Sherry Chandler

Though Alicia Stallings is not really tall, she gives the impressive of being long and thin. She has a long thin face with a long thin nose and her blond hair, cut jaw-length, is straight and sleek. She has a way of constantly smoothing the left forelock as she reads and tucking it behind her ear, though it had been securely tucked all along. Her voice is thin and reedy, a little hoarse. She sips water frequently. She is dressed in black; she is a poet after all, but her black capri pants have a bright red band and her shawl is decorated with silver threads and wine-dark velvet. She wears three inch black heels with rounded toes and an ankle strap. Across the vamp of the right one runs a green stem that continues across the left to culminate in a red rose that droops over the outside of the left shoe. She turns her ankles as she reads, tilting those high high heels like a child playing grownup.

From this thin reed of a flute, a sort of feminine panpipe, issues a lyric voice of some power and range.

Gamine is the right word for the look, gamine perhaps the right word for the intelligence that is at once mischievous, playful to the point of impudence, and a bit of an outlaw, though she does work in “received forms” and take as her subject matter the old Greek myths.

Perhaps I should be very careful to specify that I mean a bit of a poetic outlaw, a woman who will write a series of limericks on classical subjects for example, considering what Stallings posted on the Harriet blog on Monday before I heard her read on Tuesday:

I’ve been thinking a lot about translation, not just because I was on a panel about poetry, philosophy, and translation, but because I have been in the act of translation… that is “carrying across” boundaries–myself, my luggage, my family. Because of a paperwork glitch in a visa in 1997, which means he must check the “yes” box on the green form coming into the country which asks if you have ever had problems with the INS, my Greek husband still encounters difficulties when we go through passport control. We inevitably get sent to the Orange Room (or whatever it is called in the particular airport we are in), along with various resident aliens and visitors whose paperwork or appearance or demeanor has somehow sent up flags with the immigration officer.

So there we are, with a 3 year old who has been 10 hours cooped up on a plane, now running wildly around, getting shouted at whenever he crosses an ominous red line in the carpet, as we wait to find out if they will let my husband into the country, or, for some arbitrary reason or other, send him back on the next plane out. There are no rights here–no rights to an attorney, no rights just because you are married to a citizen. Everyone in the room is exhausted and tense. Some have the stoical resignation of those used to being under the arbitrary sway of civil servants. I wonder how many US citizens even know of the existence of such rooms and corridors, conviently out of sight, in the airport, behind which are interview rooms and restraining cells, limbos of all kinds, and some circles of hell.

I heard Stallings read at Georgetown College, where she claimed Kentucky roots, so they made it into the country and I can attest that son Jason is impishly cute. Knowing what they went through makes me double grateful for the experience of the reading.

If you have not read Stallings’ poetry, do. You’ll find a sampling of poems from her first collection, Archaic Smile, at this link.

Added: As Andrea points out below in the comments, Stallings blogs today about being in bourbon country and not able to buy a beer at a service station. Maybe she should have asked for a mint julep??

Ha ha.

Anyway, the posting is doubly appropriate because, as Andrea guessed, I did use this description of Stallings as one of my close observations for Leatha Kendrick’s Master Class in Poetry at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning (though I may have written it anyway, being always in the market for blog fodder). And also because Stallings discusses Elizabeth Bishop’s “Filling Station,” which is one of the poems Leatha includes often in her workshop packets. And so the universe comes into one of its momentary alignments.

Here is Stallings:

Which in turn has been making me think of Elizabeth Bishop’s “Filling Station.” I am an ardent admirer of Bishop, but it has taken me years and years to get over an initial dislike of this poem.

I had never much liked the “Oh, but it is dirty!” opening, or the somewhat self-consciously humorous “Be careful with that match!” The tone is hard to pin down (oily?)–bemused, almost affectionate, but also… well, condescending. The narrator finds it difficult to imagine why (oh why) someone would bother with such niceties as a doily or a begonia in such a dirty place. And then the flatness (deliberate of course) of the ending, “Somebody loves us all.”

Even when I recognized the skill in it–the control of the diction (grease-impregnated wickerwork” “quite comfy” “hirsute begonia”), which, perhaps implied, is above the diction level of the attendants, the control of assonance (”heavy with grey crochet”)–how “dirty” and “oily” somehow combine to make “doily”–I still had trouble liking the poem. The only parts I liked without reservation were “Somebody waters the plant,/ or oils it, maybe” and the ESSO-SO-SO-So part.

It doesn’t seem so condescending to me now, more arch and poised and humorous

…

So I guess what I mean to say is I’ve come around to “Filling Station.” I like it, I admire it, though it still isn’t my favorite Bishop poem.

If you haven’t read “Filling Station,” it is here. And I urge you to read the whole of Stallings analysis of the poem here.

Just to let you know, I’ll be doing the First Friday reading with Leslie Shane at the Kentucky Coffeetree Café in Frankfort on October 5, 7:00 p.m. Singer, songwriter, guitarist Samuel Tyrone Cotton and bass guitarist Danny Kiely will provide the music. Cover is $10. Cover is divided among the evening’s presenters.

You all know who I am.

I hope.

Leslie Shane is a fine poet who lives in Monterey and does book binding and typesetting for Larkspur Press. She will be reading from her first book, a collection of haiku, Point of Rock, published by Larkspur.

Larkspur has operated for over 30 years in rural Montery producing fine hand-set, hand-bound editions for many local writers.

Cotton’s guitar stylings combine classical techniques and blues, using classical right-hand arpeggio runs with blues chords. I don’t know his work, and I’m looking forward to closing that gap in my education.

Hope to see you there.

It’s Women’s Equality Day:

August 26 of each year is designated in the United States as Women’s Equality Day. Instituted by Rep. Bella Abzug and first established in 1971, the date commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment, the Woman Suffrage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave U.S. women full voting rights in 1920.

And I can’t think of a better way to celebrate it or to spend a Sunday evening than by going to Peace Work, an interactive program of poetry & music about cultivating peace with George Ella Lyon, poet, & Roberta Guthrie, cellist.

The program’s title “Peace Work” comes from quilting. It echoes the quilting bee as a community event where women gathered to stitch fragments of their lives together in beautiful patterns. Piece by piece the quilt emerged. Our hope is that, through listening to poetry and music and writing whatever response they call up, participants will experience peaceful hearts. At the closing of the program those who wish will place their peace words on a large poster with a quilt border.

The event takes place at 4 pm at the Quaker Meeting House, 649 Price Avenue, Lexington (map).

The event is free and open to the public. Donations will benefit the Central Kentucky Council for Peace and Justice.

Yesterday was a beautiful day to fly, though it didn’t seem so when hubby and I set out from Paris in the dark and the fog. The little Conair shuttle that was to take me to Cincinnati was dripping with condensation and my window seat was fogged useless.

But when the plane began to accelerate for take-off, the fog rolled away in streams of water and I had a beautiful clear view of the Bluegrass draped in mist. A little mountain range of fog followed the Licking River into the Ohio, and even that broad stream had its share of rising vapor. Later, crossing what was probably West Virginia, the hollers and valleys, the whole catchment structure, were outlined in mist while the tree-covered mountains stood out green.

I caught the ten o’clock shuttle to West Chester from the Philadelphia airport at ten and was in my dorm room by eleven.

Last night I was fed on filet mignon and asparagus with a Chilean red wine. I ate at the same table as Robert Shaw, who is here with his wife and brother. But since it was a table for eight and I was four people away, I didn’t get to talk to him or even hear anything he said.

Kay Ryan was the keynote speaker. She read what she called her “increasingly dessicated” work in a lovely new music building on campus. Ryan was a fine reader, relaxed, witty, unpretentious, unself-conscious. She had her audience in the palm of her hand.

Have my conference with Molly Peacock at ten.

Addendum: Have just been correcting typos and misspellings in the posts of the last few days. I am appalled at myself. Put it down, please, to exhaustion and a laptop screen that displayed text in about six point type.

Last Friday, taking youse guys on A Tour of My Blogroll, I featured Sandra Beasley’s reflections on this year’s Poetry Out Loud national finals and smiled a bit at the notion of a Kentucky boy from rural Trimble County taking a stab at Langston Hughes’s “Weary Blues,” a poem from both a time and place very alien to him.

Looks like I get to smile out of the other side of my mouth now. Dean Muir’s performance was good enough to get him into those national finals. Only twelve finalists were chosen.

So Dean did all right for himself and more power to him!

He’s pictured here performing at the Kentucky Writers’ Day Celebration.

Meanwhile, taking some umbrage at my statement that Poetry Out Loud may be more performance than poetry, a correspondent has written to chide me gently thus:

…a good “theater” (or speech team) coach would be emphasizing the student’s understanding of the poem. It is what makes the difference between “acting at acting” and truly “interpreting.”

Hey, gang! I said I’d tell you who I’m reading with at the Derby Eve (May 4) First Friday and now I know. It’s Richard Taylor, all round nice guy and the Poor Richard of Poor Richard’s Books!

Richard Taylor is professor and Resident Creative Writer at Kentucky State University. A former poet laureate for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Taylor has written several books, including Bluegrass, Earth Bones, Stone Eye and most recently a historical novel of the Civil War, Sue Mundy.

The Peach Pie Band will make their 7th annual Derby Eve First Friday appearance.

Cover charge is $10 for adults; students are half price. Performance begins at 7 pm at the Kentucky Coffeetree Café, 235 Broadway, Frankfort, KY 40601.

It’s a good idea to reserve a table, which you can do by contacting Lizz Taylor at 502-223-8018 or email at prbook@aol.com. They make good soup and sandwiches so you can plan to have dinner there.

And I’d recommend coming early so you have time to browse the bookstore, including the upstairs room just packed with out of print and rare editions.

A reminder that I will be reading this Friday, Derby Eve & Oaks Day, at the Kentucky Coffeetree Café on Broadway in Frankfort, just adjacent to Poor Richard’s Bookstore.

Music will be provided, as always on Derby Friday, by the Jane Harrod and the Peach Pie Band.

And I know there will be another reader. I’ll let you know as soon as I do.

There’s a $10 cover charge, the proceeds of which are divided among the presenting artists.

Poor Richard’s owner, Richard Taylor, was the finalist for the Kentucky Literary Award in fiction for 2007 for his historical novel Sue Mundy (University Press of Kentucky, 2006).

I’ll be reading at the Derby Eve First Friday event at the Kentucky Coffeetree Café in Frankfort. That’s May 4.

If you haven’t set your full calendar of Derby festivities, I hope you’ll drop by. I fear I read as dramatically as the Poetry Out Loud winners we heard yesterday at the Kentucky Writers Day celebration in Frankfort. And I do promise, cross my heart, not to sing any of my lyrics.

I’ll leave the singing to the Peach Pie Jazz band.

I don’t know yet who my companion reader will be. More details later.

Keep a space clear on your calendar for Kentucky Writer’s Day, which this year is also inauguration day for our new Kentucky Poet Laureate, Jane Gentry. The ceremony is set for 10:00 a.m. EDT, Tuesday, April 24, at the Capitol Rotunda in Frankfort.

The event will include readings by past Poets Laureate Richard Taylor, James Baker Hall, Joe Survant and Sena Jeter Naslund.

Recipients of the Kentucky Arts Council’s 2007 Al Smith Individual Artists Fellowship in Literary Arts will be recognized.

And you’ll have a chance to hear Kentucky’s Poetry Out Loud winners, Trimble County High School student Dean Muir and Ohio County High School student Erica Martin. Poetry Out Loud is a National Recitation Contest sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation.

The ceremony, followed by a reception on the mezzanine level of the Capitol, is free and open to the public

Much is going on this week and next here in Kentucky in celebration of National Poetry Month. I suggest you keep an eye on The Kentucky Literary Newsletter for a full list of events.

WoodSongs: Celebration of Appalachian Music & Poetry
April 9th 2007

Featuring:

1] PUBLIC OUTCRY is a group of Kentucky musicians featured on the new CD “Songs for the Mountaintop” The group comprises of Jason Howard, Kate Larken, Anne Shelby, George Ella Lyon, Jessie Lynne Kultner, and Silas House. www.www.kftc.org

2] SILAS HOUSE is an award winning author who was born in Whitney County, KY and grew up in a working-class family. House has been published is such places as Newsday, The Oxford American, and is a contributing editor for No Depression. www.silashouse.com

3] THE REEL WORLD STRING BAND is celebrating their 30th year of performing. The band is influenced by traditional and old-time music with a touch of country, swing, blues, and jazz. www.reelworldstringband.com

4] FRANK X. WALKER is a native of Danville, KY and a founding member of the Affriachian Poets. He is the editor of Eclipsing a Nappy New Millennium and the author of three award winning poetry collections. Also, he was the first Kentucky writer to be featured on NPR’s “This I Believe” www.frankxwalker.com

For more information, tickets ($10), station lists, podcasts, and more, visit the Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour homepage.