Saturday, November 2, 2024

PRE-ELECTION JITTERS: CALM DOWN WITH A HORATIAN ODE

Art Beck (Dennis Dybeck) has given me permission to reprint his excellent translation of this ode by Horace. This might help us keep perspective as we await the momentous election. Art's latest book of essays A Treacherous Art, about translating poetry, is highly recommended! In this ode, I like how he renders "Carpe Diem" at the end.
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Horace, Odes Book I, 11

Leuci - please, bright mind - don’t ask -
we’re not supposed to know
how it’s going to end - not me,
not you. Don’t listen to fortunetellers.
Believe me, it’s better
to take whatever comes,
as it comes. Whether there’s more,
godwilling, whether this is our last winter
shattering the Etruscan Sea on those crumbling
rocks across: be wise.
Decant the wine, trim your endless
yearnings to fit the short hours.
While we’re talking, jealous time’s
running out - on us. Grab today. Believe
as little as possible in tomorrow.

translated by Art Beck


Friday, October 11, 2024

Univ. of Az. Press Publishes Denise Low: House of Grace, House of Blood


I'm happy to announce this week's publication of House of Grace, House of Blood from the University of Arizona Press, which explores intersections of archival artifacts and the personal, with focus on an incident of Indigenous genocide. The book responds to a rich archive: oral and written accounts, maps, dances, and archaeology about the Gnadenhutten, Ohio, massacre of Indigenous people by renegade Revolutionary soldiers. Benjamin Franklin commented on this tragedy as well as the Shawnee leader Tecumseh. The book's arc follows a sequence of consequences, including deforestation, diaspora of Delawares, restoration, stereotyping, and continuance of traditions and spirituality. Please contact the press for desk and review copies. Please note these appearance opportunities:

Oct. 19, Sat., Washington DC, Politics & Prose, reading with Christian Teresi and Jason Schneiderman, 6 pm, 1324 4th Street NE, Washington, D.C. 20002, (202) 544-4452 http://ww.politics-prose.com/poetry-panel

Nov. 12, Wed. , San Francisco, Bird & Beckett bookstore, Denise Low and Kim Shuck 7 pm., free https://birdbeckett.com/   

Nov. 14, Thurs. Santa Rosa Arts Center, Speakeasy Reading Series, Denise Low, open mic following, 7 pm, 312 South A St., Santa Rosa, music-Jeff Nathanson free, https://santarosaartscenter.org/index.php/speakeasy-2-2/ 
Nov. 15, Fri., Healdsburg, The 222-Paul Mahder Gallery, Denise Low and Lucille Lang Day, Indigenous Thanksgiving Traditions – The 222, 7 pm, 222 Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg CA, $20

Nov. 17, Sun., Sebastopol, Wom-ba meeting 1 pm

Dec. 1, Sun. Berkeley, Poetry Flash, Denise Low and Lucille Lang Day, 3 pm Art House Gallery & Cultural Center (to be confirmed), 2905 Shattuck Avenue, refreshments, free (poetryflash.org).

March 29, Sat., Los Angeles AWP conference, Denise Low Bookfair Reading with Scarlet Tanager Press, 1:45 p.m.

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Justice is out of the purview of poetry, unfortunately. Otherwise, the ancestors of the ninety-six Lenapes killed by rogue Pennsylvania militia men in 1782 might read this collection and find some much deserved peace.”—FOREWORD Reviews

House of Grace, House of Blood is a masterpiece of both documentary poetry and Indigenous storytelling. Denise Low’s exploration of history, memory, genealogy, and identity acknowledges the complexity of her bloodlines and the possibility of healing. Throughout, her poems become ‘portals for hearing pleas / and scriptures.’”—Craig Santos Perez, author of From Unincorporated Territory [åmot] and National Book Award winner

Denise Low’s House of Grace, House of Blood chronicles the epigenetic expression of generational trauma left by the massacre of ninety-six Lenape Christian relatives inside a church in 1782. However, these poems also suggest epigenetic expressions of ancestral healing and reconciliation with living within contradictions, a powerful Indigenous inheritance that will leave you dancing in joyous resistance.”—Edgar Gabriel Silex, author of Acts of Love

Biography: Former Kansas Poet Laureate Denise Low is author of House of Grace, House of Blood, from the University of Arizona Press’s Sun Tracks poetry series (Oct. 2024). Her other books include the memoir The Turtle's Beating Heart: One Family's Story of Lenape Survival (University of Nebraska Press), Jigsaw Puzzling: Essays (Meadowlark Press, Coffin Award), and Casino Bestiary: Poems (Spartan Press). Low is a founding board member of the national Indigenous Nations Poets (In-Na-Po) and past board member and president of Associated Writers and Writing Programs. She has been visiting professor at the University of Kansas and University of Richmond. She taught at Haskell Indian Nations University 27 years, where she founded the creative writing program. She and her husband Thomas Weso founded Mammoth Publications, an independent press that specializes in Indigenous American and literary works. www.deniselow.net

More praise:

House of Grace, House of Blood moves far beyond the personal narrative to create an experience that clearly identifies the blade edge that is so-called American history, and invites the reader to consider how exclusion and connection hone it.”—Mihku Paul, author of 20th Century PowWow Playland

“This account of the violence of ignorance and the heartbreak of broken trust is all too frequent—and all too frequently silenced, ignored, miswritten, or forgotten in our collective societal reckoning with the truth of our nation’s founding. And yet what Low seeks in House of Grace, House of Blood, what we who are compelled to bear witness in our verse seek in the telling, in the remembering, is a way forward through healing. The facts speak for themselves. The poet speaks for the dead—and those yet living.”—Abigail Chabitnoy, author of In the Current Where Drowning Is Beautiful

“With documentary and lyric intensity, Low claims poetry itself as memorial in her extraordinary new book.”—Hadara Bar-Nadav, author of The Animal Is Chemical

“The versatile and talented Denise Low ventures into documentary poetry in House of Grace, House of Blood with astonishing results. Through personal reflection, memories, imagined stories, chants, and collages of primary texts, she pieces together the story of one of the most heinous crimes against Indigenous people in North America. For Low, there are more questions than answers. These poems cinch the connections between religious and nationalist fervor, racial capitalism, and Indigenous survivance.”—Joseph Harrington, author of Disapparitions



Monday, January 29, 2024

National Book Critics Circle Announces Poetry Finalists

The award for best book of poetry published in 2023 will be selected from this short list, March, 2024 in NYC:

Saskia HamiltonAll Souls (Graywolf Press)

Kim HyesoonPhantom Pain Wings, translated by Don Mee Choi (New Directions)

Romeo OriogunThe Gathering of Bastards (University of Nebraska Press)

Robyn SchiffInformation Desk (Penguin Books)

Charif ShanahanTrace Evidence (Tin House)