Yahrzeit
Yahrzeit (June 27, 2017)
for Adelle
by Jack Foley
It is
What the Jews call Yahrzeit,
A year since your death.
The word stings.
If you retain any consciousness of the world
You know
That I have found a new love.
She has been
A wonder and a comfort
In my grief for you.
I think you would have liked her
(And mothered her!).
Going through your dresser drawer
As we attempt to find room for her things,
She found
A fancy, almost comically sexy garter.
I had forgotten it
But recognized it immediately.
You wore it only once,
On the night of December 21, 1961,
Our wedding night;
You kept it, as you kept many other things, for all these years.
How we formed each other.
How we treasured each other’s hearts.
If the stories are true,
You may be in bliss
While I find my way through this quivering wall of sorrow and tears.
And love.
My first love, my dear first love,
It has been a year
(Has it been a year?),
Yahrzeit.
Your ashes
Remain in the vanishing morning light.
No Man is an Island . . .
by Jack Foley
I am the remains
Of an extinct volcano
That reaches 541 feet
Above sea level.
I am situated
Northwest of the main
Galápagos Island group
On the Wolf–Darwin
Lineament.
My formation
Is different from
The formation of the main
Galápagos Islands.
Currently
There are two theories
Of my formation:
The first is that
Magma rising from the mantle plume
Forming the main
Galápagos Islands
Was channeled towards
The Galápagos
Spreading Center;
Alternatively,
There was a separate
Rise in magma caused by stress in the ocean lithosphere
By a transform fault.
I am satisfied.
I am the most northerly
Of the two peaks on the Wolf–Darwin Lineament.
My last eruption
Is believed to have been
400,000 years ago.
My Arch is unmatched
By any created in the Ancient World.
I am not open to land visits.
I teem
With a spectacular variety of marine life.
I attract:
Whale sharks, hammerhead, Galápagos, silky and blacktip sharks,
Green turtles, manta rays, and dolphins.
I have a large bird population,
Including frigate birds, red–footed boobies, and the vampire finch.
I love the water out of which I rise.
My heart is open
To the wind, to the elements, to the creatures that visit.
I do not make love.
I do not make war.
I do not believe in any deity.
I stand
In the midst of the magnificent Pacific Ocean
Alive, old, free.
Steve Luttrell at the Cervena Barva Press Studio
IN THE
CERVENA BARVA PRESS STUDIOAt The Arts for the Armory
Basement, Room B8
191 Highland Avenue
Somerville, MACERVENA BARVA PRESS READING SERIES
FRIDAY OCTOBER 20, 2017, AT 7:00PMFeaturing: Marc Levy | Steve Luttrell | Zofia Provizer
Marc Levy was a medic in Vietnam/Cambodia with the First Cavalry in 1970. His awards include the Silver Star and two Bronze Stars. His work has appeared in New Millennium Writings; Cutthroat; War, Literature and the Arts; Stone Canoe, Mudfish; So It Goes; New Madrid and elsewhere. He recently published How Stevie Nearly Lost the War and Other Postwar Stories. His website is Medic in the Green Time.
Steve Luttrell was born and continues to live in Portland, Maine. He is the author of 5 books of poetry and several chapbooks. His most recent book, PLUMB LINE, was published by North Atlantic Books in May, 2015. Steve is the founding editor of Maine’s award winning literary quarterly, THE CAFE REVIEW. He is the former Poet Laureate of Portland, Maine and continues to be a “strong voice” for poetry in the area.
Zofia Provizer is a junior at Lesley University where she is studies Creative Writing and Women and Gender Studies. She has been published by Studio 360, and has read on the air for them. She has also been published by G-R-L magazine, and Teen Ink print magazine. Zofia is very passionate about pop culture and the moon. She tries to only write what’s deeply embedded in her heart.
Admission is $3.00. Refreshments served.
Directions:
The Center for the Arts is located between Davis Square and Union Square. Parking is located behind the armory at the rear of the building. Arts at the Armory is approximately a 15 minute walk from Davis Square which is on the MTBA Red Line. You can also find us by using either the MBTA RT 88 and RT 90 bus that can be caught either at Lechmere (Green Line) or Davis Square (Red Line). Get off at the Highland Avenue and Lowell Street stop. You can also get to us from Sullivan Square (Orange Line) by using the MBTA RT 90 bus. Get off at the Highland Avenue and Benton Road stop.
Megan Grumbling reading at THRICE
Our wonderful Reviews Editor, Megan Grumbling, will be reading with Rebecca Morgan Frank and Rosa Lane on October 25 at Longfellow Books in Portland, Maine! Come hang out and listen to some great poetry!
From the THRICE event page:
2017 Maine Literary Award-winning poets Megan Grumbling and Rosa Lane read with special guest poet Rebecca Morgan Frank at Longfellow Books in Portland.
Rebecca Morgan Frank is visiting Maine to launch her third poetry collection: Sometimes We’re All Living in a Foreign Country (Carnegie Mellon University Press). Frank’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in some of the countries most revered publications, such places as The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, New England Review. She is the co-founder and editor of the online literary magazine Memorious and currently the poet-in-residence at Brandeis University.
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Megan Grumbling‘s debut poetry collection Booker’s Point (University of North Texas Press, 2016)—an oral history-driven portrait of an old Mainer—won the 2017 Maine Book Award for Poetry. Grumbling’s work has been awarded the Poetry Foundation’s Ruth Lilly Fellowship, the Robert Frost Award, a Hawthornden Fellowship at Hawthornden Castle, Scotland, and a St. Boltoph Emerging Artist Award.
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Rosa Lane’s poem “Boats Named Women” won the 2017 Maine Book Award for Short Works Poetry. The poem appears in Lane’s collection Tiller North (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2016). Lane’s chapbook Roots and Reckonings (Granite Press, East) was published in 1980, and her work has appeared in numerous journals, including The Briar Cliff Review, Crab Orchard Review, New South, and Ploughshares. She works as an architect and divides her time between coastal Maine and the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Frank
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