Episode 25: Saved from Bon Joviism

PBQ is back with the first episode of 2017! In this episode we talk about two poems by Taylor Altman and one by Heather Sagar. First, we discussed Taylor Altman’s poems, “How to Break Without Falling Apart,” and “Contra Mundum.”   PBQ is back with the first episode of 2017! In this episode we talk about two poems by Taylor Altman and one by Heather Sagar. First, we discussed Taylor Altman’s poems, “How to Break Without Falling Apart,” and “Contra Mundum.” Taylor Altman taught herself how to juggle while studying for a calculus exam in college. She won her school district's spelling bee in 4th grade (the youngest student ever to do so) and was excused from spelling homework for the rest of the year. She has synesthesia, so she sees letters and numbers as being different colors; for example, "D" is green and "7" is purple. Find her on LinkedIn, Medium, or Blackbird.   Next, we read Heather Sager’s poem, “Green.”  Heather Sager finds happiness in reading the Russian Symbolists and in spending time with her outgoing son. Feeling mildly adventurous, she might wander out to snap a too-close photo of an ornery snapping turtle, an oversized praying mantis, or a suspiciously quiet pigeon. You can find her poems or stories in places like Bear Review, Fourth & Sycamore, Naugatuck River Review, BlazeVOX, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, NEAT., Minetta Review, Untoward (forthcoming), Jet Fuel Review, and elsewhere. From the global to the personal, from surviving terrorist attacks to kissing frogs as a child, this conversation had all of us thinking critically about the relationship of a writer to the world around them, or, the world against them.   Were these poems accepted or rejected? Did Kathy ever kiss a frog? Listen and find out! See Tim’s novel, The Soju Club, here. Check us out on Facebook and Twitter and let us know what you think with the #kissingfrogs Thank you for listening, and read on!   Present at the Editorial Table: Kathleen Volk Miller Marion Wrenn Jason Schneiderman Tim Fitts Sara Aykit Miranda Reinberg   Engineering Producer: Joe Zang ----------------------------    Taylor Altman How to Break Without Falling Apart She trades in antiques at the end of Adeline Street. Her shop is like the inside of a dream, with carpets and African masks and rings and earrings encased in glass as though within a tide pool. From the armoire of her mouth all sorts of things come out in the Kentish accent thirty years in California hasn’t shaken— what lives she has led, what other people she has been, how she learned to break without falling apart. A cool breeze comes through the back door, from the alleyway, and she says she works as a nurse for the elderly to afford a new passport with her maiden name, and to fix her teeth, small spans of darkness between gold.   Taylor Altman Contra Mundum Under the burnt-out tree where the nightingale sings, where a magpie made its nest   of wedding rings, the singed olive trees that once bore waxy fruits, where are you?   John Walker Lindh, now called Sulayman, rocks back and forth, reading his Quran   in Terra Haute. The tile halls of the madrassa are empty, the fountain stopped. Somewhere you are just waking up, in some other city, someone else’s skin. Our house was filled with books, corners of pages   torn off for gum, small surface wounds that bloomed like carnations. Everything is   complicit. A bird goes up the scale, notes like glass beads crushed underfoot. It’s you and me   against the world. In the bazaar, we passed the birds in cages, seedcovered, shitcovered, the white bars   scratched to copper. Clocks going off in every direction, faces faded and filled with sand. You read the papers   every morning; the news was neither good nor bad; you had been in Srebrenica. IEDs exploded   in the streets, bombs full of nails. A little boy was breathing blood. There was nothing we could do for him,   his lungs expanding like balloons. You proposed that night, gave me the ring from the magpie’s nest,   then disappeared. So many nights I watched you fight sleep. So many nights you woke up drenched in sweat   as the imam’s cry flew over the rooftops and minarets. You said, Lindh’s father visits him in prison. He believes   in his innocence. I watched your hips grow wider, the age spots appear on the backs of your hands.   I painted and painted this fragment of window. Finally, the urgency of lovemaking   left us. But our names remain on the lapels of your books, hybrids of our names, Punnett squares.   Heather Sager GREEN After staring down those amphibious creatures, their sad-mute eyes dimly reflecting my own, I picked one up, and smacked him on the lips.   Into woods, ponds I’d chase, collecting and admiring tone of skin, angling of protuberances, the feel of shifty, leggy treasures. Nearby,   Hard-shelled soldiers rose, showing dilapidated orange mouths.   My father ran at me with a shovel, once, to free a pinched limb— I wiggled free, he tapped the large shell. Still, there I remained— watching my parade, sentient, croaking, green.