Songs of Eretz 2018: A Year in Review and a Look Ahead

2018 marked yet another good year for Songs of Eretz.  The site recorded just shy of 100,000 more views, and we enjoyed paying guest poets a professional rate of fifty dollars a poem.  Duotrope sponsored our contest this year, a sitting state poet laureate is serving as guest judge, and a record $1,500 will be given away in contest honoraria in the coming year, which will bring the total amount that we have given away to poets and for poetry to well over $5,000. Not bad for a plucky little e-zine whose stated mission is “to bring a little more good poetry into the world.”

We had to say farewell to Frequent Contributors Yoni Hammer-Kossoy, Sierra July, Mary Soon Lee, Lauren McBride, and Aparna Sanyal but we are pleased to welcome five new Frequent Contributors to the staff.  While the old FCs will be dearly missed, this yearly attrition helps to keep Songs of Eretz fresh and cutting edge.  Our new FCs are Silvia Cavanaugh, Richard Fenwick, Karla Linn Merrifield, Vivian Finley Nida, and Charles A. Swanson.  They are accomplished poets from all over the United States, and their diverse poetic voices will be a real treat.  Their bios may be read in the “Our Staff” section.

The editorial staff expanded to include Art Editor Jason Artemus Gordon, Associate Editor James Frederick William Rowe, and Assistant Editor Terri Lynn Cummings.  This team has already begun taking on about half of the editorial duties that used to fall only to me.  I am looking forward to the contributions they will make in the operation of Songs of Eretz and to the freedom their help will afford me to spend more time on strategic planning.  And I have so many strategic plans!

Most significantly, beginning in January 2019, Songs of Eretz Poetry Review will go from publishing every weekday to publishing eleven themed issues per year (about one issue per month around the middle of each month).  Around February, there will also be a special contest issue featuring the winners of and finalists in the Fifth Songs of Eretz Poetry Award Contest.  A Readers Choice Award Contest will follow, allowing the readership to choose its favorite poem from among the non-winning finalists.

I have also decided that Songs of Eretz will be a project funded by love, not by money.  No more contests.  No more fundraisers.  No more asking for donations.  No reading fees for poetry submissions.  Just beautiful poetry accompanied by beautiful art offered to the world to view for free.  The e-zine will go back to paying our guest (non-FC) poets a semi-professional rate of five dollars per poem.  

And while I do hope that contributors will still take advantage of the unique opportunities that providing Poet’s Notes Statements present, they will no longer be required to do so.  Some poets feel (quite strongly) that poetry should “speak for itself.”  Songs of Eretz is going to respect that.

In the past, all illustrations that accompanied our poems were chosen by me from royalty-free images offered online.  Thanks to our new Art Editor, Songs of Eretz was able to publish many original, custom illustrations to complement our poems this year.  Beginning in 2019, Jason’s original artwork will be offered for sale to the general public. (As a courtesy, we will give the poets whose poems inspired the illustrations rights of first refusal).  These one-of-a-kind drawings and paintings, which will be offered framed alone or side-by-side with their poems, will make unique and beautiful adornments to or conversation pieces in any home or simply wonderful gifts.

Finally, in an effort to put more “review” in the Review, at least one review of a poetry collection will appear in each issue next year, and we will begin accepting poetry collection submissions for review.  Since our raison d’être is to promote poetry and poets, we will only publish positive reviews.

So many great things have happened, and even more are to come.  This is only possible due to our loyal readership, generous supporters, and the outstanding talent of our Frequent Contributors and guest poets. Together we have made and will continue to make the world a little more beautiful.

On behalf of Songs of Eretz, I wish you farewell until our first monthly issue appears in the middle of January 2019 and all the best for a happy New Year.

Kind regards,
Steve

Steven Wittenberg Gordon, MD

Editor-in-Chief

"it's not easy being not green" by Ross Balcom

it's not easy being not green

a green house looming

a green door

a green monk

green texts and chants

a green fire

a green tongue, darting

green birds

a green sky

only the trees

not green

the trees begging

in the streets

for chlorophyll

--Ross Balcom

Poet's Notes:  The title of this poem is a play on the title of a popular song, "It's Not Easy Being Green."

Editor’s Note:  I admit I misread the title at first and was finding the poem a bit tedious until the end with the begging trees.  Now I have this vision of an albino Kermit T. Frog sitting in the bleached branches of an albino Treebeard.  How deliciously horrifying!

"The Meaning of the Wax Argument" by James Frederick William Rowe

The Meaning of the Wax Argument

James Frederick William Rowe

My words are molten wax

Adrip from lip or pen

Sharing no similarity

To the meaning so signified

Yet known to reason

As the pool of wax

Is known as the same substance

To the candle it once was

My mind knows meaning

My senses – nothing.

Poet’s Notes:  I was teaching John Searle's famous philosophical thought-experiment the Chinese Room in class the other day when I began thinking about meaning on the subway home. Specifically, I thought that just as Descartes said that we do not understand the substance of the wax by our senses, as a candle and a puddle of wax share none of the same properties as one another, the word as spoken and word as read have no intrinsic connection, yet are understood to represent the same thing. Moreover, and more importantly, neither the spoken nor written word has any true connection to the meaning itself, yet still can convey it. This led me to the suitably rationalistic conclusion that "my mind knows meaning / my senses – nothing" as well as providing the pun of a title, where I combine a theme of meaning with argumentation taken from the wax argument.

This poem is simple enough and was written in a single subway ride with no alteration. Of course, wax figures predominately, as I unite the notion of molten wax (which is yet understood to be wax) to the words that both my pen and lips "drip", and later explicitly reference the wax argument to reach the aforementioned rationalistic conclusion.  Amusingly, I didn't even intend for this poem to come out an even ten verses, but it did, and I am pleased with that harmony.

Editor’s Note:  I enjoy the way James waxes poetic here in this clever if heady piece.  Those who wish to wrestle with Searle's Chinese Room may do so here https://www.iep.utm.edu/chineser/.

"Windrawer" by Alessio Zanelli

Windrawer

Alessio Zanelli

You can never invite the wind,
but you must leave the window open.
                              —Bruce Lee

It will blow only when it has to.
        You can yet make a difference though.
                Whether you stop or you go on
                        fantasizing about the whys and hows.

                                There is no way to master space,
                                        let alone to command time,
                                                even less to influence their flirts.
                                                        And what you pine for is an outcome.

                                                        But you can be aware of that,
                                                as you can be aware of more.
                                        Of the music still audible
                                 once the players are gone,
                         of all the wheres and whens
                you have inadvertently missed.
        Acceptance will definitely make a big difference.
Be it to blow soon or never again.

Poet’s Notes:  This one is about the human illusion of being allowed (if so wanting...) to determine one's own life completely. We can certainly succeed in sketching the big picture, in leaving the least possible to chance and luck, in managing the flowing of things on a large scale and to some extent. But on certain aspects and single events, at times even really momentous and long expected ones, we have little control, if any at all. Hence the big picture will come out the better the sooner we recognize and come to terms with our limitations.

Editor’s Note:  The concrete aspect of this poem has the effect of making the words seem to blow in the wind.  The epigraph works well to set the mood.  There is a certain thoughtful philosophy expressed, too.

Art Editor’s Note:  As with most concrete poems published in Songs of Eretz, I thought it best to allow the poem to act as its own illustration.

"On Leaving Legals Seafood" by John C. Mannone

On Leaving Legals Seafood

John C. Mannone

            Long Wharf, Boston, 2012

Water taxis ride the sacred

Boston harbor waterways

seemingly with indifference

to American Revolution

echoes dissolved in the waves

and in the whispers of offshore

breeze and boat wind. I know,

I heard them despite the seagull

cries for anything one could throw

them, like manna. And the water,

Holy Moses, split open to green walls 

by boat’s bow leaning into the turn.

Behind me, a wake of history

hidden by sky scrapers, but ahead

to the north and west, the sky

in its prayer shawl, kneels 

at the sight. All I can do is chant

‘Oh my dear Lord’ through the water

filling my eyes. I see her sails

still fluttering freedom. Her sleek

wood painted to hide the blood

of those who gave theirs for me.

A constellation of emotion

upwelling out of the silence

into a roar of gratitude to those

who served on the USS Constitution

for this great ship of State.

Poet’s Notes:  On a business trip in 2012, I visited Legals Seafood’s main restaurant on the wharf in Boston harbor and took a water taxi. The tears welled in me as I saw that great ship floating there, still seaworthy! This poem had been hiding in my spirit for quite some time.

Editor’s Note:  Seeing the USS Constitution (pictured) when I was a boy moved me, too.  John’s poem captures the feelings the sight of her inspired in me.

USS Constitution, a 44-gun frigate, also known as “Old Ironsides”, was launched in 1797 and distinguished herself in the War of 1812 and served as a training ship during the War Between the States.  She remains the oldest ship in active US Navy service.  To find out how this mighty warship earned her nickname, follow this link http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/on-this-day/July-August-08/On-this-Day--USS-Constitution-Earns-Nickname--Old-Ironsides--in-War-of-1812.html.

"Merry Christmas" by Gene Hodge

Merry Christmas

Gene Hodge

It’s four in the morning.

Mr. Sandman missed our house last night

and I couldn’t sleep.

So . . . before traffic awakens

and while the streets

still sleep beneath a blanket of darkness,

I’d like to go look at Christmas lights.

Will you come?

We can drive real slowly . . .

take our time,

and be like children once more.

I’ll make you a cup of hot chocolate

flavored with peppermint sticks,

we can turn the radio down low

and . . . listen to Christmas songs.

Before daybreak chases the magic away

I’ll watch the lights dance on your face

and whisper, “Merry Christmas,

I love you."

Editor’s Note:  Gene really captures the spirit of the season here, and I just adore the way he engages the readers, drawing them into the narrative.  From the editors and staff of Songs of Eretz, a Merry Christmas to all! 

"Concentration Camp" John C. Mannone

Concentration Camp

John C. Mannone

            Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.

            —Luke 23:24

 

The black & white photograph

metamorphoses into a window,

into a blinding dark

                        past to where a heap

of emaciated forms—skeletons

with mere covering of skin

—become the ghosts of conscience.

                        Their deep set eyes,

gaunt faces staring at me, past

their executioners. Some smile.

Though their lips seem sutured

                        shut, sweet words

of forgiveness slip through

the Polaroid. Those refuse to be buried

with hatred on their tongues.

Poet’s Notes:  When trying to imagine one of the most horrible things I could imagine, I was prodded by some images of the Holocaust. I am haunted by some of those images. I think about hatred, why so much hatred, and about forgiveness, also unimaginable if I were there. 

The structure of the poem is reminiscent of coupled trains—a subtle image that I simply thought of and not obvious in the poem. I wrote this poem; because the Holocaust is something that we should never forget.

Editor’s Note:  A moving poem in both senses of the word. I am the son of a Holocaust survivor and agree that we must never forget.  Forgiveness for such abject cruelty is another matter--one for God, not man, I think, as the epigraph, but not the poem itself, implies.

Art Editor's Note:  The inscription on the photo is from Isaiah 49:16--Behold!  I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands...  For me, the boy represents my generation, now three generations removed from the horror.  It is important that every generation remembers.

"The Birth of a Dewdrop" by Gene Hodge

The Birth of a Dewdrop

Gene Hodge

Upon the gazebo’s metal roof,

it laughs at the starry sky . . .

then slides downward

through the cool morning,

freeing itself

off the edge

in a graceful swan dive.

In one finale splash

it splatters into a million love drops

and kisses the face

of a smiling deck.

Poet’s Notes: This time of year the humidity is high in the South, and moisture forms heavy on rooftops.  Sitting alongside my gazebo in the early morning while watching the stars and having my first cup of coffee, I heard a heavy drop of moisture splash onto the deck.  Isn't it amazing how something so insignificant to many is of so much importance to a poet?

Editor’s Note:  I love the way Gene employs personification here.  His choice of "finale" rather than "final" in the last stanza creates a poetic finale analogous to that at the end of a fine piece of music.

"Rescue Dog" by Terri Lynn Cummings

Rescue Dog

Terri Lynn Cummings

I turn to Abbey

when others turn away

when I do not want

my words repeated

when I speak

of nothing or nonsense

on days hollowed

by sorrow

She cocks her head

eyes wide in wonder

stands on my feet

anxious I will leave

as I doubt 

whether anyone ever

belongs to a life

What more is this

but an afternoon 

or a moment’s bow to loss

while I, like she, nothing

but water and air

stitched in skin

ill-shaped and faded

am soothed in mid-sentence 

by paws

Poet’s Notes:  In May, we lost Abbey, the best dog we had ever had. I continue to write about her. Perhaps it is less painful to write about our dog than the more recent loss of our young nephew to opioid addiction. Perhaps the mere thought of Abbey has the power of consolation. Whatever the reason, I thank her again and again.

Editor’s Note:  What a lovely tribute to Abbey, and such a beautiful rendering of how the instinctive empathy of dogs may brighten our days.  Dog owners will really identify with this poem (as do I), and I daresay pet owners in general will as well.

"I Cannot Believe In Ghosts" by Aparna Sanyal, Poet of the Week

I Cannot Believe In Ghosts

Aparna Sanyal

 

The live son of the dead ghost 

takes liberties we cannot.

For the belly of a beast has been 

his womb for longer

than a life’s gestation.

Grime rubbed streets rise

to greet him, the pavements

carefully cradle his hair fluff,

as he slumbers. 

So, he roams them now,

their rubbled devastation suits

the land-mined expanse of his heart.

He smokes chillums dry,

then races to a grave, nimbler 

and faster than his body cares 

to live. 

Tired before he wakes, 

sleeping without rest is 

his natural state.

Dawn wakes him to nibbles

and scrabbles and the stench 

of just-there 

fears that are his every season:

sun to rain,

rain to sun. 

No wonder then, 

that his beauty blinds me

so surely, so completely, 

that I must un-see him, 

before his scrubbed bright light

eclipses my day. 

I cannot believe in ghosts, 

for if I do, 

their mortal children will

take my breath away. 

Poet’s Notes: Once again, I awaken to an India of giant statues and jumlas, monuments to man’s hubris, as right before our steel and glass homes, millions of unseen ghosts crowd the streets, living their lives on the edges of ours. I weep but do nothing for I too am inured to their plight having lived with them willfully ignoring them my whole life. I too am as guilty of the conditioned apathy that every Indian develops as a coping mechanism to exist in a land that has so many homeless people that they could fill entire nations.

Editor’s Note:  Sadly, homelessness is a serious problem in America, too, though not nearly as bad as in India.  It is a privilege to publish this one as the last poem to appear in Songs of Eretz by Aparna as an FC.

I am so proud of Aparna and what she has accomplished and that Songs of Eretz will forever be a repository of what will become known as some of her "earliest work."  I knew from the moment that I read her first contest poem a year ago that she was destined for great things.  I will certainly follow her career with great interest and will dearly, dearly miss her unique and wonderful contributions to Songs of Eretz. 

"Tribal" by Aparna Sanyal, Poet of the Week

Tribal

Aparna Sanyal

          A tribute to Ants Among Elephants by Sujatha Gidla

The wildness at the edges overtakes him 

until he is a man made of vines.

He puts his head into crocodile jaws

and kisses cobras 

before they are given sanctuary. 

He sells the hives that bees forgot 

and toils off

his ancestors’ soil. 

He stares at mud with eyes of glass 

and polishes his knife.

And tries and tries to stab 

the fireflies that flit 

just out of reach. 

But the blueness of the sky 

is not for him.

So, like a boar that cannot raise 

its head to the sky, 

he looks down

until the day 

he dies. 

Poet’s Notes: One of the finest and most searing works of non-fiction that I have read in recent times is the award-winning book Ants Amongst Elephants--The Story of an Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India by Sujatha Gidla. In it, the author chronicles the lives of her family and its history of deprivation and abuse at the hands of higher caste orders over the last century in India. For a person of “privilege” and one who has been raised “high-caste”, this book was an eye-opener; the stories that existed at the margins of my awareness while growing up and that were easy to shrug off as “exaggerated” were made real in this book. Truly, anyone who denies that caste forms a large part of modern Indian society is guilty of playing ostrich.

Editor’s Note:  Many if not all societies have their own versions of a caste system.  The system may be based on differences in wealth, education, the manner of one’s speech, race, sex, religion, or ancestry.  This poem should give every reader pause. 

"Umbilicus" by Aparna Sanyal, Poet of the Week

Umbilicus

Aparna Sanyal

 

Umbilicus dried,

wrapped in white mulmul binding.

Blood, tears, sweat ingrained. 

We thrashed together 

then untethered, apart,

to become mother and son,

fibrous souls undone.

We were birthed, by the act of birth— 

refined, pain blest. 

An alicorn stab, then seconds gasping 

through hazed eyes. 

And a barely recognized fear 

that you and I would never feel

this coupling again. 

This ritual severance of pith would rend us 

forevermore. 

So, we—

your father and I,

keep this red thread.

This shriveled rope tether of our nuclei, 

this relic of our being,

for when you are reborn as father.

We will hand it forward then,  

to bind us generational, gestational, 

forevermore. 

This umbilicus,

our core. 

Poet’s Notes: If you had asked me a few years ago if I would ever consider keeping a shriveled piece of discarded flesh in the most sacred recesses of my cupboard, I would’ve scoffed. And yet, there it is, the tiny piece of brown cord, a tangible physical piece of the unique connection between my son and me that means more to me than gold. 

"Ode to an Adivasi Woman" by Aparna Sanyal, Poet of the Week

Ode to an Adivasi Woman

Aparna Sanyal

Even bare-breasted, 

you carry the dignity of generations

on your collar bones, 

angled in your defiant chin,

proud and unwavering in your 

eyes. 

No small gaze can bind you,

nor encompass your reckless, luscious 

beauty, torn from strife,

born in dust, tears and wattle.

Formed of bracken and thorn, 

dark corners

and stabbing brilliance speckle your soul. 

Made and unmade in many blood-red suns, 

the grit forms your heart, 

the pain stains you dark. 

A white man labels you savage,

for the brown one, you are meat 

of a different kind.

You talk with so much reverence 

to those who abase you, 

even as your pearl-teeth 

smile to bear the pain. 

Carrying your papoose of cares, 

and a male child on your back;

the only sign to mark your eventual passing,

you wend your way, another day

to another field,

another sunrise, another sunset,

where 

passions that are not yours 

and visions that you never sought 

are fulfilled on this bridge

that is 

your shoulders. 

You have scrabbled for a voice

since the beginning of time,

found, then lost it 

in quick gasps 

and sometime-sultry whispers. 

In that voice, you have formed a song, 

from pain and planets 

and the repeated rending 

of yourself. 

But the cacophony cannot hear 

this fledgling song. 

And strained, once more you have returned 

to silence, 

but not defeat. 

Tamped down, but not abated,

you wait to sing another day. 

Your burr and thistle

makes you the dandelion 

that quivers 

and tumbles, 

but will not shed 

it’s precious grain. 

Poet’s Notes:  This is a tribute piece to every “lower-caste” Indian woman bending in the sun, careworn but not defeated by a rigid casteist hierarchy. She bends but is not broken. And every day she fights to live.

Editor’s Note:  While a powerful tribute to the perseverance of lower caste Indians, this poem could serve as an anthem for any oppressed people. 

"Revisiting" by Aparna Sanyal, Poet of the Week

Editor's Note:  Earlier this month, Frequent Contributor Aparna Sanyal let me know that she had three poems accepted for publication in other prestigious venues and that her debut book of stories in verse, Circus Folk & Village Freaks, made #1 on the Hot New Releases List and #3 on the Amazon India Bestseller list.  Such achievements in the field of writing let alone in poetry are simply astounding, especially considering that Aparna only began to write poetry about a year ago!

The mission of Songs of Eretz is to promote up-and-coming poets.  Aparna has clearly ARRIVED.  Any further commitment to Songs of Eretz would hold back her rising star--the exact opposite of what Songs of Eretz strives to do.  At my recommendation, and with a resolute but heavy heart, Aparna has resigned her position as an FC.

Aparna was gracious enough to say that her experience with Songs of Eretz was valuable to her and helped to make her the poet that she is today.  I am deeply gratified and humbled by her kind words.  As a final tribute to her and as a way of bidding her farewell, Aparna will be featured as a Poet of the Week for the week of December 17, beginning below with "Revisiting". 

Revisiting

Aparna Sanyal 

The wall calls, 

I answer. 

I dig. 

The skeleton is there.

Right behind a layer of 

muddy red bricks and grey 

clay mortar.

Implacably, intricately wrought, the 

clock’s artistry shows in the muscle 

fibre’s weft. 

Woven with an arachnid intensity, 

gristle sticks in symmetrical rails 

to bones.

Yellowing may have begun, but they 

are still rich— the marrow within,

not yet leached of vivacity and 

coagulating but vital blood song.

They sing threads from my past.

Gone, but never forgotten, 

is the burr of

it’s grain, the thistle of it sticking to 

my gown; 

this swan song is never a

lullaby. 

I stretch a hand out to an old friend, 

this beast that runs through my 

dreams, wasted and paltry coated, 

but never tamed. 

I am fond of it, the way 

one can be fond 

of nightmares, recollected in bits of stippled 

starlight and sudden awakenings. 

Wilfully scabrous, the skeleton sloughs into my fingers, 

desiccates into memory fragments 

I thought I forgot. 

It wills me to accept it, this melting thing

set to expire, it needs my support

to respire.

In a kiss, I breathe my joy into its mouth.

In a sigh, it gives me my pain. 

For now, the exchange is done, 

I brick this wall up yet again. 

Poets’ Notes: It takes me a long time to forget past traumas. And sometimes, try as much as I like, my subconscious self does not allow me to forget. After many trying nights with mixed dreams that leave me crying and gasping for breath, I often wonder if I am ready to let go of the past, or does my mind choose to retain these memories as a sort of log-book of karmic debts paid and unpaid? Perhaps I need the pain as sharply as I need the relief that follows when I come awake?