I liked Dick Allen, Poet Laureate of Connecticut, from the first time I received an email from him.
He is possibly the most charming and genuine e-mailer I’ve ever had the pleasure of emailing; each of Dick’s notes includes at least one line I wish I’d thought of first and invites me into his colorful life of traveling, aquarium-going, family-enjoying, and card-playing one snippet at a time. Likewise, Allen’s poetry is poignant and genuine and precise, and it gracefully, like an ant, carries luggage weighing about twelve times its own body weight, each bag packed with the most wonderful bricks, mosaics, faces, ideas, and memories. Then, before your eyes, he unpacks the luggage and builds a planet where everything works together and makes sense. He calls this “Randomism.” I say, read this brilliant man’s work. And don’t miss the interview, in which Dick is candid, informative, funny, philosophical—well, he’s everything he is in his emails and his poetry. Allen was also kind enough to re-teach himself how to record himself reading his poems, and I was rapt as I listened to the recordings. I felt like I was back in second grade sitting at the foot of my teacher’s rocking chair, completely lost in the poetry. I am thrilled that Dick is joining the poetry column this month.
Associate Editors Monica Mankin and Nicelle Davis have also discovered and interviewed fantastic poets this month. Monica writes:
Sometimes when I read contemporary poetry, I get the feeling that many poets believe anything goes, that poetry is a free space wherein the rules of language, thought, and sense do not apply. As a reader, I remain unaffected by poems that do not strive to realize the possibilities of meaning and clarity that poetry permits. I struggle to understand the significance of poetic nonsense in a world already brimming with too much realistic nonsense. Certainly making nonsense is less difficult than making sense, but what is easiest may not always be what is best for our art, our minds, and (dare I say in today’s world) our souls. Fortunately, there are contemporary poets who do not shy away from the difficulties of writing meaningful, sonorous, formally aware poems. I had the privilege this month of discovering two (well, technically three) incredibly thoughtful, passionate poets who were kind enough not only to submit their poems but also to provide compelling interviews that reveal both the difficulty and significance of poetic art.
Through their vivid imagery, Amy Randolph’s poems invite us “To be carried away / by the rhythm of exterior things,” and they instruct us to “give [ourselves] to the comma” and “make love / to the question mark.” These poems offer a graceful and realistic hopefulness in the face of the many sorrows that accompany romantic love. And, as for the love needed to make poems, Randolph affirms in her interview that the work of poetry depends upon “…a terrible, aching love on the part of a consciousness that longs for a connection so deep that both the lover and the object of love might be transformed by it.”
Luke Hankins contributes English translations of five French poems from Stella Vinitchi Radulescu. Admitting “meaning is incredibly complex,” yet meaning is precisely what must translate, Hankins adheres to the visually formal elements of Radulescu’s poetry, adeptly capturing the significance of both the sound and the silence within her work. No matter the language, “we will taste what is written” in these poems, as it springs from the heart and voice of a speaker who declares, “I want to remain silent but my cry attaches itself / to a sliver of light // the snow covers it / with its suffocating coolness a loving gesture / before the cold // in the burning mouth.”
I hope you find the work and words of these poets as edifying as I have found them to be. Enjoy.
Nicelle brings us three poets this month, each with a great interview. She writes:
The poems of Lauren K. Alleyne, Daniel Gallik, and Rich Ives all look at our contemporary world under the scope of mythic vision.
Laruen K. Alleyne places desire in the haunted rooms of our imagination. She artfully dresses our most abstract concepts (such as love and loss) like ghosts in bed-sheets, so that we can experience them as sensual objects. In the poem “The place of no dreams,” she writes, “Sometimes a wall is a wish so fragile / it would crumble if you uttered its name.” I believe the vulnerability of believing in wishes could not be put more beautifully than Alleyne has laid down in these lines.
Daniel Gallik writes poems that could be mistaken for miniature satirical essays, if it weren’t for the speaker’s gut wrenching venerability. He shocks readers with a wit comparable to Jonathan Swift’s. He makes a new American mythos out of poverty and love. Gallik questions if the greater treasure of love isn’t found in the trials and tribulations of poverty.
Last, but certainly not least, Rick Ives’ poems delight the way fairytales enchant children. Ives writes poems that could be mistaken for short stories, if it weren’t for how the lines lure readers with music into the possibilities of figurative language. He writes of a happy average girl and her sad pet iguana, “His bites were harmless, but it didn't help Polly stay happy to have her beloved pet biting at her.” This one of many great parables by Ives, who writes with the sparks of imagination.
Please read and be haunted by myths of these poetic storytellers.
Laruen K. Alleyne places desire in the haunted rooms of our imagination. She artfully dresses our most abstract concepts (such as love and loss) like ghosts in bed-sheets, so that we can experience them as sensual objects. In the poem “The place of no dreams,” she writes, “Sometimes a wall is a wish so fragile / it would crumble if you uttered its name.” I believe the vulnerability of believing in wishes could not be put more beautifully than Alleyne has laid down in these lines.
Daniel Gallik writes poems that could be mistaken for miniature satirical essays, if it weren’t for the speaker’s gut wrenching venerability. He shocks readers with a wit comparable to Jonathan Swift’s. He makes a new American mythos out of poverty and love. Gallik questions if the greater treasure of love isn’t found in the trials and tribulations of poverty.
Last, but certainly not least, Rick Ives’ poems delight the way fairytales enchant children. Ives writes poems that could be mistaken for short stories, if it weren’t for how the lines lure readers with music into the possibilities of figurative language. He writes of a happy average girl and her sad pet iguana, “His bites were harmless, but it didn't help Polly stay happy to have her beloved pet biting at her.” This one of many great parables by Ives, who writes with the sparks of imagination.
Please read and be haunted by myths of these poetic storytellers.
Thanks for stopping by, readers. We couldn’t be more thrilled to be able to invite you to come in and be a part of the conversation with these poets.