#Sandra Beasley
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"Accept that the fish / will never gather to your capybara body offering / their soft, finned love. One of us, they say, one of us, / but they will not say it to you."
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#closed polls#polls#poetry#poems#poetry polls#poets and writing#tumblr poetry#have you read this#unit of measure#sandra beasley
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Flour Is Firm - Sandra Beasley
The Traveler’s Vade Mecum, line 4234
Baking two parts flour to one part water
could stop a bullet. So good soldiers
carried their hardtack over their hearts.
Break it down with a rifle butt, flood it,
fry it in pig fat to make hellfire stew.
Gnaw it raw and praise the juice.
Does wheat prepare for this as it grows,
seeking the light in a half-thawed field?
Do stalks know their strength is merely
in their number? What is ground down
we name flour in promise that it will be
made useful. Otherwise, it’s just dust.
Sheet iron crackers.
Teeth-dullers.
Would you call it starving, if a man dies
with hardtack still tucked in his pocket?
Can you call it food, if the bullet comes only
at the moment he gives in and swallows?
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vimeo
Words by : Sandra Beasley "Love Poem for Los Angeles," from "I Was the Jukebox" (winner of the 2009 Barnard Womens Poets Prize)
SandraBeasley.com
sbeasley.blogspot.com/
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Consider the last time you mated continuously.
Consider the year of your childhood when you had
exactly as many teeth as the capybara—
twenty—and all yours fell out, and all his
kept growing. Consider how his skin stretches
in only one direction. Accept that you are stretchier
than the capybara. Accept that you have foolishly
distributed your eyes, ears, and nostrils
all over your face. Accept that now you will never be able
to sleep underwater. Accept that the fish
will never gather to your capybara body offering
their soft, finned love. One of us, they say, one of us,
but they will not say it to you.
— Sandra Beasley, from 'Unit of Measure'.
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Notes on post-MFA options by the wonderful Sandra Beasley
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April 8, 2024: As If to Demonstrate an Eclipse, Billy Collins
As If to Demonstrate an Eclipse
Billy Collins
I pick an orange from a wicker basket
and place it on the table
to represent the sun.
Then down at the other end
a blue and white marble
becomes the earth
and nearby I lay the little moon of an aspirin.
I get a glass from a cabinet,
open a bottle of wine,
then I sit in a ladder-back chair,
a benevolent god presiding
over a miniature creation myth,
and I begin to sing
a homemade canticle of thanks
for this perfect little arrangement,
for not making the earth too hot or cold
not making it spin too fast or slow
so that the grove of orange trees
and the owl become possible,
not to mention the rolling wave,
the play of clouds, geese in flight,
and the Z of lightning on a dark lake.
Then I fill my glass again
and give thanks for the trout,
the oak, and the yellow feather,
singing the room full of shadows,
as sun and earth and moon
circle one another in their impeccable orbits
and I get more and more cockeyed with gratitude.
--
Also: Seeing the Eclipse in Maine, Robert Bly
Enjoy today's eclipse, North America!
More space-related poems.
Today in:
2023: Neither Time Nor Grief is a Flat Circle, Christina Olson
2022: Pippi Longstocking, Sandra Simonds
2021: Waking After the Surgery, Leila Chatti
2020: Gutbucket, Kevin Young
2019: Insomnia, Linda Pastan
2018: How Many Nights, Galway Kinnell
2017: The Little Book of Hand Shadows, Deborah Digges
2016: Now I Pray, Kathy Engel
2015: Why I’m Here, Jacqueline Berger
2014: Snow, Aldo, Kate DiCamillo
2013: from The Escape, Philip Levine
2012: Thirst, Mary Oliver
2011: Getting Away with It, Jack Gilbert
2010: *turning, Annie Guthrie
2009: I Don’t Fear Death, Sandra Beasley
2008: The Dover Bitch, Anthony Hecht
2007: Death Comes To Me Again, A Girl, Dorianne Laux
2006: Up Jumped Spring, Al Young
2005: Old Women in Eliot Poems, David Wright
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Flour is Firm - Sandra Beasley | Plate of Primes - chrysalizzm
("Plate of Primes" is longer than what's in the picture; read the full poem at the link above.)
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Tagged by the lovely @briarhips :) to make a post of 9 book recs! thank you!
tagging @bittersweetish @lakevida
Disclaimer: I recently graduated college and it left me Unwell in mind and body, so two-thirds of this list is books I was gripping with both hands to keep me intact thru the Ordeal. Can't speak to my taste but I can say they worked for me bc here I am almost dead and in pieces but alive all the same ✌️ my thoughts on the books under the readmore bc theres like 200yrs of paragraph beneath
Tales of Effendi (Histoires d'Effendi in French): i know him as Effendi, my father knows him as Djoha, he's "a character in the folklore of the Muslim world from the Balkans to China (Wikipedia)." without his wisdom the days eating bread and mustard would not have passed. what would effendi do -> how to bear a situation with humor. the picture above is the edition that i have. (did you know there's a Chinese stop-motion animation of him?)
Jeeves & Wooster by P.G. Wodehouse: stories of a silly young man and his valet (the brains of the operation). these 2 have been my friends through many dangers (physics mechanic/electric) and without them I would have perished. It was a great comfort having company in the mud -> me 🤝 Bertie Wooster: suffering anna komnene-style stress caused by the thoughtlessness of others/professors
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes: the misadventures of the mad knight Don Quixote and his squire Sancho Panza. The thinker's book. a friend of mine who no longer reads read the whole thing in the original Spanish
Lullaby (Chanson Douce in french) by Leïla Slimani: a gripping psychological thriller relating the events and individual psychology/relationships of the characters that led to the crime that opens the book. I don't think the film did it justice and the book is short so I recommend it. I read it a few times over
Vinegar & Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance edited by Sandra Beasley: a collection of poems about food by the Southern Foodways Alliance. There were some mornings (6am, January, 1hr commute) where I ate stale bread someone left out overnight with a cup of microwaved water or cold red beans. The height of misery. I'd read a poem with my bread and it would be the apricot jam that turned the thread to a rope
The Bartimaeus Sequence by Jonathan Stroud: I finished reading the 3rd volume last summer while coding a final project (horrific) and studying for a final when I had summer classes (4hrs friday evenings in July -> unbearable) so my head was steam and I didn't think much of it. 1 month later when it processed and I was jumping off walls. at my age 🙄. This book somehow has all the stuff that drives me completely insane (caused by reading all of yugioh age 11 🙄) and it made its way to my "books that Did Something to my Fibers" list which I thought closed years ago. I wonder if Bart has this effect on everyone -> A friend (from above) and I had to drive across 2 states to see someone. My friend is Not Well in a different way than me and decided to start this 9hr drive at 5pm (January. high of 50 degrees.) So we drove all the night stopping only for 3min to get gas at 11 at night. This bozo had the Bartimaeus audiobook going nonstop (it was either that or his 2011 playlist, so). Way back, same thing: 9hr Bartimaeus lockdown. Little bit ago he was talking abt some restaurant and said "I want to take you but it's so far! An hour away!" Reader when I tell you I was baffled. "My man you drove 18 hours across state lines?" "Yes but I had Bartimaeus :) I could've done 12 hours with Bartimaeus :) Me and Bartimaeus would have a wonderful time :)" <- statements of the deranged. Anyway it's good reading if you're built how I am or adjacent to it
The Monster Blood Tattoo Series by D.M. Cornish: a high fantasy children's series about a foundling who makes his way in a world beset by monsters. The world building is Incredibly detailed and Bloodborne flavored to give you an idea. Interesting because of the prominence of chemistry and human modification (off-screen) in the narrative/daily life of the story -> people get organs to control lightning/telepathy. Nobody I talk to will read them because they're big books.
The Door in the Hedge by Robin McKinley: a collection of fairy tale retellings. I like McKinley because she disappears in her fairy tale prose and the atmosphere she builds suits the stories she tells
Garder le Cap by Sempé: a collection of Sempé's comic illustrations, with his characteristic humor and wit
If you make it this far, this is for you ^_^ -> 🍧
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Sicktember 16: Care Package
J. Gage/R.DeSoto/Emergency!
Roy never should have been in that fire. He’d mostly recovered from his bout with bronchitis and had the go ahead from Doc Brackett to get back to work but he still had a lingering cough. And when they were sent into a burning house to rescue a family of four, well… the smoke he inhaled after putting his breathing apparatus on the five-year-old girl he was carrying out made that little cough a whole lot worse. Now he was in the hospital and would be here for the next few days. He would miss Christmas with his family. He glanced over at Johnny, in the bed next to his. At least he didn’t have it as bad as his partner. Roy was just dealing with a nasty case of pneumonia. No injuries. “Hey, Junior,” he croaked. “How ya feelin’?”
John turned his head towards Roy. “Aaah, ‘m okay, considering. Coulda been a lot worse.” He lifted his casted left wrist. “Coulda been the wall that came down insteada just the beam that hit me. An’ at least it wasn’t on fire. The thought of burnin’ under that beam is pretty scary. An’ at least we got the family out okay…”
Eyes narrowing, Roy glowered at him. “You’re awful chee--” The need to cough cut him off mid-sentence. He couldn’t bring himself to share Johnny’s “It could have been worse” optimism. He was supposed to be home playin’ Santa for the kids tonight, not stuck in a bed at Rampart under observation because some idiot left his Christmas tree lights going on a dry tree.
Johnny was not stupid. Quietly he said, “I’m sorry, Roy. I was just gonna pull an extra shift tonight. You were supposed to be off. For your kids. This just sucks.”
“Yeah.” Roy’s anger had faded, at least his anger at Johnny. He wished he could go back and start the day over… call in sick for one more shift. But no… Chris was begging for the latest Atari system and Jo wanted to get Jenny a Mrs. Beasley talking doll. And of course, there was the fancy necklace and matching earrings he’d gotten for Jo. Roy had missed three shifts while he was sick and he felt like he had to get back to work so they could make up some of what they’d spent on Christmas gifts. “I just… wanted to be home.”
The nurse came in just then to change John’s dressing over his stitches on his arm and re-wrapped his knee. He was so quiet, she realized he was actually hurting, and gave him a dose of pain medication in his IV. She came over to Roy and checked on him, and gave him his evening medication and checked his IV… and asked him if he was in any pain.
“Chest hurts,” Roy admitted. Really, he pretty much felt like crap all the way round, but the pain in his chest and sides was the worst of it.
The nurse nodded and adjusted his oxygen level. “I’m giving you a little more. It will make it a little easier to sleep.” It was still early in the evening, but she knew patients in his situation would likely tire quickly.
One side of Roy’s mouth lifted in a wry grin. “Well Merry Christmas to me,” he growled. He regretted it right away--it wasn’t the nurse’s fault he was in this mess, and he knew it--but her chirpy, cheery tone grated on him.
She smiled gently. She took no offense at his tone. Her brother was a firefighter. She really did understand. He’d landed in the hospital over a holiday once himself.
The additional oxygen was helping. Roy could tell breathing was coming a bit easier. “Sorry,” he said to the nurse. “You didn’t put me here.”
“Apology accepted. And my name is Sandra, by the way.” She looked at the two men. “Now, do the two of you feel up to accepting a gift that came in for you tonight?”
Probably somethin’ from Jo, Roy thought. His wife had her hands full with the kids and their Christmas Eve program at church, so she hadn’t been able to visit yet, but she would’ve sent something to cheer them up. “Sure,” he rasped out.
Johnny nodded enthusiastically. He was always up for a present.
She stepped outside and came back inside carrying a fairly large package that was wrapped in red and green sparkly paper and adorned with real candy canes as well as ribbon bows.
Johnny stared at the package in disbelief. “Where did that come from?”
“Ain’t from Jo,” Roy added, his curiosity piqued. Jo always said when she wrapped a present, it looked like a three-year-old had done it, but this looked professional.
Sandra asked them which of them was going to open the gift.
Johnny knew Roy had been miserable, so he volunteered Roy to do it.
Roy was already sitting up in bed--easier on his lungs that way--so he pulled the package into his lap and carefully removed the wrapping paper. Jo, ever frugal, always pestered him not to tear it so it could be reused, and she had him well-trained. He tossed one of the candy canes over to Johnny.
Inside was a large square box containing boxes of Christmas treats like cookies, candy and fudge, as well as a couple of MAD magazines, a couple of car magazines, some puzzle books, pens, pencils, and a variety of plastic and wooden puzzles as well as a pack of cards.
Roy found an envelope amid the treats. He pulled it out and opened it. The card had a picture of Santa Claus and some reindeer atop a brightly lit house. Inside was a note. “Dear Firemen, thank you for saving our family yesterday. Thanks to you, we are able to celebrate this holiday. We’re sorry you were hurt getting us out. Our church ladies group came together to make these treats for you. Get well soon! With love, Marjorie and Peter Mason.” In childish print under the cursive signatures were the names Mark and Kristy.
Speechless, Roy handed the box and card to Sandra with a nod towards Johnny.
Johnny had stuffed a piece of the fudge in his mouth and grinned. “You should try this.”
He read the card, his eyes shining. He handed the fudge over to Roy, but kept the rest of the treats. Sandra could tell there was going to be a war over the box.
Suddenly Roy felt a whole lot better about things. A whole family was alive today because of them. He might not be able to play Santa for Chris and Jenny tonight, but Mark and Kristy and their parents would have their Christmas and it wouldn’t be tinged by tragedy. Surely that was worth a few nights in Rampart. “You were right, Junior,” he admitted as he plopped a piece of fudge in his mouth. “It coulda been a whole lot worse.”
The End
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"When
my mom told me to gather
their grubby bodies
into my skirt, I'd cry. You
and your father, she'd chide—
the way, each time I kicked
and wailed against sailing,
my dad shook his head, said
You and your mother."
Read it here | Reblog for a larger sample size!
#closed polls#polls#poetry#poems#poetry polls#poets and writing#tumblr poetry#have you read this#sandra beasley#cherry tomatoes
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NEW FROM FINISHING LINE PRESS: The Poet Who Loves Pythagoras by Fran Abrams
ADVANCE ORDER: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/the-poet-who-loves-pythagoras-by-fran-abrams/
The Poet Who Loves Pythagoras is a collection of light-hearted poems on such topics as algebra, fractions, Newton’s Third Law, inertia, Pi, and other math and science subjects you probably studied in school. Read deeper and it’s a commentary on life and love. Fran Abrams loves Pythagoras because his theorem always works, whereas life does not offer much that is certain. In her poem “Ice Cubes,” you’ll understand about relative density as the cubes float in your glass of scotch. Algebra helps you decide whether to buy that candy bar. Percentages are simply fractions with fancy symbols. With titles like “Poetry is a Word Problem,” “Define Infinity,” and “Solve My Life,” these poems will have you appreciating poetry, math, and science from a refreshingly different perspective. Poet Sandra Beasley says of this book, “Readers who prize the consideration of big questions, balanced against agile specificity of phrase, will delight in this quirky collection.”
Fran Abrams lives in Rockville, MD. She has had poems published online and in print in Cathexis-Northwest Press, The American Journal of Poetry, MacQueen’s Quinterly Literary Magazine, The Raven’s Perch, Gargoyle 74, and many others. Her poems appear in more than a dozen anthologies. In 2019, she was a juried poet at Houston (TX) Poetry Fest and a featured reader at DiVerse Gaithersburg (MD) Poetry Reading. In December 2021, she won the WWPH Winter Poetry Prize for her poem titled “Waiting for Snow.” In July 2022, her poem “Arranging Words” was a finalist in the 2022 Prime Number Magazine Award for Poetry. Her autobiographical book of poems titled I Rode the Second Wave: A Feminist Memoir was published in 2022 by Atmosphere Press. Please visit www.franabramspoetry.com.
PRAISE FOR The Poet Who Loves Pythagoras by Fran Abrams
The Poet who Loves Pythagoras is very funny at times, profound at others, and exceedingly well-done. Anyone who loves math or poetry or both will also love this book!
–Raima Larter, Author, Spiritual Insights from the New Science
In the aptly titled collection, The Poet Who Loves Pythagoras, Fran Abrams gives us a surprising perspective: the poet and the mathematician. In the first poem “Pythagorean Theorem,” she writes, “Few things in life are certain,” but we are certain of her talent and craft. At this convergence of math and poetry, Abrams strives for precision and economy, which is often the case in mathematics. She questions what we know as true and pure and opens its relationship to equations and proof. Whether she is discussing trying to find “true love” or the shortest distance between A to B, Abrams wants us to consider life’s puzzles—remembering what can stabilize the chaos of the everyday. She asks us to consider Pythagoras and his theorems and trust them with our hearts.
–Jona Colson, Author, Said Through Glass and Co-president, Washington Writers’ Publishing House
Equal parts clever and vulnerable, The Poet Who Loves Pythagoras wields the vocabulary of mathematics and science like a blade. Fran Abrams reveals a wry humor in poems such as “Solve My Life,” which makes available a series of calculations: “The number of siblings I have is equal to / the number ounces in a quarter pound…The number of children I have brought into the world / is the same as half the number of siblings I have…The number of pounds I have gained and lost and gained during my life / is higher than the highest speed recorded at a NASCAR race.” Parallel lines engage loneliness; a road trip becomes a matter of counting the miles, literally. Readers who prize the consideration of big questions, balanced against agile specificity of phrase, will delight in this quirky collection. To quote an Abrams title that playfully promises a commercial device to harvest extra minutes: “Save Time! Order Today!”
–Sandra Beasley, Author of Made to Explode
Please share/repost #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #read #poems #literature #poetry #math
#poetry#preorder#flp authors#flp#poets on tumblr#american poets#chapbook#women poets#chapbooks#finishing line press#small press#book cover#books#publishers#poets#poem#smallpress#poems#binderfullofpoets#mathematics#mathisfun
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The WFP director concludes his visit to Venezuela to support greater coverage of the organization in the country
The WFP director concludes his visit to Venezuela to support greater coverage of the organization in the country
Archive – World Food Program Executive Director David Beasley – Sandra Blaser/World Economic For / DPA – File
The executive director of the World Food Program (WFP), David Beasley, has concluded his visit to Venezuela this Tuesday after meeting with President Nicolas Maduro to support greater coverage of the food program and help one million children in the Latin American country .
In his…
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April 8, 2023: Neither Time Nor Grief is a Flat Circle, Christina Olson
Neither Time Nor Grief is a Flat Circle
Christina Olson
The camellias are blooming in the rain,
red and pink, real-life Valentine’s Day
decorations. Their petals are not confetti
or streamers, their petals are decaying
organic matter that will fall and rot and feed
the ground. And whoever said that grief
was a flat circle was wrong, too; our friend
Andy is dead now, and my grief is not flat.
My grief is a sharp, hot thing that pokes me
in the spine whenever I am crabbily
unloading our dishwasher or I spend
another Saturday sleepwalking the internet.
Your one precious life, says my grief. Huh.
I tell my grief to get lost but it stays here
with me, wedges itself between my hip
and the arm of the couch, like a dog
that wants to be close but doesn’t really
understand physics. Like it is a dog, I push
my grief away and then I feel bad
and invite it back, pat the cushion
next to me, smell its wet breath.
It’s oppressive, this grief, yet
without it I feel terribly alone,
wandering through the pandemic.
The virus didn’t kill Andy—his heart
quit. He went into a coma and he died.
One day he was alive and now he’s not.
The camellias are wet in the rain, no one
told them about Andy. One day I’ll have
more dead friends than living ones
and people will think I’m lucky because
that means I’ll have lived a long time.
And that I had friends. I thought
that writing this poem might help,
but it didn’t. And so I tip this poem
into an envelope and I mail
it to you, reader. It’s yours now:
the grief, the dog, the shuddering
flowers. When you are lonely,
this poem falls out of the book
you’re not reading. You’re crying
now, or maybe it’s just the rain.
--
(Did you catch the Mary Oliver allusion?)
Other poems on COVID and on grief.
Today in:
2022: Pippi Longstocking, Sandra Simonds
2021: Waking After the Surgery, Leila Chatti
2020: Gutbucket, Kevin Young
2019: Insomnia, Linda Pastan
2018: How Many Nights, Galway Kinnell
2017: The Little Book of Hand Shadows, Deborah Digges
2016: Now I Pray, Kathy Engel
2015: Why I’m Here, Jacqueline Berger
2014: Snow, Aldo, Kate DiCamillo
2013: from The Escape, Philip Levine
2012: Thirst, Mary Oliver
2011: Getting Away with It, Jack Gilbert
2010: *turning, Annie Guthrie
2009: I Don’t Fear Death, Sandra Beasley
2008: The Dover Bitch, Anthony Hecht
2007: Death Comes To Me Again, A Girl, Dorianne Laux
2006: Up Jumped Spring, Al Young
2005: Old Women in Eliot Poems, David Wright
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Units of Measure - Sandra Beasley | The Opened Field - Dom Bury
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poems i sent sandra beasley
I sent Sandra Beasley a collection of poems and I was afraid that she would hate them, or, worse, feel apathetic about them. But she liked a few and I thought that even if she were lying it still made me feel good about my writing.
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I’ve found the best poem ever
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/52653/unit-of-measure
Unit of Measure - Sandra Beasley
#poetry#unhinged#what is this this is amazing but I also have concern for the author's sanity#best part was that the first time I heard this#it was on a stream through a guy's crackly ass mic#it just enhanced the experience
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