Nat’l Poetry Month Part 2

The second installment of the Broome County (NY) Arts Council (BCAC) series to celebrate National Poetry Month is now available here. This week features readings and discussion with Nicole Santalucia, Wendy Stewart, Mike Foldes, and Joshua Lindebaum.

I owe two of these poets a particular debt of gratitude.

When Nicole Santalucia, who is a Broome County native, returned to do graduate work at the state university, she founded the Binghamton Poetry Project (BPP). I first heard about BPP when Nicole read at a 2013 National Poetry Month episode of Off the Page, a radio program hosted by Bill Jaker on WSKG, our local public broadcasting radio station. Off the Page invited listeners to send in poems to their website and I was thrilled when they chose to read mine on the air! I began attending BPP’s free community poetry workshops for the general public, led by Binghamton University graduate students, in spring 2014. The connections I made there, particularly with Heather Dorn who has been a workshop leader, assistant director, and director of BPP, led to my joining the Grapevine Group, my local poetry critique group which you will hear more about shortly, and Sappho’s Circle, a women’s poetry circle which is, sadly, not currently active. The BCAC supports BPP through grants, so I was able to connect with them, as well. I was even invited to contribute a poem to BCAC’s Heart of the Arts award dinner in 2016. (Video here and text here.) I don’t think any of that would have happened without Nicole Santalucia and the Binghamton Poetry Project, so I owe her a huge thank you.

A shout-out also to Wendy Stewart, who is a member of the aforementioned Grapevine Group. Wendy always offers thoughtful advice on my poems and is supportive of me when I am being insecure, which happens with some frequency. Sometimes, we joke that she is just being Canadian!

I love the way Wendy uses language. I’ve learned a lot of new vocabulary from her. She is also masterful in the way she juxtaposes seemingly unrelated things so that we are invited to make connections we otherwise would not. She often uses her sly wit and penchant for understatement, both in her writing and in conversation, in a way that I admire, although cannot emulate.

Thank you, Wendy!

I hope you enjoy the recording. I’ll be back next week when I will be one of the featured poets.

Binghamton Poetry Project

In this post , I wrote about participating in The Binghamton Poetry Project and my first ever slam(ish) poem. This evening, we will have our poetry reading for all the different workshops, children, teens, and two adult groups, and the distribution of our anthology. Yay, publishing credit!

I have three poems in the anthology, but we will only read two poems apiece. I will first read “Moonlight,” because it is the poem that bought me to the Project in the first place.  Last April for National Poetry Month, our local public radio station WSKG had an edition of Bill Jaker’s book-themed show “Off the Page” devoted to local poets, one of whom was Nicole Santalucia, founder of The Binghamton Poetry Project. Nicole is a native of this area and had returned here to pursue a PhD at Binghamton University. She read some of her own poems and talked about starting The Binghamton Poetry Project to give a space for people in the community to learn about and create poetry. Bill Jaker had previously invited listeners to send in their own poems and I had submitted “Moonlight,” which he chose to read on air. I was so excited to hear my poem on the radio, although it was a bit surreal to hear another voice, and a male one at that, read a poem I had written. I decided to look up more info on The Binghamton Poetry Project and join in when I could, which turned out to be this semester’s session in March/April.

I will also read “Constancy,” which I wrote during the workshop, when we were writing from prompts about family relationships, including “Married” by Jack Gilbert. I usually work poems out in my head over the course of hours/days/weeks before writing them down, so writing a poem in twenty minutes from given prompts was a challenge for me. You have to decide on an idea very quickly. I wrote the first draft of “constancy” in the workshop but was too choked up to even consider reading it that evening. I did a bit of work on it over the next week and decided that I should share it with the workshop at the time reserved for that at the beginning of the next meeting. I practiced reading it aloud to myself and then to my other daughter who is at home to make sure I could get through it without breaking down. It was the first poem I read to the group and is the “prior week’s poem” that I refer to in the linked post.

“fingernail” was written in April 2012 and previously appeared in the fall 2012 newsletter of the Samaritan Counseling Center. Given that all three are now considered previously published because of the anthology, I can post them on my blog without having to worry about breaking any publishing precedence rules. So, here are my three poems from the Spring 2014 edition of the journal of The Binghamton Poetry Project.

 

Moonlight
by Joanne Corey

In the narrow valley of youth,
the moon was distant,
as though at perpetual apogee.
Cocooned in darkness,
I slept soundly.

In the broad valley of adulthood,
the moon is close,
casting sharp shadows.
Bathed in eerie light,
I lie awake.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

fingernail
by Joanne Corey

the nail splits
not breaking entirely
but calling attention to itself
every time a sock needs to be pulled up
or a shirt pulled on
or hands need to be dried
after some chore or other

scissors
files
emery boards
only smooth the rough edge

bandages only protect
from tearing further into the quick

the split is still there

a dead nail can’t heal

only growth
makes it possible
to get beyond the split
and restore wholeness

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Constancy
by Joanne Corey

You were eleven,
the child that’s born
on the Sabbath Day,
“Bonny and blithe
And bright and gay.”

Blond and blue-eyed,
Smart and vivacious,
Quick-witted and talented,
With a beautiful soprano voice.

Who knew then that you were always in pain?

No one, not even you,
Who thought this was what
Growing up felt like.

There were the unexplained illnesses,
Mysterious fevers,
The eight month migraine,
But you were twenty-one
Before we finally knew its name.

Fibromyalgia/
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
Always in pain.
Always exhausted.

Even when you were singing
Or smiling
Or reading
Or talking around the dinner table.

But I am your mother.
How could I not have known?
It’s the only pain I have
That is a constant.