Two Review: A Journal of International Poetry and Nonfiction

Polish-American poet and editor Jeremy Edward Shiok recently sent me a copy of Two Review, the journal he and Brendan Noonan edit.

The journal is beautiful, outside and in.

The cover illustration, the printing inside, the formatting--all reveal the editors' skill, but what's most exception, of course, is the poetry Shiok and Noonan have been able to gather together.

Some of the poets -- like Linda Nemec Foster, Marvin Bell, and Marge Piercy, I've known and admired for years, but others are new to me. I especially enjoyed Paolo Ruffili, Jeff Knorr, and G. Nakhutsrishvili.

I wrote to Jeremy Shiok and asked him about his journal and what inspired him to create it. Here's what he wrote me:

Why do we do the journal? Speaking for both Brendan and myself: It started as a way of staying connected after the rigors of graduate workshops wore off and work, families, and kids took over. It has continued as a method for keeping the life of poetry in our lives, and the poetry of life in our poetry.

For me, I am able to connect with people all over the world through the journal as a medium. It gives me a platform to begin, renew, and carry on artistic, social, geo-political, etc. conversations with like-minded folks.

Linda's work I first read in 2003 while at AWP and have admired it since, but through the journal experience we've been able to connect. Gaga Nakhutsrishvili's work came to me through an editor in Tbilisi I was corresponding with during the recent Russo-Georgian war. I wanted to connect with people on the ground; wanted to hear about their experiences as they were happening. And amidst the destruction taking place we were able to discuss and then exchange poetry. How amazing is that? I discovered an incredibly vibrant artistic and literary culture in Tbilisi, not one from history, but one that is thriving today.

In reality, each contributor to the journal becomes a connection, a part of our community, not just someone with a poem in the Table of Contents. I could tell the story of how each contributor came to be on TR's pages, and each one involves much more than just submissions and acceptances.

Despite my day job, the editing and writing exchanges are truly "the thing." It's what Brendan and I both thrive on outside our own writing. But we also work and have a deep respect for working peoples, so we're drawn to narrative writing that invites us into that experience somehow. The journal reflects this.


__________

Jeremy Edward Shiok also gave me permission to include one of the poems by Polish-American Linda Nemec Foster that he recently published:



The American Insomniac Buys Lipstick in Warsaw, 1950

The tourist has no idea
what is fashionable here.
Her confused circadian clock
can't even determine day
from night, so forgive her
for wanting only two colors
on her lips. One to echo
the honey glow of sun,
the other to resonate
the blue aura of moon.

But how could she know
Stalin would (in effect)
abolish all color --
no tangerine blush /
tropical melon / scarlet freeze --
no rouge violet / raspberry glace /
mauve cooler. Only lipstick
by numbers. The digits randomly
assigned in some outdated
cosmetics factory on the outskirts
of town. Peach melba becomes 855.
Rose creme becomes 412 (matte) or
411 (semi-gloss). The numbers
slowly marching to infinity
on the shelf of the empty store.
As if this calibrated palette
could be authentic. Not Michelangelo
illuminating the creation
of Man, but a faceless socialist
painting Sobieski's palace frescoes
by number. Not David in Florence,
but the granite breasts of the massive
Soviet woman sculpted into a bureaucrat's
gray office building on Konstytucji Plac.

The bureaucrat whose days
are filled with dreams
of whores in hot pink
G-strings. Whose nights
are filled with staring
at the crowded and desolate
streets. Across the square,
the tourist paints her lips
too red. The color
overwhelming the face
that looks back at her
from the borrowed mirror.

_________



Two Review is currently accepting submissions for the 2010 issue.

The Orpheus Complex by Leonard Kress

The Orpheus Complex, Leonard Kress's new book from Main Street Rag , is excellent.

It's an ambitious sonnet sequence that combines the myth of Orpheus with the poet’s reflections on various other issues including the state of spirituality in America today, the problem of "translating" an ancient myth into a contemporary context, and the nature of poetry and its relationship to what poets are writing. Poetry at the start of the twenty-first century has become familiar, comfortable, safe.



Leonard Kress, the author of The Orpheus Complex seems to declare, "I’ve had enough of that." He asks us instead to imagine Orpheus, the ancient poet, sprung loose in America and writing intricate, rhymed sonnets that look at the world as it is and as it has been imagined by the poets who have come after him. The wonder of this book is that these poems don’t seem academic, simply a Modernist or Postmodernist exercise in literary self-consciousness. Rather, what stands out in “The Orpheus Complex” are the author’s erudition and considerable craft combined with his own deeply-felt life concerns.

The mix results in poems that are always surprising, knowing, and effecting.

This is a book of poems to open again and again.

___________

Here are two of the sonnets from The Orpheus Complex:

ORPHEUS ON AND OFF THE ROAD

A blinding locust storm in southern Illinois.
the kids who pick me up stole this Ford,
drinking and joyriding, reveling toward
the coast. And when they stop to let me pry
the black gook off the wipers, they screech away,
hysterical, my rucksack in their trunk.
I have surrendered to the road and pray
as I hitch, buffeted by each passing truck,

it will provide. And so it does. Two more rides,
Iowa cornfield to sleep, dancing stalks
and whispers--to be found you must be lost.
Falling stars throughout the night, roads
almost abandoned--a Mustang of six-packs
and four small-town girls, heading nowhere fast.



IMPENETRABLE GROTTO

After the Polish of Szymon Zimorowic (1608-1629)

In this hidden grotto, no bird or bell
awakens you, no light can penetrate,
and memory-numbing waters always spill
from some deeper dungeon just to create
sweeter dreams. Let the black wings of night
rush over, longing to get in. Here, where,
poppies glow and silent blackbirds prepare
to nest-- Orpheus has come to meet

the one he’s watched night after night in dream.
The pleasure is greater the shorter it lasts,
or so he thinks. She grows more beautiful
with each pass, and he tries to touch her breasts.
Doesn’t he know she isn’t what she seems?
Doesn’t he know the multiple meanings of fall?

__________________________________________

Leonard Kress's The Orpheus Complex is available at Main Street Rag. His translation of Adam Mickiewicz is available online and from Harrowgate Press. The Harrowgate site also contains other poems and translations by Leonard.

Leonard Kress blogs about poetry and other things at Myshkin 2.

Special Issue Devoted to Contemporary Polish and Polish-American Poetry

When I first started writing poems in grad school at Purdue about my parents and their experiences in Germany during the war and in America after the war, I felt like I was the only one writing in America about Poles and Polish Americans. I asked the professors in my English Department, and they shrugged. I asked other students, and they hadn't heard about any Polish-American writers either. I went to the library and found nothing.

Over the years, I would hear about a poet here or a novelist there who wrote about the Polish Diaspora, and I would track these writers down, and slowly I began to realize that I wasn't the only one writing about the Polish Diaspora. There were, in fact, a lot of us, and the number just grows and grows as the celebration of Polish Diaspora writing in the journal Kritya suggests.

I hope that this celebration helps to continue the dialogue that has started among these writers.

Why is such a dialogue important?

The answer is quite simple and can be stated plainly.

One of poetry's elemental functions is to discover and preserve national and/or group identity. If you want to find out about the Greeks, you read Homer. If you want to find out about the English you read Chaucer and Shakespeare. If you want to find out about the Americans, you read Whitman or Emerson or Emily Dickinson. If you want to learn about the Poles, you read Milosz or Szymborska or Rosewicz.

And if you want to find out about Polish Diaspora culture, you should read Polish Diaspora poets, writers like the ones featured in the April and May issues of Kritya.

___________


The April issues includes poems by the following poets:


Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor

Peter Burzynski

Mary Krane Derr

Jehanne Dubrow

Linda Nemec Foster

John Guzlowski

Maria Jastrzebska

Leonard Kress

Krystyna Lenkowska

Stephen Lewandowski

Colleen McKee

Anna Maria Mickiewicz

David Radavich

Laurie A. Gomulka Palazzolo

Christina Pacosz

Lisa L. Siedlarz

Lillian Vallee

Andrena Zawinsksi

_________

Both issues are guest edited by Christina Pacosz and John Guzlowski. Rati Saxena edits Kritya.

Polish-American Writers Reading at the Polish Museum of America

On February 12, 2009, The Polish Museum of America hosted a reading by five Polish American writers: Anthony Bukoski, Linda Nemec Foster, John Minczeski, Leslie Pietrzyk, and me.



The event was a powerful emotional experience for all of us. Speaking for myself, I know that it's not often that I have the opportunity to read to an audience of people who share my Polish heritage, and when I do such readings, I always feel a strong connection that is hard to explain. It's a connection that goes beyond words (whether Polish or English), beyond present circumstances, and beyond borders.

Shortly after the reading, Maria Ciesla, the President of The Polish Museum of America, sent me a note that conveys what, I believe, both the readers and the audience felt that night:

Thank you so much for your successful efforts, and please convey my sincere thanks to Linda, Leslie, John, and Anthony. Guests present are still commenting to me about the uniqueness and artistic fullness of the evening. This was a new and magical event for the PMA, and I can assure you it will not be the last. Despite my being transfixed, I glanced around the Hall and observed the same.

To me personally, your writings parallel so much of my own experience, even though our family did not remain in Chicago's Polonia. Driving home, I blessed and thanked my parents even more than in the past!


_______________________________


To find out more about the readers who read at the Polish Museum, please double click on their names:

Anthony Bukoski has published five story collections, four with Southern Methodist University Press, including North of the Port and Time Between Trains. Holy Cow! Press recently reissued his first book, Twelve Below Zero, in a new and expanded edition. A Christopher Isherwood Foundation fellowship winner, Bukoski teaches English at the University of Wisconsin-Superior.

Linda Nemec Foster is the author of eight collections of poetry including Amber Necklace from Gdansk (LSU Press), Listen to the Landscape (Eerdmans Publishing), Ten Songs from Bulgaria (Cervena Barva Press). She has received honors from the Academy of American Poets, the National Writer's Voice, and the Polish American Historical Association. She is the founder of the Contemporary Writers Series at Aquinas College and currently is a member of the Series' programming committee.

John Guzlowski writes poems about his family's experiences in the Nazi concentration camps. His most recent books are Lightning and Ashes and the Pulitzer-nominated Third Winter of War: Buchenwald. His unpublished novel about German soldiers on the Eastern Front has recently been short-listed for the Bakeless Literary Award.

John Minczeski’s books of poetry include Letter to Serafin (Akron University Press), November (Finishing Line Press), Circle Routes (Akron University Press), Gravity (Texas Tech). He's the winner of the Akron Poetry Prize, a Bush Fellowship, and an NEA fellowship among other prizes. He freelances as a poet in the schools and does occasional adjunct work.

Leslie Pietrzyk is the author of two novels: Pears on a Willow Tree (Avon Books) and A Year and a Day (William Morrow). She teaches at Johns Hopkins and has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf and the Sewanee Writers’ Conferences. She is currently writing a novel about Polish immigrants in Chicago.


____________________________________


The photo above was taken by Maria Zakrzewska.

Back row from left to right:

John Guzlowski, Anthony Bukoski, Maria Ciesla (PMA President), John Minczeski, Linda Nemec Foster, Leslie Pietrzyk, Jan Lorys (PMA Director).

Front row from left to right:

Malgorzata Kot, Head Librarian at the Polish Museum, Krystyna Grell, librarian.

Chopin in Poetry: A Call for Submissions

Maja Trochimczyk of Moonrise Press is editing an anthology of contemporary poetry on Chopin. The anthology will be published in March of 2010 to honor the 200th Anniversary of Chopin’s Birth.

Here are the particulars:

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

§ Original poetry about any aspect of music and life of Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849), Polish pianist and composer

§ Deadline – August 1, 2009

§ Language – English

§ Length – maximum 39 lines per poem, 3 poems

§ Format – email the poems to majat(at)verizon.net [replace (at) with @]
with the poem both in the body of the message and attachment in MS Word or rtf

§ Address and contact information of the author included in the body of the message

PUBLICATION DATA

1. The book will be published by Moonrise Press, with an ISBN number.

2. The authors will retain individual copyright, granting permission to print in the anthology only.

3. The book will be distributed by online print-on-demand company and available through a network of partners, including Bowkers Books in Print, lulu.com, Amazon, etc.

4. The authors will receive an off-print of their submission, and a 30% discount on the book price.

The Cosmopolitan Review

I just heard about a new online magazine that focuses on Polish and Polish Diaspora culture, politics, literature, and history. The magazine is called The Cosmopolitan Review, and it's edited by Kinia Adamczyk, Judith Browne, and Irene Tomaszewski. This project grows out of their committment to the Poland in the Rockies organization.

Here's a note I received from Irene Tomaszewski about the magazine:

"Cosmopolitanreview.com is a very young publication -- this is only our second issue. . . . We are open to proposals: poetry, feature articles, profiles of cities, profiles of interesting people. If you've had the time to look through it, you will note that our policy is to be inclusive. Poles without borders, Poles without outmoded ideas of class distinctions, Poles who speak Polish and Poles who don't, and anyone else who is interested in the Polish story."

The current issue has articles about the importance of Lech Walesa and traveling in Poland, poetry by Judith Browne and Marta Dabros, reviews of books by Polish Diaspora writers, and much much more. Take a look.

Here's the link: http://cosmopolitanreview.com

Michael Czyzniejewski's Elephants in our Bedroom

Elephants in Our Bedroom is Michael Czyzniejewski's first collection of stories, and reading them you wonder why they haven't been gathered together sooner. They are wonderful. Michael, the editor of the Mid-American Review, has the true story-teller's gift. He can take the most mundane topic and put a magical spin on it that makes you realize that you and I -- even in our wildest moments -- aren't thinking half as imaginatively and wildly as Michael is.



Let me give you some examples from Elephants in our Bedroom:

His first story is called "Wind." Yeah, wind. We feel it every time we go out, we watch it moving the tree limbs or picking up a piece of paper and scooting it down the street, but what if suddenly people realized that they couldn't explain it, that all the old explanations didn't make sense?

And then there's the story "Green" where instead of proposing a typical summer vacation, the main character's husband invites her old lovers over for two weeks "just to clear the air."

Or how about the title story "Elephants in our Bedroom"? In it a guy wins an elephant in a card game and decides to keep it in the bedroom. That's wild. But what's wilder is that his wife doesn't say anything about it.


The stories in his collection have the sort of postmodern magic that we used to see in writers like Robert Coover or Donald Barthleme, but Michael makes that magic new again by spinning it in the everyday world, the familiar world, of children and husbands and wives, of city streets and schools and libraries, bedrooms and kitchens and backyards.

Michael's Polish-American background, for me, comes out in these stories. He's got the alien's gift for looking at what most of us take for granted and seeing it in a completely different way.

He's a second-generation Polish-American, and you get the sense reading his stories that he came from an area that was still tied to the old ways, tied to seeing the world outside the neighborhood as strange and foreign, alien even in a sort of comic way. And reading about his life bears this out. He grew up in the predominantly Polish-American Chicago suburb of Calumet City and attended St. Andrew the Apostle School and Church, where the nuns and priests all spoke Polish and Michael often served a Polish-language Sunday mass as an altar boy. In college, Michael studied Polish for two semesters before the language, as he says, "soundly defeated me, though I did expand my Polish vocabulary from 12 words to nearly 30."

But I think I've said enough. Here's an excerpt from one of his stories, "In My Lover’s Bedroom":


My lover is hiding old men in the recesses of her bedroom, but if you ask her about it, she’ll deny it every time. Despite what she claims, I discover men in her closet, men in her armoire, men skulking behind the vanity or crouched in the trunk at the foot of her bed. The men act pleasant, appear comfortable and content, and all of them seem to know my name, offering salutations and good words in abundance.

To pass the time, the men read newspapers, listen to transistor radios, and some of them, if it’s nice outside, fit in nine holes of golf. When I ask about my lover, they change the subject, remind me who won some game, ask if my career’s taking off. When I ask what they’re doing in my lover’s bedroom, reading and resting and recreating in general, they act like they can’t hear me, and if I press, they start speaking a foreign language, albeit very poorly. Aside from random pleasantries, the old men go about their business, keep to themselves, and at worst, tell good off-color jokes.

The problem with the old men is, I only find them when I’m alone, when my lover is in the kitchen, in the bathroom, home late from her job at the club. I’ve asked her many times why she keeps men in her dresser drawers, and her answer is the same, every time: Why are you going through my drawers? When I open said drawer to show her, the man has disappeared. The first time this happened, my lover thought it was funny, some sort of dry humor I’d never before demonstrated. On the second occasion, she was less amused. She assured me she had no other lover, she wasn’t married, and as far as she knew, she had no plans for that to change. On the third try, she suggested I leave, forcing me to apologize, to admit I’d taken a joke too far. Since then, I’ve decided to keep the men to myself, to go to them for answers. When I inquire as to why they won’t let my lover in on the joke, I get the What? treatment, the toggle of an imaginary microphone in their ears. It almost makes me think I’m onto something.

_____

Currently, Michael Czyzniejewski teaches at Bowling Green State University. His website is at http://www.michaelczyzniejewski.com/