POeT SHOTS - "Ex Basketball Player" by John Updike

POeT SHOTS is a monthly series published on the first Monday of the month. It features work by established writers followed by commentary and insight by Ray Greenblatt. POeT SHOTS #7, Series C

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EX-BASKETBALL PLAYER

Pearl Avenue runs past the high-school lot,
Bends with the trolley tracks, and stops, cut off
Before it has a chance to go two blocks,
At Colonel McComsky Plaza. Berth’s Garage
Is on the corner facing west, and there,
Most days, you’ll find Flick Webb, who helps Berth out.

Flick stands tall among the idiot pumps—
Five on a side, the old bubble-head style,
Their rubber elbows hanging loose and low.
One’s nostrils are two S’s, and his eyes
An E and O. And one is squat, without
A head at all—more of a football type.

Once Flick played for the high-school team, the Wizards.
He was good: in fact, the best. In ‘46
He bucketed three hundred ninety points,
A county record still. The ball loved Flick.
I saw him rack up thirty-eight or forty
In one home game. His hands were like wild birds.

He never learned a trade., he just sells gas,
Checks oil, and changes flats. Once in a while,
As a gag, he dribbles an inner tube,
But most of us remember anyway.
His hands are fine and nervous on the lug wrench.
It makes no difference to the lug wrench, though.

Off work, he hangs around Mae’s Luncheonette.
Grease-gray and kind of coiled, he plays pinball,
Smokes those thin cigars, nurses lemon phosphates.
Flick seldom says a word to Mae, just nods
Beyond her face toward bright applauding tiers
Of Necco Wafers, Nibs, and Juju Beads.

Master of fiction and essay Updike has brought Rabbit into a poem disguised as Flick, also a great ex-basketball player: “The ball loved Flick.” “His hands were like wild birds.” “Grease-gray and kind of coiled.” Even the gas pumps where he worked were like him: “Rubber elbows hanging loose and low.”

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Ray Greenblatt has been a poet for forty years and an English teacher longer than that. He was an editor of General Eclectic, a board member of the Philadelphia Writers Conference, and is presently on the staff of the Schuylkill Valley Journal. He has won the Full Moon Poetry Contest, the Mad Poets Annual Contest, and twice won the Anthony Byrne Annual Contest for Irish Poetry sponsored by The Irish Edition. His poetry has been translated into Gaelic, Polish, Greek and Japanese.

Events in May

Due to the ongoing health crisis and quarantine, all in-person events have been cancelled for the month of May. Stay healthy, stay safe, and keep writing!

Review of Brooke Palma's Conversations Unfinished

“ The poet expertly navigates around memories, the dead, and ghosts, but she also has something to say about the present. ”

Conversations Unfinished by Brooke Palma

Moonstone Press

$11.00 (includes shipping)

• Click Here to buy a copy!

Reviewed by Chris Kaiser

In Conversations Unfinished, a moving and poignant first book of poetry, Brooke Palma grabs our heartstrings from the outset and refuses to let go. The opening poem, “Apology for a Broken Ending,” begins like this:

I’m sorry I can’t tell the end of your story.
It isn’t fair that I’m leaving it tattered
and unfinished.

There is a psychic weight the poet is carrying, and she asks us, the readers, to help her carry it. And we are happy to oblige because the poems gently invite us into this world of loss.

Palma’s language is straightforward, even if inadequate — in her mind — to give true expression to her grief. In the same opening poem, she laments:

 I’ll drop these words
like stones in the twilight hour
in the Arno river…

We slowly learn little bits of the background narrative as each poem unfolds. Someone close to the poet has died…but the death was kept from her…it was a woman…an immigrant…from Italy. Each poem in the first half of the book delivers an emotional payoff while also keeping us at bay.

It’s not until the sixth poem, “Requiem,” that we learn Palma is longing for her grandmother, her nonna. “Requiem” begins as the retelling of a dream, but imperceptibly morphs into something straddling memories and reality. Palma herself admits the difficulty of holding onto memories of her nonna, afraid they will turn “moldy” like cut flowers “in the humid, Sicilian air.”

The poet expertly navigates around memories, the dead, and ghosts, but she also has something to say about the present. The poem “Consigli (Advice)” is a font of practical advice passed down to the poet from her nonna. For example: “men are hard; you’ll want one, trust me, but don’t marry anyone from Southern Italy…”, “if you have female troubles, brew chamomile tea…”, and “don’t fight with your mother; she’s always been this way.”

The connections to her nonna that Palma shares include with flowers, food, and various stages of womanhood. For example, in the poem “Eggplant,” she adroitly combines food and her sense of self.

Nature’s sensuality lives
in the eggplant,
whose fluid curves remind me of my own shape.

The poem is grounded by Palma’s memories of cooking eggplant with her grandmother for Sunday dinner.

Nonna was old school and perhaps wouldn’t have approved of these family secrets being aired out, as Palma told me in an interview. And it wasn’t always so easy for the poet to bare her soul.

One of her inspirations while writing the book was Bruce Springsteen’s Broadway show, specifically, his ability to tell the truth, in vignettes, without telling the whole story.  She also was inspired by local poet Shan-Tay Mercedes Watson’s book Audacity, which often explores shame, things that are covered up. “When I read Audacity, I knew I needed to tell my story,” Palma said. “We’ve kept these things hidden for too long.”

The collection of poems in Conversations Unfinished is best read in one sitting. Afterward, each poem could then be read individually, and at one’s leisure.

The poems are made all the more poignant because of the way Palma’s grandmother disappeared from her life. We sense the poet is not yet finished writing about her nonna. In the concluding poem “Translation,” she writes:

I will pull your story from the ether
to end the silence.

One can only hope our future silence will be broken by more poems from this talented writer.

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Chris Kaiser’s poetry explores many topics including familial bonds, aging, and existential angst. It has appeared or is forthcoming in Eastern Iowa Review, Better Than Starbucks, and The Scriblerus. It also was featured in Action Moves People United, a music and spoken word project partnered with the United Nations. He’s won awards for journalism and erotic writing, holds an MA in theatre, and lives in suburban Philadelphia.

In Their Words - an Interview with David Kozinski

In Their Words is a monthly feature where Steve Delia and Mike Cohen interview poets from the Mad Poets Society and beyond to get their perspective on art, poetry, and life.

Back in 2018, Steve, Mike, and Connie sat down to interview poet and visual artist David Kozinski. They talk about ekphrastic poetry, abstract art, and inspiration. Click picture to view.

For the full interview go to Mike Cohen’s YouTube channel by clicking here.

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David P. Kozinski was the 2018 Delaware Division of the Arts Established Professional Poetry Fellow. Publications include Tripping Over Memorial Day (Kelsay Books) and Loopholes (Broadkill Press). Kozinski was Expressive Path’s 2018 Mentor of the Year and serves on the board of the Manayunk-Roxborough Art Center and the editorial board of Philadelphia Stories. He is Art Editor of the Schuylkill Valley Journal.

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Steve Delia and Mike Cohen have worked collaboratively and independently as poets and supporters of the arts in the Greater Philadelphia area. Mike Cohen helps to run the Poetry Aloud and Alive series at the Big Blue Marble Bookstore, and has had his fingers in many poetic ventures over the years. Steve Delia is the author of 6 chapbooks of poetry, and has read in a variety of venues, including the Philadelphia Writers Conference and on WXPN. Steve and Mike have also appeared throughout the Philadelphia area as the Dueling Poets.

Review of Jon Todd's Over/Time

Over/Time

by Jon Todd

Moonstone Press $10.00

Click here to buy a copy now!

Reviewed by Brooke Palma

I am someone who enjoys writing on her lunch break. The finished poems (among the many fragments that remain confined to their life on borrowed legal tablets) feel like a stolen pleasure, like time snatched away and reclaimed as mine during the workday.

Several months ago, I was at Fergie’s Pub and heard Jon Todd read a few of his poems from his new chapbook Over/Time. I sensed a kindred spirit – a writer looking to take back what work has stolen from him and from all of us, too. Todd’s biography on the back of his chapbook confirms that these poems deal with observations mainly written between breaks as a way to try to find humanity outside of and within labor. See these lines from “Hack,”

The best stories I’ll have are of work,
because for years I’ve known nothing else,
and you smiled after that, because we were tired,
and had lost our money.

Over/Time explores the concept of work and its effect on the remainder of our daily lives in gripping and lyrical verse. Todd’s work shows the ways life lacks meaning, and that it is the work of poetry that attempts to give “…a brief spark, a reprieve from quiet certainty” to the mundaneness of our daily toil. The workers/narrators in this chapbook are loners and lost souls with “rough hands and blunt tongue[s]” who still want to make good on promises the world has broken.

My favorite poem from Over/Time is “300,” where Todd shows us the dingy, subterranean world beneath an orchestra performance center in which “you’ll be playing the part unseen beneath the music.” The narrator/laborer puts on a performance by himself, an unseen artist, who puts away, “…cases of wine while singing ‘which side are you on’ in 10 languages” and reminds us of his previous performance, “’Alcoholism in 4 parts.’” The beauty here is that the labor itself becomes elevated as a piece of performance art through the writing of this poem, in spite of the oppression of a capitalism that grinds workers down in pursuit of the commercial gains of art. The poem is an act of resistance against “an iron heel in Nike’s” and leaves us wanting an encore of this lonely performance.

Throughout Over/Time, there is a sense of longing for things to be different than they are. This longing, however, is grounded in the fact that despite our desire for life to be different, it will remain the same broken dream no matter what we do, which suffuses Todd’s poems with a sort of resigned beauty. As he writes in “Work,”

And you will get drunk / feel invincible,
and make plans to start over,
to build or make something,
detailed speech a blur,
…before giving up,
eating bread, and falling asleep with a desire,

you can never recall in the morning.

Over/Time shows us that the struggle to make art, does not make our lives better, but it does make them meaningful.

Thanks to COVID-19, I’ve been working from home for the past several weeks. I anticipate being home for a while longer. I look forward to sneaking away to steal those minutes with words, and when I do, I hope to spend more minutes with Over/Time, hoping that its pages will help to add meaning to my own work. Frankly, though, just getting to read those words again will be a gift.  

Brooke Palma grew up in Philadelphia and currently lives in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Many of her poems focus on the connections between culture and identity and finding beauty in the everyday. Her work has been published in The Mad Poets’ Review, Moonstone Arts, Toho Journal, and online at E-Verse Radio. Her chapbook, Conversations Unfinished, was published by Moonstone Press in August 2019. She hosts the Livin’ on Luck Poetry Series at Barnaby’s West Chester.

POeT SHOTS - 'AT THE CORNER OF OIL AND BEEF' by John Reibetanz

POeT SHOTS is a monthly series published on the first Monday of the month. It features work by established writers followed by commentary and insight by Ray Greenblatt

POeT SHOTS #6, Series C

AT THE CORNER OF OIL AND BEEF
Sturgid Motorcycle Rally, Sturgis, South Dakota

More than magenta tattoos    that flicker action films of flame-snorting dragons or sea serpents across once muscled chests    shoulders    forearms    more than massive rhinestone

 encrusted buckles    studding barrel-waisted demons with ersatz Mayan bling     their headgear blazes longings to return to a more fabled age    Viking helmets

some horned    some winged with stripes or lightning bolts    golden clasped bandanas    starred midnight or blood red silks that might have fringed the brow of Blackbeard or Long John Silver    and most

 of all    the towering broad-brimmed Stetsons    mesas on the move    their shadows sweeping once-vast plains under wheeled riders’ great horsepowered mounts    mythology of man

 versus steer    as potent as the frescoed bull-leapers on Cretan walls    and here on Sturgis Main Street    near One- Eyed Jack’s Saloon    where curbed Electra Glides and Road Kings

idle under Texas Beef Brisket    Deep Fried Sirloin Tips    and ribs ribs ribs    mingling fumes    where no one reckons the sixteen pounds of grain gone up in smoke for each pound

 of meat    or the ninety tons of antique plant matter hecatombed in every gallon of gas    I long to satisfy these cowboys’ longings a million times o-

 ver    send them back way beyond Minoan rodeos beyond the first taming of cattle    the first sowing of grain that fed them    beyond the first rooted earthlife

 to pirate-free ancient seas beneath the plains    before titanic heat gods spirited oil    from the micro- scopic remains of floating protoplankton    before

 each diatom and dinoflagellate burned sunshine to carbon    send these steersmen back    hands whisked from throttle- grips    haunches from hand-tooled leather saddles    back beyond

 the blinding glitter of their gas-fed longhorns’ chrome flanks in mythic ascension    to untracked starry passes where light glides    flameless    smokeless    tinged only with promise

A flood of imagery! From “protoplankton,” “diatom,” dinoflagellate,” to “Texas Beef Brisket  Deep Fried Sirloin/Tips.” What do some people want: “longings/to return to a more fabled age.” What does the poet want for them: “Send these steersmen back [...] to untracked starry passes/where light glides     flameless smokeless     tinged only with promise.”

Ray Greenblatt has been a poet for forty years and an English teacher longer than that. He was an editor of General Eclectic, a board member of the Philadelphia Writers Conference, and is presently on the staff of the Schuylkill Valley Journal. He has won the Full Moon Poetry Contest, the Mad Poets Annual Contest, and twice won the Anthony Byrne Annual Contest for Irish Poetry sponsored by The Irish Edition. His poetry has been translated into Gaelic, Polish, Greek and Japanese.

Review of Sam Fischer's Short Cycles

“Sam’s ability to focus a sense of balance within [the book’s] themes is truly impressive.”

Short Cycles by Sam Fischer

Toho Publishing $9.99

Click here to buy a copy now!

Reviewed by Philip Dykhouse

When I read poetry, I’m searching for connection. I long to see myself in its mirror. I want to run my fingers along the seams of what the author is sowing. So, I was quite fortunate when I picked up Sam Fischer’s debut chapbook Short Cycles. It completely drew me into its world with its smart and thoughtful collection of moments, feelings, and observations that band together to create poetry that is both familiar and unique.

Short Cycles is true to its title. The book is broken up into several small chapters, or cycles as you will. These cycles subtly examine such themes as love, death, acceptance, failure, memories, and spirituality, among others. Each cycle has its own title and hand drawn art to accompany it. By separating the poems this way, I found the structure of the book to be one of its greatest strengths.

The first thing I noticed about Short Cycles is its creative use of the physical, non-human world to convey its themes. For example, the cycle “Do Birds Dream of Falling” consists of three short poems that use the lives of birds as a metaphor for our struggles, with lines like,

“It must be hard to always have to move your wings just to stay alive.”

In another cycle, there’s a dog that finds it isn’t fulfilled by finally catching its prey,

“ …howling for the earth to give them the dream they want to chase again.”

I also found that Sam’s description of colors and shapes plays a major part in building the world that he is trying to show us:

“…running his hand through the graying hair of his wife, thinking of the sharp
red memories, and how like ash it is, these moving living lives we touch.”

Notwithstanding, even with its inventive use of nature to outline its language, the undeniable heart of Short Cycles is its breadth of human emotions. With the cycle “Julia”, Sam crafts two narratives of desire that feel all too real. In one poem, a man stares out the window of a trolley, listening to a song that reminds him of a woman,

“…the empty center from which we lean away toward raindrops sliding toward headphones nestled in.”

With the next piece, a person is transporting bread to someone they proclaim to love and comes to see the similarities between the two,

“…we hold each other, warm and thick, with space and nothingness, rising…”

The cycle “David” revolves around the titular David and how he copes with death and depression. In these poems, I find David observing what is happening instead of simply lamenting it.

“David let his fingers gently hold each other and watched the sinking white twilight behind the trees. The
same thing must have been happening to the letters on the headstone, which had all but disappeared.”

While the theme of these pieces appear dark, Sam is sure to paint rays of light within them.

“Buttoning up he was thankful for not making his body hold wet paper heavy with ink.”

When beginning Short Cycles, you are presented with meditations on how complex and sometimes unfair life can be,

“There’s a painful narrowness to being held between things.”

Still, by the end, there appears to be a steadiness in what it wants you to know,

“…so if you find yourself
alone in the water
know there is a thin cord you tied
keeping what you need close to you
and there is someone coming
who will find you.”

That’s what this book does so well. Sam’s ability to focus a sense of balance within its themes is truly impressive. His concise, powerful poetry is beautifully written and well-paced. With every poem, I felt an instant bond. There are lines throughout the book that convey feelings I have never been fully able to express myself. It’s rare to find a voice as fresh and yet, as wise as Sam’s. Much like the cycles of our lives, I’m sure that this book will find its way back to me soon.

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Philip Dykhouse lives in Philadelphia. His chapbook Bury Me Here was published and released by Toho Publishing in early 2020. His work has appeared in Toho Journal, Moonstone Press, everseradio.com, and Spiral Poetry. He was the featured reader for the Dead Bards of Philadelphia at the 2018 Philadelphia Poetry Festival.

Poetry Reviews on the Mad Poets Blog!

We are proud to announce that, starting in April, the Mad Poets Society Blog is going to introduce a new feature. The Mad Poets Book Club will feature reviews of books and chapbooks by local poets. The reviews will be written by some of the most exciting voices in the Greater Philadelphia Poetry Scene: Philip Dykhouse, Sean Hanrahan, Chris Kaiser, and Brooke Palma.

A new review will go up on the 1st,  3rd, and 4th Wednesday of each month. April 1st will be the first review, where Philip Dykhouse reviews poet Sam Fischer’s collection “Short Cycles”.

See the flyer below for details. Be sure to subscribe to the blog to get notifications about new posts. 

To subscribe to the blog:
1. Click the title of any blog post.
2. At the bottom right of the post, select "subscribe via e-mail."

Supporting Local Poets

Due to events being canceled as a result of the Covid-19 virus, many poets have lost opportunities to share their work and be heard. This is particularly unfortunate because many poets rely on these events to help them sell copies of their books and chapbooks. As a result, they are relying on us, the readers, more than ever.

To help support local writers, consider buying copies of their book online, through online bookstores, the author’s own website, or elsewhere.

If you are unable to purchase a copy, or if you already have a copy, there are other ways you can help: write a review of their book, leave a review on the store website (especially Amazon), spread the word about their book to friends and family, or even offer them support through words of encouragement.

Anything that you can do, no matter how small, helps!

Mad Poets Events Canceled Through the End of April

ALL APRIL EVENTS CANCELED

The Mad Poets Society has decided that in addition to the March cancellations, all of our April events are also canceled. We encourage people to follow the advice given by experts to stay safe and healthy during this time. We will continue to offer content through the blog.

Thank you for your patience and support. We hope you stay connected with us and come join us when events restart after April.

Keep writing! We are excited to see what new work you all have to share when we come out on the other side of this

Local Lyrics featuring Courtney Gambrell

Local Lyrics hosted by Amber Renee appears on the 3rd Monday of each month. In it, Amber features the work and musings of a local poet.

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Survivor’s Manifesto

Wanderlust Another word for flight risk Meaning I will not stay Where I do not belong

Meaning I was born in one place

& my soul in another Meaning all you gotta do is Make me question everything

all at once

and I’m out!

Let’s call it survival Let’s call it self-care Let’s call this

All in a day’s work Black Woman

Let’s call me Harriet’s granddaughter without The shot gun

II

Let’s consider the reality that I am not a runner Perhaps I am just the one that got away…

I choose to fly like a kite, I learned the difference Between escapism and escape

Fight? Flight? Freeze? or Appease? I chose the option that made me question God less

I swallowed my grief like an afternoon shot of whiskey Once I realized that the sting eventually wears off

You wanna fly? You gotta give up the shit that weighs you down

I suppose this is a poem about the ways that I will fly in the face of adversity and triumph

A poem about how the game Hide and Go Seek Is not just for children

I found myself broken and alone So, I turned the pieces of myself into a beautiful mosaic

See? Sometimes I wish there more was no more air in my lungs But I want someone to witness me for the first time and say

“Damn you can’t ignore that kind of passion” Because, “Damn you can’t ignore this kind of passion!”

Bitch, I will show you a motherfucker with passion But you gotta be willing to look up   

the sun might be in your eyes            

Courtney Gambrell: 

Survivor’s Manifesto is a poem that I enjoyed writing because it was not easy to deliver and similarly, survival is not guaranteed to be an easy task. This poem is a testament to how I have chosen to confront adverse experiences. Survivor’s Manifesto highlights the necessity of finding safety even when getting to those safe places requires movement. With this in mind, I am elated that this poem wanted to honor Harriet Tubman, whose famous last words, “I have come to prepare a place for you,” are a perfect epigraph. (This quote is originally referenced in John 14:3). The magical part about this reality is that Mother Harriet and many ancestors like her have prepared these places for me and they have taught me how to be visible within such places. I am proud of how this poem channels the legacies of black women including Toni Morrison whose character states, “You wanna fly? You gotta give up the shit that weighs you down.” In every way, this poem begs us to acknowledge that survival is radical, necessary and beautiful.

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Courtney is a West Philadelphia native who has continued to progress in the art of poetics since 2014. Her poem, "Black Matter," received an Honorable Mention from the Mad Poets Society poetry contest in 2015. As a poet, she is most concerned with self-healing which is her catalyst for writing.  Courtney enjoys the organic nature of sharing experiences with her audience and using her creativity for advocacy.  Her work has appeared in APIARY Magazine, As/Us Journal, For Harriet, Rag Queen Periodical, Whirlwind Magazine and elsewhere.

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AMBER RENEE, she/her, 26, writes from her home in suburban Bucks County, Pennsylvania. A fool hopelessly in love with the pursuit of psychic knowledge, she often writes autobiographically; though without sacrificing her distinctive off-rhythm canter. 'Thoughts on This Most Recent Episode' was her 2016 full length collection of self-published poetry ruminating on her thoughts & illnesses. Currently she is working on a musical album of poetry.

In Their Words - an Interview with Lisa DeVuono

In Their Words is a monthly feature where Steve Delia and Mike Cohen interview poets from the Mad Poets Society and beyond to get their perspective on art, poetry, and life.

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Back in June of 2019, Steve and Mike sat down with Lisa DeVuono to discuss poetry, philosophy, and inspiration. Click picture to see part 2 of that interview.

To see the full interview, visit Mike Cohen’s Youtube channel

Lisa DeVuono (www.lisadevuono.com) is a poet living in the Philadelphia area where she has facilitated creativity and poetry workshops at conferences, retreats, and hospitals. She has also worked with teenagers in recovery, ALS and cancer patients and their families. Her peer-based poetry curriculum “Poetry as a Tool for Recovery” for individuals living with mental health challenges has been implemented through a partner program with the Institute for Poetic Medicine at both Austin and Cleveland Clubhouses. She has produced several multi-media shows incorporating song, music, poetry, and dance.

Her chapbook is entitled “Poems from the Playground of Risk” and she also performs the poetry of Rumi, with musician and songwriter Michael London.

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Steve Delia and Mike Cohen have worked collaboratively and independently as poets and supporters of the arts in the Greater Philadelphia area. Mike Cohen helps to run the Poetry Aloud and Alive series at the Big Blue Marble Bookstore, and has had his fingers in many poetic ventures over the years. Steve Delia is the author of 6 chapbooks of poetry, and has read in a variety of venues, including the Philadelphia Writers Conference and on WXPN. Steve and Mike have also appeared throughout the Philadelphia area as the Dueling Poets.