An Appreciation of LITTLE SPELLS by Jennifer K. Sweeney

Lots of poets have written about the liminal space between life and death—how consciousness, rooted in the body, becomes spirit. But few have addressed the other end, wherein spirit is first made flesh through pregnancy and birth.

Jennifer K. Sweeney offers a corrective in Little Spells (Kalamazoo: New Issues Press, 2015), a gorgeous collection centered in the pain of trying to conceive.

Maybe this topic has been largely ignored because it’s an experience rooted in the feminine. Although a couple tackles the problem of infertility together, it is the female body where the new flesh is to be housed and where the weight of the issue is measured. Perhaps we lump fertility together with the menstrual cycle—an even more pervasive reality for women, but one addressed mostly occasionally and obliquely, seldom head-on and at length.

Although I have not struggled with fertility, I know many women who have, and they report that the treatment process can be painful, humiliating, and soul crushing. Surely such a harrowing and all-encompassing experience is worth poetic treatment. And Sweeney demonstrates in Little Spells that this territory can sustain an entire book—all ninety-five pages of one.

This was a book that resisted abandonment. Something important was happening, and I couldn’t leave it until I saw it through to its fruition. Sweeney offers so many different views of her theme, from the very first poem, “Abandoning the Hives”:

Wake up, the currents of bees have fled

this hour of seed

dark imaginings in their week—

unsweet feverless drone.

Comb the hillside for sleepwalkers

drowsy on some chemical spool or

beg the swarm box to dance.

This initial fourteen-line poem, ending with its haunting row of empty jars, prefigures the crown of sonnets, “Still Life With Egg,” that comprises the center of the book. The series offers myriad views of the egg: “ceramic … lined with oyster skin,” “maraca,” “first / thought,” or, in number twelve of the sequence,

I held the cool weight

up to the light

this is an egg, tiny clock

of its own making, the shape

of wonder serious on our faces.

My favorite poem in the book is “Sea-change,” which offers the first clear indication that all of the speaker’s struggles have resolved in the realization of her desire:

after the waiting years     the leaden

keening oceanside for an answer

from the original dark     you emerge

distinct     one life perpetually not-there

not-to-come

then     suddenly at work with long division

sac of cells we

watched in the flux

out of via negative

you eddy forth

This stunning poem ends with a promise to the sac of cells, named “littlebluefish” or “littlebigheart” by the poet: “I will not forget / the profound absence from which / you began.”

I know this is just a book of poetry. No labwork was involved in its reading—there was no cool medical precision; that which is, by its nature, beautiful and private was not made sterile and public. But when I finally understood that the desire and the suffering and the cradling of that fragile egg had given way to new life, I celebrated. Little Spells let me feel it—and it let me share this particular joy. It’s a remarkable and important book in this way.

The lesson to the poet-reviewer: Don’t be afraid to get personal. Your pain can be your source.

Jennifer K. Sweeney is the author of three poetry collections: Little Spells (New Issues Press, 2015); How to Live on Bread and Music, which received the James Laughlin Award, the Perugia Press Prize, and a nomination for the Poets’ Prize; and Salt Memory. The recipient of a Pushcart Prize, Sweeney’s poems have recently appeared in American Poetry Review, Cimarron Review, Crab Orchard, Mid-American Review, New American Writing, Puerto del Sol, Thrush, and Verse Daily, and her nonfiction has appeared in The Washington Post. She lives in southern California's inland desert, where she teaches poetry privately and offers manuscript consultation. See more at www.jenniferksweeney.com.

1.     What did you want to be when you grew up, and why?

The Easter Bunny, a marine biologist, a starring role on “Fame.” Eventually, seriously, I wanted to be a choreographer. I was legitimately a dancer and loved being in an empty studio playing with time and space and imagined bodies. The large-scale thrill of filling it was so satisfying and clarifying. But poetry, another temporal art, was probably what I was really practicing all along.

2.     What is the very best word in this collection? Explain.

One word. I am not good at being selective. I often draw together new compound words and phrases, so it would have to be one of these. Something that felt new and right in the moment, and as if to really say it, one word must be sidled up against another. Bloodlight. If the book reduces itself to offer one ripple, that is it.

3.     Describe your worst poetic habit.

Not making space for humor in poetry. I am a somewhat funny person, but I fail to make space for that in poems, and then during readings, again and again the thought that I would very much love to read that funny poem I’ve never written rrright about here.

4.     It’s time someone put out an anthology of poems about ___. Explain your reasoning.

I would love to see an anthology of directives—how to’s, rules, steps. My second book had a good number of “how to” poems in it, and I came to love the odd authority this kind of poem assumes. A book of strange bossy poetic advice would be good to have on hand.

5.     It’s your poetic obituary! Sum up your writing life with an essential (past-tense) statement about your poetry.

This is a terrifying question. I cannot look it in the eye. I will answer sideways by saying that although it isn’t the reason for making art, the only salve for mortality is art, knowing I have put something out there that might go on. 

Would you like to have your book considered for an Appreciation feature? It is eligible if it is no more than two years old or, better yet, forthcoming. You may send finished books or advanced reader copies to me at Karen Craigo, 723 S. McCann Ave., Springfield MO 65804. You may query at karen.craigo@gmail.com.

Bias and the literary review

I got my professional start as a journalist—something that makes a daily blog a little easier to handle than it might otherwise be.

Part of a typical journalism curriculum is a class on review and criticism. In it, we begin to really internalize the bond between reader and writer, and to understand that readers trust us to bring them information that is not influenced by an outside agenda.

With news itself, the concept is easy, if a little tricky to navigate sometimes. Our obligation is to our reader. If someone asks for something to be off the record, honoring that request endangers our relationship to our reader and puts us in cahoots with the subject. Likewise, we (ideally) reject gifts. We don’t align ourselves with partisan organizations. We ask questions that make us unpopular, and we offer our best attempt at rendering the news faithfully and truly.

And even reviews, a very subjective type of writing, require some of this mindset. Whether we are offering our opinion on a movie or a local restaurant or a new piece of technology, we remain unbiased in our thinking; we enter the activity with an open mind. The critique a reader receives is an extension of the bond between us.

It’s like this. We choose to review the new gastropub in town. A lot of people are talking about it; the buzz is positive, but we need to experience it for ourselves. We devote some thought about time and day—Tuesdays are notoriously slow dining days; is that a good or bad day to dine for a review? Shall we go to an early or late dinner, or visit during the prime time for the dinner rush, or go at lunch and have a whole different experience? These factors will impact the experience.

Once there, we order off the menu, and we typically avoid special requests—instead, we experience the food as it is offered. We pay our own way. We don’t announce our reason for being there, because we want a typical experience. We pay close attention to all parts of the meal, salad to dessert, and we may take notes as we go along to help us in the writing later.

It is not like this: We tell our brother, the owner, that we’re doing a review, demand a free meal, and prepare to praise it, regardless of the experience.

Reviewing literary titles can be so very dissimilar to the restaurant review process I describe here. We often know the poet—possibly very well. If we were to avoid reviewing books by writers we know, we might quickly run very low on options. To avoid a conflict of interest, or its appearance, we avoid reviewing work by teachers or students or closest friends. Often, though, we know the editor or publisher; sometimes we try to publish our own work with these same people—it’s a remarkably small world. Conflict is everywhere, and hard to avoid.

Incidentally, poetry is not only a small world in that everyone knows everyone else; it is also small in that our reach seldom expands beyond our sphere. There just aren’t a lot of readers of poetry who are not themselves writers and would-be publishers of poetry. They allegedly exist, but they are so rare that I barely believe in them—sort of like that ivory-billed woodpecker photographed in the wilds of Arkansas a few years back, decades after being declared and regarded as extinct. Poetry readers who aren’t poets, or even closet poets, are similar—there is evidence of their presence, but the photos are fuzzy and can’t be fully trusted.

I am of the mindset that there is not much profit in tearing apart a terrible book of poetry in a review. If we think readers should ignore it, no worries—they will. A review, or several of them, can pluck a book from obscurity into mostly-obscurity. If the book stinks up the joint, it’s best ignored by the reviewer, and ignored, the de facto setting, by the reading world. I generally feel that the real poetry big-wigs are fair game for bad reviews, but the act strikes me as a little pointless. A poetry big-wig is generally a pretty small wig in the broad scheme of things.

And I am also of the opinion that poetry is a net good. Writing poetry centers and improves a person. It creates a contemplative spirit. It adds value to the world. Even bad poetry is, in a sense, good poetry.

Some journals, and my own blog, take a different approach to reviews of small press titles, and we set out not to present an objective assessment, but rather to introduce a title and offer a recommendation or appreciation. I find much to love in collections of poetry, and I am eager to share the good stuff with readers.

A movie review serves a purpose; it informs would-be viewers of whether their money is well spent on a particular release. It also serves as a point of debate and discussion for those who view the movie. The reviewer may be crazy, or she may be spot-on, or she may offer insight that the less-experienced moviegoer might have missed. Book reviews do some of this, too, but poetry (and movies, for that matter) really has to be experienced to be judged.

I’m not sure what the answer is when we bring up the issue of bias and insularity. It’s healthy, though, to acknowledge it, and to keep reading and talking about work. Ultimately, we might spill over into a larger reading public, and that would be a real service to literary writers, to readers, and, I would maintain, to the world.

Blurbs and poetry

  

          The poetry world is a small one. We sometimes focus on its niches, or at least its perceived niches—academic poets, experimental poets, performance poets—while at the same time recognizing the malleability of these subsets. Those who have been active in writing and publishing for a long time often have a large network of poet friends. It’s only practical—few others will put up with us! But poets tend to like the company of poets, and our friendships effloresce, often across our boundaries.

            It sometimes seems that only poets read poetry. When I was editor-in-chief of a literary journal, I quickly learned that marketing efforts—fundraisers, subscription drives—were best targeted on writers, because the general reading public was less interested in, and less willing to invest in, literary work.

            Most aspects of a close-knit poetry community make me happy. When we encounter each other in “normal,” non-poetry spaces, there are always those moments of sussing each other out—Who is your favorite poet? Who are you reading now? Where have you published?—to figure out if the other is the real thing, a person who lives and loves and writes contemporary poetry. When, in an unexpected place, I find someone who shares my commitment to poetry, I feel a surge of pure happiness.

            I used that word I used earlier, “close-knit,” because it offers a fairly accurate metaphor for our relationships. Like a thread that runs through a garment, touching hundreds of others, we all seem to know lots of poets, and if we don’t know someone, then we can count on the fact that a poet we touch does. There are not six degrees of separation in poetry; there is barely one degree separating poet from poet.

            So let’s talk about blurbs. My first book is coming out at the end of May, and my editor told me I needed some of these. My first thought was to contact my favorite teachers, who also happen to be favorite poets of mine with impeccable reputations, but as it happens, I cashed in those chits on my two chapbooks.

            I then thought about my best poet friends—mainly because I was late with the request. (I’m not sure why this surprised me so much! Almost all books have blurbs.) But when you know a writer well, you know how busy that person is. All of us who are engaged in this craft seem constantly to be writing, revising, submitting, blurbing, reviewing, responding to solicitations, teaching, editing, and so much more. It’s hard to prevail upon a friend, but I did ask one of my most treasured people—a poet I knew right after my undergrad years, and someone I spent nearly every spare moment with while I lived in the West, talking poetry with almost every breath.

            I had an advantage as a former poetry and chief editor, too; I knew a lot of people. I’d printed some of the biggest names in poetry and had friendly relationships with a lot of the writers I most admire. Contacting some of them was an option, but I’m not a big fan of rejection. The most famous names in poetry are also the most famous candidates to ask favors of. If they are to do any writing at all, they must quickly learn to say no, and “no” was the answer I anticipated from such loose relationships. Arriving at “yes” may have taken a lot of e-mails and a lot of uncomfortable moments.

            The idea of propriety also enters into deciding which writers to approach. Sure, I published some people—but do I want to come across (or be) a person who expects or demands quid pro quo? Is my back that itchy that I’d demand an exchange of scratches? The thought of that is what truly makes me break out in hives. Poetry publication and promotion should not be based on favors, but on mutual respect and love of the word.

            Ultimately, I asked a certain kind of poet—people I didn’t know well, but with whom I’d had positive interactions in social media, and whose work I absolutely loved. If I asked for a blurb, it meant that I read the person’s book and saw value in having this poet speak up for my work. All of my would-be blurbers (including the friend I mentioned earlier) are kind, friendly people who also happen to be breathtakingly good poets. They are all more advanced in their careers than I am, too—so as I prepare to put out two books, they have at least two books, or some serious editing chops, or some other solid claim on expertise that shows their opinion to be valuable. That’s just a practical move for a blurb, which exists to convince others to purchase and/or read a book.

            If I’m being honest, I think it’s a shame that blurbs are a convention in poetry publishing. We are not a culture that engages in vibrant, emotional debates about literature. There was a time in our history when this was the case, maybe when we were trying to claim ownership of some aspect of a national literature, and this is also the scene in other parts of the world (perhaps were poetry is more highly prized). In the present-day United States, we exist, to an extent, in camps, and we each think our camp is better and other camps are inferior. MFA programs create cookie-cutter poetry. Slam poetry suffers on the page. Experimental poets aren’t saying anything important, and conventional poets aren’t saying anything new. Beyond these broad assessments, we can expect few shouting matches among poets. We might be better off with a good donnybrook at the annual AWP Conference, or if the “M” in MFA stood for “melee.” For good or for ill, though, that’s not where we are. We write and let write. We judge quietly. We sniff.

            Often, though, what we do is cross boundaries and benefit from other types of poetry and from other art forms in general. We’re a fairly friendly bunch (again, possibly because what we do is almost universally unpopular). There are exceptions, but it seldom comes down to a rumble.

            So what do blurbs mean? Are all of us poets truly luminous and stunning? Readers of poetry should keep defibrillator paddles nearby for all the breathlessness reviewers report encountering. And so many collections are deemed “necessary” in blurbs that it’s a wonder we’re not all traveling everywhere with a pack on our back.

            I’d just as soon skip the blurbs. The few I solicited made me feel marvelous when they came in, and I’ll bet this is a common feeling for writers. I just don’t know how helpful most blurbs are to the people for whom they’re intended—potential book buyers and readers. Don’t we all learn more by opening to any page and reading a few words from an actual poem?

            And let’s not forget that we’re all basically friends here. If no one ever says anything is terrible, does another person’s compliment matter—especially in poetry, which is, in terms of readership, at least, the dimmest light in the American literary constellation?

            How luminous can we really be?

An Appreciation of A DOOR WITH A VOICE by Katie Manning

“Twin Bliss” by David Adey

(cover art for A Door With a Voice)

I have a great fondness for chapbooks. Their brevity allows a writer to delve into a specific subject or concern for much longer than a full-length collection might permit, because a very rigid adherence to theme would likely get tiresome over the course of fifty or more pages.

But chapbooks allow writers to pursue and embrace their obsessions, and they are all the more satisfying to readers for their tight focus.

Katie Manning’s forthcoming e-chapbook, A Door With a Voice (Morning House e-Chapbook Series, Agape Editions, 2016), is a great example of a book that carries forth a specific project in sixteen poems—this one in the spirit of found or experimental poetry.

For each poem of the collection, Manning used a word bank taken from the last chapter of a book of the Bible. In her brief introduction to the collection, she writes, “This is either the most heretical or the most reverent thing I’ve ever written.” But Manning appears to come at the poems from the perspective of a person of faith, and although I’m no theologian, I have a hard time imagining that a sustained exercise in faith could be received as anything other than a gesture of reverence.

Manning’s introduction also expresses a frustration with people who take the Bible out of context and use its words as weapons against others. Writes Manning, “I started taking language from the Bible out of context and using it to create art.” And the art—skinny little poems that examine and personalize and disrupt the original verses—is thoroughly contemporary and very fresh in its approach.

I also discern a strong feminist voice in these poems, and this is one reason I have a fondness for “The Book of Verbs,” taken from the last chapter of Proverbs. These poems resist the quotation of parts—they are organically whole, each part tied closely to every other (and to the other poems, as well)—so I present it here in its entirety (with a link to QueenMob’s Tea House, where several of these poems originally appeared):


The Book of Verbs


listen

my womb

do not spend your strength

on kings

it is not for kings

crave

and

let

be

bring

life

like

food

is

food

consider

a field and

plant

strong

fingers

open

hands

when it snows

make

days

watch

do

not eat

praises

Typical of the collection, this poem resolves the chapter and the book into a personal meditation on feminine strength and resolve. The relationship between the poem and the Bible book feels tenuous, but there is a connection, and I feel gratified by hearing the original words offered back changed, in what seems to me to be clearly a powerful woman’s voice.

To me, chapbooks are most enjoyable when they offer a small grouping of poems that can exist effectively only as that—a small grouping. When the full force of the poet’s spotlight is focused on a single concern, we are compelled to experience it in a whole new way. Manning’s chapbook offers just such an experience, and it’s a gratifying read.

The lesson to this poet: Find inspiration all around; reclaim words and voices that matter to me by using them in art.

Katie Manning is the author of three chapbook-length poetry collections: The Gospel of the Bleeding Woman (Point Loma Press), I Awake in My Womb (Yellow Flag Press), and Tea with Ezra (Boneset Books). She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Whale Road Review, and she has a PhD in English (Creative Writing; Women’s Literature & Feminist Theory) from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and an MA in English (Creative Writing) from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. As of Fall 2015, she is an assistant professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University, and she lives happily with her husband and sons in San Diego.

A brief interview with Katie Manning …

1.     What did you want to be when you grew up, and why?

I wanted to be Judy Garland, but without the drug addiction and early death. I loved to sing and act (and still do even though it's not my day job). I like to joke that there wasn't enough rejection in acting so I became a poet instead.

2.     What is the very best word in this collection? Explain.

I'm going to say "context" because it is the most important word, and it appears in my artist statement: "I am tired of people taking language from the Bible out of context and using it as a weapon against other people, so I started taking language from the Bible out of context and using it to create art. My process was to use the last chapter from one book of the Bible as a word bank for each poem. This is either the most heretical or the most reverent thing I’ve ever written."

3.     Describe your worst poetic habit.

When I finish a piece of writing and think, "What if I can never write anything else again?!"

4.     It’s time someone put out an anthology of poems about ___. Explain your reasoning.

DINOSAURS! McKenzie Lynn Tozan and I were just discussing the need for an anthology of dinosaur poetry... the two of us have really cool dinosaur poems, so we suspect other poets must too. We might just have to edit such an anthology in the near future. :)

5.     It’s your poetic obituary! Sum up your writing life with an essential (past-tense) statement about your poetry.

Katie Manning was a poet who wrote about serious subjects but always kept a sense of playfulness.

Would you like to have your book considered for an Appreciation feature? It is eligible if it is no more than two years old or, better yet, forthcoming. You may send finished books or advanced reader copies to me at Karen Craigo, 723 S. McCann Ave., Springfield MO 65804. Although I prefer paper copies, I welcome questions and queries at karen.craigo@gmail.com.