The World In May is Leafing Out (3rd ann.)

A reminder: These posts started the Thursday after 45 won the election. They were and are meant for those who appreciate a distraction for the good.

I remember reading several articles and having several conversations about the overuse of the word “love.” The arguments went something like, “It’s used for everything, to the point where it’s drained of its real meaning.”

Hmmmmmm.

There’s something culturally implanted going on when someone says that. But let’s not go there.

I’m just gonna say that we can’t use it enough. I suggest not getting bound up thinking about what is the appropriate use of the word. So ya love donuts and movies from the 40s, old sweatshirts and pitchers’ duels, cat photographs and listening to the blues, begonias and filling the bird feeder. Love and love and love and love all that’s worth loving.

Trust discernment. Our loved ones know the difference between when you say, “I love you,” and “I love donuts.” They know you’re not saying, “The love I have for you, dear, is the same as the love I have for donuts. You and donuts, no difference.”

And speaking of what we love, how about May in this part of the world — when its Mayness finally arrives! I’ve sent this poem out the last two Mays. I thought that I’d be sending it only that one time. Sigh. That’s okay. My wife loves it. And she loves me. And donuts.

The World in May Is Leafing Out

It’s Matisse on a bicycle. It’s
a great blue heron coloring
outside the lines. The show’s
turned over to the aftermath
of buds. You can love
never thinking
this cliché could turn
to ice. Even nice
can be profound
as worry, even
the creek over the rotting log,
the pansy in the moss-covered
pot. The birds bulge
with song. Mary Cassat
throws open her windows.
Monet drags his pallet,
sits and waits for the paint
to spill across the patina
of his failing sight. Eric Satie
makes his joyous cling
and clang a counterpoint
to dazzle. The earth is rising
in shoots and sprays.
The sky’s as new as rain.
The stubborn doors swing open.

–Jack Ridl

First published in The Listening Eye
Subsequently published in Saint Peter and the Goldfinch (Wayne State Univ. Press)

Today, Thursday, May 16, Lisa Lenzo will be reading from her new collection of short stories, Unblinking (Wayne State University Press), and I get to be her opening act. 6pm at Michigan News, Kalamazoo.

A group in Ludington want to talk with me about Saint Peter and the Goldfinch. That will take place on May 18 in the Judith Minty Room at the Arts Center from 2-4. If you are near enough, come join the conversation. There will be a celebration of the marvel George Dila following the program.

 

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Visit Reader’s World or Hope-Geneva Bookstore in Holland, The Bookman in Grand Haven, the Michigan News Agency in Kalamazoo, and The Book Nook & Java Shop in Montague to find Jack’s books in West Michigan.

Jack’s page on Amazon.

Click here to subscribe to receive Jack’s poems and news in your inbox.

Click here for Jack’s entire collection, In Time — poems for the current administration.

Click here to watch Jack’s TedX talk.

Hardship in a Nice Place

Whew! Had a lot of response to my last post about being angry. I think I had better define my terms…

First, when I wrote about my colleague’s prayer — that we are to delight in our differences – neither she nor I meant to celebrate differences that suggest evil is to be delighted in, certainly not 45’s. It has been suggested to me that I don’t live up to that prayer because I do not delight in political differences. It is true that I can’t celebrate people who hurt those who are less fortunate.

Anger is a perfectly appropriate response to the violation of something one cares deeply about. It is wonderfully informative, signaling to us, and to one another, where our loyalties lie. It is not at all the same as hostility or violence. Those are anger turned to malevolence, 45’s daily exercise.

I’m surprised when it surprises people to realize that Jesus, for example, was not always a “nice” guy. He was often an angry guy. The beatitudes have been turned into mush. What he was saying was “Blessed are the meek. I know the meek, YOU are not the meek.” “Blessed are the merciful. I know the merciful, YOU are NOT the merciful,” etc. He even told Peter to “Get thee behind me, Satan!” And he did NOT say to the money changers — and you know who they would be today — “Uh, if you don’t mind, it’d be better if you took your tables outside. Please and thank you.”

These posts have, more often than not, been prompted by anger with the cruelty and ignorance of 45 and his yes-(anything but)men with the hope of supporting those working hard to hold on to their lives and to hold fast to those they love during the reign of King 45.

Hardship in a Nice Place

The roof on our house slants out
over the garden and if it rains
the water falls on what blossoms

still arc in late August. My wife
is sleeping through her day. There
is a breeze here on the porch. There

is a certain slant of light collapsing
through the beech trees on the hill. One
tree fell this afternoon. I could hear it

cracking into the quiet, saw an angle
of trunk begin to lean and then rustle
its branches across the limbs along

the stagger of woods. At night, sounds
come I can never identify. It’s often
like that, our long days lacking much

of anything that can be named. My
wife will sleep. I will walk back from
the mailbox with our dog and wait.

–Jack Ridl

First published in Rattle.
Subsequently published in Practicing to Walk Like a Heron.

We went to a delightful and informative reading by Jennifer Clark at Crane’s apple orchard. She read from her collection Johnny Appleseed: The Slice and Times of John Chapman (Shabda Press). The reading was a fundraiser for elementary school students in Fennville, Michigan, to provide books kids can take home, for keeps, through a program called Book Trust. If you like that idea, and want to learn more or contribute to this worthy program, you can do that here. If you want you can specify Fennville Public Schools on your donation to put your donation to work locally.

Lisa Lenzo has invited me to join her in a reading at Michigan News Agency in Kalamazoo, May 16, at 6pm. Lisa’s new collection of stories is Unblinking (Wayne State University Press)

A group in Ludington want to talk with me about Saint Peter and the Goldfinch. That will take place on May 18 in the Judith Minty Room at the Arts Center from 2-4. If you are near enough, come join the conversation. There will be a celebration of the marvel George Dila following the program.

Former student Heidi Aronson Kolk, assistant professor in the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St Louis, has published the fascinating Taking Possession: The Politics of Memory in a St. Louis Town House (University of Massachusetts Press)

Charles W. Brice has published a bracing new collection An Accident of Blood (WordTech Editions)

A dear old friend, Ginger Rankin, has published a magical and moving novel, Spice Island (Rebel Magic Books)

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Visit Reader’s World or Hope-Geneva Bookstore in Holland, The Bookman in Grand Haven, the Michigan News Agency in Kalamazoo, and The Book Nook & Java Shop in Montague to find Jack’s books in West Michigan.

Jack’s page on Amazon.

Click here to subscribe to receive Jack’s poems and news in your inbox.

Click here for Jack’s entire collection, In Time — poems for the current administration.

Click here to watch Jack’s TedX talk.

Unblinking

We know where WE will be tomorrow night.

Our pal Lisa Lenzo is throwing a launch party at one of our favorite local coffee shops, Uncommon Coffee Roasters. And you’re invited! Lisa’s work is as unblinking as the title of the new book, Unblinking, from Wayne State University Press.

Will we see you there?

Wednesday, May 8th, 2019
Saugatuck Book Launch Party
Short reading at 6
free coffee, tea, and treats
Uncommon Coffee Roasters
127 Hoffman Street
Saugatuck
5-8 p.m.

And! Soon! Thursday, May 16 at 7pm, I’ll get to read with Lisa at the Michigan News Agency bookstore, 308 W. Michigan Avenue in Kalamazoo.

Some Answers to Your Question

This week I lost it. My anger went everywhere I went. It clung like Gorilla Glue. I exploded, yelling about everything that came to mind. If I hadn’t been so non-rationally serious, it would’ve been hilarious. Right, we’re gonna leave the country. Right, we’re gonna find a ramshackle house in a deep forest. Right, nothing I do matters. Right, I’m never coming out of the house.

Julie sat. Listened. Vivi, our dog, offered herself for petting.

Please, enough of this “45 isn’t arousing hate.” Of course he is. And he is permitting, encouraging, those who hate that they are doing the right thing by attacking, even killing those who differ from them.

I was told to be careful about celebrating the evening when 250 of us gathered for song, poetry, and jazz. I was cautioned for saying “like-minded,” for a friend’s saying it was “Blessed Community.” I should’ve said “like-hearted.” These are people who are like-hearted, united by love.

When asked to pray before meetings, a colleague in the English department at the college where I taught would bow her head, keep her eyes open, and pray, “Let us delight in our differences. Amen.”

Amen.

Some Answers to Your Question

—No.

—Only when the door is unlocked and open.

—Oh, I suppose it’s simply the way I am.

—My mother

—Well, the Bible seems to, at least to my mind, contradict itself on that.

—I think it was after he fell off his bicycle. The bike, by the way, was ruined.

—Do I really think so? Is that any question to ask? I mean really.

—Don’t worry about it. They’re like that.

–Jack Ridl

From Saint Peter and the Goldfinch (Wayne State University Press)

Speaking of the Goldfinch… Keith Taylor offered a delightful review on Stateside, WUOM, the other day. Listen to it just to hear that man’s voice, I say.

Go Valencia!! I had the joy of spending time with marvelous artist/poet Valencia Robin at a conference awhile ago. I’m so happy to report that her new collection Ridiculous Light received the Lexi Rudnitzky First Book Prize from Persea Books. One of the many stunning qualities of her work is the presentation of survival in a way that somehow creates a gentle quiet.

Watch for this film, The Biggest Little Farm, a documentary about John and Molly, a husband and wife who created a farm that grows in harmony with all, and I mean all, of nature. It took them seven years. The film will bring many a gasp, sigh, laugh, and choked back tear. It will get us talking. Side note: the wife, Molly, is the daughter of friends of ours. Her dad was a standout forward for one of the teams my father coached, one which was ranked number one throughout the season.

Jeff Gundy’s Without a Plea “brashly ranges from stick-thin lyrics to page-crossing two-line stanzas” and reveals that “the world is full / of little possibilities for love.”

Tony Eames from nfreads.com published this interview. His goal with his newsletter is to “learn something new every week.” Wonderful.

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Visit Reader’s World or Hope-Geneva Bookstore in Holland, The Bookman in Grand Haven, and The Book Nook & Java Shop in Montague to find Jack’s books in West Michigan.

Jack’s page on Amazon.

Click here to subscribe to receive Jack’s poems and news in your inbox.

Click here for Jack’s entire collection, In Time — poems for the current administration.

Click here to watch Jack’s TedX talk.

Solstice After All These Years

Waking up to the news isn’t what gets to so many of us. At a certain point in our lives we expect the tragic, be it international, national, or local. We brace ourselves and more often than not the irony is that heartbreaking news brings out the best in us. We care, usually helplessly, but we care.

However, sneaking up on 2 1/2 years now, we wake up and steel ourselves. So often it’s 45’s words of vengeance or another lie added to his more than 9,500 lies that we hear. Many of us were misled by “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Sigh. Bones can heal. Words can stick, can infect, and the consequences from these words will in all likelihood never heal.

So what does one do? When our daughter was little we, with gritted teeth, taught her that troubles and sorrows are constants. But that joy is also. That even though you are hurt, sad, troubled, never abandon the joy within.

Right now I am listening to Yo Yo Ma. I refuse to abandon Yo Yo Ma. My wife is knitting a blanket for a former student’s newborn. I refuse to abandon my smile. I filled the feeder. I refuse to abandon my delight at the birds’ visits. And when the smart-ass cynic tries to lure me with “And what good did this do?” I will say, “It did no good. It created good. That’s all I have.”

And then this afternoon we will be with friends. We will refuse to abandon friends to the lure of CNN. These are not escapes. These are who we are. These are what we do. These are the good we can create. These joys are lying in wait, within.

Solstice After All These Years

The work days go unnoticed.
It’s always a truck load;
it’s always maybe, or

another hour. Last night
we watched as the possum
crossed the back yard padding

its small path back into
the ineffable chaos
of wood and molder.

This morning there will be
a cup of coffee. There
will be the fierce pull

of the news’ hypnosis.
We will try not to remember.
We will tug ourselves to the novel

we roamed with into the anonymity
of sleep. We will be religious
without faith or doubt.

The trees will be our amen.
The cedar waxwing at the feeder
will take our place at communion,

redeeming seed into flight and song.
Tonight within the moon’s generosity
we will gather the vestments for tomorrow.

–Jack Ridl

First published in Saint Peter and the Goldfinch

Tony Eames from nfreads.com published this interview. His goal with his newsletter is to “learn something new every week.” Wonderful.

Now is the time to order Kathleen Markland’s new book, A Pen, A Brush, A Book, is out and orderable right here. We have been celebrating this homecoming all week, and would like to boast that some of the work in the book was penned and painted right under our own noses. We have bragging rights on this one.

 

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Visit Reader’s World or Hope-Geneva Bookstore in Holland, The Bookman in Grand Haven, and The Book Nook & Java Shop in Montague to find Jack’s books in West Michigan.

Jack’s page on Amazon.

Click here to subscribe to receive Jack’s poems and news in your inbox.

Click here for Jack’s entire collection, In Time — poems for the current administration.

Click here to watch Jack’s TedX talk.

Guided Meditation

Ready for a hodge podge? Here it comes.

Wasn’t it stunningly thoughtful of 45 to tell the French firefighters, obviously all ignorant of how to deal with the blaze devouring Notre Dame, what they should do: drop tons of water from planes passing over the area.

And it felt so good to hear 45, when asked what he thought of the destruction, respond with “It’s terrible.”

Uh huh.

45 has pledged money to help rebuild the cathedral. Doesn’t that look good! We all know those who make sure you see what good folks they are.

Of course, Puerto Rico was all but demolished by the hurricane; however that was “their fault.” And certainly the hungry and ill kids and parents and others at the border should be ignored because who do they think they are, barging into our country?

Be sure to read up on Jimmy Carter’s response to 45. It’s in a homily he gave at his church.

Whew. That’s enough.

A gigantic thank you to Wayne State University Press for supporting the free book launch event we held on April 5. I have heard from many about what happened there: The feel of a performance with an audience disappeared and the whole thing transformed into something we all created together.

It was terrific to hear, “I never realized that there were so many of us who cared the same way. Being amid like-minded souls felt sooooo good.”

Here’s but one example, this from the wonderful writer Gayle Boss. Find her work here. “. . . like a silent retreat: not until it’s over and you’re walking away feeling easier in your bones do you know how much tension you were holding. For a couple of Spring hours we were immersed in the Beloved Community.”

And I say to all of you who were there, thank YOU for making that community!!

How about this for begging? Please buy Saint Peter and the Goldfinch or another book from Wayne State University Press. They work hard on behalf of us by putting good into the lives of others who are holding on during this oppressive time. And if you enjoyed the book reception and feel the price of a book is worth what you enjoyed, all the better to support them. It’s a gift economy.

And now for your relaxation and peace of mind, your welfare, I offer a repeat poem. I recommend you repeat often…

Guided Meditation

Sit in a way that allows you to be comfortable
and relaxed. Do not let this hot and humid morning
enter your mind. Empty your mind, even if you

were up until 3am trying to forget what
your doctor told you yesterday afternoon. Now
take three deep breaths allowing yourself

to savor the mysterious gift that you
are breathing. You are breathing here
during this one moment, the only moment

that the benevolence of the earth gives
during this moment. This is your moment
even though we do not yet know

what a moment is. I often wonder what
the moment is just prior to the moment.
But that is a thought. And this is a yoga

meditation, and we are to accept each thought
as simply something that passes through us
and goes on its merry, or often unmerry, way.

Take another breath counting to four on the inhale
while picturing a gnome strolling up your nostrils
lugging a bag of gentle breezes, then count to six

on the exhale as the gnome cascades ass over
essential oils on an avalanche of air. Feel
your whole body fully relaxed. Continue breathing.

Picture a candle in a cave. Do not ask why in the
whole wide world there is a candle in a cave. If
you do, see in the question a yogi smiling as he

searches for the matches. Continue breathing.
And now imagine a field of lotus flowers. Or
if you are from the Midwest and unfamiliar

with lotus flowers you can always substitute corn.
Now picture rain on a roof. Listen to it. Listen
to the distant cough of thunder. Just listen. Don’t

think about what you left out to ruin the last time
it rained. Continue breathing, and as you do, allow
any image to appear on the multiplex of your mind.

Be sure not to fixate on any one image. If a lover
old or new comes at you with a flame thrower, just
sit, watch, let it all pass, be glad your ego’s been emulsified.

Stay relaxed. Continue breathing. Feel the comfort
of your whole body as you repeat the mantra, “I am
at peace. I am totally at peace. I am really, totally at peace.”

Now that you are at peace, feel your feet, palms, pelvic floor
fully at rest in the room. Come to Sukhasana. Bring your hands
to your heart, and join me for one long peaceful Om.

for Ami, Stacy, and Teresa

–Jack Ridl

First published in I-70 Review
Subsequently published in Saint Peter and the Goldfinch

Hey here’s some good news. Our dear friend, the remarkably compassionate and intelligently understanding Ginny Mikita has founded Animal Blessings. Ginny offers animal blessings, grief support groups, one-on-one companioning, memorial services, estate planning, and advocacy for our animal companions. Her website is www.animalblessings.love. Or call her at 616-460-0373.

And the wonderful Kathleen Markland’s new book, A Pen, A Brush, A Book, is out and orderable right here. We have been celebrating this homecoming all week, and would like to boast that some of the work in the book was penned and painted right under our own noses. We have bragging rights on this one.

 

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Visit Reader’s World or Hope-Geneva Bookstore in Holland, The Bookman in Grand Haven, and The Book Nook & Java Shop in Montague to find Jack’s books in West Michigan.

Jack’s page on Amazon.

Click here to subscribe to receive Jack’s poems and news in your inbox.

Click here for Jack’s entire collection, In Time — poems for the current administration.

Click here to watch Jack’s TedX talk.

Saint Peter and the Goldfinch

Working on your taxes?

45 isn’t.

Enough.

Have to self-celebrate: The new collection Saint Peter and the Goldfinch had its launch, “Gala for the Goldfinch” this past Friday. The women’s resistance choir Persisterhood opened the occasion by rousing the audience with rich harmonies and call-and-response songs. Then I joined The John Shea Jazz Trio for a conversation between poetry and jazz. Working with John and the trio has always been a highlight of my life. I can’t explain what it feels like to read a poem, then turn it over to the trio. It sure takes the pressure off this guy. Everyone feels the music.

After the trio and I finished, everyone partied. What felt so good was being sure that those there got to be away from the oppressive feeling we carry because of 45 and his relentless cruelty. To see the joy on all those faces–it deserves to be there time after time.

So many worked so hard behind the scenes to make this happen. So many. Especially Julie. Especially our friends at the DUCC and Wayne State University Press. Thanks to everyone!

Here, again, the title poem:

Saint Peter and the Goldfinch

He’d filled the little-roofed feeders with
sunflower and thistle seeds, hooks hanging
sturdy from the birch’s branches twisting

his own arm’s length above the mulch path,
the day’s first light lapsing along the leaves.
Peter knew the neighbors were talking

about the guy in the frayed cassock
who last week moved in with only
a pick-up’s bed of what seemed to be

belongings—a small table, couple
of ladder back chairs, a sound system
that looked vintage, a lot of books,

three futons, a large canvas bag
maybe filled with pans, pots, dishes,
and three lamps, one that dangled

tiny stars from its frayed shade.
He had gone out and brought home
an Adirondack and about fifty flower pots,

and the feeders. Now he took his morning
green tea out to the chair to wait for the birds.
This, he felt cross his mind, is what I have

waited for. He sipped. A house finch came.
A couple cardinals, a downy woodpecker.
The chickadees would take a seed, fly

into the branches of the hemlocks surrounding
the house and batter to get to the meat. Time
and time again they returned. Peter tried

to count then wondered why, stopped
and thought about what to plant
in the pots, where he would place them

within the striped grass that made a nest
for the house to sit within. He liked thinking
he had nested. He liked thinking everything

here could be taken away. He had cosmos,
impatiens—no perennials until bloom
and loss became a ritual, sacred. There was

a breeze. There was the tea. And then there was
a goldfinch, just one, at the thistle feeder, its startle
of yellow and black seamless within its feathers.

Peter watched as it took the seed, sat above him.
He watched as the bird flew to the feeder, flew back
to the same branch. St. Peter and the goldfinch

here in the day’s beginning. He could not bow
his head. He knew joy’s coupled sorrow. He knew
that this was time. He knew what the earth knew.

–Jack Ridl

First published in the Colorado Review

Subsequently published in Saint Peter and the Goldfinch (Wayne State University Press)

Kathleen Markland’s new collection A Pen, a Brush, a Book has been published and is available online.

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Visit Reader’s World or Hope-Geneva Bookstore in Holland, The Bookman in Grand Haven, and The Book Nook & Java Shop in Montague to find Jack’s books in West Michigan.

Jack’s page on Amazon.

Click here to subscribe to receive Jack’s poems and news in your inbox.

Click here for Jack’s entire collection, In Time — poems for the current administration.

Click here to watch Jack’s TedX talk.

Kindness

Hate. Arousing and affirming hate is not a policy.

This past week 45 held a rally at an arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a mere 50 minutes from this desk, where for over an hour he roused and affirmed the hate carried by his base base.

The President, our elected officials, and all of us are to work toward helping those who are helpless when it comes to housing, food, health, economic fairness, toward combating climate change, to enhance education, to uphold freedom of loving cultures, to secure everyone’s rights and safety, to establish equal pay for equal work, to create fair taxation practices, to work on whatever problem we, our families, and friends are struggling with.

But hate. Hate is not subject to debate.

Kindness can and must withstand it.

“It is only kindness that makes sense anymore.” from Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “Kindness”

Scrub

Last night at practice
when my man slipped by me
for a lay-up, Coach threw down
his clipboard, ran right up into my face,
slapped me behind the head,
and yelled, “What the hell
are you doing? Get in front.
Take a charge. You
on this team or not! How
are we gonna be ready if you
don’t play tough defense!”

Some mornings I wake up
wondering about wind sprints,
and tough defense, and running
up the bleachers twenty times.

Two hours every night
at practice I’m the other team.
I’ve heard it a thousand times: “You’re
necessary. You’re an integral part.
Without you, we’d never be ready.”
But I know I do what you do
when you’re never good enough.

Some day I’ll come back
and point at that place on the bench.
Some day I’m gonna sit back,
watch t.v., take a vacation
every summer, have a dog,
and never miss a game.

“You get in tonight?” my father asks
when I come in after a game.
I knock the snow from my boots, “No.”
“What?” “No.” “Close game?”
“No, we lost by twenty-three.” I listen
to the empty air, the slow shake
of my father’s head, know he’s been sitting
with a beer watching one show roll into
another, sneering at the ads and laugh tracks,
waiting for the news, sports, and weather, bed.
I go to the refrigerator, look at the line
of Budweiser cans, take out the milk,
pour a glass, go in with him
to watch the scores.

Sometimes, after practice,
I walk home
slowly,
and I think about
letting the ball
bounce away. Then
I would sit down,
let my mind open up wider
and wider, so wide
the sky would
come inside,
the stars
would light it all.

Last week, on the bus for school,
my seven year old sister said,
I’m scared the sun will go out.
That’s ridiculous. Can’t happen, and I
took her hand, looked out the window, up
into the sky, watched snow clouds
cross. But it’s fire, she said.
Fire goes out.

Four wind sprints to go.
“Let’s see what you have left.
Run. Run like I’m after you.
Run. Run now, or after the next
game, I’ll run you till you drop.
Run, god dammit, run.”

Once last summer I lay in bed
wondering if somewhere hidden
in my cells was something good enough
that I could do. But
the cells were mute. The days
since then have been the same, even
their names dissolving
like the host upon my tongue.

–Jack Ridl

First published in Sanscrit.
Subsequently published in Losing Season (CavanKerry Press)

Mark Hiskes’s long-awaited collection Standing with Alyosha (Dos Madres Press) has been released. Lorna Cook, author of Outside Wonderland among other novels, says “Mark Hiskes writes with the wisdom of a teacher humbled and seasoned, yet lit by an unfailing love of literature and the incandescence of adolescence. Each poem in the lovely collection is drawn with honesty, grit, and a constant thread of grace.”

Kelly Fordon has several readings from her new collection, Goodby Toothless House, coming up in the Detroit area. See her website for dates and times.

 

Don Cellini’s latest collection of translation is Solar History by Jair Cortés. 

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Visit Reader’s World or Hope-Geneva Bookstore in Holland, The Bookman in Grand Haven, and The Book Nook & Java Shop in Montague to find Jack’s books in West Michigan.

Jack’s page on Amazon.

Click here to subscribe to receive Jack’s poems and news in your inbox.

Click here for Jack’s entire collection, In Time — poems for the current administration.

Click here to watch Jack’s TedX talk.

Guarding the Back Yard

Well, it looks like 45 will get out of it.

On to what matters.

There’s a wonderful photograph of Daniel Berrigan where he’s in handcuffs. He’s raised his arms and is offering the peace sign.

Maybe that’s what it’s like to be us.

Guarding the Back Yard

He wears a hat, sometimes placing a feather
in the star-studded band circling the world

of his balding head. He’s watching
for slanderous gnomes and fairies gone bad.

He swings a rake along his steps, back and
forth across the long grass. He suspects

elves are tunneling toward his roses. He
tries to sleep altering which eye he closes,

keeping the other on the trees outside
his window. He plays a flute to his flowers.

He sings opera in the doorway. He plants
pinwheels. When it rains, he lies on a slab

of limestone, opens his mouth, imagines
his childhood alive in a milking pail.

–Jack Ridl

First published in Waymark
Subsequently published in Saint Peter and the Goldfinch (Wayne State University Press)

Mark Hiskes’s long-awaited collection Standing with Alyosha (Dos Madres Press) has been released. Lorna Cook, author of Outside Wonderland among other novels, says “Mark Hiskes writes with the wisdom of a teacher humbled and seasoned, yet lit by an unfailing love of literature and the incandescence of adolescence. Each poem in the lovely collection is drawn with honesty, grit, and a constant thread of grace.”

Kelly Fordon has several readings from her new collection, Goodby Toothless House, coming up in the Detroit area. See her website for dates and times.

Mary MckSchmidt, author of Uncharted Waters works tirelessly for water protection. She reported recently on the staggering number of balloons sent into the air that end up in our lakes, oceans, and streams where creatures eat them and die. Please never release helium inflated balloons. And look for her book.

And don’t forget the new collections by D. R. James, Todd Davis, Jeff Gundy, Greg Rappleye, and Linda Nemec Foster. Linda will be offering a eulogy in NYC for poet Colette Inez who passed away this week. Colette, another who brought such good into the world and was all but unknown outside the poetry world. Sigh.

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Visit Reader’s World in Holland, The Bookman in Grand Haven, and The Book Nook & Java Shop in Montague to find Jack’s books in West Michigan.

Jack’s page on Amazon.

Click here to subscribe to receive Jack’s poems and news in your inbox.

Click here for Jack’s entire collection, In Time — poems for the current administration.

Click here to watch Jack’s TedX talk.

Coffee Talks with Conrad Hilberry

One of the world’s best, W.S. Merwin, an important poet, translator, and environmentalist, passed away this week at 91. That’s almost 70 years of work devoted to the good. When he received the Pulitzer Prize, the war in Vietnam was raging. He wrote this in The New York Review of Books:

“I am pleased to know of the judges’ regard for my work, and I want to thank them for their wish to make their opinion public. But after years of the news… and commentary from Washington, I am too conscious of being an American to accept public congratulation with good grace, or to welcome it except as an occasion for expressing openly a shame which many Americans feel, day after day, helplessly, and in silence.”

I guess I don’t need to say how much I wish I lived in a culture that valued Merwin, his life, and his life’s work.

And speaking of peace-filled poets whose work matters…

 

Coffee Talks With Conrad Hilberry

He brought out the robust flavor
of everything, brewed us lines perked

for sipping, savoring— images
espresso intense, carried latte light

across rhythms energetic as caffeine.
We pour these poems dark, rich,

some with cream, none with a sugar cube,
but each accompanied by the real sweetness

of a buttery croissant, one dipped
into the full body of a fine French roast.

for Jane Hilberry

–Jack Ridl

First published in Peninsula Poets
Subsequently published in Saint Peter and the Goldfinch (Wayne State University Press)

The Gala for the Goldfinch is racking up RSVPs. We have a few more seats. Grab yours here: http://bit.ly/GoldfinchGala

Jeff Gundy has a new collection: Without a Plea (Bottom Dog Press) Here’s what Lynn Powell says, “. . . in poem after adventurous poem [Jeff Gundy reveals that ‘the world is full/ of little possibilities for love.'”

Workshop on March 23 at Grace Episcopal Church, Holland, MI
Jack will lead this workshop, sharing approaches to Writing Personal History at Grace Episcopal Church in Holland, Michigan. Time 10-1:30. Contact the church to sign up.

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Visit Reader’s World in Holland, The Bookman in Grand Haven, and The Book Nook & Java Shop in Montague to find Jack’s books in West Michigan.

Jack’s page on Amazon.

Click here to subscribe to receive Jack’s poems and news in your inbox.

Click here for Jack’s entire collection, In Time — poems for the current administration.

Click here to watch Jack’s TedX talk.