"I had many things to write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto thee..."

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MARYANN HAZEN-STEARNS Companions She watches night ride into the room on the back of her curtains It hangs about nonchalantly lolls along the footboard of her half empty bed suggestively Her toes poke up pink-nailed little tents under the sheet night darker on this side than the other Does it matter? No, no sleep in this night a night that hangs itself from the light cord which pulls its backbone straight with a snap That's better Where were we? No sleep She watches dark grow darker it comes like black blood washes the walls in bold strokes but no matter She closes her eyes pouches puff half moons edge the curve of her cheek bones and she reminds herself the walls are not wet just dark curtains move thinly bed sheets rustle she feels night fall gently to its knees They pray ©2006 MARYANN HAZEN-STEARNS

"Poetry endangers the established order in the soul."

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John Horváth Jr, PoetryRepairShop editor/publisher Thank You Ten long years fighting off my personal pain and computer ka-choos and other internet incivilities, struggling at first to keep the site alive, working hard to keep those poets I've enjoyed as continuing 'regulars', keeping the computer ('Renfro') bug free! What has been achieved? PoetryRepairShop has given voice to poems about sex, psyche, and identity (three of the primary concerns of our times) and found poems mocking social status and poems creating oddities of narration (is this 'i' a poet or a persona in the poem?). Critics point to advertising on www.poetryrepairs.com as somehow indicating a lower level of merit in regard to our poetry. These critics fail to realize that zines on- and offline are sponsored by institutions and tax dollars - a form of corporate sponsorship. Corporate sponsorship (though rare) frees www.poetryrepairs.com from oversight by government granting agencies and/or congressional bureaucrats. Ernest Boyd wrote of the problem a centruy ago when he noted that govevnment sponsored poetry derives its impulse from the resentment provoked by the obvious fact that America is not an Anglo-Saxon country, that through numerous infilitrations of race and culture are gradually creating for this country a national identity which is not that of the colonists.... The situation is aggravated by the persistent emergence in every field of American life of these sinister 'aliens' who have completely forgotten - if they ever knew it - the traditions which relegated them to subordinate occupations. (The Nation 20 June 1923 page 313) It needs saying at least once a century. When professors angling for tenure and/or other bureaucrats sponsor poetry, they call for it to be 'colloquial'; i.e., white middleclass New England sensibility. They are critics "who distinguish between Americans and Citizens - any one who will take the trouble to be born may become a citizen. To become an American requires other talents" (Stuart Sherman as quoted by Boyd). This glorified New England accent and urban craving for the rural has its doppleganger in Black literature whose 'authenticity' lay in ghetto/gutter language, a libertine use of the n----- word, and focus on the rural 'bad n-----' escaping into urban blight. The 'confessionals' produced by Anglo- and Afro-Americans all too often focus on professor=student or on bogus relaltionships between reader and writer (the literatures of identity politics - only a woman can truly understand women writing; only Latins can truly understand other Latinss writing, and other intellectual segregations). Such are the banalities of our existence; rural poverty, urban poverty and a studied poverty of imagination. Yes, we've had such relationaships (but are neither true descriptions of the 'group' nor are they universal as they are written with exclusionary intent. What is universal is sin hidden 'inside the sinner' - how we react to others and why they act as they do. Advertisers, affililiate, and links of whimsy are not what they appear...they are selected to tweak readers' and writers' interests. Ten years ago it was my practice to point out the problems of slavery and genocide in Sudan, Niger, and Mali. Today, the problem in Sudan's southern regions and Darfur are concerns of the Evening News. We are also proud to have been anti-Taliban when they required Jews and Christian Afghanis to where identifying armbands...I pointed out how this was a practice borrowed from WW2 fascisti ... now Terrorists are called Islamo Fascists. Go figure. Which comes first - chicken or the egg? I cannot say that the actual is preceded by the artistic nor vice versa. Poets and publishers should, however, take risks in fortelling and judging. Poets should focus on the social ideology of possible futures not on the mundane ideology of identity poets or a poetry based on identity politics of this or that group - when problems vanish, the poetry will vanish. To write extraordinary poetry about oneself requires that the life portrayed is extraordinary. Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson come readily to mind; another example of extraordinary life seethes in the poetry of Lyn Lifshin whose every moment in the quotidian ramifies with significances. To say Lyn Lifshin is an identity poet (defined by gender, age, race, ethnicity) is to miss the point of her life's work entirely. Her genius like that of many other PoetryRepairShop poets will not be readily avalible until and unless America produces avid readers as well as avid writers. And this truth is ever more grand on the global scale. Where is the 'everydayness' of a contemporary Brazilian or ZuidAfrikaner? How is it like or unlike what others have known. It is a time of global corporations...alongside such growth is the loss of particular ways of being in the world. We should worry that poets globally have turned to English and with that volta they threathen poetry with loss of the arts of translation and interpretation. If PoetryRepairShop has failed, it seems to have failed to entice poets to mentor poets. This was and is our highest goal. I've encouraged poets published here to invite other poets to share their 'page' and/or to write brief essays about other poets or on matters relevant to poetry. I'll continue working on these problems. Meanwhile, please keep in mind, dear reader, that no writing/publishing makes any sense at all without you. Thank you for ten years of readership. ©2006 John Horvath Jr

"Repair Your Mind...Read More Poetry!"

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from PoetryRepairShop MM.11:132 Do reader suspects that the 'absudist' poem represent a judgement of the psychology theory? PS : sponsor poetry visit Poetry Sponsors GigaGolf, Inc.

CHRIS SEMANSKY At the Ranch of Radical Honesty Radical Honesty is a kind of communication that is direct, complete, open and expressive. Radical Honesty means you tell the people in your life what you've done or plan to do, what you think, and what you feel. -- Dr. Brad Blanton, Founder of the Radical Honesty Movement A husband confesses to his wife that he has never loved her. Then he takes it back, says he doesn't know what got into him. He weeps, begins reciting names of his childhood pets:             Princess, Baboo, Cheesecloth, Phidough, Stelazine . . . "Stop. Look in my eyes," his wife says. An old woman with a sheepish smile Announces that she's always wanted to sleep with Jesus. "Such a good man," she says. A twelve-year-old girl spits on a photograph of her father, then punches herself in the head. At the Ranch of Radical Honesty the good doctor surveys his guests, reminds everyone they are different kinds of witnesses, that proper translation is half the battle. A man waltzing across the floor in garters and a bonnet falls to his knees. "That changes everything," he cries. The kitchen sink begs not to be thrown in. ©2006 CHRIS SEMANSKY

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