Maybe Spring

Exciting news on the collaboration front. The broadside print of Sage with artist Claire Owen is being proofed as we speak. We should have it in hand in a month or so, and it will be for sale on Claire's website, Turtle Island Press.

But in the meantime, something old/new...

While poking around my parent's bookshelves a few years back, I came across a copy of Darwin's On the Origin of Species that had belonged to my grandmother. On the flyleaf was written her maiden name, Sadie Kesselman, 1919. Each page had a heading that extracted some important phrase from the chapter.

I wrote a series of poems with titles drawn from these page headings -- things like "The Importance of Barriers" or "Long-Lost Characters." This was my first foray into a body of work that shared a theme, a process which has proven to be a consistent way of working for me.

Recently I was looking over some of these poems and found this one from 2006. After a roller coaster week of snow, 80 degree weather, and violent thunderstorms, this one seemed fit for the season.

I also send it out to my daughter, born on the Ides of March, a young teenager when I wrote this, now turned 20.

"Effects of Climate"

The pendulum sun swings further

each day, gives way to gravity

and lands back home by dinnertime.

Spring wears me out.

All that potential requiring constant vigilance.

As if it's my job, my responsibility

to see each leaf, each blade of grass,

safely to the solstice.

March takes and gives -- the way

nursing a baby leaves you sated

and drowsy and ravenously hungry

all at once.

We are guardians lulled by new warmth,

caught unprepared when the sun burns

with hot June adolescence.

What did we know of this --

late snows, growling thunder, false spring.

How could we have known all it takes

to grow a canopy of green?

(c) Beth Feldman Brandt 2006

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Provenance

Anyone who has watched "Antiques Roadshow" knows that it is not really the object that has value but its provenance. Value depends on where that object came from, who owned it, or its presence at some notable event in history, all carefully documented.

I am telling you this for a reason.

For those of you who are following the progress of "Sage", my collaborative book of poetry with artist Claire Owen, you know that this work is based on John Gerard's "The Herbal, or General History of Plants", 1633 edition. I was reading through the many introductory sections which give credit to generous donors (yes, that was the same in 1633) and include a section that describes the update of the 1633 edition by Thomas Johnson of the original 1597 Gerard text.

While slogging through the Olde English typeface and 's's that are written as 'f's, I realized that Johnson was accusing Gerard of stealing most of the work in this book from an earlier Herbal. I checked with my favorite Chicago librarian Ed Valauskas, who confirmed that, while taking past work from another scientist and building on it was an accepted practice, doing it without giving proper credit was pretty much plagiarism even back then.

So had I based my whole book on a stolen text? And more importantly, did it matter?

This poem won't be in the book but considers the question of provenance and how much we care about what was, rather than what is.

Provenance

No clear lines

of history or family,

of sale or charity,

or theft.

There are gaps

in ownership, questions

of judgement, disputes

over value.

What you see,

spot-lit and sacred,

may not be

what it claims

to have been,

but only

what it is.

No reason

to hold dear

except the depth

of blue, the flow

of line, the balance

in this moment,

in the next.

(c) Beth Feldman Brandt 2010

Want to be in touch? Email me here.

Air

Back from a two-week residency at Ragdale, an artist's retreat outside of Chicago. Pretty cold outside, but filled with warmth inside. I wish everyone could have the chance to spend two weeks doing what they absolutely love, surrounded by others who totally get why you love it. Plus beautifully-prepared food, good conversation and a fireplace. What a gift.

Sage, my current poetry project grew wildly while I was there. People talk about the "Ragdale effect" through which you create a year's worth of work in two weeks which is pretty close to what I was able to do during my residency.

A big accomplishment was writing the four poems, one for each element/season, that will define the four sections of the paired 'herbal' poems. (Check out the November Sage blog post for more info on these.)

I know it's really winter but here is the Air poem that will head up the Spring collection of poems. I am not a big cold weather person so let's remember light and green -- and consider all the ways we can open ourselves up in the coming year.

Air

Fills her lungs, overflows

to the space around her heart, her throat,

the cavity behind her eyes. Inside

the motion of molecules, her edges

diffuse to a bouyant clarity.

It is spring. The trees exhale their green

lifeblood as she folds into the mist

that cycles from ground to sky.

Through dark blue nights,

she courts the constellations--

Aries, Virgo -- held weightless

within their virtues. Nothing

to collide with, nothing to hold on to,

no way to come down.

Beth Feldman Brandt (c) 2010

And if you really want that winter feeling, check out my fellow Ragdale resident Michael McColly's very cool blog here.

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VOTE for (My) Poetry

VOTING CLOSED! Thanks to everyone who cast their vote, tried to cast their vote a few more times, told their friends, tried to vote a few more times. It looks like "Fault Lines" finished a strong second. The winner was a 12 year old girl from Chile. How cool is that? Keep checking out the Broadsided Press site, become a vector, help get poetry into unusual places! Thanks again to all.

My poem, 'Fault Lines', is a finalist for the Haiku-Year-in-Review (HYIR)- Winter Season sponsored by Broadsided Press. The winning poems (one for each season) will be combined with visual images and posted as broadsides on January 1. People like you all over the world, known as 'vectors', print and post these broadsides every month.

Poets were invited to write haiku that responded to one event over the past year. My poem was written in honor of my brother-in-law, Ed Nelson, who helped manage the phone banks in Miami's Little Haiti as people tried to find their families after the earthquake.

Fault lines crack, crumble,

swallow cries crossing oceans.

Calls go unanswered.

So if you are so inclined, go to Broadsided Press and vote for a poem to represent each season --maybe even mine for Winter--and become a vector while you are it at! Just remember, unlike in Philadelphia, you can only vote once!

Thanks!

Sage

A longer post than usual here but there's a new project I'm working on that takes a little explaining...

A while back, I spent some time digging around the archive at Bartram's Gardens which included Bartram's compilation of herbal remedies. This got me interested in historic collections of 'herbals' and I found my way to the Rare Book Collection at the Lenhardt Library of the Chicago Botanic Garden during my residency last year at Ragdale, an artists' retreat outside of Chicago.

With the help of librarian Ed Valauskas at the Gardens, I discovered John Gerard's "The Herball: The Generall Historie of Plants" (1633) and was inspired to begin a collection of poems which paired 'found poems' excavated from Gerard's text with poems written in conversation with the found work.

This has become quite an undertaking which will culminate in a collaborative artist book with the amazing Philadelphia book artist Claire Owen. I am off to Ragdale again in December to move the project along but thought I'd start sharing the work and hear what you think. Feel free to comment -- this is still a work in progress.

The first poem below (in italics) is a found poem. Imagine taking the text from one plant's description and blacking out words (like an old-time censor of WWII letters) until what is left makes a poem. The second poem (in the non-blog world, they will be laid out side by side) is written in response to the found poem.

More about the project as it unfolds, but in the meantime, here is a small taste of the title poem, "Sage" which considers those family secrets that often remain unacknowledged, at least out loud.

Sage

End of memory

The secret, no doubt

as it should be, leaves.

Ashes

wrapped in linen

hold grief.

Gone and with you, the secrets

you had held hard and deep

as stones under water, and we,

with the wisdom of children,

felt the ripples, averted our eyes,

diverted our words,

all our lives drawn to things

at the edge of our sight

like the flicker of minnows

we lured with string

and bits of bread but never

caught.

© Beth Feldman Brandt 2010

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Parallelism

I had just about forgotten about my poem "Parallelism" being published by "Quay: A Journal of the Arts", when it arrived in the mail last week. (Yes, it is the Spring 2009 issue. Apparently, it's hard times for poetry journals as well.)

Its arrival coincided with a conversation I had with a friend who is juggling work, travel, partner, family -- not to mention striving to make time for a creative life. Well, maybe I have this conversation with lots of friends. Maybe all the time.

But I do think that there is a frustration particular to my artist friends as they try to find time for the quiet mind to switch from left brain to right, to sit with the part of their life that is life-giving, life-saving, and utterly elusive.

Parallelism

She had mastered the ability
to read Adrienne with her right hand
while collecting the remnants
of daily life with the left.

On Fridays, she sorted words like laundry:
plate and table to the left,
grace and hunger to the right.
Some demanded definition.
Others sprawled across her desk
like sullen teenagers, daring to be defined.

Once on a late train from Baltimore,
her ghost floated over the Chesapeake.
Mirror-flipped, her words tumbled right to left,
fluent in a foreign tongue, exotic as silk,
until the train reached home.

A trick of the eye sees parallels converge
like train tracks far beyond the station.
But she knows what is true
and what she keeps leaving behind.


Beth Feldman Brandt

Want to be in touch, email me here.

Amazing Grace

I recently had the chance to hear Kay Ryan, the US Poet Laureate, read her work at Delaware County Community College. As she said, there is no requirement for a Poet Laureate to have a project but "they would very much appreciate it if you did." She attended community college and has taught remedial English for many years, so decided to highlight the opportunities that they afford ('afford' in more ways than one) during her tenure. She will only be doing readings at community colleges so keep an eye out for her at a community college near you.

Ryan spoke about how she feels the most interesting things in poetry (and in life) happen at the edges. She writes poems with very short lines but great depth, exposing all the edges to scrutiny with sort of a 'bring it on' bravado. She also investigates phrases we take for granted and tries to juxtapose new meanings on them. So, with a nod to Kay Ryan...

Amazing Grace

Sunset over a blue ocean
won't do it.

Neither will a candle lit
against the darkness
or a cool hand on
a fevered forehead.

It has to be more
than lingering last notes,
a small kindness,
dignity in adversity.

Not generosity
or forbearance.
Certainly not love.

This is the least
she would expect,
although she is pleased
anyone thinks of her
at all anymore.


Beth Feldman Brandt 2009