Local Lyrics hosted by John Wojtowicz appears on the 3rd Monday of each month. In it, John features the work and musings of a local poet.
It’s a lot of fun to think of poems as puzzles, but there’s also a musicality created by language which carries equal, and sometimes more weight than images, because music evokes emotion.
GREEN
I do not choose to find myself
alone below the moon in a quiet place - but here I am. I try not to imagine you where you are - belly down on her bed or propped on an arm - but I feel
it is green, and sloping, and fertile -
the way she is with you - I sense her re-birthing you - the way you have her
hair in your hands, clumped like earth for rooting - I feel you spreading -
a thick hedge to church her - fluid
to fill her - parting like water
to accept you - absolutely - uttering.
I try not to imagine you. I am sorry.
I do. When I kneel in the mud
of the tight-lipped azaleas - when I dig
to plant irises at night in silence
I am sorry for every wisp of air
between my thighs while inside her
you bloom. I could hate her for this.
When I think I am hungry, when I think
I am cold - I could hate us. Understand:
One song I had was your adoration.
One song I had was the sound of your hands -
plunging my earth completely -
the sound of us rushing with something like laughter, pleasingly startled
by the warmth and the give of our bodies at night below an icy moon. I imagine and imagine you. I have everything
but you, and our tomorrow and tomorrow. I hope it is cold. Where you are
I hope it is so cold she never knows
childbirth - quickly I wish this - and then take it back - I wasn't born vicious.
Just wanting. Forgive me.
What happens is I think I have forgotten. When I finally sit down I find
I remember. When I finally sit down I find I remember it all.
I’m going to start with your recent publication in Rattle. How does it feel?
Thrilling? I’ve submitted to them a few times, and I’ve followed them since their inception, 25 years ago. I thought I knew when I submitted how difficult an acceptance would be, but it wasn’t until after they accepted my poem and I read their stats that it really sunk in. It takes discipline and work, so it’s a great honor, and I’m grateful whenever any poem I’ve written is published by a serious journal or editors I admire and respect.
What does your process look like when that all-possible-blank-page is in front of you?
I don’t think it’s ever blank. I constantly stop to write down little snippets, and if I’m lucky, an entire poem will come out in one sitting, needing only revisions. I have too many questions to ask, stories to tell, notes, and half-finished poems to have an empty page. When I don’t feel inspired, I go back and revise one of the hundreds of pages that I’ve begun.
How have writing workshops influenced your progression as a writer? What advice would you give writers looking to engage with a community?
Workshops and community are essential elements in my progression as a poet. In high school, friends would ask me to write poems to their boyfriends for them. They were my community, and community can be an engine. After high school graduation I discovered the Wilkes-Barre Poetry Society and became their secretary
When I moved to South Jersey, my son was only 10 months old and I didn’t know anyone. We were here for only a few weeks when my then husband discovered an article in the local paper about ATI (The Artists- Teachers Institute), a workshop taught by one of my favorite poets, Stephen Dunn. I also met Peter Murphy there, who co-taught the workshop, and with whom I continue to workshop (and be mentored by) to this day. In 1992, I was part of another small group of SJ poets, Afterimage, where I learned to edit and produce journals. Now I’m part of the Murphy Writing Community, as well as a member of the SJ Poet Collective, which works with the Atlantic City Arts Commission and Stockton State University.
As for guidance, I’d say some examples of excellent workshops are those in which not everyone agrees, where people can respond, respectfully, seeing from different perspectives, and where everyone feels safe enough to express themselves freely. I’d also advise any writer who asks for feedback to grow a thick skin; to separate themselves from their work, if they haven’t already, so that they can accept constructive criticism.
If you workshop one poem with a group of five people, you’re not only receiving feedback from four editors on your work, you’re also helping to edit the work of four others. Editing other’s work brings a clarity to one’s own work because it’s easier for us to see the faults in their work than in ours.
How does being in the restaurant industry influence your poetry?
Well, I’m out of it now, and I’ve also had other jobs. I taught grade and middle school students for six years, and I’ve been facilitating poetry workshops and hosting readings for the past 25 or so years.
But to answer your question, one of the reasons I wanted a restaurant was so that I’d have a poetry venue. And the restaurant industry has influenced my poetry in every way, just like everything else that seeps in, only to be released later through writing. You meet every kind of person: Travelers passing through, librarians, priests, drug dealers, teachers, police officers and other emergency workers, artists, nurses, students, babies, elderly folks, differently-abled people. And you see all sides of them: Hungry, sated. bored, overwhelmed. You watch transformation constantly - patterns, tones of voice, the impact of the way others speak, or the lack of, the gestures and the word choices they make. I think the industry gave me a broader perspective and a deeper compassion for others.
How would you describe your poetic aesthetic?
Eclectic. Definitely. Writing a formal poem is like putting together a puzzle without an image to guide you, and free-verse is like taking a blurred puzzle apart so that only the images that matter remain. It’s a lot of fun to think of poems as puzzles, but there’s also a musicality created by language which carries equal, and sometimes more weight than images, because music evokes emotion. Some poems can seem to make no sense, that is, they may not be narrative, but the lyrical qualities that create tone and rhythm draw you in anyway. I love to look for patterns in poems, as well. Those can be found in the repetitions of sounds, silences, interjections, the keeping or breaking of grammatical rules, turns, the reappearance of words or ideas, et al. The best poems, though, are those that find a way to surprise me. All of these combinations make both the reading and writing of poetry an almost limitless expedition.
Where can readers find more of your work?
I’m @MaryLisaD on Twitter, and on Facebook where I often announce poetry events to the public: https://www.facebook.com/notherpoet/ . The following are some links to online poems, and to journals and anthologies in which my poems appear:
theamericanjournalofpoetry.com/v7-dedomenicis.html
https://www.rattle.com/print/60s/i69/ jerseyworks.com/mlpage.html
https://www.diodeeditions.com/product-page/more-challenges-for-the-delusional
https://www.amazon.com/Women-Write-Resistance-Resist-Violence/dp/0615772781
https://www.amazon.com/Rabbit-Ears-Poems-Joel-Allegretti/dp/1630450154
MaryLisa DeDomenicis is a Pushcart nominee and holds a BA in Humanities. A recipient of the Toni Brown Memorial Scholarship Award, her latest poems appear in Rattle, The American Journal of Poetry, More Challenges For the Delusional (Diode), Instant of Turbulence (Moonstone Press), Tribute to Peter Murphy (Moonstone), Bared: Contemporary Poetry and Art on Bras and Breasts (Les Femme Folles Books), Knocking At TheDoor (Birch Bench Press), and Rabbit Ears (NYQ Books). Drawing an Equation, a Ginsberg finalist, was later performed at the Ritz Theater in Philadelphia (hosted by NJSCA), and her chapbook Almost All Red (nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Stephen Dunn) was a winner in the Stillwaters Press Woman’s Words competition. She currently has a poetry prompt wheat pasted onto a placard accompanying a mural displayed in Atlantic City, sponsored by New Jersey’s annual 48 Blocks summer event. She is a member of the South Jersey Poetry Collective, which hosts monthly readings at Stockton University’s Noyes Museum and sponsors other various events in the South Jersey area.
“Catfish” John Wojtowicz grew up working on his family’s azalea and rhododendron nursery in the backwoods of what Ginsberg dubbed “nowhere Zen New Jersey.” Currently, he works as a licensed social worker and adjunct professor. He has been featured in the Philadelphia based Moonstone Poetry series, West-Chester based Livin’ on Luck, Mad Poets Society, and Rowan University’s Writer’s Roundtable on 89.7 WGLS-FM. Find out more at: www.catfishjohnpoetry.com