I have had the pleasure of reading Jessica Mehta’s fine collection of poetry, Secret-Telling Bones. This is a collection of incredibly personal poems; I felt Ms. Mehta's soul as I read each one. They are deep poems, with layers of meaning. I found myself re-reading them at different times of the day and in different moods and each time the words told a different story. And yet, they are easily read; you grasp the first story, whatever it is, in the first reading, the first breath. They are also, deeply connected poems, connected to their objects, their experiences, their secret-tellings.

Ms. Mehta tells of experiences I can only imagine. They become real. Her NDN heritage is front and center, you can feel the emotion of identity and heritage, pride and shame, and hope and triumph. The poems bring a cross-culturalism, with humans and animals that is intense, honest, and unique. The emotions are often raw, the telling unvarnished and for that, all the more powerful and real and compelling. My favorite was “Landmarks Made of Stone”.

Importantly, this collection is published by the operating system which is dedicated to keeping books in print, on paper. I whole-heartedly recommend Secret-Telling Bones. Follow the link buy new from an Indie bookseller recommended by Ms. Mehta. 

Wherein a certain blogger (me) reprints some samples of authors whose work deserves More. More readers, More accolades, and, I fervently hope, More excellent works from the authors!

First up, perfectly catching at least one goal of an author, is LiDe Castro (@QueenofCastoria):
"Look at the all," he said, staring straight ahead. "Each and every one of them lured me in, and it was all nothing but make-believe. Manipulative bastards!"
His friend looked at the bookshelf, and turned to him, confused, "Who are you talking about?"
"Writers."

A second flash fiction, more sinister showing the darker potential, from Cheyenne Bramwell (@PoemsbyCheyenne):
She kept her desiccated dreams in the box at the foot of her bed. They would make low moans, calling to her from inside. They smelled like paper flowers made of old notebook pages. They reeked of kerosene ready to light.

​And then two poems who touch the very center of the heart.

From Shell McClendon (@shellandjeff) - I especially love the last line:
I wrote a poem of you today
pulled it from my soul
about the very last day
when I knew I had to go
I remember recalling that look in your eyes
It broke me and bled my heart dry
I walked away as if on shards of glass
Cutting-edge emotions
embedded forever in me of our past

From Alan (@alanlovespoetry) The sadness with an edge of hope:
Hymn

In every instrument
a genius song
in each pen a perfect poem

I stopped trying
to make sense of rivers
though I know they run dry

I notice
we no longer build arches
but find new ways to knock down
children & old factories

why I need our
embrace-
in each, an atom healed.

A very good poet whom I follow on Twitter who goes by the handle @alanlovespoetry posted the below recently:

Resume

Once I am dead
will it matter
if it was a stabbing or a stroke

at 53
does it matter
that only mom saw me graduate

that at 18
I made so many nice people cry

no math in it
it adds up exactly to nothing

no alphabet
not even enough for one good poem.

Before I plunge any further let me say first off that I love this poem. Second I have no idea if my Twitter "followee" is writing any grain of truth either in the events or in his philosophy (Alan, if you want to weigh in, please be my guest, if not we'll leave the mystery!). However, as a point of comparison it is excellent!

My grandmother worried about this as long as I knew her - the adding up after her death. She tried to do everything she could so that the math added to something greater than zero. I think it does, but not in the way she presented her hopes.

The sum is what is left and that is the memories the "survivors" carry with them. It may end up being transient, a generation, two, maybe three, but it does, in my mind, add up to something greater than nothing. And it does matter, each of those pieces, because each affected others to a greater or lesser extent which caused a ripple through time that would not have been there, Alan, Grandma, unless you were there.

​

This week I remember a classic in American poetry. Walt Whitman is a name that is almost always in the list of greatest American poets. In fact, in 2006, The Atlantic listed him as "the most influential American poet, without question."
Leaves of Grass was first published in 1855. It was found by many to be obscene, with its direct references to the body, emotions and explicit sexual imagery. It was greatly influenced by Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Transcendentalist movement and is truly quintessentially American, as the Atlantic says.
Whitman spent the entire rest of his life adding to and revising the one book. It grew from only 95 pages and 12 poems to over 400 poems through, nominally 9 editions (there is some dispute over whether three of the printings were sufficiently changed from their predecessors to be counted as a new edition). As such scholars can trace Whitman's phases of development and thought by tracing the changes in the editions.
Whitman was a nurse during the Civil War and was strongly affected by what he found in the hospitals and battlefields of that great struggle. He was also a staunch Lincoln man and he wrote a stirring elegy to the fallen President, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd".
The title itself was a pun, leaves being the pages of a book and grass was a term used by publishers of the time for works of little value.
​Fortunately for all of us, there are many leaves and they are definitely of great value.

Duel 13 was yet another tie and again, a complete tie. Both poems got the same number of votes and both had a 3.50 rating.
On the left was famous "beat" poem Allen Ginsberg and his "The Terms in Which I Think of Reality". Ginsberg rose to fame in the 1950s as the pre-eminent "beat" poet and was an icon through the turbulent '60s and '70s. 
On the left was Justin Bienvenue's "Brutal Mentality" from his self-published Like a Box of Chocolate. Justin's poetry definitely takes a different tack than a lot of the other "unknown" poets featured here but I like it and it has a certain dark optimism.

The Terms in Which I Think of Reality

Reality is a question 
of realizing how real 
the world is already. 
Time is Eternity, 
ultimate and immovable; 
everyone's an angel. 
It's Heaven's mystery 
of changing perfection : 
absolute Eternity 
changes! Cars are always 
going down the street, 
lamps go off and on. 
It's a great flat plain; 
we can see everything 
on top of a table. 
Clams open on the table, 
lambs are eaten by worms 
on the plain. The motion 
of change is beautiful, 
as well as form called 
in and out of being. 
Next : to distinguish process 
in its particularity with 
an eye to the initiation 
of gratifying new changes 
desired in the real world. 
Here we're overwhelmed 
with such unpleasant detail 
we dream again of Heaven. 
For the world is a mountain 
of shit : if it's going to 
be moved at all, it's got 
to be taken by handfuls. 
Man lives like the unhappy 
whore on River Street who 
in her Eternity gets only 
a couple of bucks and a lot 
of snide remarks in return 
for seeking physical love 
the best way she knows how, 
never really heard of a glad 
job or joyous marriage or 
a difference in the heart : 
or thinks it isn't for her, 
which is her worst misery.

+++++++++++++++
Brutal Mentality

To be considerate of others
Is for the way of the wise

There’s more fighters than lovers
Leaving us with blackened eyes

They give without taking
Ask without permission

Their actions they are faking
Yet there’s no lining of suspicion

If only the brain burned
Upon thinking too much

Maybe then they’d be concerned
Of others feelings and such

But they don’t and it’s a joke
Only thinking of themselves

The mind is but a broken yolk
Your like dust on a shelf

Collected and forgotten
Looked upon from time to time

It’s as if your aura is rotten
It’s as if you’ve committed a crime

But they are in the wrong
Needing a check back into reality

​Perhaps their intentions all along
Pushing us with brutal mentality

There’s a party going on
And everyone’s having a good time
And if you haven’t done so already
Lick the walls they taste like strawberries

But the room is really concrete white
There’s actually rats crawling out of holes
Only one person is in the room
Licking the walls will lead to lead poisoning

The twelfth duel continues the series of close results. Both poems got the same number of votes but, in a change, the "established" poet's poem was rated higher. On the right was Maya Angelou's poem "My Younger Days" which gained an average rating of 4.5. On the left, finishing second, was my own poem "Overtaken" which was written for a 30 poems in 30 days competition.

My Younger Days

When I was in my younger days,
I weighed a few pounds less,
I needn't hold my tummy in
to wear a belted dress.

But now that I am older,
I've set my body free;
There's the comfort of elastic
Where once my waist would be.

Inventor of those high-heeled shoes
My feet have not forgiven;
I have to wear a nine now,
But used to wear a seven.

And how about those pantyhose-
They're sized by weight, you see,
So how come when I put them on
The crotch is at my knee?

I need to wear these glasses
As the print's been getting smaller;
And it wasn't very long ago
I know that I was taller.

Though my hair has turned to gray
and my skin no longer fits,
On the inside, I'm the same old me,
It's the outside's changed a bit.

Overtaken

Work! Deadlines!
The mad rush to get the errands done

Without much thought
The eyes lose focus, the head spins

All you want is the merry-go-round
To stop.

A single brown and white bird
Sits on the branch outside the window

A few brave buds dotting its length.
The bird, a sparrow, bursts into song

And a blast of sunlight
Speckles its beak and wings.

You listen
And the argument in the cubicle

Next door fades; the insistent
Reminder on the computer is a little

Less insistent and you notice
The daffodils blooming by the walk

For the first time
Overtaken by spring.

TIE! Both poems got exactly the same votes and both had exactly the same rating, tied for second-highest rating in all of the duels (I guess the voters liked the poems this week!)
The "established" poem was the one on the right, "Tableau at Twilight" by Ogden Nash, that I have, in my library, in a collection called Poem Stew, published as a book for middle grades and available at Biblio (out of print) for as little as $3.97.
The poem on the left was my own "Competition" from my collection Transitions.

Tableau at Twilight
I sit in the dusk. I am all alone.
Enter a child and an ice-cream cone.

A parent is easily beguiled
By the sight of this coniferous child.

The friendly embers warmer gleam,
The cone begins to drip ice cream.

Cones are composed of many a vitamin.
My lap is not the place to bitamin.

Although my raiment is not chinchilla,
I flinch to see it become vanilla.

Coniferous child, when vanilla melts
I'd rather it melted somewhere else.

Exit child with remains of cone,
I sit in the dusk. I am all alone,

Muttering spells like an angry Druid,
Alone, in the dusk, with the cleaning fluid.

Competition
I like to see the eyes of my opponent
I like them to know I’m there
I like it when I watch the hope
Of victory fade from their eyes
 
I like to see the triumph played out
And the agony of defeat
I like to watch the satisfaction
Of a victory well-won
 
No vindictiveness, no taunting
No “trash-talking”, no “head games”
Play hard, play to win
But remember, it’s only a game
 
For the fun is in playing well
And the fun is in the challenge
The fun is in a worthy opponent
And in learning a new stratagem
 
Smile and laugh and do your best
Come back and play again
Life’s too short to hassle on it
But I want to see you play.

Today would have been Alan Alexander Milne's 136th birthday. Better known as A. A. Milne and best known for his children's character the affable Winnie-the-Pooh, or Pooh for short, Milne was actually an accomplished writer of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, as well as plays and newspaper reports. He served in the British military in both World Wars.
Pooh made his first appearance in print in 1924 in the poem "Teddy Bear" in Punch magazine. This poem and many other poems for children were first published in book form later that same year in the collection pictured above, When We Were Very Young. As many of you may know Pooh was Milne's son's teddy bear and most of his friends - Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo, Tigger - were also young Christopher Robin Milne's stuffed toys.
Pooh's first prose adventures were published in 1926, eponymously. Milne only published two other children's books, one of poetry and one of prose, and he and his son both came to resent the continuing popularity of the stories. Despite this and possibly because the Disney corporation had a stake in the rights to the characters almost from the time of Milne's death, the books and the characters are enduring favorites in England and the United States.
When We Were Very Young is still in print and can be had for as little as $3.94, including shipping, online. A first edition, published by Methuen in London in 1924, can fetch hundreds of dollars.