In My Hands: My New Chapbook is Now Available!

The Branches, the Axe, the Missing began in a way that scared me. I knew it was going to be a long poem. And I knew that it wanted me to research. A lot. The first lines spoke to our evolutionary beginnings sitting around a fire: "What small mammals / did we roast in the fire? / What first story did we / tell?" I wondered what was that first story and that question led to when did we first acquire language. But besides all that, I wondered how this topic related to my own personal story. The poem took about one year of research, book-ended by two three-week writing residencies where I did nothing but work on the poem. The result is now in my hands. Here is a recent review by Tawnysha Greene that talks about the chapbook better than I ever could: http://www.sundresspublications.com/stirring/pence.htm
Speaking of reviews, if you'd like to see more of them, please check out my new web site that replaces this blog.

Now Available! The Poetics of American Song Lyrics

It has arrived. When I returned home yesterday and saw the box by my door, I knew what it was. And I was a bit hesitant to open it. Inside the box waited the finished, the complete, the bound-and-no-more-edits-allowed The Poetics of American Song Lyrics.

The Poetics of American Song Lyrics is the first collection of academic essays that regards songs as literature and identifies intersections between poems and songs’ literary histories as a way to reveal the two genres’ connections. The contributors in this collection are a stunning group—and the essays they wrote are inspired from years of thought on this subject. They are:

Lamar Alexander

Gordon Ball

Adam Bradley

David Caplan

Wyn Cooper

David Daniel

Stephen M. Deusner

Claudia Emerson

Beth Ann Fennelly

Keith Flynn

Jesse Graves

Peter Guralnick

John Paul Hampstead

Brian Howe

Jill Jones

David Kirby

Robert P. McParland

Pat Pattison

Charlotte Pence

Eric Reimer

Jeffrey Roesner

Tony Tost

Ben Yagoda

and Kevin Young

Here is the beginning of my introduction to the collection that explains how the book came to be:

“Not many editors can pinpoint the exact moment a specific project began, but I can say for certain that it was September 12, 2003, the day Johnny Cash died. I was living in Nashville, teaching composition and poetry writing at Belmont University where twenty-seven percent of the entering freshmen are part of the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business. The university sits on a hill that hovers at the end of Music Row, those legendary two streets that Nashville record labels and studios call home. When students miss class at Belmont, the reason often involves the words “touring schedule.” Essentially, the music business is an extension of the campus, and there I was teaching poetry and having students ask if they could bring their guitars to class for back-up as they read their “poems” for the class to critique.

I was a bit confused as to how to approach these songwriters in my poetry class who viewed poems and songs as one-in-the-same. It was at this moment of my questioning that Johnny Cash died and one of Tennessee’s senators, Lamar Alexander, gave a speech on the Senate floor about the loss. The speech began as expected by praising Cash, and then suddenly, I was directly implicated. Senator Alexander asked outright why Tennessee English professors, including those at Belmont specifically, were not writing criticism on songs nor teaching songs in literature courses. Immediately, I thought of many reasons why most professors did not do that. How could one discuss song lyrics without the music that was intended to accompany the lyrics? What would be the language of analysis? How was a literature professor qualified to talk about songs? And what criteria was behind this conflation between poetry and songs? I decided to investigate all of this and created a course at Belmont titled the Poetics of Country Music. As I did so, I found I couldn’t quite find the essays that I wanted—ones that discussed poetic form and history and did so in relation to song.”

Finding the essays that I wanted resulted in me asking these fine poets and scholars to write on the subject. Now, the book is in my hands. This might sound odd considering how often I have combed through each essay, but what I want to do now is sit back, read it once again, and savor it—not as the editor, but as a reader.

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My First Chapbook is Now Available!

I am happy to announce that my first chapbook, Weaves a Clear Night, is now available from Flying Trout Press. I wrote this chapbook one summer after taking two poetry workshops the previous semester. As gratifying as that was, two workshops at once forced short poems that I could present to others within a week. Once the semester ended, I wanted to write something that required far more than brevity and clarity, but something that scuba diving calls “going into the blue.” That is when you go so deep and far, you don’t see the sun on the water’s surface anymore. Just the vast blue around you.

So, I began work on this chapbook that subverts the myth of Penelope and gives her a good, old-fashioned affair. I wrote a section a day (first draft at least) for a month and required myself to not only use a different form with each section, ranging from open form to blank verse to a very loose cywydd, but to also write in different mental states. This meant that sometimes I set my alarm for 3 A.M. and wrote in that sleepy state. One day, I stayed in San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art and stared at Rothko to get ideas for line breaks. Another day, I only read Lorca in Spanish. Does this create “truer art?” Of course not. For me, however, I wanted to allow myself the full indulgence of a long poem.

Here is the book description:

Set in modern-day Appalachia, this chapbook in seven­teen sections imaginatively recasts the myths surrounding Penelope’s fidelity to Odysseus. Lyrical, meditative, and deeply sensual, the poems follow the emotional isolation of a woman poised between two men, neither of whom can be a part of her daily life. The “you” in this collec­tion is a secret love, the “he” is Odysseus, and the “son” is Telemachus. Despite the absence of the lover and the hus­band, their presence surrounds her. The result is a poetic narrative where memory and future fears disrupt the very existence of a physical present. Highly imagistic, Pence’s writing displays precision, structure, and grace along with depth and narrative ambition.

The “poem” is in seventeen sections, so it is a bit difficult to take out one section without the meaning being lost somewhat. I’ll post here the last section about a family taking a hike at summer’s end, which is fitting for the month of September.

XVII.

The river’s surface stretches out the trees,

blackness where one tree passes

into another. Each branch a lover

to whom wishes are whispered.

Not with words. But by leaning

against each other, then pulling away.

There, across the way in the warbled

river currents, a family streaks out like a sunset:

pink, blue, yellow, and white

t-shirts. The pink streak shrieks,

Don’t push me in,

wanting to be pushed in.

The air stiffens, stops,

right before the release of the splash.

All softens back to black and green shadows

and streaks of too-bright colors

from this family, and another one,

and the next one, too, still on the ridge,

the father holding a blackberry cane aside

to allow the son at the end of this line,

to pass without snagging. The father

remembering another time, another self,

and the red, dashed line of briar skipping across skin.

Review of Things Come On: An Amneoir by Joseph Harrington

I’m a member of The Rumpus online poetry book club. All the books are soon-to-be-released, so this sense of discovery is exciting. We also receive an online visit from the author once during the discussion month. I’ve been doing this for about nine months now, and what I like most is that I would have never discovered some of these books without the group. In fact, my favorite book so far is one that I would have overlooked: Joseph Harrington’s Things Come On: An Amneoir (Wesleyan University Press).

Honestly, I would have passed it up because of my own contrariness. When I first read the book’s concept, which is a combination of memoir and amnesia reflecting on the poet’s mother’s breast cancer and the Watergate scandal, I was suspicious. It sounded like something of reach to de-emphasize the writer, which is very much the fascination right now, something Tony Hoagland refers to as the “unself-importance.” What’s more, the jacket copy posits so much of Language poetry’s tenets in such often used phrases that these philosophies—once posed to resist mainstream Confessional poetry—sound frayed and worn—almost as if Language poetry is now very much part of a system that purports to critique systems.

By page ten, however, I was hooked. Through the mix of documents such as Nixon's transcripts, journal entries, condolence cards, insurance letters, doctors' reports, and so on, a full sense of grief and frustration comes through. And I have to admit something: this is the first poetry book in about ten years that has fished out a tear from me. I wish I could provide a poem to show off what I loved about this book, but the poems are not intended to be stand-alone documents. Each passage is part of the book’s overall narrative arc. What I can do is give a glimpse of how the juxtapositions leave the the reader to experience and create associations and (dis)connections on his own.

On pages twenty-four through twenty-six, we have a variety of documents. The first is a quote from a Nixon aide telling him “that there was a cancer growing in the Presidency and that if the cancer was not removed that the President himself would be killed by it” (24). What follows is a cartoon with the caption: “Kids will know…. Even if they don’t know all the details, they know something’s wrong” (25). The next page provides quotes from the father about how the mother would remain cheerful through all of the treatments, even when she knew she was dying. The father says that she would “get frustrated” but that “would pass” (26). This conversation is then followed by a doctor talking about how “in order to keep [family and friends] from falling apart, the woman tries to keep her chin up and have a smile plastered on her face” (26). All of this is juxtaposed against another’s aid’s opinion that “the President did not seem to understand the implications of what was going on” (26). What follows is more conversation between the father and poet on how the mother’s two sisters had died of breast cancer. Finally, the page ends with the mother’s once again painfully chilling cheerfulness: “June 20—Saw Dr. Fleming. All OK. Increase medication to 3 a day” (26). It is exactly what is not said between these passages that renders such complex meanings.

What is also being omitted in many of these poems is the use of first-person to tell a personal story, which is one of the many strategies used to undercut the writer, or that authorial “I.” Harrington further subverts the authorial “I” through his own admission of fallibility. He does so immediately with the title and early in the collection where the dates of his mother’s cancer are intentionally confused to the point of error. Another strategy to undercut the “I” is to privilege the reader in making meaning—which is, of course, a fundamental tenet of Language poetry. The effect of all of this is one of vibrancy, honesty, and originality.

At the Colony (And Draft of a New Poem)

This month of July is one of solitude and writing for me. I am in Ciudad Colon, Costa Rica, which is home to the David and Julia White artist colony. Here, we are a forty-five minute bus ride away from the capitol in a little town tucked into the jungly mountains. Since the birds and sun are both so loud, I can’t sleep past 6:00. After a bit of resistance to this fact, I gave in, and now will often pack a picnic-breakfast and walk up to the highest point at the colony that overlooks the town. (Picture above.) There, I begin my writing and watch the world, and my poems, slowly stretch and awake into being.

Like the birds and sun, the solitude is both sought and at times resisted. After about four to five hours of writing, it is only eleven, yet I still have a lot of work to do with a mind starting to go cross-eyed. Where is the interruption? The annoying neighbor? The student email? Not here. So, walks are key, building ant trail diversions are key, swimming is key—as is participating in one of my favorite traditions at colonies: the sharing of work. This is when one gets to finally peek into the artists’ studios and look at what they have been doing. And for us type and publish sort of artists, we have readings. Yesterday, Holly Woodward and I read some of our work to the other folks here while looking out at the beautiful tropical gardens of Pat and Willy Piessens, who live here year-round. (There's a photo of all of us here, too.) I am the kind of writer who needs a lot of time to finish a poem, and by time, I mean both time working on the poem and time away from it. To share a new piece of writing with a group is outside of my comfort zone to be sure. Yet, as we all know, going into new territories is not only the point of travel, but of writing. (“Traverse the Earth, Fool,” Mr. T says.)

To push me just a bit more outside of my typical process, I thought I would do something a little different on this blog and post a new poem here. Granted, this is NOT a finished poem. In fact, it is only a week old, entirely conceived and drafted here. I might have to take it down later as I actually finish it and start sending it out, but for now, I’ll test its wobbly legs with you, Gentle Reader.

The Architecture of the Veil

Islamic architecture often adorns the interior spaces as opposed to the exterior, commonly known as the architecture of the veil, to represent the nature of the infinite. –Dr. R. E. Souser

All afternoon, the hotel roof went on being a windowsill

as if the city below could be understood by echo, by leaning out

over prayer calls, car horns, hot spoons scraping woks of nasi goreng,

by looking down on pishtaqs, minarets, canons fashioned into water fountains.

All through the afternoon, the faithful went on being faithful.

The faithless, faithless. Each chasing piety with sticks and sugar,

even when piety tripped the running feet with a simple man’s

crutch, and the crippled devil kicked his child’s gut until

green-flanked smog shifted directions, sweated the clouds

into crumbs, into evening, into this thing called hidden or infinite.

The architecture here secludes its beauty

to the inner spaces, to what cannot be seen from the street

where a costumed macaque flees under a soup stall,

his frustration blooming into sequined soapsuds rushing the gutter,

where a woman from the roof above irritates her palm’s sweat into stone,

while a walker below, worries his molar’s crown into a sip of mercury,

all of which chemically occur whenever the adulterous, man

or moon, vow themselves to just one bed. No one’s fate is determined,

despite how sometimes it is. The mosaics repeat and spin their cobalt

patterns until the moon quivers one day to the left—and no one notices,

except two mangoes rot hanging green on the tree. All the while,

the prophets’ daughters strut in their highest heels, busy

poking the sun back into the pieces it really is. This brokenness,

we suspect, is true about our own selves, despite the fluid strides

we make from city block to city block. We walk among sweet-smelling

sulfur, wondering what we cannot see, wondering which feast or fast

is behind which house’s wall. In each of us, a stray dog forgets to ask

for home; a pack of roving hounds guards the door.

Review of "Levi Johnston's Blues" by Ben Folds and Nick Hornby

Last week, I assigned writing a persona poem to my beginning poetry class, which is always an interesting way to explore new material. To help give them a sense of a persona poem, I assigned the classic Browning poem, “My Last Duchess,” a few by Ai, Eminem’s “Without Me,” and a couple of songs off of Ben Folds and Nick Hornby’s latest album, Lonely Avenue, that is all persona songs. We looked at “Levi Johnston’s Blues” in particularly, which is one of my favorites.

Here’s a link where you can listen to the song and read the lyrics:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/09/ben-folds-nick-hornby-pre_n_315950.html

One of the many aspects about this song that interests me is how the media in the song serve as a modern version of those ancient Greek choruses that warn characters what will be their fates. Famous Briston-Palin-ex-fiancé walks out of his house one morning and is surprised to find “three thousand cameras” pointing at him. The media then explain their presence and say, “Well, you’ve knocked up the VP nominee’s daughter.” And this is when Levi begins his lesson—which begins with a feeble attempt to take control: “So, I tell him, No, you got it wrong, Mister. / Already got a girl and her name’s Bristol. / They all laugh and say, where you been, Sonny. / Your mother-in-law’s a heartbeat from the presidency.”

Right after this verse the music becomes a bit more melancholy as Levi then attempts feeble assertion number two: “I say, Mother-in-law? No. We ain’t getting married. / They say, you will be soon, Boy, she just announced it.” The music at this section is a little quiet, almost elegiac as it’s clear this “Boy” is getting schooled—and fast. Here the media are aware of their power; if something is announced, even if untrue, it can be the truth. And in Levi’s case, his actions are no longer simply his. So, when we come to the chorus with a bleacher foot-stop beat, it sounds assertive, but it’s actually a feeble attempt to take control and sounds like what it is: a teenager telling an adult who he is and the adult shrugging it off, knowing that’s more wishful thinking than reality. I think this is why I don’t find the chorus mocking Levi, but asserting a dream of an independent, can-make-his-own-choices sort of guy: “I’m a fucking redneck, I live to hang out with the boys / Play some hockey, do some fishing, kill some moose. / I like to shoot the shit and do some chillin’, I guess / you fuck with me and I’ll kick your ass.” The last two lines are especially all bluff and bravado, especially considering what comes later: “And when I try to tell them I’m eighteen years old / they say, Levi, it’s too late. You gotta do as you’re told.”

Some New Stuff

Here are links to some new work of mine if you're interested. In Kenyon Review Online, I have an essay/poem in syllabics on collective paranoia. The poem talks about the American tendency toward hyper-fear—and the excessive attempts to counteract any harm be it on a political scale down to a small scale such as knowing exactly what to eat to prevent cancer, exactly how to prune one’s hedges to thwart thieves, etc. And the footnotes almost serve as a paranoid voice commenting on the poem. Also, I have a new poem in Waccamaw that is a short character poem. And fellow poet-pal Stephanie Kartalopoulos has a poem in there, too, that’s a great read. And here’s an interview I conducted with novelist, poet, and memoirist Marge Piercy in Chapter 16. There's also a new interview with Loretta Lynn by Margaret Renkl up there now--and who can pass up hearing from Loretta?

Review of Frederick Seidel’s poems in latest issue of Paris Review

The five poems by Frederick Seidel in the latest issue of Paris Review were a bit of a disappointment. Perhaps I should say that in a punnier, over-the-top rhyming sort of way which would be more like his poems. I’m an admirer of his work in Ooga-Booga, and because of that, I was expecting a lot. The rhymes in the new poems such as “Store Windows” seldom move the poem in a new direction—or—and this is something that Seidel manages to succeed in and I’m not sure why—resist the new direction to the point the line warps into something else entirely, similar to a support bar buckling into odd shapes from too much pressure. For the most part, however, the new poems didn’t present much that was fresh to me. Here are two stanzas from the poem “Store Windows” which is a lyrical meditation on what he humorously calls “citywide narcissism”:

I’m so proud!

It’s so ridiculous I have to laugh.

The technician is very well-endowed.

I’m a collapsible top hat—a chapeau claque—that half

The time struts around at Ascot but can be collapsed flat just like that. Baff!

Till it pops back. Paff! Oh yes,

I find myself superb

When I undress.

A lovely lightbulb is my suburb,

And my flower, and my verb.

Seidel’s unabashed penchant for writing about conspicuous consumption, narcissism, lust, greed, and good-ol’-in-general-nastiness makes him a poet many can, ironically, stand behind. But in this example the rhymes are expected within this narcissistic persona. We go from “proud” to “endowed.” The “laugh” to top “hat” that then collapses “flat.” “Baff” is right. And “paff” is right behind it. Seidel is at his best when his rhymes create what my husband, Adam Prince, describes as a “new sense from the nonsense.” He pointed out this poem, “Mother Nature,” as an example of what Seidel does so well:

Mother Nature went to China,

China the vagina.

Wet dreams conceive there,

Where no one wants a daughter.

The perfect rhyme with “China” and “vagina” highlights that there is not any relationship between these words other than sonically. (Insert any other body part and you can hear how the couplet dies.) Yet, the stanza moves on to the last statement about daughters (the “there/where” rhyme also forcing a syntactical as well as sonic connection), and suddenly one sees a stanza that takes shape, that through force has found some semblance of sense. And it’s surprising. There is little surprise in the five poems that Seidel has now in Paris Review. But I do mean “little” as there is some freshness as one can see with the end to the stanza I quoted earlier: “A lovely lightbulb is my suburb, /And my flower, and my verb.” And my verb? I wasn’t expecting that—and I like it.

Review of One of My Own Poems for a Change

I rarely post any of my own poems on this blog, but I thought I would make an exception because of the poetry class am I teaching right now. They all just turned in poems to workshop for the first time this past week. So, I feel like they should get a sense of what I’m writing, too. The following poem was published about six months ago in Denver Quarterly Review and begins the collection that I am working on titled Spike.

ARGUMENT FOR WONDER

By: Charlotte Pence

The wind bending a thin-trunked

Pine, butterscotch-scented,

Sounds like the opening of a door.

And so, I think of my father,

How through him—

His Oreo-fat,

His hardening cock,

His damp, long-curled lashes

I stutter-stepped into myself.

Why do you say that stuff? my father interrupts as I write.

What do you mean? About your cock?

No. That right there, he says and lifts up his arms, glass of OJ in one hand, Little Debbie oatmeal cream pie in the other, so he stands like a Lady of the Scales statue. Chewing a wad of snack cake.

What are you talking about? What’s in my poems? How I see the world?

All of this, he says and circles his drink in the air like a drunk. This house. Our family. You and me. You think it’s everything. Then he nods toward the window. And what’s out there doesn’t even begin it.

I answer: Yesterday I saw something I’ve never seen before: A canary-yellow web that only one spider in the world can weave. What do you think about that?

He shrugs. That’s yesterday.

I wanted to write a poem that questioned the poet as speaker, specifically a poet in love with poetry. It is quite tempting to write about the world in terms of dewy spider webs, deserted parking lots, and butterscotch-scented trees with the poet looking outward and turning these observations into moments of wisdom, meaning, and/or beauty. While this is very much the lyrical impulse, and something that I revere, the method is too often similar from poet to poet. It feels a bit easy. Sentimental. Manufactured. Too many poems feature a poet in love with the powers of poetry—and the reader’s entrance is limited to sharing that love for the genre rather than the particular poem.

Frankly, a poet is another person, no better, no less than others. And this Romantic sense that we are wiser than other people (Wordsworth said that poets are “possessed” with “more than usual organic sensibility”*) is not only a generalization, but a cherished generalization that deserves some questioning. And that is the role of the father in this poem: the questioner.

So, I begin with a very poet-y quatrain. The poet is reaching out first for natural imagery with the butterscotch pine and wind blowing through the trees as is so often the go-to (which also stems from Wordsworth’s beliefs that: “low and rustic life was generally chosen because in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity”). But then the father interrupts, calling the poet out on her sentimentalisms, and then the poem’s form changes to that of a prose poem. And who wins this argument about the wonders of the natural world, the subjects of poetry? Well, the dad does have the last word. But the poet did write that last word.

*All quotes by William Wordsworth are from the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, the 1800, 1802 version.

Review of “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” by Wilco

I thought I would follow-up my last blog post on songs and the ghost of the sonnet structure that I sometimes hear. The following song by Wilco is not a sonnet, but it’s a song that I could imagine someone calling a sonnet. We have the Shakespearean rhyme scheme of abab, cdcd, efef, and so on (although the song continues on and on with it). And the rhyme scheme is sophisticated using slant rhymes and assonance to downplay the rhyme. Also, many of these lines are iambic pentameter with the substitutions that Wilco uses being standard ones: inversion of the first foot to trochaic, the middle foot also switching to trochaic, and the feminine ending. Still, that first verse employs too many substitutions for me to say that iambic pentameter was the goal. But more than all of that, this song doesn’t move like a sonnet. It lacks the rhetorical structure, change within the speaker, and the lack of exploitation between problem and conclusion. (For more details on that, you can take a look at my last post.) All of this is in no way me implying that this is not a good song. I’m just pointing out how having certain features of a Shakespearean sonnet does not make for a sonnet unless many of them are used.

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

By: Wilco

I am an American aquarium drinker

I assassin down the avenue

I'm hiding out in the big city blinking

What was I thinking when I let go of you?

Let's forget about the tongue-tied lightning

Let's undress just like cross-eyed strangers

This is not a joke, so please stop smiling

What was I thinking when I said it didn't hurt?

I want to glide through those brown eyes dreaming

Take it from the inside, baby hold on tight

You were so right when you said that I've been drinking

What was I thinking when I said good night?

I want to hold you in the Bible-black predawn

You're quite a quiet domino, bury me now

Take off your Band-Aid ‘cause I don't believe in touchdowns

What was I thinking when we said hello?

I'd always thought that if I held you tightly

You'd always love me like you did back then

Then I fell asleep and the city kept blinking

What was I thinking when I let you back in?

I am trying to break your heart

I am trying to break your heart

But still I'd be lying if I said it wasn't easy

I am trying to break your heart

Disposable Dixie-cup drinking

I assassin down the avenue

I'm hiding out in the big city blinking

What was I thinking when I let go of you?

Loves you

I'm the man who loves you

Review of “On the Other Hand” by Randy Travis

I was flipping through a poetry anthology and came upon this definition for a sonnet: “a form every poet will try.” While the definition may not help a beginning poet understand how to write a sonnet, it felt like an inside joke from lexicographer to reader—similar to Samuel Johnson’s hidden gems in A Dictionary of the English Language such as his definition of Monsieur: “a term of reproach for a Frenchman.” What I enjoy about the sonnet being defined as a form every poet will try is how it is correct even while it errs. A sonnet is, of course, a lot more than a form every poet will try—but every poet will try it. And every poet will also tell us how “sonnet” means little song (or little sound), implying some marriage between the two genres.

While sonnet does literally mean “little song,” there is no evidence that the first sonnets were ever accompanied to music. Giacomo da Lentino did adapt the eight-line strambotto, a type of thirteenth-century Sicilian peasant song to provide the sonnet’s base, but otherwise the sonnet represents a shift in poetry away from music. While this break occurred, a few songs I hear on the radio today still have the ghost of the sonnet in them. So, I’ve lately been working on an essay about that. Forgive the un-blog-like length with this post, but I thought it would be interesting to excerpt a part of my essay on songs and sonnets.

Randy Travis’s song “On the Other Hand” reveals how a Shakespearean sonnet form can function within a song. Considering that the rhetorical mode is most critical to the sonnet’s success, I’ll begin analyzing in terms of this feature. The sonnet’s rhetorical mode demands progression of thought and resolution within its three quatrains, turn, and concluding couplet. The first quatrain introduces the issue, the next two quatrains add complications, and the final couplet reaches a hard-fought conclusion. “On the Other Hand” by Randy Travis organizes itself rhetorically the same way a sonnet does.

This song is written in second form (verse, chorus, verse, chorus). In the first verse (composed of four lines), the issue is introduced when the speaker tells a woman who is present that he would like to spend the night with her: “On one hand I count the reasons, I could stay with you / And hold you close to me, all night long.” As this verse ends, the speaker reiterates that he wants to play “lover’s games” and that “there’s no reason why it’s wrong.” But the speaker is married, as revealed in the next four lines which is the chorus: “But on the other hand, is a golden band / To remind me of someone who wouldn’t understand.” Here we have the complication: he is married. We also have a further complication: his wife would not understand nor forgive this act. The second verse, lines nine through twelve, provide more complication as it explains why the speaker would cheat—which is a difficult position to defend and a risky stance for a first-person song. The speaker explains that he has felt dead before this other woman came into his life, and suddenly the adulterer is presented in a more complicated way: “In your arms I feel the passion, I thought had died. / When I looked into your eyes, I found myself” (lines 9-10). Part of the attraction then, and another element to the complication, is that the speaker needs the affair. “I found myself” is not a throw-away line, but a line that emphasizes why this is not simply cheating out of a loss of self-control; this is cheating due to a sense of self-realization. The rhetorical mode of introduction of issue, followed by complication, another contradiction, then resolution is clear. “On the Other Hand” echoes other features of the sonnet as well.

The proportion of argument to conclusion is similar in both Travis’s song and the Shakespearean sonnet. For example, typically twelve out of fourteen lines in a sonnet will lead to the conclusion. In Travis’s song, eleven of the twelve lines debate what to do until the decision is stated in the last line of the chorus. As Paul Fussell wrote in Poetic Meter and Poetic Form, “A poet who understands the sonnet form is the one who has developed an instinct for exploiting the principle of imbalance.” Why this “principle of imbalance” is so important relates to the origin of the sonnet; Giacomo da Lentino shaped the sonnet form to aid in the analysis of personal problems. For a sonnet to present a true conundrum, a number of complications need to be present. Therefore, most of the poem will analyze the problem rather than emphasize the conclusion.

This song also features a turn, which helps one to reach the conclusion. The turn in the sonnet is often considered to be the moment where a shift of thinking, a change in perspective, or a movement toward a new direction occurs. Sometimes the turn is implicit in the white space on the page around line twelve in a sonnet or sometimes it is more explicit. (Granted, the sonnet may feature two turns and the turn does not necessarily have to come between lines twelve and thirteen, but it will come near the end of the sonnet.) To understand how the turn works in the Travis song, we have to first look at the conclusion because the turn often leads to the conclusion. The conclusion to Travis’s song is: “But the reason I must go is on the other hand” (line 8). Here the speaker concludes that he must leave this other woman because of his wedding vows. This conclusion, however, is partly determined by the lines that occur right before it: the turn of the song which is between lines four and five. Line four tells the listener that the speaker sees no reason why the affair is wrong. But the next lines says otherwise: “But on the other hand, there’s a golden band/ to remind of someone who would not understand” (5-6). The speaker knew all along that the affair was wrong, but the turn is that he determines to privilege the spouse’s perspective above his own.

Another distinction between a country song and a Shakespearean sonnet is that country lyricists do not wait until the song’s end to conclude. Often, the conclusion occurs at the end of the chorus. But the song will continue on after that chorus, presenting another complication in a new verse or bridge so that when the listener hears the chorus a second (or third) time, the chorus takes on another layer of development. The placement of the conclusion within the chorus reflects the songwriting tradition, but the added development after the conclusion nods toward the sonnet tradition that insists on continual complications.

Poem by Indonesian Poet Laksmi Pamuntjak

I have now returned from my summer travels and am back to this world of running water, 24-hour electricity—and blogs. Since my husband and I spent six weeks this summer backpacking in Indonesia for our honeymoon, I thought it would be appropriate to open the blog with an Indonesian poet. This idea, however, was not as easy as I thought it would be. Indonesian poetry is relatively new—with many estimates dating it back to the early 1900s. And the poetry for the first few decades was nationalistic. Also, Indonesia is made up of 17,000 different islands—many with their own culture and language. So, there are issues with translation. First one needs to translate a poem into Bahasa Indonesian and then to another language for more world-wide distribution—if more worldwide distribution is wanted. Frankly, I cannot understand most contemporary Indonesian poetry since very few poets are translated and my knowledge of Bahasa Indonesian is quite limited to food and transportation nouns.

The poet I decided to share with you is one who does translate Indonesian poets and who co-founded a bilingual bookstore in Jakarta. I thank her for her efforts.

To My Parents, Who Visited My College Town Twelve Years After I Graduated

By: Laksmi Pamuntjak from her book Ellipsis

So the both of you passed through the

brownstone. Why, it must be something

of a relic now: grimy, petulant, flaccid

around the edges. Did you go to the Bay,

find out whose sitting on my river bench?

But you didn't relate much. Like a French

film, you communicated like you and I

never did: under your breath, in silent

inference, the language of white lies.

The gas station is no more, you wrote.

The Avenue, so grand in your days,

looks like the way to everywhere else.

We tried to look your piano mentor up

but no luck there. The driveway to his

studio no flaxen with rotting lemon trees.

But both of you went to see the dolphins.

You used to laugh when I told you that

I knew them one by one--just like that, from the calm

and the choke of their gazes. You told me they

have not much use of their eyes.

Away, away, away....

I’m taking a six-week honeymoon to backpack around Indonesia, so I won’t be posting any poetry blogs during that time. I will, however, be blogging about the trip at http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Charlotte-Pence/.

Happy Travels to everyone for the summer--and Cheers!

P.S. Photo from the wedding reception/pub crawl.

Review of "Highlights and Interstices" by Jack Gilbert

“A funeral is not death, any more than baptism is birth or marriage union. All three are the clumsy devices, coming now too late, now too early, by which Society would register the quick motions of man.” This quote by EM. Forster from Howard’s End was one that my mind kept returning to as Adam Prince and I planned our wedding these last couple of months. Yes, the wedding was fabulous, but so much occurs in the quiet of our lives that's significant, too.

With all this in mind, we asked my poetry professor (who has known me and my poems for the past twelve years) Arthur Smith to read the poem “Highlights and Interstices” by Jack Gilbert. It reiterates that the beautiful is often “when nothing is happening.”

Highlights and Interstices
By: Jack Gilbert (from The Great Fires)

We think of lifetimes as mostly the exceptional
and sorrows. Marriage we remember as the children,
vacations, and emergencies. The uncommon parts.
But the best is often when nothing is happening.
The way a mother picks up the child almost without
noticing and carries her across Waller Street
while talking with the other women. What if she
could keep all of that? Our lives happen between
the memorable. I have lost two thousand habitual
breakfasts with Michiko*. What I miss most about
her is that commonplace I can no longer remember.

*Michiko Nogami was Jack Gilbert’s late wife.

That image in the middle of the eleven-line poem about “the way” a mother grabs her child’s hand without noticing is critical to this poem. Since the mother keeps talking to her friend, I sense that the mother grabbed the child’s hand without much thought. Some might criticize this action saying we should celebrate everything and not take such a moment for granted. One, that’s not possible. But two, this poem suggests there is a beauty in the overlooked common parts of life. A comfort. A wealth.

I also would like to point out how effective these line breaks are—especially near the poem’s end. As James Longenbach explains in The Art of the Poetic Line, a poet has three choices for how to break a line. A line can be:
Annotated: which means the line cuts against the grammatical moments.
Parsed: which generally follows the normative terms of the syntax.
End-stopped: which means, as it sounds, a period placed at the end.
With Gilbert’s poem, he chooses to annotate in the last four lines which not only gives this poem a feeling like it is falling apart (this is an elegy after all), but also draws the eye to certain words critical to the poem’s content: “between” “habitual” and “remember.” Together, these words sum up the poem: I wish I could remember all the habitual moments, all the moments between the exceptional.

Review of “What Blues?” by Adam O. Davis

As I mentioned in my past blog post, issue three of Grist just came out—and with that issue release, I am saying goodbye to a great three years with the journal. Joshua Robbins will be taking over as editor, and I know that this new journal will continue to flourish under his guidance. To celebrate the new issue, I wanted to highlight one of the poems in it.

What Blues?
By: Adam O. Davis


Horseflies hunt in the hockshop, heel
like hinges and rest like rust when dead.

They sting despite antidote, despite
aspirin, and give themselves so gladly

to every inevitable end. At this hour dust
is called for. Call it quick. The horseflies

have stung their last. In back, the blind
man’s saxophone is a sorry mess of brass

surrounded by a horoscope of household
appliances. Accordions resigned to the conspiracy

of cobwebs. Wedding rings and handguns,
comic books and collectible plates.

Dead horseflies, lucky horseshoes, defanged
hand grenades. How lost are the least of us?

In time, a bottle brings the blizzard. Ask after
an infirmary for the frostbitten. Ask another

three bars of brass, barely played in a place
where every mouth is a purse of smoke.

Someone asks for a kiss. The night
is a cash register that doesn’t know when to quit.


One of the many aspects I love about this poem is the deft use of accentual alliteration. English is an accentually structured language, so poems that make use of this sonic feature call out to us. I know many folks believe that English is “naturally” iambic, but iambic itself is from Latin and based on qualitative measures—which sonically is not a feature of English. This idea of iambic pentameter as being the most natural to English (I often hear the comparison to a heart beat) is a compromise of French syllabics and Old English accentual poetry. Our dear Chaucer is the one who popularized accentual-syllabic poetry.

The following is an excerpt I did with Adam about his work. This question in particular addresses the accentual form of this poem. You can find the full interview of Grist's Web site:

Charlotte Pence: One element to your work that caught my attention was the rhythm. Your poems use strong, stressed beats that add momentum to the poem. And the lines aren’t simply rhythmic but coupled with vivid images. “What Blues?” is a great example of this. The opening lines are: “Horseflies hunt in the hockshop, heel / like hinges and rest like rust when dead.” As I reread the poem, I realized it was in accentual alliterative form, which made me wonder; how often do you use received form? What is your poetry’s relationship with received form and open form?

Adam Davis: I’d say it’s a mixture of both. There are a series of separate narratives running through my manuscript belonging to several different characters, but one thing they share is an adherence to sound. I love the heightened musicality that poetry can offer, particularly when it’s unexpected. Most, if not all, of my work is in free verse, but there are moments of unexpected rhyme and a predominantly musical drive to the poems. I know the lines are working when I can recall them as soon as they’ve been written.

Review of “Helen of Troy” by Charlotte Pence

Each year our graduate department gives awards for fiction and poetry, and this year I placed first in poetry for this poem “Helen of Troy.” All the award winners are reading this Monday night at 7:00 in the University of Tennessee auditorium. These readings are always stellar, and this year should be no different judging from my compatriots who will also be reading. The reading includes: Josh Robbins (second place--poetry), Darren Jackson (third place--poetry), and in fiction we have my fiancé Adam Prince placing first, with Turning Bowling (second place) and Matthew Duffus (third place).

This is an older poem of mine that serves as the sphragis to my chapbook Last Night. Sphragis is from ancient Greek and literally means a seal placed on books. I view the contemporary sphragis as that opening poem that conveys the book’s subject and tone; the poem is also placed before the sections such as with “Temper” from Beth Bachmann’s book Temper.

This poem is one that I wrote, published, “finished,” and then two years later as I was driving a new ending came to me. Subsequently, the new ending required a whole new re-working of the poem such as changing the point of view. (I first wrote it from the point of view of Helen.) I was not working on any conscious level on this poem, but a part of me knew it was not right. Now, let me be clear. I don’t believe in easy poofs to write a poem, but for this one in particular it was an odd mix of editing, editing, editing—and letting go.

Also, the reading on Monday night will be the release of issue three of Grist (the journal I edit). We’ll have copies on sale and unveil the new look of the journal. And the writers in this issue are excellent—more on all of this in the next blog. For now, here is my poem.

HELEN OF TROY

By Charlotte Pence (Published in New Millennium Writings)

The Trojans kept Helen for twelve years,

winning at least a little while.

So often we focus on the loss

rather than the years of attainment.

But any love that matters will one day

be taken for granted. Last night,

lying down to sleep next to you

on wrinkled sheets, warm where

the dog curled, cold by our feet,

I realized as your hand grazed my thigh

you hadn’t touched me all day.

Each morning when I wake I understand

you’re like an eagle scanning the next ridge.

The bed heaves as you rise first,

your steps hard, stiff, while the erupting

sky behind you eases from gravel gray

to blue. You don’t glance back

at the soft curve of my body,

not yet rigid with the day’s to-dos.

What you do is place cereal and fruit

in a bowl, then call my name.

The milk cold. The peach sliced.

Without motive or need

we sleep, eat, read, breathe together,

you running a hand under my shirt

whenever you want. But I was talking

about Helen, about how she loved

as she wished at least once, willing

to witness the loss of a world for it.