A big thank you to Editor James Diaz of the really fun lit mag Anti-Heroin Chic who has published my poems “Into Pulp” and “Scrap” in their latest issue.
The first poem is a response to someone else’s vintage photograph. I don’t have permission to post the photo, but here is a link: Wrecked archive image
The first poem begins this way:
Into Pulp
Lakewater pushes at my ankles
toes slicing an evanescent path
I’m at an age where I think I’m at the age
and I don’t imagine eyerolls
where I sense time abrading my surface
like this constantly moving water
stones and minnows distort into segments
molecules into a variety of atomic individuals
two purple, no, one hairbrush, a plastic ball
a swaying branch, leaves decaying
the insides of my grandmothers’ fridges
bubble and pop into shards of memory
The second poem, “Scrap,” relates to my memoir of the same name.
One of my father’s magical monstrosities
You can follow the link to both poems:
POEMS AT ANTI-HEROIN CHIC
I love your father’s ‘monstrosity’…and the poems are textured with vivid imagery…
Thank you–so glad the imagery is vivid! Yes, my father’s monstrosities, both literal and figurative, were really something!
Two powerfully crafted poems fitting to the images, Luanne
Thank you so much, Derrick. Very happy to hear that!
Well said, Derrick!
🙂
Wonderful poems, Luanne. Congratulations!
My friend Damien is also in this issue.
Thank you so much, Merril! Congrats to Damien, too. I couldn’t remember what brollies meant so I had to look it up. Very evocative poem.
Luanne, both excellent but I particularly loved Scrap. By the way, did I know you had a memoir titled Scrap? Is it a work in progress? Regardless, I love the title for a memoir.
Oh, thank you, Sheila. The first poem was an imaginative flight of fancy and therefore easy to write. The second goes to the heart of my unfinished memoir and has been very very difficult to write. Yes, unfinished. I’ve written WAY over 300,000 words, but am left with nothing as I can’t find the right structure. I’ve been at this for 12 years. Can you hear me screaming?
I really can! The obvious is what you’ve already done, I’m sure. Chronological. Finish Part One. Save Part Two for the next book.
That’s my advice for what it’s worth. Just seems to me too good to postpone. Focus on feelings, images like your poetry. The words will sing.
Aw, thank you, Sheila. The real problem is with the structure because you know how a memoir needs to cover a shorter period of time? This is about my father and my relationship to my father, so it covers a long period of time, but doesn’t necessary have to be a long book. Hmm, maybe I should stop thinking of it as a memoir . . . .
Yes! Good idea.
I like these poems, Luanne. Left a comment on the other site.
Anneli, thank you! And thank you for your comment at the site! Your comment over there has started me off on a new line of thinking for a poem or the memoir. About how the next owner doesn’t understand the significance of the scraps as they come “unattached,” but one of the reasons I write and do genealogy is that I am burdened with not only the scraps (as the oldest grandchild on both sides and also the one who soaked up everything), but the stories of the scraps. So thank you :).
I’ve been thinking about so many of my stashed treasures, thinking, “Who will care about this when I’m gone?” It’ time to unclutter, but it’s SO hard! But I’m glad you’ve got another thread to follow for your writing.
This is such a difficult dilemma. I have it, as well. My kids will never have the space or the desire for most of my treasures, I’m pretty sure. I especially worry about the huge collection of family photos that I have. I would like to get digital copies to every member of the younger generation, thinking that at least one of them might end up appreciating it. But who do I give the originals to? Yikes.
Same problem here. I’m the one who has all the old family photos, generations back. Nowadays, who cares about those people? Just me.
That is a thought I have sometimes, and it is pretty depressing. I wish there were a way for us to attach our photos to our a larger world project so they are not lost forever. That said, there ARE people who like to rescue old photos and assign them to family trees and find other descendants. Are there maybe other related people who you don’t know or barely know who might be interested? If you want me to search on Ancestry for you to see if any of your relatives show up on any family trees, let me know.
No, I know of a few cousins, and I’ve researched the family tree thing as far as I want to go on that, but thanks. I’ll package the photos and leave them marked and available to “whomever.”
Yes, they might want digital copies. YOu never know :).
I, too, am the oldest grandchild burdened with the scraps!
Both are so beautiful and just perfect. There’s something so raw and tender in Scrap. Brava!
I love your description of “Scrap”! I was hoping so, but when you write something you never know if you nailed it or not LOL. Even if you think you do. I usually think I do right after I write something. Then I find all the flaws later and pick it apart until I hate it. Thank you!!!!
You totally nailed it. 👏🏼
Woot!
I enjoyed both poems. Luanne. I was especially taken with Scrap. The love comes through that one.
Thank you so much, John. Beautifully put, and I am SO glad to hear that! It was a difficult poem to write. So of course the memoir is even harder LOL!
Yes, I can imagine.
I enjoyed both poems. I like how you imagined the couple in the damaged photograph. The love and pain really come through in Scrap.
Thank you SO much, Eilene. Music to my ears! I’m so glad you enjoyed them!
Both poems are wonderful homages (is that a word?) to memory and the people in our memories. the lack of punctuation in the first one really lends itself to the fluid nature of memory, too, how it shifts and distorts. The piece has a lovely feel to it. Of course Scrap speaks so closely of your father’s life and your dutiful keeping of your family scraps – so poignant! so many gorgeous images in each but I especially enjoyed how your brought your grandmother to life in the first. You are truly a gifted poet!
Before I forget (have memory like a sieve!), your dad’s creation is so whimsical and original and cute!!
Your poetry is amazing, kiddo! I’ve always found it hard to to relate to many poems as they’re so personal, they’re impenetrable. But yours – although personal, have images I can bond with, e.g. “shards of memory” – that immediately brings to mind the time I had yet another heated argument with my father, ran into my room and slammed the door, the full-length mirror hung on the back of it *crashing* down to the floor in pieces – SHARDS…
Congratulations on your publications, Luanne! I’ve left a comment on the other site.
Liz, thank you so very much! Just packed up your Doll God copy. 🙂
You’re welcome, Luanne! I’m looking forward to receiving Doll God. 🙂
How wonderful these poems are. I know you’ve been working on your memoir, but for the first time, when you said the name of the memoir was Scrap, I thought of Janisse Ray. I’m sure you’ve read her Ecology of a Cracker Childhood growing up in a junkyard. She is also a poet. Y’all are going in different directions, but it did come to mind.
Thanks, Ellen. I’ve had her book for years and still haven’t read it!!!! I will change that! Thank you!
I very much enjoyed it, and she was kind when I met her at a reading a good while back. The structure is alternating chapters between ecological information on the pines in that region and her memoir chapters. Very interesting
Definitely reading it soon.
Congratulations on your publications.
Such beautiful poems …. wrought from troubling thoughts and memories. Scrap fits your memoir perfectly.
Thank you so much! Love this: “wrought from troubling thoughts and memories.” When I was writing that poem I was thinking about a poem to “be” the memoir itself.