Weekly Prompt: Ordering, Reordering, Reversing.

Ordered Stones
Sea Stones: Ordered, Reordered, Reversed

As I’ve been working on coding, laying out, and putting together Issue 3 (which in many ways has proven to be a much more technically challenging endeavor than our previous two issues), the question of order/ordering has continually been at the forefront of my mind. How important decisions about order are when presenting a group of poems, or images! Juxtaposition means everything: placing even one small poem strategically can entirely change and elevate the overall energy of an issue, an anthology, a collection. And (to apply this thought to the level of craft) how much more so with regards to the arrangement of lines, images, stanzas, within each poem itself! At this year’s Kundiman retreat, Oliver de la Paz showed me how the placement of a single poem within a manuscript would affect the impact with which certain images in it would be perceived by a reader—and that revising with attention to order, both on a inter-poem and intra-poem level, was therefore very necessary. And during workshop, Kimiko Hahn suggested that one of the Fellows try reversing the order of the lines in her poem, a simple change that which—when applied, completely reshaped its arc, and brought the whole piece alive in a new and fascinating way.

Of course, reversing the order of a poem’s lines does not work the same magic in every case—it worked on the poem that we were discussing because it allowed the strange linguistic impulses of the final lines to speak better and thus made the arc of the new version much less tidy and more texturally interesting. But the results of this simple revision exercise got me thinking about how to apply it to my own writing. How many times have I shuffled and reordered stanzas in a poem that feels stuck, only to find that the arc of the poem was still either falling flat? Oftentimes, my last thoughts as I draft a poem may be some of the most complex, the most evocative, and so reversing a poem, image by image, or even line by line, could be a very useful way to at least read the images in the draft from a different angle, and thus to reenter the revision process on a fresh foot.

Today’s prompt is an example of more shameless, deliberate “stealing” from the advice of teachers whom I admire.

Prompt: Take a poem whose arc or movement feels “stuck” and reverse the order of the images or lines as way to re-envision the “map” of the poem.  Alternately, if you are working on a manuscript, try reversing or changing the order of poems, or experimenting with reversing lines within the opening and closing poems to see whether the impact of this reordering reveals anything new and luminous.

Review: Tamiko Beyer’s BOUGH BREAKS

bough breaks

The title of Tamiko Beyer’s first chapbook, bough breaks, evokes not just the creepy nursery rhyme, but also plant metaphors and motifs running through the poem-sequence. On the very first page there is “deep moss,” “bloomer,” and the “instinct” that “rises / late” from “whatever field”: whatever it is, this field has conceptual dimensions as well as spatiality. Shortly thereafter, the narrator tells us, “I construct syllabic fields,” suggesting with the simple present tense a habit, a pattern, perhaps something involuntary—and in this field, language itself, like foliage, must be attended to “like watering.”

These language-pastures seem to have once in the past(oral) contained the narrator until this instinct, to be a mother, escapes—pretty much like a protuberance—and causes a being-body to leak through. Queer desire is already a transgression, “chaotic.” By challenging the narrative that queer sexualities are non-reproductive, the maternal instinct turns the queer body excessive over and above its already-excess.

bough breaks seeks to interrogate this protuberance, this leaking, and its limits. It is fuelled by yearning: “will there be / between us a darling?” Yearning pushes through the body of the poem in the form of white space. Forms are invented to strike off authorized definitions of conception (biological as well as artistic), to prefigure the politics of a queer couple raising a child so as to question gender (“we would ….  open mother to repetitions”), to consider how options for child-getting are often embedded in contexts of violence and capitalistic greed (and is there really a choice), to destabilize both the “natural” and the “not natural” in “queer” and “motherhood” (and sneaky iterations of everything in between), to circulate even more questions around adoption and embryo adoption (check out that play with “play” and “pay” on page 24!).

Continue reading “Review: Tamiko Beyer’s BOUGH BREAKS” →

Summer Reads: Issue 2 Contributors W. Todd Kaneko and JoAnn Balingit

Welcome to our Summer Reads 2011 blog series!  Throughout the months of July and August, we will be featuring recommended reading lists submitted by Lantern Review contributors who want to share books they plan to read this summer and titles they want to suggest to the wider LR community.  This week features a two sets of reads from LR Issue 2 contributors W. Todd Kaneko and JoAnn Balingit.

From Todd:

This is the first summer in a while that I will not be attempting to finish Infinite Jest. I always try but then give up (at about page 200) when the huge time commitment gets in the way of my work. So instead, I just finished How They Were Found by Matt Bell and have started Once the Shore by Paul Yoon. On deck after that are Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, Queen of the Ring by Jeff Leen, and Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls by Alissa Nutting. Also, my partner Caitlin Horrocks has a brand new book out, This is Is Not Your City—I’ve read the stories, but it’s exciting to re-experience them in the book.

My poetry reading list is too long and cluttered to convey in full, but I recently read and was transfixed by Ignatz by Monica Youn and If Birds Gather Your Hair for Nesting by Anna Journey. At the moment, I’m kind of mesmerized with Ardor by Karen An-hwei Lee. Up next are What the Right Hand Knows by Tom Healy, A Wreath of Down and Drops of Blood by Allen Braden, Archicembalo by G.C. Waldrep, The Haunted House by Marisa Crawford, Delivered by Sarah Gambito, Spit by Esther Lee, and Before I Came Home Naked by Christina Olson.

I am also planning to play Fallout: New Vegas wherever I can fit it in.

Continue reading “Summer Reads: Issue 2 Contributors W. Todd Kaneko and JoAnn Balingit” →

Summer Reads: Michelle Peñaloza, Kenji C. Liu and Gowri Koneswaran

Welcome to our Summer Reads 2011 blog series!  Throughout the months of July and August, we will be featuring recommended reading lists submitted by Lantern Review contributors who want to share books they plan to read this summer and titles they want to suggest to the wider LR community.  This post is a triple feature and includes reads from Issue 2 contributors Michelle Peñaloza, Kenji C. Liu and Gowri Koneswaran.

Michelle writes:

Here’s what I’m hoping to get to this summer:

Atlantis by Mark Doty
The Surrendered by Chang-Rae Lee
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
Natural History: A Selection by Pliny the Elder
Just Kids by Patti Smith
Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

Continue reading “Summer Reads: Michelle Peñaloza, Kenji C. Liu and Gowri Koneswaran” →

Summer Reads: Issue 2 Contributor Kimberly Alidio

Welcome to our Summer Reads 2011 blog series!  Throughout the months of July and August, we will be featuring recommended reading lists submitted by Lantern Review contributors who want to share either books they plan to read themselves this summer, or titles they want to suggest to the wider LR community.  This week features a set of reads from Issue 2 contributor Kimberly Alidio.

She writes:

I’m halfway through the Naropa Summer Writing Program — hello from Boulder to the Lantern Review family!  My reading list relates to the conversations of the past two weeks.  As I was compiling this, I was often tempted to add the line: “and, eventually, all her other books.”

Anselm Berrigan, Notes from Irrelevance (Wave, 2011)

Tisa Bryant, [the curator] (Belladonna, 2009)

kari edwards, iduna (O Books, 2003)

Marcella Durand, Traffic & Weather (Futurepoem, 2008)

Renee Gladman, To After That (Toaf) (Atelos, 2008)

Christine Hume, Alaskaphrenia (New Issues, 2004)

Brenda Iijima, ed., )((eco(lang)(uage (reader)) (Nightboat, 2010)

Myung Mi Kim, Penury (Omnidawn, 2009)

Continue reading “Summer Reads: Issue 2 Contributor Kimberly Alidio” →

Weekly Prompt: Borrowed Signs

Drinking the Sky, Liquid Vision, and See - bits of signs from the Tech Museum
Bits of signs from the Tech Museum in San Jose

Here’s a found poem exercise that’s inspired by a trip that my boyfriend and I took to the Tech Museum in San Jose, CA while on vacation a couple of weeks ago.  As we made our way through the joyously kinetic (and occasionally frenetic) space of the museum’s galleries, I found myself intrigued by the surprisingly figurative language used on the signs in one of the exhibits: by the way in which it resisted the impulse to inform on a strictly literal level and instead chose to render the vision behind the very practical inventions that were being described in expansive and imagistically evocative ways.  “Drinking the Sky,” for example, was the title of a station about fog nets—fine mesh screens which trap moisture from morning fog to make clean drinking water.  What a lovely idea, I mused, thinking not just of the fog nets themselves (which are indeed a marvelously ingenious invention), but also of the image of harvesting the sky, of gathering its fabric to one’s mouth to drink.  Then there was “Liquid Vision,” which was the title of a display about soft, water-filled glasses lenses whose strength could be adjusted by reducing or increasing the amount of liquid inside.  I admired the invention itself, but enjoyed the synaesthetic nature of the title even more: I imagined vision that was truly liquid—as light so often seems to be—revealing the world to us fluidly, wetly, clearly, in currents and waves.  If such a thing were our everyday experience, we’d be literally washed in sight; one might come away to sleep dripping with colors and shadows and shapes.  Or indeed, perhaps that vision that could be liquidized or distilled–bottled, sold, distributed from place to place in a canister . . . like a film, but for oral consumption.  Potion-like.  Shimmery. Strange. At any rate, something that one could wrap a poem around.

Prompt: Write a poem whose central image is inspired by language “borrowed” from a sign, billboard, or poster.

LR News: Apply to Blog for Us! (2011-2012 Staff Search)

Apply to blog for us!

It’s that time of year again: we are once more looking for a handful of talented bloggers to add to our staff for next year.  Interested in writing for us?  Apply by August 5th at 11:59 EST. Please see our opportunities page for full details and application instructions.

Positions Available

Book Reviewers: write short reviews of recent poetry collections and anthologies (lists of books are generally pre-specified, but reviewers also have flexibility to choose their own).

Literary Magazine Reviewers: review poetry from recent issues of literary journals such as The Asian American Literary Review, Kartika Review, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, and Doveglion Press.

Interviewers: conduct interviews with poets, artists, and editors; may also be asked to help coordinate guest post series (e.g. our May “Process Profiles” series).

Columnists: We are interested in applications for columnists on a more limited basis (filling Reviewer and Interviewer positions is of a higher priority for us at the moment). Columnists choose a specialized topic to blog about on a monthly basis (e.g. performance poetry, profiles of digital and multimedia poets/their work, small press publishing, poetry in the classroom, etc.). We’re open to many ideas for columns (the more focused the better). If you are interested in a columnist position, please take a look at past successful columns (including Kelsay Myers’ “Becoming Realer” column and Simone Jacobson’s “Sulu Spotlight” column) and include a pitch in your cover letter that summarizes your idea for a column, proposes a title, and suggests one or two sample post topics.

* * *

Bloggers commit to writing one post per month during our academic year term (Sept through June, not including blog hiatuses). More details and application instructions are available on our opportunities page.

We’re also still looking for an intern—so if think that you or someone you know would make a good candidate, please refer to that listing on opportunities page, as well!

Summer Reads: Issue 1 Contributor Henry W. Leung

Welcome to our Summer Reads 2011 blog series!  Throughout the months of July and August, we will be featuring recommended reading lists submitted by Lantern Review contributors who want to share either books they plan to read themselves this summer, or titles they want to suggest to the wider LR community.  This week features a set of reads from Issue 1 contributor and 2010-2011 staff writer Henry W. Leung.

He writes:

Criticism:
Foreign Accents by Steven G. Yao. This just came out and was a helpful if limited summation of the three broad phases of Chinese American verse (racial protest, lyric testimony, & ethnic abstraction).

Chinese Writers on Writing edited by Arthur Sze. Also just came out. All translated from Chinese, some for the first time. I recommend the whole series: it’s a hugely important intro to current international writers–on their own terms.

After Confession edited by Kate Sontag & David Graham. Ten years old but a grand discovery for me. American poets on where the “I” belongs in poems today.

Poetry:
The History of Anonymity by Jennifer Chang, my patron poet from Kundiman!

Graphic:
Duncan the Wonder Dog by Adam Hines. I’ve just started this and it’s gorgeous, multitextual, and resonates with some of what DeLillo did in White Noise.

Thanks for this reading list, Henry, and happy summer!

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Henry’s poem “Question for a Painter” can be found in Lantern Review, Issue 1.  His many editorials, interviews, and book reviews can also be found on the LR blog – just search for his name on the blog’s homepage.

 

Friends & Neighbors: W. Todd Kaneko’s “Northwest Poem” featured on “As It Ought to Be”

W. Todd Kaneko on As It Ought to Be
W. Todd Kaneko's "Northwest Poem" on "As It Ought to Be"

We’ve received word that W. Todd Kaneko’s “Northwest Poem,” which opens our second issue, was honored as last week’s Saturday featured poem on the blog “As It Ought to Be.”

Here’s an excerpt that showcases the poem’s masterful imagery—which is razor-sharp, tender, and resonant, yet just a touch fleeting and strange:

“Extinction begins as absence, ends gaping
like a surgery, a hole in my chest
marking that mythology we call home.
Mount Rainier does not drift phantomlike
in this poem, but here is that old woman,
crooked under the weight of a century.
She waves off that flock of dark birds
thronging overhead, threatening to pluck
eyes from sockets, tongues from mouths,
until all we can discern is the tide washing
over bare feet, the sound of wings.”

We love this poem (clearly) and are elated to see that others are enjoying it as much as we do.  The “As It Ought to Be” editor writes of this poem, “Here’s to W. Todd Kaneko’s muse . . .  She is a creature to be awed and honored.”  We heartily agree.

Click here to read the full post at “As It Ought to Be.”

Congrats, Todd!

– The Editors

“Northwest Poem” by W. Todd Kaneko was first published in Issue 2 of Lantern Review.

Weekly Prompt: Stein on My Mind

Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Paris 1923 | Courtesy of VerySmallKitchen

Speaking of summer reading, my summer reads (and flicks too, apparently!) have demonstrated the uncanny trend of featuring the work and life of a single character: Gertrude Stein.  Without knowing anything about the book except that it was recommended to me by multiple people, I started reading Monique Truong’s The Book of Salt.  I’m about four chapters into the novel, and have just begun to realize that the mysterious “Mesdames” referenced obliquely throughout the introductory chapter are none other than Alice B. Toklas and, as she is called in the book, “GertrudeStein.”

 

I had also planned to read Juliana Spahr’s Everybody’s Autonomy: Collective Reading and Collective Identity (University of Alabama Press, 2001) later this month, and when I flipped through it a few days ago — lo and behold, the title of chapter one?  “There Is No Way of Speaking English: The Polylingual Grammars of Gertrude Stein.”  Spahr goes on to consider such figures as Lyn Hejinian, Harryette Mullen, and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, but, as far as I can tell, grounds most of her inquiry in the groundwork Stein laid for future generations of poets in Tender Buttons and other influential writings.

But last night’s movie is what really convinced me that something the universe has been orchestrating a grand conspiracy to get Stein on my mind.  Friends had warned us to walk into Midnight in Paris without any expectations or previous knowledge about the film, so we had no clue what the movie was about — or into whose home the main character would stumble after wandering into 1920s Paris.  I won’t spoil the (admittedly very thin) plot, but suffice it to say, I got the message.

Continue reading “Weekly Prompt: Stein on My Mind” →