Painted Bride Quarterly’s Slush Pile

For this episode, we look at three poems by Laura Sobbott Ross. She’s taught English to students from dozens of countries, and has two poetry chapbooks: A Tiny Hunger (YellowJacket Press) and My Mississippi (Anchor & Plume Press.)

For this episode, we look at three poems by Laura Sobbott Ross.

Laura Sobbott Ross lives in a rural, hilly part of inland Florida where horses and hothouses of orchids abound. She loves to take pictures on long drives through the open land, and to sing to the radio with the windows wide, which conjures threats from her teenagers, but her dogs don’t seem to mind. You will find paint on her clothes at any given time. She’s taught English to students from dozens of countries, and has two poetry chapbooks: A Tiny Hunger (YellowJacket Press) and My Mississippi (Anchor & Plume Press.)

First, we’re transported to the sunny beaches of “Bora Bora,” where we find ourselves with some trouble in paradise. We follow that off trying to decipher “The Walrus in the Tea Leaves,” where we’re left with more questions than answers. And finally, we throwback to The Eagles’ “Hotel California” with “Déjà Vu.” Even though we do check in, we’re not so sure if we ever want to leave!

Let us know what you think of these poems on Facebook and Twitter with #squeegeeboy!

Don’t forget to read on!

Present at the Editorial Table:

Kathleen Volk Miller

Marion Wrenn

Tim Fitts

Sara Aykit

Production Engineer:

Joe Zang

PBQ Box Score: 3=0

-------------------------

Bora Bora

1996

A shaft of blue splintered into a thousand

nuances, shed them into the sea beneath our tiki hut—

wedged on stilts into hunger clouds of shimmery fish,

oysters lipping black pearls. We married there,

on the shore between the neon chakra of sky & water,

a handful of drowsy natives shaking New Year’s Eve from

the folds of their pareos. Dancing, a tide etched in sand.

Later, petal-strung in whites already sighing into sepia,

from our balcony we sought those old stars from home.

Palm trees swaying festively in dark silhouette across

the unadorned horizon of the Pacific. Love, a sugared rim

we shared in sips, cowry shells strung and whispering

at our throats, every edge garnished in hibiscus, sunburn,

pineapple. In the shallows, the moray eel we’d spotted earlier—

prehistoric face bobbling from his pulpit of stone. Before

the ceremony, we’d tossed in our pockets of foreign coins—

wishes aimed at his blind scowl. Later, moonlight uprooted

the slippery ribbon of his tail, while the current floated him,

floorboard by floorboard, across you & me; a benediction

in a sleeve of sea water, the round polyp mouths of the reef

opening in the dark like a choir.

The Walrus in the Tea Leaves

For Doug

Darling, it wasn’t the news you’d expected.

And when you told me about it, I’d giggled,

conjured images of broken symmetries—

kaleidoscope and compass, magnetic poles

and mirrors gone random. I knew what

you were hoping for, how you’d tilted your

throat back and swallowed down the void.

The psychic parsing through the wrack line

for messages left in seaweedy clots of Chamomile

or Earl Gray. Speckle and flack— dark nebula

splat against a bone-colored sky. You said

she’d seemed baffled by the walrus—

awkward animal, all teeth and tail. You

told me he’d risen twice from the wet ashes

that morning, buoyant and robust in his

island cup, nosing through the diorama of dregs

like a seafloor of mollusk shells pursed shut;

his mouth, an insistent imprint on the rim.

Déjà Vu

—1979

There has to be darkness and a highway.

Beyond the shoulders of the road,

a topography, splayed and lit in street lamps.

You’re seventeen, and Hotel California

is playing on the radio. If you look close

enough, you can see the silhouette of

mountains beyond your own reflection

in the car window. To the right, an anchor

store in a strip mall. To the left,

the gas station where high school boys work—

the good looking ones who sweep the silk

of their long bangs from their eyes

with puppy-soft hands, and ask if you want

re...

Let’s start by celebrating our democratic editorial policy by seeing which of the many titles we came up we should use! “Bag O’Wigs,” “Just the Tip,” or “I Find it Aching (Oh, Yeah)?

This week’s podcast consisted of three of our “well-hydrated” original members, the OGs, Kathleen, Marion and Jason, along with the co-op, Britt. At the center of our table were poems by Sarah Browning, who allowed us to dissect her poems like a turkey (see below) on Thanksgiving.

The first poem up for discussion was “For the turkey buzzards,” which Marion described as “ghasty but beautiful” (both the buzzards themselves and the images in the poem). We’ve provided you with an image so will understand why Britt would never want to be reincarnated into one. This poem possessed metaphors that had our crew members meeting at a crossroads. Be sure to listen in to find out our destination (aha-see what I did there?).

We skipped the main course and jumped right to desert as we discussed the poem “Desire.” Let’s just say Kathleen was a little too excited to volunteer to read this one! This brought back childhood memories for Britt, as it reminded her of evocative songs like Candy Shop by 50 Cent and Ego by Beyoncé. It even had us playing the roles of relationship counselors as we tried to get into the head of the woman going through such terrible heartbreak.

Lastly, we deliberated “After I Knew,” a soap-opera-like piece that will certainly get you in the feels, if you were not in it already.

Just when we thought things could not get anymore steamier, Kathleen brought up a dream by Bryan Dickey’s (a family friend of PBQ) partner, but that is one you must listen in to learn more about. We are so excited for you guys to tell us your interpretations of this scandalous dream. Furthermore, should this dream be turned into a poem or has enough been said?

Is purse slang for the vagine? Could Marion’s cat sitter be no ordinary cat sitter, but...a spy?

Okay, okay! You have read enough here; go listen.

We are SO SAD we have bruises from beating our breasts, but “Desire” was snapped up by Gargoyle before we got to Sarah!!! We’ll put the hyperlink here when it goes up, but until then, check Gargolye out anyway.

We are SO HAPPY that Sarah agreed to our edit of “Turkey Buzzards” that the neighbors complained about our dancing (to “Candy Shop” and “Ego,” of course.

Until next time, Slushies!

Sarah Browning stepped down as Executive Director of Split This Rock in January 2019, after co-founding and running the poetry and social justice organization for 11 years. She misses the community but not the grant reports... Since then she’s been vagabonding about the country, drinking IPAs in Oregon, sparkling white wine in California, and bourbon in Georgia. She’s also been privileged to write at three residencies, Mesa Refuge, the Lillian E. Smith Center (where she won the Writer-in-Service Award), and Yaddo. She is the author of Killing Summer (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017) and Whiskey in the Garden of Eden (The Word Works, 2007) and has been guest editor or co-editor of Beltway Poetry Quarterly, The Delaware Poetry Review, and three issues of POETRY. This fall she begins the MFA program in poetry and creative non-fiction at Rutgers Camden.

For the turkey buzzards

who rise ungainly from the fields,

red heads almost unbearable

to regard, crooked and gelatinous,

how they circle their obsession

on the scent of the winds, always

circling back, returning to settle

on that one dead thing that satisfies,

the past to be pecked and pondered –

forsaken fare for others, but for

the scavenger the favored meal –

like us, the poets, who eat at the table

of forgetfulness, ask the dead

to nourish us, beg forgiveness

as we circle and swoop, descend,

fold our wings, bend to the maggoty flesh,

gorge on the spoiled, glistening feast

Desire

I took your large hand and raised it.

Just this, I said, the tip of a finger or two –

just to the nail or so – into my mouth, which

had dreamed of just that. You made a sound

I hoped was a gasp and I wanted – as I

had for 30 years – to do it: open my

mouth and take your two large fingers all

the way inside my throat, the size of them

filling me. But I stopped, in shame and desire –

I blush writing – because you said we would

say goodbye inside my rental car outside

your hotel: Even now, days later, miles apart,

I am hungry for such thick and full.

After I Knew

I drove alone through the farmland

of central New York – the open vistas

and steep drops – towns with names

like Lyle unexplored, their secrets hoarded,

as I wa...

What were you wearing in the ‘90s, Slushies? Sleeveless flannel and crochet? Paco Rabanne? We’re beguiled by Emily Pulfer-Terino’s poems on this episode as we discuss how she slides us back to the ‘90s. She has us sniffing magazine perfume inserts and marveling at the properly cranky voice she invokes for an epigraph, borrowed from Vogue’s letters to the editor. What were we thinking wearing all those shreds? Only the girls on those glossy pages know for sure. For more context, check out Karina Longworth’s excellent podcast, You Must Remember This, and her recent deep dive into the bonkers eroticism of the 1990s. Plus, Sentimental Garbage’s episode on Dirty Dancing featuring Curtis Sittenfeld.

For a great collection of poems that draws its title from grunge-era jargon (kinda, sorta, wink, wink), we recommend a book we love by our pal Daniel Nester: Harsh Realm: My 1990s.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.

At the table: Jason Schneiderman, Marion Wrenn, Kathleen Volk Miller, Samantha Neugebauer, and Dagne Forrest

Emily Pulfer-Terino is a poet and writer whose work has appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Hunger Mountain, The Collagist, The Southeast Review, Poetry Northwest, Stone Canoe, The Louisville Review, Juked, and other journals and anthologies. Her poetry chapbook, Stays the Heart, is published by Finishing Line Press. She has been a Tennessee Williams Poetry Scholar at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and has been granted a fellowship for creative nonfiction at the Vermont Studio Center. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Syracuse University, and she lives in Western Massachusetts.

Author website: http://emilypulferterino.com/

Instagram: @epulferterino

Grunge & Glory

“You’re kidding. Tell me you’re kidding. At least I’ll know where to find my new wardrobe this year...in the nearest dumpster...talk about the Emperor’s New Clothes. Tsk, tsk.”—(Letter to the Editor)[1]

What’s more glorious than a girl in a field,

curled in the whorl of a deer bed, alfalfa

haloing her dreams of fashion magazines

while she plies matted hay, untatting her world?

Bales score the landscape, parceling

endlessness, parsing this solo tableau,

while her heroes wrench their music

into being in Seattle, gray, time zones away.

What’s grunge if not her dense crochet

of castoff couture curated from dumpsters

and worn with a frisson of pride and shame:

flowering nightgown, old ski boots, sweater

turned lace in places by moths and age?

And this field like where models pose

in Vogue, each page itself a piece of land

and an ethos framed inside a storyboard.

Scala Naturae

Like prying pods of milkweed

so those astral seeds effuse—

unseaming magazine ads for perfume.

Anointing my wrists with scented glue,

running each over the edge of a page,

testing scents I aspired to buy

and classifying my olfactory taxonomy.

Grass evoked the world I’d known

with hints of rain and magnolia

slight as fog above an unmown field.

DNA’s rosemary, oakmoss, and mint,

ancient and clear as purpose; glass

spiraled bottle signifying sentience

and enduring iteration. Both

ethereal and hyperreal, Destiny

offered apricots, orchids, and roses--

bottle opaque as an eyelid,

veil of petals sheer as promise.

Samsara was amber, sandalwood,

ylang ylang, pe...

In reaction to the events of November 8, this week’s episode begins with local Philly poet Cynthia Dewi Oka reading “Post-Election Song of Myself.” We first heard it at our Reading at the Black Sheep Pub on Monday, November 12, and we were so moved we had to ask her to share it with you.

In reaction to the events of November 8, this week’s episode begins with local Philly poet Cynthia Dewi Oka reading “Post-Election Song of Myself.” We first heard it at our Reading at the Black Sheep Pub on Monday, November 12, and we were so moved we had to ask her to share it with you.

In Episode 21 of Slush Pile, we discuss two poems by Harold Whit Williams.

Harold Whit Williams goes by the name Whit to family, friends, and acquaintances, but thinks that using his full name for poetry gives him that much-needed literary gravitas to get his “little scribblings” published. He catalogs maps, atlases, and journals for UT Austin Libraries. His guitar heroics have been much lauded around the world. He and his wife enjoy birdwatching, wine tastings, modern art exhibits, monster truck rallies (mostly for the cuisine), and trying to find a place to park. Once he dreamt a poem in its entirety, then awakened and wrote it down verbatim. That poem, "The Best of Intentions," was published in The Great American Wise Ass Poetry Anthology 2016. The poem is not very good, but it is most definitely wise-ass.

Our small group of three begin the episode with “Hawk Pride Mountain Nocturne,” a piece that Marion feels, “breaks [her] heart from line one.” With an incantatory and rhythmic tone, we are swept back in time to a liminal spot of dreams and melodrama. Our vote was unanimous, but we are requesting a few “gentle” edits.

We were not as quick to love the next poem, “Alabama Field Holler.” However, after discussing the historical significance of the field holler and the musicality of phrases, we started to change our minds...

Of course, let us know what you think about these poems, and Cotton Mather’s “Lily Dreams On” with the hashtag #lampshadesofdesire!

Follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and, most importantly, read on!

Present at the Editorial Table:

Kathleen Volk Miller

Sara Aykit

Marion Wrenn

Production Engineer:

Joe Zang

PBQ Box Score: 2=0

-------------------------

Hawk Pride Mountain Nocturne

The deceased leave behind their voices.

Some in shoeboxes

Stacked in the back closet of the mind,

Others under creaking steps,

In leafwhisper, water murmur, highway hum.

Most, middle of the night, seek us out

With their quick-and-dead singsong.

Disembodied, tremulous,

Gusting down

Off the pine-sided hill.

An uncle's high tenor; an aunt's thick alto.

A whole ragtag church choir from beyond the beyond.

Voices pure as light, Light as breath.

We breathe in these voices In our sleep,

Taste these voices in the bittersweet

Draught of dreams. Voices

In the shapes of clouds, voices raining

Down the old mudtrodden hymns. Horse-and-buggy us

Back to that little white church In the woods.

Lay roses on those headstones carved with our names.

Sing out, brethren, in voices

Long-silenced, but still heard, harried

By a north wind from the past.

Let your praises pillow our slumber

And greet us like morning mist.

Hearken us back from our dreams, brethren,

And forward into the light.

Alabama Field Holler

I have decided to blame no one for my life.

– Robert Bly

Winter morning all hollowed-out,

Whistling its one-note ballad.

Morning bark-stripped, sanded-down,

Held over a flame. A woodsmoke

Morning piping clear across

back pastures of my childhood.

Let me wake early to cop the riffs

Of this bygone morning song.

Let me stomp out with snare drum

Past granddaddy's electric fence.

I'll get in tune with morning, root

Myself down into the hard red clay.

I'll call a blues to myself in 4/4 time,

Stand back and await the response.

Although we had a small group for this week’s podcast, we sure had some big discussions.

First and foremost, we are sad that Jason has repurposed his yellow parson’s table. We always loved picturing him there when he did episodes from home, but—we finally got a photo! Now back to business! (For now...)

This was our second go at discussing these three poems written by Gwendolyn Ann Hill. The first time around, everyone had attempted to chime in from remote locations: hotel rooms, the back of cars, Abu Dhabi. So, it was no surprise that after great effort, it all went up in flames. However, here we are again to give it another shot! *fingers crossed*

The first poem up was “Unplanting a Seed,” which was an interconnectedness of tragic events, rewound. It’s ambiguity and ambivalence had the crew awe-struck, and remembering the film Adaptation, “Reverse Suicide” by Matt Rasmussen, and “Drafting a Reparations Agreement” by Dan Pagis.

Of course, somehow our conversation on this extraordinary poem somehow turned into a discussion on anatomy. For those out there who did not know (hopefully, only a few of you) we have 2 ovaries. Kidneys are not the size kidney beans. And most times, identical twins share a placenta.

Moving on! According to Jason, the second poem “This Wood is a True Ebony, But it Needs a Century to Grow,” had a certain “luminescence" to it. He compared it to “This Tree Will Be Here For A Thousand Years” by Robert Bly...even though he’s never read it. Guess we’ll just have to have faith in his intuition!

Pause: Are freckled bananas like old ladies? Do persimmons taste like deodorant (Well, even if they didn’t, I bet they will from now on. You can’t untaste that.)

The final poem “We As Seeds” brought us a winter experience in the middle of summer. On the contrary, it’s mysterious symbolism or possibly, literal meaning, had us pleasingly stumped, because we made that a “thing.”

If you were a fan of these poems, Marion recommends that you read Teresa Leo’s book of poems, “Bloom in Reverse."

Well, that’s it for now Slushies. But listen in to see how #flippin’thumbs went! (And help us make #flippin’thumbs a thing, too!)

Gwendolyn Ann Hill is a native of Iowa City, IA, earned her BA at Oregon State University in Corvallis, OR, and is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, AR. In her spare time you will find her either in her garden or hiking in the forest, because she feels more comfortable around plants than she does around most people.

Unplanting a Seed

In a phone conversation with my mother

we say good-bye first, and finally,

after hours, hello.

A ripe Brandywine turns

from burnt umber, to pink, to green.

Flesh hardens. Juices dry up.

As the fruit lightens,

stems lift their droop.

My cousins and I collect

my grandfather’s ashes

from his fields, gathering them in fistfuls

we place tenderly into an urn.

Petals fly from the ground.

Pollen migrates upward

from deep reproductive recesses,

attaching to a bee’s leg.

The bee flies backward

to a tomato plant in the neighbor’s yard.

Bee populations are on the rise.

A surgeon places the ovary

gently into my body, twists

my fallopian tube into a tangle,

watches it turn black and blue.

My grandma gets all her memories back

for one fleeting second,

then forgets them one by one

as wrinkles dissolve slowly from her face.

Whorls close into diminishing buds.

Rain floats skyward;

gathering, in droplets, to the clouds.

The Brandywine plant contracts

its leaves, one by one,

meristem lowering into the soil.

My grandfather collects pesticides

into nozzles. His plows reverse

the soil back into place. He tucks weeds

...