National Poetry Epoch by John Bender

If April’s really the cruelest month, per our old American expat T.S. Eliot, why is it National Poetry Month?

One month is too short, and poetry desires thoughtful reflection, emotional investment and delight, not brief periods of frenzy—post one poem a day on Facebook, maybe someone will notice amid all the social-media noise.

So, given the power vested in me as this week’s grumpy, yet hopeful, Inlandia Literary Journeys columnist, I hereby declare 2015-2016 as National Poetry Epoch. Forget April. We have a great year ahead of us.

Skeptical? Well, at least for the Inland area, this year already has proved momentous.

The Library of Congress recently named former UC Riverside professor Juan Felipe Herrera as poet laureate of the United States for 2015-16. He officially begins in September with events at the library’s National Book Festival.

Herrera, who just finished his term as California’s poet laureate, becomes the second US poet laureate with strong ties to UCR. Best-selling poet Billy Collins, who served as national laureate from 2001-2003, received a masters in English from the university in 1965 and earned a doctorate in Romantic Poetry at UCR in 1971.

So forget about the people from LA who look down on our area. Forget about those on the East Coast who don’t even know we’re here. We’re no literary wasteland. We can boast of two poet laureates who lived here, worked here and breathed the same smog we breathe.

I’m not familiar enough with Collins’ work to know whether his time in the Inland area is reflected in his poems, but I know that this area’s stark beauty and working-class mixing bowl of huddled masses have informed Herrera’s poems.

And I know that Herrera will welcome our help making his time as US laureate a tremendous time of poems and poetry—an epoch of enthusiasm!

While he was at UCR and during his time as California’s top poet, Herrera joined then-Inlandia laureate Gayle Brandeis, Inlandia Executive Director Cati Porter and me at a guerrilla reading in downtown Riverside.

Our aim was to surprise the workers and businessmen at lunchtime with a surprise poetry reading. It wasn’t as guerrilla as I wanted it to be, because when the state’s poet laureate is going to read, you alert the city fathers.

And so, amplified by a small public address system powered by a battery from a defunct 1963 Buick—the whole contraption contained in the back of a child’s wagon—we brought poetry to downtown Riverside’s pedestrian mall.

During that November 2013 event, which you can find on YouTube by searching for “California Poet Laureate holds impromptu-style reading downtown,” Herrera was the pied piper of poems, the ambassador of allusion—clearly a guy who relishes sharing poetry.

He released more energy than that Buick battery, inviting passersby to compose their own poems on the spot. He made me and his other co-readers feel like the most important poets on the planet, even translating one of my lines into a cool Spanish phrase, “¡Raja la calabaza!” (which of course I’ve incorporated into the text of the poem.)

During his California term, Herrera brought poetry to other unexpected places, reading at the re-opening of the Oakland Bay Bridge and inspiring hundreds to join him in writing “The Most Incredible and Biggest Poem on Unity in the World.”

I have no doubt that he plans even bigger unifying events during his term as national laureate, so why wait?

As poets, literary fans and readers, let’s all pledge to share poems with others during the next year. Let’s invite friends to breakfast and give them a reading while they digest. Let’s volunteer at schools and teach the children to write poems, let’s give free readings at hospitals, bus stops!

Let’s go to readings wherever they’re held. Let’s buy poetry books, attend poetry workshops.

Let’s write love poems for poetry.

It’s our turn. It’s our epoch. Juan Felipe needs our help. We have work to do.

To learn about upcoming readings and Inland literary events, go to inlandiainstitute.org

The Do’s and Don’ts of Submitting by Cati Porter

Most of you know me as the face of Inlandia. Recently I had the pleasure of being interviewed for the My Awesome Empire radio broadcast. One of the things they asked was how did I get involved with Inlandia. I have Marion Mitchell-Wilson to thank, who invited me to coffee and the rest is history. Everyone who knows her knows that you can’t say no to Marion.

Marion and I met at an Inlandia event—I can’t even remember which, this was so long ago, but Inlandia was still housed at the Riverside Public Library, and Marion ran the organization from her post as Development Officer at the library, curating their arts and culture calendar. I was just a few years in to my own foray into arts & culture, having founded Poemeleon: A Journal of Poetry, an online literary journal dedicated to poetry. The first Advisory Council meeting that I attended was in 2009, and shortly after that Inlandia broke from the library and formed its own independent nonprofit. I never envisioned then that I would someday be at the helm.

Marion had as one aspect of her vision for Inlandia, the preservation of the voices and stories of those that make this place home. In furthering that mission and vision, coupled with my own interest in writing and publishing, I have been working hard toward expanding Inlandia’s publications program. We have been slowly adding books to our catalog, both through Heyday and independently, and with the launch of the Hillary Gravendyk Prize, we hope to continue to bring books to the public for many years to come. It’s a slow process, though, one that requires patience as we gain speed.

Through Poemeleon first, and now through Inlandia, I’ve learned many things about publishing. It hasn’t been easy, and as a writer myself, it’s been challenging to follow my own advice sometimes, but years ago I found a very helpful list of “50 dos and don’ts”, which I’ve modified for my own use. For those of you looking for a publisher, or looking to submit work to Inlandia, try to keep these things in mind:

– Do read submissions guidelines carefully—it shows you respect the editor’s time, and that you take the submission process seriously.

– Don’t ask for feedback on your work, because, again, it shows you respect the editor’s time; if you want feedback, find a writers workshop to join or form your own.

– Do keep cover letters brief; don’t include anything personal other than your contact info, and don’t try to summarize what you are trying to do with the poems.

– Don’t include a bio that is a mile long—editors don’t need to see everywhere you’ve ever published; only include a handful of recognizable and recent credits, or don’t include any at all.

– Do spell check everything and proofread until you’re certain they are no typos, and don’t freak out if you find out later that there was a typo, because if the work is good, that can be fixed later; editors understand.

– Don’t center your poems or use any other weird formatting or font or use ALL CAPS unless you have a very strategic reason to do so.

– Do your research and submit only to journals that you’ve actually read and think might like your work.

– Don’t put the copyright symbol on your poems—copyright is inherent from the moment of creation. (And if someone is out to steal your work, the copyright symbol isn’t going to stop them.)

– Do submit to more than one press or journal at a time, as that ups the odds of the work getting picked. (Exception: if a press or journal specifically states no simultaneous submissions.)

And lastly:

– Don’t take rejection personally! There are so many reasons why an editor might pass something up. And if you get a personalized rejection, submit again—promptly!

Right now, Inlandia is gearing up to reopen submissions but we are not currently accepting full-length manuscripts. One of our goals is to provide services to authors—whether they are looking for a publisher, or want help publishing it themselves. All writing has an audience somewhere, it just takes patience, strategic submitting, and time.

But while you’re waiting, if you have individual prose or poetry selections, check out Inlandia’s online literary journal, Inlandia: A Literary Journey (www.InlandiaJournal.org). Or try these other So Cal presses and venues:

IE-centric Lit Journals:

Presses:

Metaphysical Circus Press

For the Love of Words

I’m sure there are more presses out there—if you know of any, send me a link! Help me build a list of resources for Inlandia’s writers to include on our website.

Inland Area Influences Poems of Hard Truths: Yossi, Yasser, & Other Soldiers by Joan Koerper

Award-winning books are often birthed in pieces, over several years in different locations. During the 10 years that poet Jon Sebba lived in Redlands and commuted to work in Riverside and San Bernardino, he confronted his ghosts of war by writing. In 2013, poems he penned in the shadows of the San Gorgonio Mountains helped earn him the title of Poet of the Year by the Utah State Poetry Society for his book, Yossi, Yasser, & Other Soldiers.

Rising from his young soldier’s soul, Sebba’s poems record, reflect, and meditate on the images, sounds, and psychological realities of war. They offer an indelible expression of the invisible scars Sebba has carried with him since he witnessed his friend, Yossi Levi, killed in the 1967 Arab-Israeli Six-Day War: “that a man you knew for weeks who died in a war of only six days / can be mourned for 45 years and counting.” And he gives voice to those caught in battle who can no longer speak for themselves.

His poems are authentic: embodying truths he refuses to couch, hide, or deny. As Dr. Rob Carney writes in the preface: “The power of these poems is that they don’t explain. They present.”

After witnessing a man severely beaten in front of his family, and learning an inquiry into the incident was to occur, Sebba writes: “Too late for that Palestinian farmer / in ripped, blood-splattered pajamas. / Too late for me, still carrying / invisible scars all these years.”

The first 25 poems in the collection focus directly on the 1967 Six-Day War. Twenty-one poems speak to “Others’ Wars”: WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. During a phone interview, Sebba explained, “I included poems about other wars, and other conflicts or situations, that I was driven to write because they were about things that bothered me.”

I met Jon Sebba when we were members of the Redlands Branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW). He was one of two men who broke the gender barrier, joining the group when males were allowed membership. He quickly started a play reading group for the Branch. For four years, being part of that group was my favorite monthly activity.

I also was a member of a writer’s support group he hosted, one of the multitude of writer’s groups he has either anchored, or participated in, wherever he has lived. When he moved, we lost touch. Recently, I located him in relation to a book I’m writing about a former center of intellectual, literary, and creative activity for women in Redlands where he took part in a community program I organized and produced.

Born and raised in South Africa, Sebba left after high school to live in Israel. He studied geology, among other subjects and held various jobs. When the Six-Day War broke out he was mobilized as a reservist and fought in Jerusalem while his wife and 3-month-old son huddled in a bomb shelter a few miles behind the front lines. Transformed by the experience of random death, he committed to the belief that war should be avoided. “We didn’t know / that every rifle bullet / manufactured for the army / is intended for some mother’s child / But, by God, we do now,” he writes.

Sebba immigrated to the United States in 1968. He studied civil engineering, became a specialist in water-resources engineering, eventually working in six states. He welcomed another son into the family, and later divorced and re-married. For five years he was also an adjunct instructor in the engineering department at Salt Lake Community College, Salt Lake City, Utah until he retired. He and his wife now balance their time between Utah and Arizona.

Writing and being able to share his poems with others has been deeply therapeutic, says Sebba. In turn, his poems are therapeutic to others.

In demand as a speaker, he relates, “I often focus on writing as a way to work through trauma. And I always offer to connect with veterans. I want to help. And because family members are sharing stories with me after [readings and] speaking engagements, I’ve grown more aware of the trauma and stress the family goes through because they’ve been left behind.”

In 2013, The Gallery Theatre in Ogden, Utah produced a play he wrote. From November to June each year he teaches poetry at a low security prison in Tucson, Arizona. He is also organizing a program to work with veterans in Arizona using writing as therapy. And Yossi, Yasser, & Other Soldiers is a text used in a Social Justice class at Salt Lake Community College.

Sebba’s current writing projects tackle another volatile subject: apartheid. He has written a second play, and is working on a novel, both based on people he knew while growing up in South Africa. And, of course, another book of poems about the effects of war is taking shape. “If I can help others through my experience, and writing, it is both satisfying and fulfilling,” he shared.

Yossi, Yasser, & Other Soldiers is available at Amazon.com.

Jon Sebba can be reached at: yossi.yasser.soldiers@gmail.com.

This column was published in the Riverside Press-Enterprise, May 24, 2015; Section: Life; Page Z2 & Z5.

Exemplary Friendship by Judy Kronenfeld

A good friend of my husband’s and mine, Theda Shapiro, who was Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature in the Department of Comparative Literature and Foreign Languages at UCR, passed away in March, to our shock and dismay, after a somewhat precipitous decline due to cancer. We have been to two memorials for Theda, an informal one at the house of her close friend, Stephanie Hammer, in LA, and, just a week ago, one hosted by Thomas Scanlon, the Chair of her department, at the Alumni House on the UCR campus, and have thought about her a great deal from the onset of her illness; all of this has made me realize just what it is for a person to have a profound effect on other people, to create a lasting legacy of kindness and exemplary friendship.

For Theda, joy was so definitely not a zero-sum game—that is, if you have some good luck or some joy, there’s less to go around for me. Certainly, the extended family of my youth sometimes involved a certain zero-sum competition and even schadenfreude , especially among cousins’ parents. And I’ve had certain friends (should I call them that?) like the one who shot back an email, after I sent her a link to pictures of my kids and grandkids, saying “save these for someone who’s interested”—an expression completely inimical to someone like Theda. In her capacious mind, it was as if she had files and subfiles for all her many friends’ children and extended families. She kept up with those children and their accomplishments; she always asked to be remembered to them. Even after her awful cancer diagnosis, when I talked to her regularly on the phone, she made a point of asking about ours, and—hoping, perhaps, for more time than she had—looked forward to seeing some recent pictures of our grandkids. For Theda, if you had some good luck, or your kids gave you naches, it was her joy, too. She made herself into the best kind of family member for so many people—colleagues, students and younger faculty she mentored and mothered, and all her other friends. She was incredibly smart and knowledgeable, and also unassuming, kind, supportive, loyal, and utterly positive. There’s plenty of schadenfreude in academia; for Theda, with her amazing generosity, it was a place to share the wealth, to be supportive to students and faculty. Their testimonies at her memorials and the way in which her friends stepped up to help during her decline and afterwards made so clear how universal her generosity was, and gave me a heartwarming sense that the kindness she taught by her example is a living tradition, and will be passed on.

Rowena Silver

Defrosting

That record winter
bitch-punched me
across Manitoba
froze me to totem
spun me downward
in a wake of wails

Now expatriate
no more crocus promises
no birch, fir, hint of evergreen
no promise of fecundity
Here, beside an empty river
bank, all folklore renews
Time to decipher
graffiti, sweating highways
palms, malls, stone gardens
California
Lovely, (as the say of the plain)
In her own way
hospitable, impulsive, naked,
flinging orange blossoms
white as snowflakes
Often kind, and
oh, so very warm

“Defrosting” also forthcoming in the Autumn 2015 issue of Chiron Review.

Rowena Silver, a native of Winnipeg, Canada, now living in Riverside, California, is a founding editor of Epicenter Magazine, A literary publication. Her work has been widely published in such journals as: Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal, European Judaism, Writer’s Digest, Ariga, Standards: University of Colorado, Pudding House Publications, Guardian Unlimited, Heyday Books, The San Fernando Journal, and Dissident Editions.

David Schwitzgebel

The Inferno by Dante – Epilogue

“…where we came forth, and once more saw the stars” (Dante, 373).

Upon seeing the gleaming points of light,
My heart was refreshed, the remnants of the
Wearying journey left in the inferno’s night.

“Those who are blessed with life,” said my master,
“May see and appreciate the distant suns
Which permeate the beautiful night air

Of Earth; however, remember well – you will not
Be on Earth forever. We all will face judgment,
After we’ve become weak of body and thought.”

I reflected on this, recalling the jealousy
Of those living their death in that fetid place, who
Will never again see the stars, or feel the breeze.

“Come,” called the guide, “before I show you the other
Two sides of the afterlife, there is one
More task which must be fulfilled; I assure

You, it will not delay us for much time.”
Curiously, I followed him, for he
Had drifted, while we were speaking, to align

Next to a nearby copse of trees. Upon reaching
Him, I spied a faint figure, seemingly outlined
In small points of light; when it moved, its gleaming

Build shifted in such a way to give the
Appearance of moonlight off a body of
Water. It was mournfully kneeling by an

Imposingly gigantic tree which seemed
To be grasping at death. Its branches, all blackened,
expelled an aura of blight, and the trunk displayed

A similar state of sickliness, being
Riddled with an array of chips and holes – though, most
Decrepit were the roots on which the spectral thing

Was kneeling. Through them, to my amazement,
Lava and fire seemed to be bleeding;
The cracks in the charcoal leaked bits of the hell that

I thought I had forever left behind.
After a moment of silence, I inquire:
“What, dear mentor, Is that being that shines?

And the tree: it seems to have planted its
Roots in The Inferno itself.” “These mysteries,”
My guide responded, “Are secrets, which sit

On the shoulders of those of us who have
Been imbued with the knowledge of the domain
After death – but, as your guide, I will give

You all the wisdom which I have the ability
or right to bestow. Regarding the tree, you made
a correct assumption. It comes directly

From the seventh circle of hell. So, yes,
To confirm the cause of shock in your expression,
This tree is indeed a soul, though his name is less

Important than the deeds which were committed by
the wretched thing. After being tormented since his
youth through the cruelty of his brother, to die

Seemed preferable to him – in contrast to living, and
extending his bitter existence.” And, with
an ample amount of pity, a strand

Of the experience in the abyss was
Remembered by me: violence of any sort
Concludes in hell. On this bitter thought,

The spectral guide continued. “He was sent
To the layer reserved for those who
partake in harm to themselves. As the harpies rent

This boy’s body in the form of a plant,
His brother, for once, felt an intense guilt.
He saw his dead sibling, and in turn saw the rat

Which he had become. He dedicated his life
To remorse, every particle of his body
Focused on compensating for his brother’s strife –

His compunction was so great, the soul separated
Itself from the body, and became the
Stellar being you see before you: Not dead,

And not alive.” In my exceptional pity,
My heart felt as if would burst
For the tortured souls standing across from me.

Gravely, my master went on: “This spirit
Continued, in its spectral state, to do penance.
Even in hell, the young boy could hear it:

His brother’s sorrow, echoing through the
World of the dead like a fog horn
Sounding in a misty night. As eras

Passed, the boy found that he had (for the first
Time in his existence) a direction. He
Wished to once again see his brother on Earth.

His will to do this was so great that he grew;
He forced himself upward until he had
Overtaken even The Lord of Hell; and then drew

Upon every last ounce of his strength, and
Reaching up with his roots, pulled himself
Through the ceiling of The Inferno, the third

Soul to ever return to Earth from Hell.
Upon breaking through, the stars once
More shone their light on the child who prevailed.”

However, all that the young boy cared for was
His brother, a glimmering spirit of remorse,
Who had waited upon his arrival for millennia.”

After hearing this story, I looked upon
The boy who resembled a dying tree
And the brother who resembled a fallen star

Reflected upon the world,
And let Virgil lead me onward.

David Schwitzgebel is a student at Riverside Polytechnic High School, in which he conspicuously spurns the book and poetry clubs because they are terribly dull. He spends his free time writing, reading, and sleeping (during which his subconscious mind considers what next to write/read).

Imperfect Fragments by Joan Koerper

It’s National Poetry Month. My poetic soul celebrates as I honor the poet in me, and the poets, and poetic works that have nurtured my life. Like most of us I have been in conversation with poets whom I know only through their writings. At other times, I am sharing a repast or sipping a drink with a poet whose vitality is radiating the space around us.

One of the poets I am privileged to know is Deenaz Paymaster Coachbuilder. Deenaz is well known to most of us who are part of the Inlandia community, yet her many accomplishments and talents are sometimes hidden by her soft and nonintrusive demeanor. I met Deenaz in the summer of 2009 at the Inlandia Creative Writing Workshop led by Ruth Nolan, MA, MFA, at the Main Riverside Library. Our friendship solidified over the months, indeed years, that we participated in the workshops and has continued on. For us, the workshops were a way to connect with a community of writers and continually challenge ourselves.

Deenaz, a Riverside resident, is a published poet in the US and India. Her poems have appeared in Inlandia: A Literary Journey; Sun Runner; Sugar Mule Literary Magazine; Parsiana; The Elphinstonian; Slouching Toward Mt. Rubidoux Manor; 2011 Writing From Inlandia; The Riverside County Recorder; India Journal; and Crucible. As an artist, Deenaz exhibits her often mesmerizing works in oil. She is also an educator and environmental advocate. Deenaz received a doctorate in Theater, an MS in Communicative Disorders in the US, and an MA in Literature from Bombay University, India. A retired school principal, she is a consulting Speech Pathologist and university professor in “special education.” A Fulbright scholar, Deenaz is the recipient of several awards, including President Obama’s “Volunteer Service Award.”

Deenaz published her first book of poems, Imperfect Fragments in 2014. Having watched the work unfold, I wrote a review that is including in a final section of the book entitled “Words of Praise.” I am waiting to post my review at Amazon, whenever the book is available there. Until then, I am overdue posting it here to honor Deenaz and her work. Happy National Poetry Month.

Joan Koerper On Imperfect Fragments by Deenaz Paymaster Coachbuilder

Harvesting imperfect fragments arising from a full range of human experience, translated internally in a multitude of languages, sensations, and lingering emotions, Dr. Deenaz Coachbuilder transmutes swatches of vibrant phrases into a stunning outpouring of poetic expression. “Life is a pilgrimage. But where does the path lead?” she begins, extending an invitation to accompany her on this personal journey of questing and questioning. Deenaz’s poems illuminate a journey of compassion, grace and transformation as she contemplates and celebrates, time, love, faith, the human condition and the continuum of spirit.

In the end, however, it is the humility of her spiritual journey that is most telling, and the true stairway to the profundity of her poetry. Even in the days when she felt no affinity to any particular faith, her unfailing sense of connectedness to all forms of life, the Universe, and particularly her family, in other words, her spirituality, never wavered. Deenaz shares her acute awareness of class differences in poems such as “The Green Hedge,” her almost unbearable grief over the untimely and tragic death of her only brother, her struggle to confront her mortality as she battled cancer, and her joy at the birth of her grandson, Barjor. We feel her affinity with the desert rose rock, the dandelion, the Joshua Tree, her dissolution into, and oneness with, a monarch butterfly and other sentient beings in “Impermanence of Being.” We read her tribute to the labor of the earthworm in “Paradise Lost,” become hypnotized along with her by the sight of a tiger languishing in cooling waters, celebrate Ocotillo Lady in the deserts of California, and listen while “Cymbidium Orchid Speaks.” All of her poems are ultimately a spiritual “answering echo to one’s primordial being.”

Deenaz’s heartfelt, lyrical, sometimes painful reflections are augmented with visuals of her other talents in the arts: stunning photographs such as “Alki Sunset.” We run with the wild horses contemplating her painting of same and feel our own eyebrows lift to her painting “Startled Flight.” The array of family photos across time, generations, and place, solidify that strong sense of her cultural identity across borders as she wonders at growing things.

I have been privileged to read and watch Deenaz’s poems evolve over the last few years. Yet I am profoundly moved by this collection she has courageously assembled. Each time I read and reread the poems, I am taken to a different depth of thought and feeling than I traveled on the previous read. Deenaz’s fravashi, her guardian spirit, has given a gift to us all by not only being at her side, but by guiding Deenaz’s poetic hand to weave her imperfect fragments into a memorable work that the reader will want to return to, again and again. (c) 2013 MJ Koerper.

Our Long Brown Land by David Stone

Growing concern over this season’s low-levels of snowpack in the Sierras has brought numerous comparisons to California’s lowest recorded snowpack in 1977. This summer we may be once more “under the sky that deafened from listening for rain” as Gary Soto wrote in his 1977 poem “The Drought.” Californians need to place drought literature at the top of their reading lists because it provides us knowledge of our past and visions for our future.

The Salvadoran poet Roque Dalton wrote, “man uses his old disasters as a mirror.” Natural disasters such as drought allow humans to see more clearly their relationship to Earth and its natural forces.

The classic American novel of drought is John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” which describes farm families fleeing the Great Plains’ Dustbowl in the 1930s with false hopes of an Eden in California. Steinbeck’s novel helps readers to see the environmental, economic, and human costs of drought and the great migrations that major droughts can cause.

The term “dustbowl” is increasingly being used to refer to California’s Central Valley. Former Inlandia Literary Laureate Gayle Brandeis recommends Alan Heathcock’s “Scenes from the New American Dustbowl” with photographs by Matt Black, published in the online magazine, Matter. Reminiscent of Steinbeck’s travel literature, the fiction writer Heathcock turns to nonfiction to tell the story of farmers along California’s Highway 99.

Drought drives home the value of water. Joan Didion’s essay “Holy Water” from her 1979 collection “The White Album” reminds us to reconsider the complex and distant sources of California’s water. Didion says, “the apparent ease of California life is an illusion, and those who believe the illusion real live here in only the most temporary way.” The megadroughts of prehistorical California, like the 240-year-long one that began in 850, make Didion’s words sound prophetic.

For the definitive history of water resources in the American West, read Marc Reisner’s “Cadillac Desert,” commonly described as an illuminating look into the political economy of limited resources. For a more in-depth look at the history of the Colorado River, which Reisner called the “American Nile,” read “Contested Waters” by water historian April Summitt of La Sierra University.

The Nebula and Hugo award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi’s “Water Knife,” now available for pre-order, presents a near future dystopia where Nevada, Arizona and California fight over the water of the Colorado River. Early reviews describe it as a science fiction thriller with a realistic portrayal of an all too probable future.

“Water Knife” may also be classified as climate fiction, cli-fi for short. Climate change concern drives this emerging genre’s increasing popularity in literature and film. Often described as a cousin of science fiction, climate fiction typically focuses on the results of climate change in the present and near future. J. G. Ballard began the cli-fi genre with a trilogy of novels in the 1960s , including “The Burning World,” which tells the story of a global drought caused by industrial waste. The novel was later renamed “The Drought.”

Should we as humans see ourselves essentially in conflict with nature? Do Southern Californians misconstrue natural disasters “by a way of thinking that simultaneously imposes false expectations on the environment and then explains the inevitable disappointments as proof [of] a malign and hostile nature,” as Mike Davis argues in “Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster?”

The academic field of ecocriticism, which examines how nature is portrayed in culture, prompts careful rethinking about the relationship of humans to the environment. “Readers should ask how could individuals and societies inhabit their world more sustainably. Literature can help us articulate the dangers and imagine the solutions,” says Lora Geriguis, associate professor of English at La Sierra University and host of the Natures conference, which annually draws ecocritical scholars from around the world.

Children can also use literature to cope with drought. Larry Gerber’s “Adapting to Drought” gives readers in grades four to eight a basic understanding of the science behind droughts as well as suggestions of how to take action. They might also enjoy Karen Hesse’s Newberry Award winning free-verse novel “Out of the Dust” that tells the story of Billie-Jo trying to survive during the dustbowl years of the Depression.

Teens looking for something beyond the myriad of dystopian novels should check out “We Are the Weather Makers: The History of Climate Change.”

If drought worries you, crack open Ruth Nolan’s “No Place for a Puritan” to the excerpt from Mary Austin’s “The Land of Little Rain.” “If one is inclined to wonder at first how so many dwellers came to be in the loneliest land that ever came out of God’s hands, what they do there and why stay, one does not wonder so much after having lived there. None other than this long brown land lays such a hold on the affections.”

A Writers Week Reading and the Mystery of Poetry by Judy Kronenfeld

On February 3rd, the second day of Writers Week, I heard the UCR Creative Writing Department’s new poets, Associate Professor Katie Ford and Assistant Professor Allison Benis White read in the campus bookstore lounge. My friend, poet and artist Lavina Blossom, came with me. It was the first poetry reading I had been to since my knee replacement surgery in November, and the several months of intensive therapy and recovery following. And maybe, because of that, I was particularly delighted to be out in the world, and focused on the nuances and music of words. In any case, I think both Lavina and I were heart-struck, mesmerized. We each bought one of the poets’ books (and will be exchanging, soon).

The poets indicated that Tom Lutz (Professor of Nonfiction in the Department) had suggested that they arrange a responsive reading, each poet “responding” to the other with a poem of her own. Because of this, it seemed that each poet saw some aspects of their own and the other’s work which had perhaps not been salient to them before. Each poet’s work is informed by an experience of personal trauma. Many of the poems in Ford’s Blood Lyrics (Graywolf, 2014) concern the very premature birth of her daughter and the uncertainty that she will live and thrive; the poems in White’s Self-Portrait with Crayon (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2009) are prose poem meditations on Degas’ art that body forth almost hidden feelings about abandonment by her mother when she was a child. However, it is clear from some comments the poets made during the reading, as well as from their work, that neither poet is remotely “confessional” in the limited sense; artistry utterly transcends the merely private.

I have been reading Ford’s Blood Lyrics and have been struck, as I was during the reading, by the ways her fierce poems keep turning and surprising with their diction and imagery. Here’s the opening of “Of a Child Early Born”:

For the child is born an unbreathing scripture

and her broken authors wait

on one gurney together.

And what is prayer from a gurney

but lantern-glow for God or demon

to fly toward the lonely in this deathly hour;

and since I cannot bear to wish on one

but receive the other,

I lie still, play dead, am delivered decree:

our daughter weighs seven hundred dimes,

paperclips, teaspoons of sugar,

this child of grams…

Ford’s poems confronting the public world are among the best “political” poems that truly are poems I’ve read. Here’s the beginning of “Foreign Song”:

To bomb them,

we musn’t have heard their music

or known their waterless night watch,

we musn’t have seen how already

the desert was under constant death bells

ringing over sleeping cribs and dry wells.

I have not yet obtained a copy of Self-Portrait with Crayon (though it’s on its way from Amazon). But I do want to report on a brief, wonderful conversation I had with Allison Benis White after the reading. I was absolutely struck by what she is doing in this book. I found an interview with her that allows me to share, in her exact words, something close to what she told me as we talked:

When I started writing prose poems that meditated on Degas’ artwork, I didn’t know I was writing a book. In fact, I wrote the first one as a random exercise in response to a postcard of Degas’ “Combing the Hair” I brought home from London—and in responding to that painting, I found, to my surprise, that I could write about my mother’s disappearance in a way I never could before.” So I tried again, with Degas’ “Dancers in Blue,” and it worked again. So I kept going. I had found a way in.

The first thing I said to Allison was something like this: “It’s the difference that matters, isn’t it, when you work from a piece of Degas’ art.” It had struck me forcefully that her use of Degas is one of those extraordinary lucky accidents at the heart of poetry. I asked if Allison had ever studied Degas and learned that she had not; these poems are completely apart from “academic” knowledge. It is just because the Degas works are completely other, though perhaps instinctively attracting, that this poet was able to use them in the most nuanced way to explore her abandonment, and even more. What started out as a “random exercise” completely metaphorizes her experience in the most visual manner. I felt that I was in touch with the mystery at the heart of poetry. And could only wish for the next transformative “accident” for my own work!

Here’s the first paragraph of “Curtainfall” (which I got from Google Books), so you can hopefully see something of how these meditations work:

Back to your own mind and the blank look of the curtain half-

lowered and red velvet. Their heads are already gone. Only

the closest dancer who kneels and looks away. Soon her head

and neck. Soon her shoulders. And when she is gone, only the

backs of their heads who stand and applaud into the absence

of movement. Nothing else will ever happen.

Everyone Has a Story by Cati Porter

Not too long ago, I was going into a CVS with my youngest son, and as we were walking in I noticed a young man near the door. As we approached, he said he was hungry. He didn’t ask for anything in particular. He looked to be a couple years older than my teenage son. He was disheveled but not actively panhandling. I’m generally pretty generous when it comes to strangers who are down on their luck, but I always wonder what their story is. This time, I asked. He told me he’d been living with a family member until recently, but had now taken to sleeping at the high school or in his brother and sister-in-law’s car; they were homeless too. When I came out, I brought him some sandwiches and water, but I always wonder if I shouldn’t have done more.

It’s easy for us in our comfortable lives to walk past people as though they were invisible. We are all isolated, even close as we may be to one another. We might think—can’t stop, or next time, or she doesn’t really look like she needs it. But who are we to make those kinds of judgments? I don’t know. I make them too. I don’t give to every stranger who asks. But here on the heals of the holiday season during the coldest months of the year, it may serve ourselves well to give it some additional thought.

Gertrude Davidson, a student at Cal Baptist University with an interest in writing, sent me this poem a while back. These are issues that deserve our attention, and I’m glad she sent it in.

THE STILL VOICE THAT SCREAMS HELP

by Gertrude Eugenia Davidson

The still voice that screams help on the streets and in the streetcorners.

When I drive I see them. They are everywhere and don’t care where they stop, sit or stand.

When I walk by the park I see them and so does everyone else who walks by. They are accustomed to every weather condition. They do not express their grievance to anyone but to themselves or among themselves.

They make friends in the streets and on the streetcorners. Do they care about what you think? I believe they do since they are human. Do you care about what they think? I believe not since you are human. Why? Because you are not instantly affected by their standing, sitting or stopping.

The still voice that screams help on the streets and in the street corners.

When I go shopping, I see them and I know you see them too. Sometimes, all they get is a bottle of water or just a soda. Do they need or want more? I believe so because they are human. They cannot get what you get and cannot have what you have now by virtue of their situation.

The still voice that screams help on the streets and in the street corners.

They look intently when you approach. Most never utter a word. They just stare. Their eyes do the talking. Their stare or gaze make the loudest noise. It leaves the echoes lingering on after you walk by.

The still voice that screams help on the streets and in the street corners.

The still voice that screams help on the streets and in the street corners will scream the loudest this time of the year. The still voice that screams on the streets and in the street corners will lose its voice this time of the year to the weather and to the festive season.

The still voice that screams help on the streets and in the street corners will be audible.

The still voice will say, HELP ME FOR I AM HOMELESS AND HELPLESS!