Startling Little Brains

I was startled when I crouched down to take a close-up photo of skunk cabbage and saw this alien presence nestled inside. (It's actually the spadix, covered with minute flowers.) Like a cross between a sprouting potato and a little pink brain, it was just waiting to surprise me on a glorious spring afternoon this past weekend. Our paths happily intersected when I went for a hike with a dear friend at Macedonia Brook Park in Kent, Connecticut.

This image reminds me of a piece from my latest book, Stirring the Mirror. Here is the opening paragraph to the flash fiction piece/prose poem, "Brain in a Birdcage." To read it in its entirety, simply click on the preceding title and you will be magically transported to The Diagram, an unusual and wonderful online literary magazine. Okay, hang on to your chair, here we go:

The little brain looked like a gray walnut, splotched in places with pink iridescence. At the bottom of a rusty birdcage, it reclined on a balsam sachet, one with a picture of a bull moose foraging, and thought its wicked thoughts unencumbered by a body. If it had vocal chords, it would have cackled heh-heh-heh under its breath. It did have one good eye. The eye floated above the brain in a baby food jar filled with oil, perched on the bird swing, optic nerve connected to the brain by a coiled copper wire. Iris up, it swam back and forth, flashing opal then emerald, pupil dilating and contracting, scanning the dome of its prison for a way out. Its unused vessels, tied in a knot, swished behind the eye, like a red squid chasing a beach ball ....

If you didn't dare open the story with the link above, but now want to see what happens next, you may enter the story PORTAL HERE. Happy motoring ...

To see the true beauty of the spadix, simply click on the image to enlarge the photo.

An Icy Eye

Today's endless ice and rain formed fantastic ice sculptures everywhere. These miniature icicles grew from the handle and edges of the barbeque.

Here's an excerpt from "Winter in a Glass Eye," an icy prose poem in Stirring the Mirror, my 2007 collection from Bitter Oleander Press:

Missing the missing casts absence into a blown glass shell, an icy eye encompassing emptiness. A fracture of the heart weeps this brittle treasure. Some pain is so hard won, it forms a glittering accretion. The heart clings to its frozen jewel, shields memory in its tight fist. It holds on, so not to lose the past joy that left this cold pebble in its palm....

I'm missing my friend Jill Wood, who passed away in the early hours of December 26th. She was brilliant, artistic, creative, feisty, honest, funny, and strong -- a woman warrior. She fought for those she loved, she fought for what she believed in, she fought to the very end.

Click on image to enlarge.

Questioning the Blog

No, I’m not interrogating the blog, aiming an unbearably bright light in its twitching eyes. I’m questioning myself. Why do I do this? (Blink-blink.) Even the label, blog, sounds frivolous or unclear, like a cross between “blahblahblah” and fog or bog. Originally, I created the blog (with initial set-up help from my older daughter) so that there was a place where people could find my books and contact me. One of my literary guiding lights, C. M. Mayo, had asked me to guest blog on Madam Mayo after my second book, Stirring the Mirror, came out last August. I needed a site to link to! So, in a way, it forced my hand. On August 13, 2007, the blog was born.

Since the initial days, the blog has evolved into…well, I’m not quite sure what. Essentially, I’ve let it just happen. I don’t want to build a fence around it. I've let it sprawl. To answer my own question why, I’ve come up with the following thoughts:

1. It places me more fully in my life.

2. It marks passage through time, engraving mile markers along the route.

3. It clarifies nebulous thoughts.

4. It’s a commitment to writing and art.

5. It’s an openness to the possibilities of art/creativity in the world, a reaching out to reel in those possibilities, to anchor and join them in a specific place.

6. It’s an exercise in synthesis, a weaving together of threads from reading, poetry , the visual arts, nature, culture, all fleeting experience.

7. It’s an exploration of both reality and dreams.

8. It keeps me looking, thinking, witnessing, reading and rereading, listening, feeling and creating – cinching the ragged edges of the universe a bit closer.

9. I like the casual, rambling style of “essay” (lyric essay?) that I feel free to write here. I like that relaxed autonomy. It lets me experiment with form, with hybrid writing, which I love.

10. I enjoy the communication, the sharing of ideas and information. I love hearing from those who visit the blog, who have other thoughts to add, who make additional connections, who offer suggestions and expand the posts. I like the idea of a network of blogs.

11. And, hey, I like the rare free stuff! Recently, after a brief post about Matsuo Basho, I received an e-mail from the publishers of a new collection of his work, Basho: The Complete Haiku, translated by Jane Reichhold, asking if I’d like a copy. Yes. I now have the lovely hardcover, and will focus on it soon. John Glick of Plumtree Pottery also mailed me a surprise: a beautiful, swirling universe of a ceramic tile. Thanks.

12. Along the same theme, I’ve enjoyed receiving invitations to submit work, or requests to reprint writing and photographs from the blog.

13. I get a thrill out of taking those photographs, then finding the right words to go with them. I like setting up little scenes, going off on tangents, letting inspiration unspool. This is serious fun.

14. Okay, and I savor the “search for the sublime.” Those are the insightful words of Annie Dillard, writing about polar explorers: “They went, I say, partly in search of the sublime, and they found it the only way it can be found, here or there – around the edges, tucked into the corners of the days.” (Teaching a Stone to Talk, p. 41)

After a year, I’m setting no limits on the blog. I’m allowing it an amoeboid existence, the freedom to expand and contract. I’m here, waiting, meandering, open to the unfurling possibilities. I’ll end here with more of Dillard’s wisdom:

“Wherever we go, there can be only one business at hand – that of finding workable compromises between the sublimity of our ideas and the absurdity of the fact of us.”

The final quote is again from Teaching a Stone to Talk, p. 42. The photo of the colorful maple leaf (already?!) was taken –literally – on my road on 8/15/08.

Never Talk Back to the Water

The deepest water employs a more serious tone. It uses a guttural form of interrogation. As you move through its body, it questions your presence. Holding your hair in its cold hands, it examines your face. Keep your lips sealed. Although it has the magic to turn you weightless, to keep your thumping heart suspended, unburdened as a fish -- beware. Its true desire is to steal your breath, to swallow you whole. Never talk back to the water. Mind your manners, keep your thoughts to yourself. Always remember the grassy shore. Float.

Excerpt from "Never Talk Back to the Water," a prose poem from Stirring the Mirror. The photo was taken 5/7/08.

Pod People and Poets House

All this week Poets House is holding its annual showcase of new poetry books in the Willa Cather Room of the Jefferson Market Library on Sixth Avenue at W. 10th Street, NYC. The organization's goal is to showcase every book of verse published in the U.S. in the past year. There are more than two thousand titles available for viewing through April 19th. My publisher, Bitter Oleander Press, has sent along A Cage of Transparent Words by Alberto Blanco, Gold Carp Jack Fruit Mirrors by George Kalamaras, and Stirring the Mirror, my new collection of prose poetry and flash fiction.

See the previous post for information about tomorrow's reading at Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh, NY.

The pod people pictured above are made from -- you guessed it -- pods, a strange pine cone, and vintage prints sealed with acrylic varnish.

Tricking Gravity

When the breeze first lifted me, I felt dangerously buoyant. I trembled like a baffled nestling. But then I relaxed into the air, let the sky embrace me. For the first time, sunrise painted me on all sides – pink, everywhere. I was weightless. Disguised as inconsequential, like a dust mote, I tricked gravity into ignoring me. I inhaled the fragrance rising from the world. I began to hear the silence that precedes blossoming, that blank space before the almost inaudible velvet-slip of petals unfurling. I held my future, all possibilities, locked safe inside me. I was a speck of pollen floating in the rosy throat of a tulip. Suspended above its secret black pinwheel, I waited for a gust of wind.

Excerpt from "Tricking Gravity" a prose poem from Stirring the Mirror, first published in The Bitter Oleander.

Underground Sky

Oaks met themselves at the pond's edge. The sky filtered through their branches, leaving bits of blue among their leaves in the mirror. The hand gracefully moved over that underground sky, as if it were pulled by a magnet from below.

Excerpt from "The Hand" from Stirring the Mirror.

Yes, yes, Baby Muse is just several posts down. Scroll away...

Inventing New Bodies

....
Our nights grow infinite, blossoming into secret days. Flowers and leaves are our only lanterns. Veins of roses glow like forked lightning. Maple leaves furl and unfurl, beckoning fingers. We are always hungry. The stars call us to dinner.

Trailing silvery paths across brick walks and patios, we slip into gardens and flowerpots. We paint patterns, leaf to leaf. We fasten our mouths to petals and stems and swallow, knowing nothing but sweetness. We are lost, eating your invisible world.
....
Excerpt from "Inventing New Bodies" from Stirring the Mirror.
This is for EIK and the rocking chair. The plant is from the south facing kitchen window. I need to identify it.
Yes, Baby Muse is just a few posts away...scroll down to find her...

The Framed World

Like an arrow, your mind flies through the bull's-eye at the center of the camera's view finder. You aim it through your pupils, out through that tiny circle, into the framed world. You invest that focused landscape with all that makes you human: your longing, your love, all of your dark thorns and sapphires. Hold your hands steady, extended toward its beauty. Make it true. Press the button.

Excerpt from "Black Halo," a prose poem from Stirring the Mirror, my new book from Bitter Oleander Press.

(Baby Muse meditates two posts down. Don't worry, she's still there.)

March Poinsettia

March morning, silent. Unexpected snow keeps coming, white clumps falling from trees like frozen apple blossoms. Seasonal confusion. Spring is out there, somewhere, approaching. Today there are four crows again, wary, even after all of these offerings. We keep a respectful distance. They wait, two each on two branches, then land on the railing. Go back to the tree. Return to the railing. Each time they move, more white flowers drift down. Eyes and beaks glitter. In these moments, the snow's music changes from empty hiss to the wet sounds of the roof dripping, of invisible runnels coursing under snow. The porous membrane between seasons is leaking.

Excerpt from "Human with Little Sun in Her Hands," one of the prose poems from my new book, Stirring the Mirror, f rom Bitter Oleander Press. (First published in No Boundaries: Prose Poems by 24 American Poets, edited by Ray Gonzalez, Tupelo Press.)

I love this camera. Thanks, TLK.

***If you are here searching for Baby Muse and her magic words, simply scroll down to the previous post.

Thank You, City Pages!

At the end of December, I received an exciting e-mail announcement from Matt Smith, managing editor of City Pages, an alternative weekly newspaper in Minneapolis. (It's a sister publication to The Village Voice.)

Here are the highlights:

You've been named one of City Pages' Artists of the Year.... Poet Ray Gonzalez, a professor at the University of Minnesota, has written a short tribute to you....

I'm waiting for the full-length print copy, but the January 2nd article is available online:

City Pages' Artists of the Year Feature

Thank you, City Pages and Ray Gonzalez! Stirring the Mirror thanks you, too!

Happy 2008!

Happy New Year! I hope this finds you off to a good start, beginning a creative and healthy 2008.

The year begins here with rain, sweet silence, and the good news of an in-depth review by JoSelle Vanderhooft of Stirring the Mirror in The Pedestal Magazine. The Pedestal is a bimonthly featuring the work of both new and established writers and visual artists, and offers interviews and reviews, as well as an online art gallery. Editor-in-chief John Amen is an accomplished poet, musician and artist himself. Sign up to receive announcements of new issues, and discover a terrific variety of poetry and fiction. This is the seven year anniversary issue, their forty-third. Check it out here:

The Pedestal Magazine
The review

Look for a new design launch of The Pedestal in February 2008.

Best wishes to all!

Stirring the Mirror Book Launch

Please join me at the official book launch for Stirring the Mirror from Bitter Oleander Press this Thursday, December 6th, at 7:00 PM at Ruth Keeler Memorial Library in North Salem, New York. (Click for directions.) I'll be reading prose poetry and flash fiction from the book, as well as a sampling of even newer poetry. Signing to follow. Happy December!

Aqua Phrenology

Here's another collage, "Aqua Phrenology," again created from antique illustrations. Now that I have your attention, I'll invite you to upcoming readings and book signings!

Please come to the Riverine Anthology Book Launch at SUNY New Paltz tomorrow, November 13, 2007, at 5:00 PM, in the Honors Center (part of College Hall, a two story building on the quad). Riverine: An Anthology of Hudson Valley Writers, edited by Laurence Carr, is published by Codhill Press. This will be a celebration of the collection's release with readings and signings by authors. One of my prose poems, "The God of Falling Objects" (first published in Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics) is included in this anthology. It's also part of my new collection of prose poems and flash fiction, Stirring the Mirror from The Bitter Oleander Press. (Additional book information in postings below...scroll way down to my first entries.)

Also, come enjoy the galleries and shops of Catskill, New York, this Saturday, November 17th, from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. I'll be signing copies of Stirring the Mirror at Bowerbird from 7:00 to 8:00 PM as part of their Saturday Studios, a gallery stroll on third Saturdays of the month. Bowerbird is located at 393 Main Street. Questions? Call lovely owner, Kate Altman, at (518) 943-5776. She is also carrying my Shrunken Worlds paper sculpture ornaments. (Think ship-in-a-bottle...)

For those organized souls who can see past Thanksgiving, please come to my own book launch for Stirring the Mirror on Thursday, December 6, 2007 at 7:00 PM at Ruth Keeler Memorial Library in North Salem, New York. I'll be reading selections from the collection as well as new work, and signing books. More information will be posted as the date races closer.

I look forward to seeing you soon!

Space Doll

Writing and art enhance one another, but I rarely use my own art as inspiration for poetry. For a while, I got a kick out of making collages using fragments of antique illustrations. It was fun to experiment with strange juxtapositions, to create new miniature worlds with their own swirling atmospheres. (Of course, I also loved the meditative act of cutting paper with tiny scissors.)

Something about this collage, "Space Doll," triggered a prose poem. I later made it into a tiny dark blue booklet that I gave to friends and passed out at a reading. It became part of Stirring the Mirror, which is a collection of prose poems and flash fiction.

SPACE DOLL

Loneliness launched her toward a far-flung planet. Now she endlessly circles, looking down at the pointed rock fingers and craters of a dusty orb. She still wears patent leather Mary Janes and the fingerprints of humans. This is all she retains of civilization. The only life forms below are ones she imagines, humanoid or avian, startling with boredom or beaked hunger. She keeps her arms to her sides. When she turns her head, her crisp orange curls flow like rocket flames. However, neither blink of blue glass eye nor kick of jointed leg can change her orbit.

She coasts in silence. The only sounds at all come from inside. She listens to the shell of her pink plastic flesh to hear the faint whoosh of pulse, the gurgle of a thimbleful of oil. How easily her inner gears spin. How effortlessly her useless metal heart beats with nothing to weigh it down.

(Fittingly, this piece first appeared in Flights.)

I just went upstairs to find a copy of an interview with Paul Roth, editor of The Bitter Oleander, where we discussed the parallels of art and writing. I felt that his "comparison of my writing to painting fit[s], especially with reference to visual emphasis, to imagery." I continued:

In fact, I draw in a way very similar to the way I write. I never have the whole picture/idea in mind at first; it is a gradual building up from one small image, a series of leaps from thought to thought. I might start with a single curved line, a tiny eye, or a splayed claw, then see where it takes me, what each added line suggests. You might compare some of my poetry to collages, the seamless placement of disparate images side by side. With luck, a surprising/vivid juxtaposition elicits a mood or idea, like a good metaphor. Writing metaphors is my passion. They give old concepts a jolt, more color, a sense of newness. I enjoy the density of images working together, playing off one another, sending out sparks.... You want imagery to be meaningful and energetic, not just a decorative surface hiding a vacuum. You want to inspire intense thought and emotional connections.

The best poems might be most like living sculptures, Frankenstein "monsters" carefully stitched and glued from unlikely bits of flesh, with transplants of pieces of the creator's own heart and brain. Sometimes these creations achieve a form of grace, a clear voice and unexpected intelligence. Other times they are awkward and tongue-tied, or can't be jump-started. Each time, you hope that your monster will be able to stand up and walk on its own out into civilization, singing, embracing people without crushing them.

(The Bitter Oleander, Fall 2001 author feature, interview and interior chapbook)

Although it's most beneficial to order directly from the publisher, Bitter Oleander Press, Stirring the Mirror is also available through Amazon.

BookCrossing Adventure

Intrigued by the 8/31/07 posting about BookCrossing on the Newpages Blog, I thought it would be fun to release "into the wild" a copy of my new book, Stirring the Mirror. The idea of bookcrossing is to share books with the world, tracking their journeys on the Web site. You first register the book, receiving a BCID number, then label the book and leave it somewhere for an interested reader to discover and take home. Hopefully the finder will go to BookCrossing and note that she/he found the book, along with her/his home location. Later the finder can leave a journal entry about the book (if read), then pass it on by releasing it again. Book on an adventure around the world...I love this idea!

Yesterday was a glorious, clear Sunday. The exact place I wanted to go to release the book popped into my mind. I printed out and attached labels from BookCrossing inside the cover, hand wrote a note to "Dear Reader" on the title page, popped it in a freezer bag, and gussied it up with a lime green ribbon and a neon orange Post-It marking it as a FREE BOOK. Another BookCrossing label with their yellow walking book symbol was the finishing touch. (It shouts "Howdy! Hola! Bonjour! Guten Tag!") We picked up my mother-in-law and drove to Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, NY. I remembered a particular nest-like sculpture from past visits and pictured the book contentedly resting there, waiting for someone to find it. I stealthily slipped Stirring the Mirror into the hollow of "Momo Taro," a granite sculpture by Isamu Noguchi. (#52 on the walking map, as pictured above.)

After strolling and admiring some of the towering sculptures gracing the green, green rolling landscape for about ten minutes, I couldn't control my curiosity. I circled back to sneak a peek into the hilltop hiding place. The book was GONE.

Stirring the Mirror

Stirring the Mirror, my second book from Bitter Oleander Press, just came out! I have been floating next to the ceiling since its arrival from the printer. It's a collection of prose poetry and flash fiction, with an extraordinary, eerie cover image by Malgorzata Maj, a Polish artist. The photograph is a wonderful match for both the title and the atmosphere of the book.

Again, I must thank my wise and compassionate editor and publisher at Bitter Oleander Press, Paul B. Roth. Another thank you to my generous blurb suppliers, the gifted writers Peter Johnson, Mary A. Koncel, and Ray Gonzalez. Here's what they had to say about Stirring the Mirror:

In Stirring the Mirror, Christine Boyka Kluge displays a mastery of metaphor, gliding effortlessly between myth and reality until these two states are indistinguishable. Her focus is on the paradoxical nature of our lives, which seem alternately fueled by loss and possibility. In one poem she writes that the "heart [is] the part that refus[es] to settle down" - a perfect description of the engine guiding Stirring the Mirror, a book characterized by wit, craft, but, most of all, heart.

- Peter Johnson

Stirring the Mirror is a collection of contemporary myths to live by. Traversing the boundaries between poetry and prose with her usual grace, Christine Boyka Kluge generously invites us to reflect on what makes us human. Her vibrant language and unfettered narratives, her cast of archetypal and everyday characters, her wit and wisdom - all delightfully combine to create a book of immense pleasure.

- Mary A. Koncel

As a poet of the earth and the imagination, Christine Boyka Kluge returns these gifts of creation through poems that redefine what it means to be in the world. These poems involve a private sense of vision and exploration as they encompass the outer existence of human understanding. To read this book is to know that Christine Boyka Kluge is writing poetry that touches us all.

- Ray Gonzalez

Pieces in Stirring the Mirror won the 2006 Hotel Amerika Poetry Prize and the 2003 Creative NonQuiction Contest sponsored by Quick Fiction, Brevity, and Del Sol Review. Two works received Pushcart Prize nominations. Selections from the book were finalists in the 1999 Dana Award in Speculative Short Fiction competition, Quarter After Eight's 2000 Prose Contest, and both the 2002 Tupelo Press Chapbook Contest and the 2002 New Michigan Press/The Diagram Chapbook Competition.

Writing from Stirring the Mirror has appeared in many anthologies: No Boundaries: Prose Poems by 24 American Poets (Tupelo Press), PP/FF: An Anthology (Starcherone Books), Sudden Stories (Mammoth Books), Diagram: Selections from the Magazine (Del Sol Books), and Text: Ur - The New Book of Masks (Raw Dog Screaming Press). Some of the prose poems will be reprinted in the forthcoming Online Writing: The First Ten Years (Snowvigate Press) and Riverine: An Anthology of Hudson Valley Writers (Codhill Press).

Last week I received an e-mail from Marion Roach, who does The Naturalist's Datebook program on Martha Stewart Radio Network. She will be reading "The Eye of the Beached Whale" from Stirring the Mirror on Friday, August 17th. I believe it is broadcast at intervals all day long. So, if you have Sirius Radio, listen in!

If you are interested in ordering Stirring the Mirror, here's a link to Bitter Oleander Press. My first book, Teaching Bones to Fly, a poetry collection, is also offered here.

Order Form

If you click on "Books" and scroll all the way down, there is a description of Stirring the Mirror and a sample prose poem. If you are inspired, you can click on "Orders" to print out an order form. You may also find Stirring the Mirror on Amazon. Thank you!

Here is a link to "Guilt," an interactive online collaboration I did with artist/designer Rick Mullarky on The Diagram. "Guilt" is one of the pieces in Stirring the Mirror.

Guilt

You will need to turn on your sound. Click "Launch in a new window," then "Start." Progress through the piece by clicking on the small white arrows. Enjoy Rick's amazing art!