In yesterday’s blog, I was talking about Poetry
Citizenship—an idea I should probably do more to articulate—and one of the
things that kept lurking at the edges of both the post and the conversation
about the post was the question of how much is too much? If a journal can’t get
a readership or funding or sponsorship, does that mean that it should just
quietly die—wave to us on the shore as it drowns? I’m sure that the success
rate for journals is roughly that of small businesses—which is to say,
extremely low—and that’s why a journal that makes it big is such a big deal. I
was at the release party for the first Issue of Tin House; I discovered McSweeny’s early on; I remember the rumors about Fence when it was just staring, and I met my husband at
the release party for the second issue of Lit. It was wonderful to see Bloom start and flourish, then painful to watch it fold
(although I think it’s actually frozen in carbonite like Hans Solo, and I
expect it to return any moment). As I pointed out, poets, unlike novelists,
(and I’m speaking in broad strokes) have chosen a publication system that
exceeds paying demand, with the benefit that work valued by a small group can
find publication. I’ve often advised my students that when you start trying
publish your work, you should approach all editors from the positon of
gratitude. Appreciate what they are doing for poetry—don’t just think of them
in terms of what they can do for you. And under no circumstances should you
feel entitled to publication. That’s just a recipe for bitterness. Editors and
publishers of poetry are people who deserve to be celebrated—they embody the
ideals of Poetry Citizenship. And I wanted to call your attention to one editor
in particular: Lawrence Schimel.
Lawrence
Schimel is the founding editor of A Midsummer Night’s Press, and since 2007, it
has published full length collections in beautifully designed, but very small
books. Each book is 5.75 inches tall and 4.25 inches wide. And they’re very
thin. They have a wonderfully small footprint—I could fit three of them on my
bookshelf in the space that Thom Gunn’s The Man With Night Sweats takes up; nine in the space that Thom Gunn’s Collected
Poems takes up. In some ways, I feel like I
have a bit of a double standard—I wouldn’t want my own book to be so small,
since I worry it wouldn’t be taken seriously—but on the other hand, I wish
every book were so manageable and portable and light. Looking at the
overflowing bookshelves around me, it’s a huge relief to look at a small book.
And as e-readers become a increasingly common and viable way of reading (I have
no e-reader myself), I suspect that books will become bigger and smaller—that a
book like this will still fit in a bag without adding heft or weight, offering
the tactile joys of a book without breaking your back, or even showing in your
back pocket.
I
wanted to take a quick look at two of the books on the Press—Julie Enszer’s Handmade
Love. The title poem is about the ways we
circulate between the personal and the public; the ways we move in and out of
our homes, while making our homes. The poem starts with a bag her mother sewed
for her as a child, and how it was a source of strength until she got teased
for it. As an adult, she cherishes the bag, and returns to it as a source of
joy, but remembering the shame. She concludes the poem
I
value handmade things.I believe there are two kinds of love in this world:
inherited and handmade. Yes, we inherit love
but my people, my people make love by hand.
And here all the strands or her identity come together—as a
woman, as a Jew, as a lesbian, as a femme, as a feminist. That “my people” is
wonderfully open, finding chosen and received families informing her ideas of
love, and how to move in the world. She often plays with the language of sex
and love—a poem about a gay friend’s stroke furiously wishing that “stroke”
could refer to sex, not a burst blood vessel. Enszer has a light touch, which
stems from trusting her reader. She’s playful and serious at once, letting the
multiplicity of her emotions calibrate into well formed surfaces. Nothing
exists in isolation, as here when a sexual image opens up delightfully onto
religion:
I have placed my hands, my lips
on their breasts and spread their legs
as Moses parted the red sea.
Her tongue gets to play the part of the Israelites (is that
old advice to write the alphabet with your tongue replaceable with singing Mi
Chamocha?). The poem is a tender look at a
young butch just coming out—the speaker looking on with nostalgia, concern, and
admiration. Much has been made of queer time—particularly by Kathryn Bond
Stockton—about how those of us who aren’t having children live our lives along
timelines that aren’t straightforward.
Enzser does a wonderful job of playing with what Stockton calls “growing
sideways”—with finding her place in a heritage but also letting that lineage
loop back on itself.
Schimel
has a particular fondness for irreverent and the charming. One of the books on
his press is called The Good-Neighbor Policy: A Double Cross in Double
Dactyls, and it really is a mystery told in
dactylic dimeter. Here’s a quick sample:
Never one word about
why she decided to
shoot her own husband when
he
saved her life.Adrian tells it as
vengeance for violence
in his next nove, The
Victimized
Wife.
Check out the press. It’s beautiful.
(note: in Midrash, Mi Chamocha is the song that the Israelites sang as they entered the Sea of Reeds, and the waters did not part until the water was already in their mouths, changing the sound of the words from Mi Kamoka to Mi Chamocha– the "ch" is like "Bach". Mi Chamocha is usually translated as "Who is like unto thee?").