Episode 72: Just the Tip

07/31/19 • 44 min

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...

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)?

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.

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 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!

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...

Previous Episode

Episode 71: The Lost Episode (with bonus Anatomy Lessons!)

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

...

Next Episode

Episode 73: Hornery Is as Hornery Does

Well Slushies, it’s summer, which means warm days and summer vacations for the crew, comprised of mostly professors and students. This time around Marion joined us in our homebase of Philly, and Samantha joined us from Portland, where she’s attending Tin House’s Summer Workshop.

In this week’s podcast, we discussed poems by Micheline Maylor. The first of her poems up for dissection was “Your Motto.” This piece made us think about the difference between caring and possessiveness in a romantic relationship. HOWEVER, before we could finish our conversation, we had a little surprise: a fire alarm went off a quarter of the way through our podcast!

Once the crew (all and well) were able to reconvene, Jason had had a haircut and Marion was in North Carolina, as it was 2 weeks later. However, we tried our best to continue right where we left off. It seemed the break inbetween veered the discussion, as our editors had some time to figure out some things that had tripped them up in our first conversation. (Is it just a coincidence that Mercury just happened to be in retrograde this time around?) (And who knew nice people like us could have such passionate feelings about teddy bears?)

“Your motto” reaffirmed for us that perception is everything, as many different viewpoints were concluded from the same event depicted in the poem. For example, Jason was the only one reminded of the film, “The Daytrippers”, which he highly recommends. Britt described the poem as having “warm anger,” which became our favorite phrase of the day.

Next up was “(N)Ever Thought.” The most important question that presented itself from this poem was whether or not anyone used the word ornery anymore? If you don’t use “ornery,” would you consider using “hornery?” (Listen to the episode and make “hornery” part of your lexicon!)

“(N)Ever Thought” was a reflection of “Your Motto,” as it showed us a another version of the same event. Kathleen HATES comparing two poems to one another as much as Tim loves to do so, but this time, we all had to agree that it must be done. Spoiler alert: we agreed on A LOT today!

The last piece, “She tells me,” was one that had our heads spinning. It caused as much disorientation in our crew as that fire alarm...but in a good, poetic way. We never get bored of creating metaphors about how we enjoy poetry, how we measure our own responses. Kathleen loves the metaphorical stomach punch, but Marion came up with a much more elegant one: a poem should feel like a great wine and leave you with a satisfying taste in your mouth (or something like that). We do recommend that you do NOT try drinking wine and getting punched in the stomach simultaneously! But, tune in to join the head-spinnin’ and thumb flippin’!

Now, it’s time for the final recommendations: Sam and Kathleen urge you to watch “Book Smart,” a relatable, coming-of-age drama that had them wanting to watch it again half way through. Kathleen called it a “female-centric” movie reminiscent of Super Bad, but much better, and Sam said it was the first teen movie that did NOT make her feel bad about herself!

Until next time Slushies, read (or watch) on!

Micheline Maylor’s was Calgary’s Poet Laureate 2016-18. Her latest poetry collection Little Wildheart (U of Alberta Press) was long listed for both the Pat Lowther and Raymond Souster awards. She teaches creative writing at Mount Royal University and the University of Calgary.

Your motto

I told you once I love you, if anything changes, I’ll let you know.

- John Wayne

I couldn’t stay faithful after New Year’s eve,

all those aggressive philosophy majors and tequila’s shot.

You and me like the stuffed bears in our son’s room,

propped up in corners, staring, neglected, a bit dusty.

What was to be done after that party? All my switches

flipped, a fuse box shutting down. Click by click.

Time to wrap it up, kids. Last call. Last song.

And I’m sitting here in my corner now, hearing you say,

“What’d you want me to do, punch the guy?”