Episode 157: Beginnings and Endings

This last episode before summer has us dreaming of the beach, Slushies—watching moonlight on the waves, reading novels in the sand. But not before we share this packed episode with you. Today we welcome special guest, Daniel Kuriakose, to hear about “The Common Well,” the literary journal he’s relaunching alongside K Hank Jost. Daniel sticks around for our discussion of two poems by Mara Lee Grayson.     We admire the duality on display in the first poem’s back and forth-ness which has us pondering the undulation of its syntax. The late reveal of whom the lyric speaker addresses is satisfying surprise. A clever turn of phrase sends the more seasoned members of the team straight to this 90’s Divinyls’ song. The way enjambment revises meaning after a line break in both of these poems reminds Jason of Heather McHugh’s poetry. And ultimately Kathy bring us back to the two questions we ask of every submission: do you want to stay with the poem and do you want to share it? Join us in sharing our deep thanks for two members of our staff who are with us for the final time: Reese, our co-op, and Lillie, our sound engineer. Best of luck to your both in the future. Thank you, Reese! Thank you, Lillie! Over the summer, keep tuning in for a retrospective with deep cuts from our archive. Thanks, as always, for listening!      At the table: Dagne Forrest, Tobi Kassim, Daniel Kuriakose (special guest from “A Common Well”), Reese Pfunder, Jason Schneiderman, Kathleen Volk Miller, Lisa Zerkle, Lillie Volpe (sound engineer), Derek Grebis (sound engineer)          Author Bio: Mara Lee Grayson’s poetry has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Tampa Review, and Nimrod, among other literary journals, and has been nominated multiple times for the Best of the Net and Pushcart Prizes. Grayson is the author or editor of five books of nonfiction. She holds an MFA from The City College of New York and a PhD from Columbia University and was previously a tenured professor in the California State University system. Originally from Brooklyn, New York, she currently resides in New Jersey.     Social media: @maraleegrayson  Website: maragrayson.com    She Winds Her Stems through Fire for Burning Leaves Fend Off the Grief of Being Mowed On the trampoline, young boys next door              bounce while inside, their mothers   debate wine or coffee. Another weekend              when the county’s on emergency alert.    For now, bees land on dogwood flowers,               robins nest in tall trees    planted by the prior owners,              and my husband’s on his knees out back   for hours, pulling branches from hydrangeas              I have neither time nor thumb    to nurture back to life. He’s learned a lot              in efforts to identify the colony of ants    that sent a scout across our deck, through               the side door to a cat food bowl,    like what distinguishes Bumblebee               from Carpenter (they look the same,    the bumble fuzzier). A million years               of evolution, the male bee    still hovers in one place, waiting               for a female to fly by. I fold laundry   then look up which buds bloomed               in 17th Century Versailles. (You’d guess    invasive species but, unironically,              it’s narcissus and orange blossoms.)    For years, I worshipped palms               on the other side of the Continental Divide,    like I was replanted, like new soil               could change the nature of the seed.   I looked for lightning and caught language              in my mouth. I dreamed of blooms,    then woke up in the desert,               staring at a mountain, believed to be    an imprint of ancient gods whose voices               echoed off the surface of the earth.    The nervous system replicates in utero,              its fight or flight part predetermined,    part piano keys the brain may tap. Healing,              says the therapist, happens in the pendulation.   Insects bounce along the glass as children,               mothers sip merlot in coffee mugs,    and the man I married after you               tans wrist to elbow, scratching up his forearms    rending dead wood stems. It’s sticky business,              caught between my lush, infertile soil and flirting    with the bees, he knows that when I think about you,               I touch my self-concept on the page.    What the Fortune Teller Tells Me on the Night I Leave California The Channel Islands will one day rise up in the distance like a resurrected poet  high on mescaline and memories of pretty women. You will or won’t  learn how to tunnel through a prison  of the mind. When the wind picks up, she says  she was awoken by the rumble of a saw  told so many times it must be true.  You might as well  drive six years backward, park beside a pool  in west New Jersey.                                       I think she means  beginnings are like endings: eyelid work,  a neuron matter, not ontology or god.  To transit is to navigate the synapses,  trade one water for another,  every body’s chemistry the same  except for how the furniture’s arranged,  which pieces we keep secret from ourselves.  She eschews the label hypocrite,  calls herself a hippopotamus instead. Oh, she’s drinking like a river now,    but can you honestly say you’ve never felt  a kinship for a living being who could crush you and the glass of bourbon in your hand? Maybe when you were a child, your father  chalked equations on a dusty blackboard. Your height in centimeters  is your adolescent telephone number  divided by the times your mother screamed  bringing you into this world.