Ecce Sigum

Immanentize the Empathy

Who Let All This Poetry In Here?

John Winkelman

This past Thursday I had the wonderful experience of attending a poetry reading for the first time in well over two years. The event was hosted by local indie bookstore Books and Mortar. West Michigan poets Colleen Alles and Kristin Brace read from their most recent collections.

The reading was wonderful! I had previously purchased Brace’s book Toward the Wild Abundance, and picked up Alles’ After the 8-Ball (pictured above, with Poe) at the event, and both poets graciously signed their books and, as the audience was small, we spent some time after the event talking about reading and writing and life during the COVID years.

I have known Kristin for several years, from her tenure at the Grand Rapids Creative Youth Center as well as the weekly open studio graciously hosted in years past by Jack and Julie Ridl.

I met Colleen back at the end of 2019, when we published one of her poems in the last issue of The 3288 Review. Shortly thereafter, Grand Rapids Public Library put in an order for the entire run of the journal, all 12 issues. As luck would have it, at the time she was an employee of the GRPL, so when word got out that Caffeinated Press was shutting its doors, they decided to add our publication to their archives. It was the largest single sale ever for Caffeinated Press, and also one of the last. So it goes.

In reading news, I am still working my way through my unread issues of Poetry Magazine. I have finished 10 of them, and might make it through another 10 by the end of the month, though I will likely take a break after the issue I am currently reading (July/August 2019) to read After the 8-Ball.

In writing news, I am keeping up my pace of a new poem every day for National Poetry Month. This years the words are coming easier than they did last year or the years before, both because there is a little less of *gestures at everything* and because I have had two more years of practice both reading and writing poetry.

The Bottom of the Top #15

John Winkelman

I started these posts because I thought that the 40th spot in the top 40 would show much more variety and frequent change than would the top spot. So imagine my surprise when last week’s #40 for 1977 was also this weeks #40 for 1977. Congratulations, Mr. Silvetti, for your consistency in the face up the constant upward pressure from the music marketing machine.

This was another week where I had not heard any of these songs before (other than Mr. Silvetti, whose “Spring Rain” is one of those which, even if you have never heard it, you have heard it). Two of the names are familiar – Roberta Flack and Simply Red, but to the best of my knowledge i have not heard those songs before. The other two, Lidell Townsell and Allure, I have neither heard of nor heard those songs, though “Head Over Heels” caused a faint frisson of nostalgia. So maybe there is something there.

1977: Bebu Silvetti, “Spring Rain”

1982: Roberta Flack, “Making Love”

1987: Simply Red, “The Right Thing”

1992: Lidell Townsell, “Nu Nu”

1997: Allure Featuring NAS, “Head Over Heels”

So Much Poetry

John Winkelman

Maybe it’s because the pandemic has faded into the fabric of The Now, but there seems to be a surge in poetry events here in Grand Rapids. Several venues are hosting readings and open mic nights, and new events seem to be popping up every day. it could be confirmation bias, but I feel like the next few months are going to be quite exciting, poetry-wise.

Several new books made their way to the house in the past week.

First up is The Interim, written by Wolfgang Hilbig and translated from the German by Isabel Fargoe Cole. This is a repeat of sorts, as I received the limited edition hardcover of this book from Two Lines Press back in November.

Next up, also from Two Lines Press, is Masatsugu Ono’s At the Edge of the Woods, translated from the Japanese by Juliet Winters Carpenter. Ono previously graces these pages when I received (and read) his excellent Lion Cross Point.

Next, from And Other Stories, is When Women Kill: Four Crimes Retold, written by Alia Trabucco Zerán and  translated from the Spanish by Sophie Hughes.

And last up is the most recent issue of Salvage which, despite being on the right side of the photo, is the left-most of my reading material lately, if you get my meaning.

In reading news, I am quickly working my way through my stack of unread issues of Poetry Magazine.

In writing news, I am keeping up the pace of a poem a day, and some of them have promise, though to achieve the promise of that promise will take more than a little editing. So it goes.

IWSG, April 2022

John Winkelman

It’s not that March was objectively longer than either of the previous two Marches, but it was around this time two years ago that the lockdowns began, and now that restrictions have eased considerably from even a year ago, the stress levels are much reduced, and that leaves more energy for creative endeavors.

This month’s Insecure Writers Support Group question is:

Have any of your books been made into audio books? If so, what is the main challenge in producing an audiobook?

I have not yet published any books, so the simple answer is…No.

But I have friends who have published books in both print and audio book version. Dyrk Ashton, in particular, who is a friend I met at ConFusion several years ago. He is the author of the most excellent Paternus Trilogy, of which all three are available in audiobook format. Dyrk is part of the Wizards, Warriors and Words fantasy-writing advice podcast, which recently released an episode about creating audio books for self-published authors.

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group
is a community dedicated to encouraging
and supporting insecure writers
in all phases of their careers.

The Bottom of the Top #14

John Winkelman

Before anything else, I want to give props to Top 40 Weekly, where I have been getting the info necessary to make these posts.

I have standardized the naming convention for these posts around the relevant week of the year, as determined by the order in the listing at Top 40 Weekly.

This week’s Bottom of the Top came with a couple of familiar names – Ray Parker, Jr. of “Ghostbusters” fame and Huey Lewis, who needs neither introduction nor explanation.

Of these songs, I have hear the first three. “Spring Rain,” certainly, because, apparently, how could I have not heard it? “The Other Woman” vaguely rings a bell. I would have been in seventh grade, I think, and slowly discovering music which was not country. And of course “I Know What I Like” was all over the place in 1987, which bridged my last year of high school and my first year of college, when I would have (finally!) had regular access to MTV (insert joke about the relevance of the “M” therein).

The latter two, by RTZ and Crystal Waters…maybe? Time and the entropy of memory have blurred a lot of details of the nineties.

1977. Bebu Silvetti, “Spring Rain”

1982. Ray Parker, Jr., “The Other Woman”

1987. Huey Lewis and the News, “I Know What I Like”

1992. RTZ, “Until Your Love Comes Back Around”

1997. Crystal Waters, “Say If You Feel Alright”

April is National Poetry Month

John Winkelman

This past Tuesday I went to my first Open Mic night in over two years. The event, Poetry & Pie, took place at The Sparrows on Wealthy Street in Grand Rapids. It was the return of an event which had been ongoing at the cafe for some time before the pandemic closed everything down. Of course, with Tuesdays being Tai Chi night for the past thirty years, I had never attended, but now that practice has moved to Wednesday I took advantage of the opportunity and listened to some poetry.

Two new volumes arrived at the house in the past week.

First up is the latest issue of Poetry Magazine, a publication of which I have a shelf full of unread issues. But this being National Poetry Month, I am working my way through them at a rate of roughly one issue a day. So I might catch up to present by the middle of May.

Next is The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry, which arrived unexpectedly as a gift from my good friend Miyah. An unexpected and appropriate addition at the start of National Poetry Month.

In reading news, in addition to the back issues of Poetry, I recently finished I Am the Brother of XX by Fleur Jaeggy, and also This Is Us Losing Count, a superb collection of Russian poetry in translation from Two Lines Press, as part of their Calico series. It’s books like these that prompt me to shell out the money for annual subscriptions to their catalogs.

In writing news, it’s all poetry, all the time, for the entire month. So far I am on track for one poem a day for 30 days and, as last year, I do so love having my mind in this space.

March 2022 Reading List

John Winkelman

Not a bad month for reading, was March. The first book, The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, took the first half of the month to read, and the remaining six flew by, relatively speaking. This was a good mix of fiction and poetry, with a surprise nonfiction in They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, Hanif Abdurrraqib’s collection of music reviews and criticism which I picked up at City Lights Bookstore back in the summer of 2019.

Books

  1. Dickinson, Seth, The Tyrant Baru Cormorant (2022.03.15)
  2. Poetry Magazine #207.1, October 2015 (2022.03.15)
  3. Abdurraqib, Hanif, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us (2022.03.20)
  4. Tomlinson, Patrick S., Gate Crashers (2022.03.24)
  5. Jaeggy, Fleur (Alhadeff, Gini, translator), I am the Brother of XX (2022.03.28)
  6. Coolidge, Sarah (editor), This Is Us Losing Count (2022.03.29)
  7. Poetry Magazine #208.4, July/August 2016 (2022.03.31)

 

Poetry Resurgent and Resplendent

John Winkelman

Early Satuday afternoon I drove to Garfield Park just south of downtown Grand Rapids, where I was interviewed as part of An Oral History of Poetry in Grand Rapids. I haven’t really been involved with the poetry community for a few years, thanks in no small part to the COVID pandemic, so this was a wonderful reintroduction to The Scene.

As part of the interview my interviewer Toni Bal asked me to read a poem. I brought “Back-Road Labyrinth,” which I wrote in 2018 or 2019. This was the first time I had read a poem in about three years, the previous being “36 Views of New Orleans” at The Drunken Retort in (I think) 2018. Now that I have read it, maybe it is time for me to send it out to be published.

I donated most of the print run of The 3288 Review to the project, from the Caffeinated Press archives which occupy three banker’s boxes in my office closet.

The new issue of The Paris Review was the only arrival this week. Poe is earning her keep as a book rest, atop her panda blanket as she watches the porch for squirrels and birds.

In reading news, I finished Patrick S. Tomlinson‘s Gate Crashers. It was a lot of fun, with engaging characters and an interesting plot. Gate Crashers was Tomlinson’s first book, and it is a little rough around the edges. He mentions in the author’s note that he wrote it in response to the ending of the movie version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and it shows in the sense of humor and turns of phrase. Then again, there are worse influences to wear on your sleeve than Douglas Adams.

I am currently reading I am the Brother of XX, written by Swiss author Fleur Jaeggy and translated from the Italian by Gini Alhadeff.

In writing news, I didn’t do much this week other than edit the poem I read for my interview. But I feel better than I have the past few weeks, so perhaps the changing of the month will bring renewed energy and I will be able to get back in the saddle.

A Music Experiment, Of Sorts

John Winkelman

So I had this idea a while back, that every now and then I would do a survey of the #1 songs in the weekly top 40 of bygone years. I thought it would be fun to make weekly posts, tracing the ebb and flow of music styles and tastes.

But when looking through lists of past hits, I noticed that songs which hit #1 tend to stay there for a while. They are well known, and while interesting as a source of nostalgia, such posts could quickly become repetitive, as the same songs stay in the #1 position for weeks at a time.

So rather than picking the top of the top, I decided to go with the bottom of the top. The songs at #40 on the weekly top 40 change wildly from week to week, and many were mere blips in pop culture, surfacing for a week then disappearing, never to be heard again.

These were the songs I often heard while milking cows on Sunday mornings for most of the 1980s. Casey Kasem or Rick Dees usually hit the top 10 well after morning milking was done, and I would be back at the house taking care of things which kept me out of range of a radio.

Now I am going to go back in time, and select song #40 of the weekly top 40, for the historical week which corresponds to the present week in the year 1977, 1982, 1987, 1992, and 1997. Five years, five years apart, from 45 years ago to 25 years ago. That means I will be able to make 259 weekly posts like this before I repeat a week. And at that point, assuming the continued existence of me, the internet, blogging, etc., I will look at shifting things around. It will be a good problem to have.

This post series will mostly simply be links to music videos, but if a song comes up which brings a sense of nostalgia or deja vu, I might write something about that.

And with that, here are the songs, ordered by year, with links to artist information.

1977: The Andrea True Connection, “N.Y., You Got Me Dancing”

1982: Charlene, “I’ve Never Been to Me”

1987: Glass Tiger, “I Will Be There”

1992: Ozzy Ozbourne, “Mama, I’m Coming Home”

1997: No Mercy, “Where Do You Go”