soil,<br />Heavy and black, full of strength and harshness;<br />The growing wheat, the growing weeds,<br />The toiling horses, the tired men;<br />The long empty roads,<br />Sullen fires of sunset, fading,<br />The eternal, unresponsive sky.<br />Against all this, Youth,<br />Flaming like the wild roses,<br />Singing like the larks over the plowed fields,<br />Flashing like a star out of the twilight;<br />Youth with its insupportable sweetness,<br />Its fierce necessity,<br />Its sharp desire,<br />Singing and singing,<br />Out of the lips of silence,<br />Out of the earthy dusk.<br /> <br /> <br />---O Pioneers! [frontispiece]chellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00394845386063563451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-69475887034279928902010-05-06T20:58:00.000-07:002010-05-06T21:00:04.184-07:00Billie Holiday by RL GreenfieldBillie Holiday<br /> <br />Now what<br />Now that I have Billie Holiday inside me<br />Now what do I do<br />Now that I have become Billie Holiday<br />I’ve got a bellyful of Billie Holiday<br />All morning pouring into me<br />Like a gigantic oil well rolling into my veins<br />Now I am full to my eyeballs<br />Brain heart hips groin legs feet<br />Full<br />I am full up to the hairline with Billie Holiday<br />I guess it’s time to take a vacation in the desert<br />Some place where there is no life at all<br />So I can push the button & turn Billie loose on death<br />Just let her roam & croon & ooze rich wine on the dying world<br />Billie Holiday does not belong in the green world of spring<br />The green world of spring already has its greenness<br />Billie belongs in the starkest desert where there is no hope<br />Let her mourn & groove & chew away at the heart there<br />Let her bleed from the eyes songs of the keening throat<br />Let her cry her milk-less milk & silk-less silk<br />Let her alone, America-----leave that woman to herself<br />Billie Holiday has to ooze God out of darkest darkest wine<br /> <br />RL Greenfield printed in Santa Barbara Independentchellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00394845386063563451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-72005174842090410912010-04-29T09:13:00.000-07:002010-04-29T09:22:40.257-07:00At the Maximum Security Prison for Men by Chella CouringtonStudents come to me from solitary confinement<br />concrete oven set on high—<br />they come to me<br />a young woman from the University<br />who wants to talk about Paradise Lost.<br /><br />They want to talk too.<br />Tony says when he broke in, he spotted a dog<br />and shot a man. Thought the house empty.<br />Billy Ray says he just needed money from the girl<br />at the ATM. My hand shook and the trigger went off. <br /><br />They know why Milton’s God <br />clips Satan’s wings and kicks him out of heaven. <br />The man can’t take much lip. Just like my own daddy <br />knocking me three ways into Sunday when I say no to him.<br />Knuckles kneading my cheek blue till I cry stop. <br /><br />The students ask if Satan’s the hero. And I wonder.<br />Did he endure that heavy hand one too many times? <br />Punched and mauled like a yard animal<br />taken behind the barn <br />left in darkness to find his way back.<br /><br /><br />First Published: Carquinez Poetry Review (2006). Ed. Ruth Blakeney.chellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00394845386063563451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-76508269494447280232010-04-24T13:21:00.000-07:002010-04-24T13:32:14.678-07:00In Honor of Mootie, JT & Miss RhodaSister Cat<br />by Frances Mayes<br /><br />Cat stands at the fridge,<br />Cries loudly for milk.<br />But I've filled her bowl.<br />Wild cat, I say, Sister,<br />Look, you have milk.<br />I clink my fingernail<br />Against the rim. Milk.<br />With down and liver,<br />A word I know she hears.<br />Her sad miaow. She runs<br />To me. She dips<br />In her whiskers but<br />Doesn't drink. As sometimes<br />I want the light on<br />When it is on. Or when<br />I saw the woman walking<br />toward my house and<br />I thought there's Frances.<br />Then looked in the car mirror<br />To be sure. She stalks<br />The room. She wants. Milk<br />Beyond milk. World beyond<br />This one, she cries.chellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00394845386063563451noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-52388341232858613072010-04-10T15:46:00.000-07:002010-04-10T15:51:40.231-07:00Diana loved anything orange by Chella CouringtonDiana loved anything orange<br /><br />—cats, lipstick, hunting vests, nail polish, hard hats, life jackets, water guns. When she slipped through her mother’s legs, almost butting the doctor’s stomach, her skin turned a yellowish red. I did crave pumpkin, her mother said. Before my water broke, I ate a whole pie, crust and all. It took eleven days of being rubbed in olive oil and resin, her mother’s fingers lightly massaging Diana’s new skin that capitulated to air in March before trout season, before her father deserted them for Pennsylvania streams. Her eighth Halloween she painted her nose and toes tangerine and swathed herself in a sheet, RIT-dyed sunshine orange, that her mother soaked in white vinegar until the bleeding stopped. Even then in third grade, she knew what they didn’t. How we climb into our wombs at night, sheets over our heads and wait for the water to float us back. <br /><br /><br /><br />Runner-up in The Collagist's 2009 Flash Fiction Contestchellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00394845386063563451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-9215141087962258892010-03-22T10:59:00.000-07:002010-03-22T11:00:00.477-07:00Memoriam to AI by Jerry WilliamsMarch 21, 2010<br /><br />In Memoriam to Ai (1947 - 2010) by Jerry Wiliams<br /><br />When I was in high school and college I started seeing work in literary magazines by a woman with this exotic name who wrote what every other poet seemed too afraid to write—disturbing poems, violent, sexy, unspeakably moving, grief-stricken, harrowing, cutting, beautiful, and yet the verse seemed skillfully controlled and peaceable. For me, most other poets sat in the back seat and Ai drove (which is ironic because she never in her life, from what I understand, possessed a driver’s license). I sort of mythologized her, and I knew I wanted to be her kind of poet—if the world would let me be one—fearless. I know it might sound extreme, but why waste time on flowers when you have knives? As I learned more about Ai, I read her many books, felt her influence growing in me. Years and years later, I ended up at Oklahoma State University where Ai taught creative writing. She blurbed my first collection of poems, served on my dissertation committee. I have taught her books in many classes, and I included three of her poems in the recent breakup and divorce anthology I edited—a great honor for me. Last July, we spoke on the telephone, and I sent her photos from my wedding. We e-mailed occasionally. I always wanted to stay on her good side. This past Saturday afternoon, when I was sitting on a bench in front of my apartment building in Co-op City, I got a call from a friend on the faculty at Oklahoma State. Sometime on Wednesday, March 17th, the poet Ai checked into the Stillwater Medical Center with pneumonia. As it turned out, she had reached a very advanced stage of breast cancer and passed away comfortably in the company of her family early Saturday morning, March 20th. Upon hearing this news, I completely broke down, and I didn’t understand why. I’m supposed to be tough (knives not flowers), but I could not stop crying. I feel that Ai was something of a poetic mother to me. Later that afternoon, one of her closest friends asked me my age and told me that my kundalini had dropped or opened up or uncoiled and released some new emotion in me. I cried a little watching the movie Step Brothers this morning. What is wrong with me? I assume that the chaos will now ensue. Oklahoma State will get bombarded with telephone calls on Monday. Ditto W.W. Norton & Co. Services will be arranged. All that human stuff. But the poems, Ai’s poems, will remain as immortal as ever. Here’s exquisite proof:<br /><br /> Conversation by Ai<br /><br />We smile at each other<br />and I lean back against the wicker couch.<br />How does it feel to be dead? I say.<br />You touch my knees with your blue fingers.<br />And when you open your mouth,<br />a ball of yellow light falls to the floor<br />and burns a hole through it.<br />Don't tell me, I say. I don't want to hear.<br />Did you ever, you start,<br />wear a certain kind of silk dress<br />and just by accident,<br />so inconsequential you barely notice it,<br />your fingers graze that dress<br />and you hear the sound of a knife cutting paper,<br />you see it too<br />and you realize how that image<br />is simply the extension of another image,<br />that your own life<br />is a chain of words<br />that one day will snap.<br />Words, you say, young girls in a circle, holding hands,<br />and beginning to rise heavenward<br />in their confirmation dresses,<br />like white helium balloons,<br />the wreathes of flowers on their heads spinning,<br />and above all that,<br />that's where I'm floating,<br />and that's what it's like<br />only ten times clearer,<br />ten times more horrible.<br />Could anyone alive survive it?chellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00394845386063563451noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13823297.post-73812439737300735162010-03-21T20:25:00.000-07:002010-03-21T20:27:05.892-07:00It Is A Spring Afternoon by Anne SextonEverything here is yellow and green.<br />Listen to its throat, its earthskin,<br />the bone dry voices of the peepers<br />as they throb like advertisements.<br />The small animals of the woods<br />are carrying their deathmasks<br />into a narrow winter cave.<br />The scarecrow has plucked out<br />his two eyes like diamonds<br />and walked into the village.<br />The general and the postman<br />have taken off their packs.<br />This has all happened before<br />but nothing here is obsolete.<br />Everything here is possible.<br /><br />Because of this<br />perhaps a young girl has laid down<br />her winter clothes and has casually<br />placed herself upon a tree limb<br />that hangs over a pool in the river.<br />She has been poured out onto the limb,<br />low above the houses of the fishes<br />as they swim in and out of her reflection<br />and up and down the stairs of her legs.<br />Her body carries clouds all the way home.<br />She is overlooking her watery face<br />in the river where blind men<br />come to bathe at midday.<br /><br />Because of this<br />the ground, that winter nightmare,<br />has cured its sores and burst<br />with green birds and vitamins.<br />Because of this<br />the trees turn in their trenches<br />and hold up little rain cups<br />by their slender fingers.<br />Because of this<br />a woman stands by her stove<br />singing and cooking flowers.<br />Everything here is yellow and green.<br /><br />Surely spring will allow<br />a girl without a stitch on<br />to turn softly in her sunlight<br />and not be afraid of her bed.<br />She has already counted seven<br />blossoms in her green green mirror.<br />Two rivers combine beneath her.<br />The face of the child wrinkles.<br />in the water and is gone forever.<br />The woman is all that can be seen<br />in her animal loveliness.<br />Her cherished and obstinate skin<br />lies deeply under the watery tree.<br />Everything is altogether possible<br />and the blind men can also see.chellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00394845386063563451noreply@blogger.com0