Our founding managing editor, Florenz Eisman, walked around the Thielke Arboretum on a regular basis. Recently, the CavanKerry team visited the location to celebrate Florenz.
For Florenz: “Family” by Joan Cusack Handler
From GLOrious
Family
By Joan Cusack Handler
Take for instance this African Violet bl o o ming its brains out
the tenth year in a row:
shameless in purple— scores of furious faces & voluptuous leaves.
Like me,
surrounded by its family, it’s just happy here
sitting in its white pot
in the middle of its Family room.
& like us, all our plants
have had children:
the pencil cactus has three, two fully grown,
one toddler,
the yuka, just one,
the fiddle leaf ficus, false aralia & rubber more than we can
count —
just ridiculous in their rushtooutdo.
Once upon a time a man,a woman & a boy
were so delirious in love
with the woods, that they
wantedthemcloser, sothey
built a house in the
heart of
the pines. Then
begging the woods
indulgence they asked for a few trees: a small rubber
perhaps,
some fern,
a dracena.
But these
g r e w
TALLer, so
the man, the woman & the boy
built a greenhouse, an A t r i u m
at the Heart of the house: a
H U G E R O O M
with Skylights & Walls of Glass &
old brick & lots of cold well water.
Once inside
the P l a n t s S t r e t c h e d
O u t & Up,
but complained,
theylikecrowdingleavestouching,Hovering even.
So the family went outside,
dug pine, hemlock, flowering plum & filledtheroomtocrowding.
They invited the birds:
ca r d i n a l s
came
some
b l a c k c r o w s.
& they made no attempt
to domesticate their trees
with tea tables & wicker sofas,
only a rocker or two
& a small bench for the child.
For Florenz: From Robert Weibezahl
Remembering a Friend I Never “Met”
How can you feel a close connection to someone you’ve never met face-to-face? There was a time when I probably would have told you couldn’t—insisted, in fact—but that was before I “met” Florenz. Way back at the beginning of the marvelous adventure that would become CavanKerry, I had a conference call with Joan and Florenz (it must have been 2000). Here were two strangers from New Jersey calling California with this crazy notion about starting a publishing house devoted to that most non-commercial of genres—poetry! They had been given my name as a potential book publicist to help them launch their dream. So I “signed on,” figuring that a few books later it would all just drift away like so many other well-intentioned publishing ventures have. How wrong could I have been? Over the next thirteen years I worked with Florenz from the West Coast, largely by email, with just the very occasional phone call, helping publicize CavanKerry’s books in one way or another. It proved a special, symbiotic, and long-lasting relationship. Although I knew that Florenz was “of a certain age,” I never imagined that relationship would end. And, I suppose it hasn’t, because I think of her with constant affection, especially when I am reading one of CavanKerry’s forthcoming books. If I have one regret, it is that Florenz was never my editor, because I know what a fine and caring one she was, the kind that every writer dreams of having. I miss this remarkable woman who I never “met” and end with a few lines from “Dido’s Lament,” an unpublished poem of my own:
The soprano sings Remember
me,
her departure not real –
back from the Underworld,
her Aeneas at her side
(the final curtain call) –
Yet who can resist that aching
melody?
—Robert Weibezahl
For Florenz: “Grievances” by Joan Cusack Handler
from Red Canoe: Love In Its Making
GRIEVANCES
By Joan Cusack Handler
A swelling constant in my throat now & a burning in my
chest as I make note of each new grievance—
it seems we’re helpless.
He must criticize; I must react.
But he says I provoke him.
He wouldn’t be so critical if I would be more rational
. I need screens, he says, distance.
Think, he admonishes.
Emote less.
To him, I’m an E X P L O S I O N: that
torrent of L E A V E S
overtaking him in today’s November W I N D.
I’m
s c a t t er. I ex a g g e r ate.
I’m rage, fire & t e m pest.
I’m our bedroom: a c
h
a
o
s of Christmas
wrap
f r en z I e d outfits
dang
- ling
from
doors, our bed
smotheredin
books&papers
catalogues last
month’sphonebills.
I’m t o o m u c h He likes boundaries.
dough r I s I n g unattended in the oven,
dinner for twenty to celebrate each holiday;
I’m last minute
wine,
toilet paper, makeup&
dessert,
visits to the bank,
dentist & colorist.
I'm always cleaning your mess/he says
I'm repetitious-turning life inside
then out; I’m needy,
dependent &
insecure. I’m endless crises,
tirades, dropped
bladder & hysterectomy . . . .
I spend my life, he complains, taking care of you.
I know I love you, but I don’t know if I can live with you.
He’s tired.
He needs
quiet. Rest.
I’m intense, too analytical: “How do you feel?
What does that mean? I’m at war with my body.
Maybe I’ll go back into therapy.”
You’re moody,
he says,
depressed.
He wants l i ght, airy: he wants
healthy:
an Athlete,
maybe a Bimbo, nothing t o o
intellectual.
He wants to laugh,
play tennis, a little piano
get a suntan,
make love
with someone who
isn’t keeping score.
He wants entertainment:
movies,
vacations. He wants quiet.
He wants
peace.
He wants to be bored.
For Florenz: “Reshapings” by Howard Levy
Reshapings
The shape of your womb
is how I learned to tilt my head
when listening hard, when taking in.
Your legs, one slightly shorter
than the other (not enough to limp
but enough to sculpt the muscles
of your back and tense your walk),
took me through my first merengue,
taught those small refinements
of sway and balance
and life spread over me
simply, cell by new cell,
as light spreads over a shadow,
lessons of pace,
lessons of patience.
*
A dream that you are talking.
You hold a peach and tell me
about the luxuries of shopgirls.
1943. Lord & Taylor, the lingerie
and nylon counter. Twenty,
no soldier to worry over yet plenty
to meet, the jewelry of the jitterbug
and free to stay in the city overnight.
You phrase it, the shiny black satin
of becoming a woman.
*
How quiet we are, the two of us.
Each reading in our favorite
chairs, the rainy afternoon
moving toward dusk and
the making of dinner.
I am proud to chop the onions
and peel the eggs.
I will earn a small piece of cake,
though not enough to ruin my appetite.
How the afternoon we made
enclosed us.
*
And yet such a loneliness chipped at you,
such a bleakness, as if everything
were too narrow,
people, ease, and the coronation
of desire, so that each day the loneliness
broke off some small edge of self
until the small, ruined abbey
of your heart lost its body faithful.
*
In the hospital,
your legs elephantine with water
growing larger into your death
and my father and I
growing smaller and smaller,
unable to talk directly and honestly to you,
as if you were not
a dying woman
we both loved.
*
The first deep cold day of winter,
the air with no sense of forgiveness.
I clear some last leaves from your grave.
In a few weeks, it will be seven years.
Your grandsons are growing well.
It is so cold, and here in this cemetery,
I imagine that you bear me
once again towards the vastness of future,
while I remember and bear you back
into this tiny present, this brief
regency of noise and light.
Light in Sheets through a Break
in the Clouds out toward the
Horizon in the East
Those must be the trails of angels filing into the choirstalls,
this wind the ruste of their feet and robes
as Bach takes up his baton,
humming to set the key, rising on his toes.
For this morning he has chosen the B minor Sanctus
and the angels thrill to it since no music rises to Him
as this Sanctus does. Their voices fill all heaven
and heaven’s gold breaks all through the sky.
The light pouring into all five senses,
into my shoulders and my spine,
into my hands fierce to hold it, to shape it,
to offer it up as the heart and grace of love.
For Florenz: “Bird Call, Wave” by Laurie Lamon
Florenz was a beautiful and amazing part of my journey with my first and then miraculously my second book with CKP.
What I remember from all the emails and info about her is her passion for her love for poetry, and her passion for her family.
-Laurie Lamon
Bird Call, Wave
from Without Wings
Wife, my husband
said. Husband. The ocean
through the shades, motion
and light—the near call
of the bird we had begun to call
the 4 o’clock bird.
Then something else when I opened
my hand and turned
to the window side of the bed
where he had moved,
having drawn the sheet, cold
and welcome, across my shoulders.
Better to hear the waves.
Better the bird’s cry
released the way a spondee’s
struck sound is meant
to be given and given—not sweat
and mouth. Not the orchid
farmed and cut. No sound but the bird
and the sea, and no bird
alone but eye to eye. And then the praise
that was the sea. And then the wings.
For Florenz: “The Laundress” by Paola Corso
from The Laundress Catches Her Breath
The Laundress
1.
Sheets are wet
worrisome mounds
in the basket, socks
a pair of sorry balls
dripping in self-pity,
underwear a limp limbo
of cotton blends
no longer soaking wet
and not yet dry
waiting to be hung by a woman
who scrubs away
original sin
on a rock
along the stream
with her hands
and the strength
of resolve.
2.
Sheets are hung
on the line, socks
clipped at the heel,
drawers droop
with fear of never taking shape
from human proportion,
a clothesline low in the middle
as if bowing its head, waiting
to be propped up by a woman
who raises this offering
that much closer
to where
the air gathers
puffs of wind
with breath enough
for divine intention.
For Florenz: “Invocation/Intoxication” by Carole Stone
from American Rhapsody
Invocation/Intoxication
Oak barrels, hops and yeasty brew.
Answer the door for merrymakers
rushing to get sozzled,
tasty booze
flowing from kegs, basement jugs.
In bathtubs, in stills --
poteen, bathtub gin,
moonshine, apple jack, mountain dew,
sacramental wine --
Blue skies smiling at me
bottles emptied, thrown on garbage heaps from
nightclubs, saloons and speakeasies
gin mills, whoopee parlors
new generation of moneymakers roaring
their Twenties.
It’s here at last! Now for a new era of clean thinking and
clean living. The Anti-Saloon League wishes every man,
woman and child a Happy Dry Year, and a share of the
fruits of prosperity which are bound to come with
National Prohibition.
On our side of the Hudson
across from the big time
racketeers, past the Hoovervilles
beneath the Pulaski Skyway,
on bays and inlets of the New Jersey shore
The Prohibition high seas operation
transported cases
of Haig & Haig, Piper Heidsieck, Booth’s Gin
from England, France, Scotland
to St. Etienne, Canada and on
to just beyond
the twelve mile limit off Sandy Hook
the New Jersey Rum Runway
where men transferred
them from fast skiffs to a fleet
of World War I Mack Bulldog trucks.
Nothing but blue skies do I see
in my intoxication,
the cocktail and I are born.
For Florenz: “Hands” by Shira Dentz
I would like to say that Florenz was the person at CKP with whom I had the most contact while my book was being made and I associate her presence with this book: her warmth, discernment, and enthusiasm were and still are very meaningful to me. My book was a vulnerable enterprise and Florenz’s place in it was and is part of its making.
-Shira Dentz
10. Hands
from door of thin skins
He splayed his fingers apart, their movement a Japanese pure, make-a-vacuum style, allowing them to twitch in all directions, implying cherry blossom petals dangling from boughs. He was a tall and fat man, his fingers incongruously refined, long and sculptural. Of course the fingertips flipped up. I say of course because even at rest he gave the impression that he covered everything; above and below.
How the very signal of that gesture enveloped to the point of obfuscating my senses. This is why it is nearly impossible to communicate, to hand over the experience.
He did it when he tried to make a point, but I tell you whenever he did it all I was aware of was the portrait he made with his hands. At their widest opening on their way down they were bird wings flapping—and the hole between the wings, where there should have been a body, was me.
For Florenz: “The First Signs of Spring” by Teresa Carson
When CavanKerry Press accepted Elegy for the Floater, I was clueless about, and daunted by, the publication process. Lucky for me I had Florenz as my guide. She calmly, kindly and patiently helped me to get done what needed to be done—e.g. the many, many pages of the UPNE questionnaire; the search for blurbs. No matter how “stupid” my question was, she never was curt or snippy or short-tempered with me. Never. Now that I work for CKP and know what pressures the Managing Editor works under, I have more admiration for, and am more grateful for, how Florenz treated first-time-author me.
In honor of Florenz, here’s my favorite poem from Elegy for the Floater.
-Teresa Carson
The First Signs of Spring
Because it was April
the tulip buds cracked then revealed
satin sheened blood red petals,
and the blossoming pear trees on Ninth Street
filled the air with bridal stillness—
the perfect setting for
the song of an unseen bird.
Then the woman in front of Balducci’s screamed,
Adam, give me your fucking hand,
at the small boy with the dropped head,
his fists clutching his jacket.
I knocked her down, picked up the boy,
and fled up Sixth Avenue.
We stopped to get Toby, the ginger-striped cat
asleep in the lap of a drunk on Fourteenth
who had scribbled on cardboard:
Toby and me are homeless PLEASE HELP.
I put ten bucks in his paper cup.
On the ferry across the Hudson
we tore the past off our skins
and threw the pieces into the river.
That night in my kitchen, windows wide open,
fragrance of hyacinths filling the room,
Adam and I laughed, danced to a salsa beat,
while Toby stretched out on a blue velvet cushion
and scrupulously licked his fur clean.
For Florenz: “Crazy Stuff” by Kevin Carey
I’ll be forever grateful for her commitment to bringing poets like me to publication.
-Kevin Carey, The One Fifteen to Penn Station
Crazy Stuff
I hold your hand while you sleep,
your swollen fingers squeezing mine.
There’s a football game on TV,
orange Syracuse jerseys covered in mud
the way we saw ourselves playing,
rainy days on the side lawn in the fall,
while you watched from the kitchen window.
You wake for a moment and I ask you how you feel,
your eyes fogged and far away,
and I remember what we talked about,
the doctors, my mother, God.
“Do you believe in God?” I asked
“Sure,” you said, like why not or who doesn’t,
and the few days before that when I told you
“I’m sorry for all the crazy stuff, it must have
been hard.”
You clutch my hand
like a frightened, fevered child
holding for a breath that might not return,
and I am reminded of Lucinda Williams,
a Lake Charles country song,
and the angel at your ear
in those long last moments.
For Florenz: “Brook and Rainbow” by Andrea Carter Brown
How delighted I was to hear personally from Florenz after The Disheveled Bed was published. Usually the work of a managing editor is done behind the scenes, more a matter of logistics and deadlines than aesthetics, but I came to understand that Joan and Florenz were true editorial partners in every sense. No book published those first 14 years of CKP was without Florenz’ blessing and imprimatur. I could not tell you how, specifically, but I am absolutely certain our books are better for her eye, ear, and heart. Learning that she lived in the town where I was born and grew up, Glen Rock, New Jersey, created a special additional bond. When I decided to write about this town and to include portraits of the ten victims of 9/11 from Glen Rock in September 12, Florenz helped me with research, and we looked forward to ice cream cones at Van Dyke’s on Ackerman Avenue when I next came out to Glen Rock. Sadly, that was not to be. In absentia, I raise a black raspberry cone to Florenz, with deep gratitude for the twinkle in her eyes, and for her enthusiasm and support.
-Andrea Carter Brown
Brook and Rainbow
from The Disheveled Bed
“Go ahead, touch,” you said so I petted
both almost dead fish. A drool of blood
clung to the rainbow’s underslung jaw.
By default I know the brook, its flanks
delicately freckled, tawny as a smog-bound
sunrise. A scant hour and I can’t believe
the change: the rainbow’s pastel prism
purpled over; the brook’s spots swollen
into splotches, enormous empty fish-eyes
staring back. I watch you scale, slit, gut,
wash, dry, dust with salt and peppered flour,
pan-fry, and filet them. On my plate, two
half fishes: you won’t tell me which is
which but it’s plain to see each carries
into death something of life—pink, blue,
and green veined near-translucency beside
opaque late summer sunset. We take a bite
of brook, one of rainbow. Then another
rainbow, and a brook, until tiny bones
fringe the rim like lashes. Why should we
have to chose? Yet, even when we don’t,
we do. If I could, would I undo everything
we’ve been through? Any scientist knows
a rainbow doesn’t actually exist, except
in the mind’s eye. Just try to hold on
to flowing water, it escapes or becomes
something else. But one changeable day,
showers vying with sun, you brought us
both, brook and rainbow, and I wouldn’t
trade the heartache that brought us to this
happiness for the world. If I had to,
I guess I’d take the brook, its down
to earth sweetness, the miracle of bugs
converted to muscle, like love
fattened on grief, lingering sweeter
on the tongue for what it’s consumed.
For Florenz: a selection from “Primary Lessons” by Sarah Bracey White
Chapter Eight
From Primary Lessons
“Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah, Sa-rah-can’t-go-to-real-school.”
Sandra has found yet another weapon to use against me.
“Stop teasing your sister,” Mama says. “You’re too big for that kind of foolishness.”
“She started it,” Sandra answers. “Always acting like she’s better than us. I just said she can’t go to school ’cause she’s still a baby.”
“I’m not a baby. I went to school in Philadelphia and I can too go here. Can’t I, Mama? Can’t I?”
“The law says you can’t start school unless you’re already six or will be before the end of December,” Mama answers. “You won’t be six until February, so you can’t start this year. You’ll stay at Mother Primo’s. When I come home, we can have pretend school. I’ll teach you all the things I teach my class.”
“I don’t want pretend school. I want real school!” I hurl the words at Mama, then run out the back door and scurry to my favorite hiding place under the house behind the brick supports for the kitchen chimney. There, hidden in the cool darkness, I cry while muttering to myself. I hate it here. It’s not the law, it’s them. They won’t let me do anything. I have to go to school. Aunt Susie said that as soon as I learn to write, I can write her a letter and tell her how I’m doing. When I learn to write, I can tell her how much I hate it here. Once she knows, she’ll send for me to come home, to Philadelphia, where I belong.
The next week, when Mama sends me to buy a half pound of bologna from the store around the corner, I see something that makes me forget my errand. A nun, dressed in full black habit and white wimple, leads a line of children from a brick building into a small church next door. After the last child enters the church, the nun closes the big wooden doors. I climb the steps and peer into the church through a wide crack between the doors. Most Sundays, Aunt Susie and I used to go to the church around the corner from her house, but our church was nothing like this one.
A sweet, smoky smell makes its way through the crack and tickles my nose. A man in a long black robe with a red sash around his middle stands in the pulpit reciting in a language I can’t understand. Every now and then, the children answer in unison. Sunlight pours through a stained glass window and bathes a statue above the pulpit with a rose colored light. I watch, mesmerized. When the priest marches out of the pulpit and down the aisle toward the door where I stand, I run home.
“Mama, Mama, I saw a nun – just like the one that gave Loretta to Aunt Susie. She was leading some children into a church. There’s a school next door to the church. Can I go there? Can I please?”
“Hold your horses. You can’t go barging in there. It’s a school alright, but it’s a Catholic school. It costs money to go there. I can’t afford it. Wait until next year. Then you can go to Liberty Street with your sister.”
I stamp my foot. “But I want to go to school now!”
“Don’t you talk back to me! I said you’ll go to school next year when you’re old enough. Now go and get that bologna for lunch – and come straight back home.”
I do as I’m told, but several times during the next few days, I manage to sneak off from Mother Primo’s to watch the children. One little girl waves at me and I go over to her. “Hi. My name’s Sarah,” I say. “What’s yours?”
For Florenz: “At Fifty” by Jack Ridl
At Fifty
from Losing Season
Coach hurls the ball against the garage door,
grabs it on the rebound. He’s missed ten
in a row. He steps to the line, bounces
the ball twice, hard, and the fans from
thirty years ago send their hopes across
their weary lungs. He listens to the hush
of the home crowd while the taunts
of those from out of town float through
the rafters down across the backboard,
spinning around and around the rim.
He slams the ball one more time, feels
the leather, eyes the hoop, shoots.
The ball caroms off the back of the rim, rolls
across the driveway into the herb garden
his wife planted the year they found this house.
Once he could drop nine out of ten
from the line, hit half his jump shots
from twenty feet. Coach sits down at
the top of the key, stares, sees himself
bringing it up against the press, faking,
shaking his shoulders, stutter stepping, shifting
the ball left hand to right, then back, then up,
his legs exploding, his wrist firing, the ball
looping up, down, through the hoop, making
the net shimmer, the crowd roar. He gets up,
goes over to the garden, reaches for the ball,
stops and pulls some weeds growing through
the oregano, basil, sage, and thyme.
For Florenz: “Yes” by Catherine Doty
from Momentum
Yes
It’s about the blood
banging in the body,
and the brain
lolling in its bed
like a happy baby.
At your touch, the nerve,
that volatile spook tree,
vibrates. The lungs
take up their work
with a giddy vigor.
Tremors in the joints
and tympani,
dust storms
in the canister of sugar.
The coil of ribs
heats up, begins
to glow. Come
here.
For Florenz: “Childhood Elegy” by Joseph O. Legaspi
When I think of my first book, Imago, which would forever be my first, I can’t help but feel immense gratitude. In part because I felt heartened and validated that someone, a duo, a generous publisher, believed enough in my poems to package and deliver them to the world. And how unsurprising that one of those important someone was Florenz Eisman. Such a kind soul, Florenz was nurturing but also truthful, upfront with her opinions, ready with her advice. With her guidance, the process of book-birthing was relatively painless, rather invigorating and surprisingly humane. I’ll always be thankful and indebted to Florenz, who played a huge role in making my dream of a book come true.
-Joseph O. Legaspi
Childhood Elegy
If our angels hover above us,
they will see a darkening cornfield, the spectral traces
of lightning bugs, and two brothers
lying among the stalks.
We come because sometimes it is hard to live.
The cornstalks, limp under the tropical sun,
revive in the cool of twilight.
The angels will know we have been here for hours.
They will land and rest their feathers around us
and whisper soothing names of winged things: finch, monarch,
whippoorwill, ptarmigan, Daedalus, Icarus, Gabriel…
The angels will bend down and touch their faces
onto ours and borrow our eyes: Earlier,
a horse slipped, breaking its leg.
A boy stood beside his younger brother.
Their father came into the stable, carrying a gun.
Quails flitted out of a bamboo tree; the boy
traced the trail that had led him here,
the field tilled by the dead horse,
where his brother laid down,
dust on his cheeks.
For Florenz: “Misconceptions of Childhood” by Celia Bland
I send along this poem because I remember that Florenz liked it — she thought it, I believe, rather mordantly funny, and asked me if Bernini’s orgiastic depiction of St. Theresa had inspired the last verse (yes, yes!). Florenz was a lovely woman — thoughtful, kind, quick to laughter. My experience with the production of my first book was first-rate from beginning to end, from the editorial side (Joan) to the design (Peter) to the dailiness of production, marketing, etc. (Florenz). I read at a fundraiser for CavanKerry with Jean Valentine and I remember watching Florenz’s face as she listened: so open to the enjoyment of image and idiom and phrasing, so ready to enter into the sensual experience of poetry. So alive to the community of readers and listeners. A true woman of letters.
It was a pleasure and a privilege to have known her.
-Celia Bland
Misconceptions of Childhood
from Soft Box
My father was a sidewise Jack,
always in profile, a hand on his rod.
His pack was a Destroyer, said my mother,
where he played ping-pong on
the deck, two fingers flat on his spade.
I saw his photo: a big-bellied dick
in a tailor-made sailor suit.
“Bye-Bye!” he waved, and out I
sprang, strong enough
to shove all the drawers shut.
My teeth took root. White
stalagmites, their stems sunk inward
and rotted. Biting strawberries,
they sheared unripe heads from
luscious tips.
The leaves caused a rash.
My mouth’s toes, St. Theresa,
grind with your hips
when you close your eyes. Sex is
sacred, you say.
Leaving me, to prove it.
For Florenz: “Overcast October First” by Wanda S. Praisner
Always with warmth and grace, Florenz guided my work from manuscript to print to delivery.
I was sorry I never met her, never had a chance to say hello–or good-bye.
-Wanda S. Praisner
Overcast October First
from Where the Dead Are
A friend called from the UK,
wished me Happy Rabbit’s Day, luck
for the first of the month, a family custom.
Here too it’s fog, no luck finding
the Great Blue Heron, actually gray, absent
since leaves began to fall. Like time,
when you look for it, it’s never there–
September and all its losses gone–
I cut short my son’s last call to watch TV,
told my mother in the hospital
I’d visit in the evening–
the silence now of words never spoken.
My friend ended the call
with Happy White Rabbit’s Day,
what his granddaughter wished him earlier,
but I’m still with gray: the rabbit’s foot
my grandfather gave me after butchering one
for supper, I not knowing what luck was,
still don’t. But I know gray: squirrels
crossing the meadow, nuts carried
in mouths for burial; a rabbit foot matted
in blood; the heron spending time elsewhere,
gone without a goodbye—
no well-wishes, not even See you later.
For Florenz: “Bathing in Your Brother’s Bathwater” by Nin Andrews
I never met Florenz in person, but I always looked forward to her emails. Always kind and encouraging, she offered such great comments and insights. Even over the internet, she could light up my day.
-Nin Andrews
Bathing in Your Brother’s Bathwater
from Southern Comfort
Bathing, Miss De Angelo informed us in health class,
is very important, especially once you become a teenager.
In fact I can smell many of you this very day,
so I advise every one of you girls
to go home and take a good long bath tonight.
I know some of your folks like to skimp on water,
but consider it homework.
Say Miss De Angelo assigned it to you.
But girls, let me warn you.
Never take a bath in the same water as your teenage brother.
Why?
Well picture this.
All those tiny bubbles settling on your legs
when you sit in a nice tub of water?
If you could count every itty, bitty bubble,
that would be only a fraction of how many sperm
stream from a single man.
Even if he doesn’t touch himself,
the water does.
And it only takes one.
One fast-moving whip-tailed sperm.
And you know how easy it is to catch a cold,
how quickly that little virus races clear through you.
And once that happens,
no one will believe you’re any Virgin Mary,
no matter what you say.
For Florenz: “To Forgive Is” by Pamela Spiro Wagner
from We Mad Climb Shaky Ladders
to begin
and there is so much to forgive:
for one, your parents, one and two,
out of whose dim haphazard coupling
you sprang forth roaring, indignantly alive.
For this, whatever else followed,
innocent and guilty, forgive them.
If it is day, forgive the sun
its white radiance blinding the eye;
forgive also the moon for dragging the tides,
for her secrets, her half heart of darkness;
whatever the season, forgive it its various
assaults — floods, gales, storms
of ice — and forgive its changing;
for its vanishing act, stealing what you love
and what you hate, indifferent,
forgive time; and likewise forgive
its fickle consort, memory, which fades
the photographs of all you can’t remember;
forgive forgetting, which is chaste
and kinder than you know;
forgive your age and the age you were
when happiness was afire in your blood
and joy sang hymns in the trees;
forgive, too, those trees, which have died;
and forgive death for taking them,
inexorable as God; then forgive God
His terrible grandeur, His unspeakable
Name; forgive, too, the poor devil
for a celestial fall no worse than your own.
When you have forgiven whatever is of earth,
of sky, of water, whatever is named,
whatever remains nameless,
forgive, finally, your own sorry self,
clothed in temporary flesh,
the breath and blood of you
already dying.
Dying, forgiven, now you begin.
For Florenz: “Goya’s Instructions” by Baron Wormser
Before the stench is vicious
Sketch the corpses
Where the bomb has visited,
Where limbs and torsos roost
Obediently
And the vitals lie open
To frank but harmless light.
Resist the impulse of simile.
Art instructs us
To linger in the present.
Human hands assembled
These deaths. Stained
Fingers remain beautiful.
Blame God for dexterity.
Resist too the camera’s
Encompassing wisdom.
Mark by eager mark
Ferret this disaster—
The hand’s best work
Is to feel like the blind
Through the fog of suffering.
Do not fret. Do not turn
Away. Later there
Will be the valedictions
Of flowers and creeds.
Cries and wails will shred
The air but loss cannot
Be summed. Draw, then,
So lines can fashion
Feeling. What is blank
Can be contoured in black.
No priest can undo
Such persistent vision.
On that half face there—
The effigy of a grin.
For Florenz: “The Salt Of Our History” by Mark Nepo
Florenz left a caring mark on each of our books, bringing them into the world.
-Mark Nepo
The Salt Of Our History
from Surviving Has Made Me Crazy
The net is more important
than the fish. It is the casting,
the waiting, the pull, not knowing
what is resisting. And the fact
that every good net has holes
is a reminder that everything
that lands in our hands
is just a borrowing.
After burning our hands,
things too big must be
returned, too.
And we who cast
are netted and let go
as well.
When we are caught,
we pray to slip through.
When we slip through,
we pray to be lifted.
And God is just
an invisible fisherman
burning us with soul
before throwing us back.
For Florenz: "Body of Diminishing Motion" by Joan Seliger Sidney
“Body of Diminishing Motion,” which must have caught Florenz’s attention as title poem to the book she chose. I’m forever grateful to her, when, after several months of hearing nothing from CKP, I called and spoke to her. Florenz said that the post office hadn’t been forwarding all of the manuscripts since the move, that I should send it to her and if she thought Joan would like it, she’d give it to her. My great luck!
-Joan Seliger Sidney
Body of Diminishing Motion
Even the saguaros,
split by lightning
or disease, die in thick armor.
Even the cactus
can’t count on its red blooms.
For thirty years I denied
the day might come
when to walk across a room
would be too far.
Now shriveled,
my leg muscles are unwilling
to bear my body.
A climber’s legs
once, they stretched
across rock faults, hiked
the hard way up a dike.
I slid the rope
through my fingers,
rappelled my body
rock to rock.
Back and forth
I crawl across the room,
synchronizing
opposite leg and arm,
trying to train my nerve cells
to reconnect, as if
there’s method to disease.
The voice inside
guides: Test of faith.
Don’t hope, expect.
Hope leaves room
for doubt.
Articles, stories, books—
every day I read how
people healed themselves.
In every cell memory.
Every pain, every emotion
imprinted and passed on.
Grandparents I never knew,
their bodies tossed
into a pit for Zurawno’s Jews.
Last night in bed
my bowels erupted, spewing
across my sheets and thighs.
Was I my great-aunt in Auschwitz,
dysentery draining her skeletal body?
So many voices
through me trying to speak.
Shechinah, female face of God,
free my body from their shadows.
Let me tell their stories and mine.
For Florenz: “Body of Diminishing Motion” by Joan Seliger Sidney
“Body of Diminishing Motion,” which must have caught Florenz’s attention as title poem to the book she chose. I’m forever grateful to her, when, after several months of hearing nothing from CKP, I called and spoke to her. Florenz said that the post office hadn’t been forwarding all of the manuscripts since the move, that I should send it to her and if she thought Joan would like it, she’d give it to her. My great luck!
-Joan Seliger Sidney
Body of Diminishing Motion
Even the saguaros,
split by lightning
or disease, die in thick armor.
Even the cactus
can’t count on its red blooms.
For thirty years I denied
the day might come
when to walk across a room
would be too far.
Now shriveled,
my leg muscles are unwilling
to bear my body.
A climber’s legs
once, they stretched
across rock faults, hiked
the hard way up a dike.
I slid the rope
through my fingers,
rappelled my body
rock to rock.
Back and forth
I crawl across the room,
synchronizing
opposite leg and arm,
trying to train my nerve cells
to reconnect, as if
there’s method to disease.
The voice inside
guides: Test of faith.
Don’t hope, expect.
Hope leaves room
for doubt.
Articles, stories, books—
every day I read how
people healed themselves.
In every cell memory.
Every pain, every emotion
imprinted and passed on.
Grandparents I never knew,
their bodies tossed
into a pit for Zurawno’s Jews.
Last night in bed
my bowels erupted, spewing
across my sheets and thighs.
Was I my great-aunt in Auschwitz,
dysentery draining her skeletal body?
So many voices
through me trying to speak.
Shechinah, female face of God,
free my body from their shadows.
Let me tell their stories and mine.
For Florenz: "Venison" by Karen Chase
Working with Florenz on both Kazimierz Square and BEAR was always rich and fun and always straightforward. We had a tradition that she would always sign her emails and I would always address emails to her with a funny version of her name: Fiori, Firenza, Firenze, Fiorentina, F, Flora, Florentian, Florenzina, Flor — you get the idea. What a wonderful human being.
-Karen Chase
Venison
from Kazimierz Square
Paul set the bags down, told how they had split
the deer apart, the ease of peeling it
simpler than skinning a fruit, how the buck
lay on the worktable, how they sawed
an anklebone off, the smell not rank.
The sun slipped into night.
Where are you I wondered as I grubbed
through cupboards for noodles at least.
Then came venison new with blood,
stray hair from the animal’s fur.
Excited, we cooked the meat.
Later, I dreamt against your human chest,
you cloaked me in your large arms, then
went for me the way you squander food sometimes.
By then, I was eating limbs in my sleep, somewhere
in the snow alone, survivor of a downed plane,
picking at the freshly dead. Whistles
of a far off flute — legs, gristle, juice.
I cracked an elbow against a rock, awoke.
Throughout the night, we consumed and consumed.
For Florenz: “Venison” by Karen Chase
Working with Florenz on both Kazimierz Square and BEAR was always rich and fun and always straightforward. We had a tradition that she would always sign her emails and I would always address emails to her with a funny version of her name: Fiori, Firenza, Firenze, Fiorentina, F, Flora, Florentian, Florenzina, Flor — you get the idea. What a wonderful human being.
-Karen Chase
Venison
from Kazimierz Square
Paul set the bags down, told how they had split
the deer apart, the ease of peeling it
simpler than skinning a fruit, how the buck
lay on the worktable, how they sawed
an anklebone off, the smell not rank.
The sun slipped into night.
Where are you I wondered as I grubbed
through cupboards for noodles at least.
Then came venison new with blood,
stray hair from the animal’s fur.
Excited, we cooked the meat.
Later, I dreamt against your human chest,
you cloaked me in your large arms, then
went for me the way you squander food sometimes.
By then, I was eating limbs in my sleep, somewhere
in the snow alone, survivor of a downed plane,
picking at the freshly dead. Whistles
of a far off flute — legs, gristle, juice.
I cracked an elbow against a rock, awoke.
Throughout the night, we consumed and consumed.
For Florenz from Joan Cusack Handler
Dear CKP Friends-
Today, October 18, is a sad day for all of us here at CKP –it marks the first anniversary of the death of Florenz Eisman, CKP’s Managing Editor and my partner in founding this press back in 1999, and we wanted to do something special to mark that occasion and celebrate her. We brainstormed events–short readings and stories from this year’s books along with multicolored balloons, funny stories, lots of laughter and delectable eats—just what she’d have ordered if she were still leading this parade. It would be a happy affair. Maybe we’d call it “In Living Color: A Tribute to Florenz Eisman” or “Florenz’ Red Lipstick: A Tribute” (her signature), and devote October on this blog to poems that remind us—all of us in the CKP community, and that includes all of you, our readers—of our lovely, smart, courageous, funny treasure Florenz.
But as delicious as such a tribute sounded it would not include the hundreds of people who live beyond our reach. We wanted you with us, so we decided on a more fitting tribute on our blog and newsletter which reach all of you.
Florenz took enormous pleasure from her work on our books. She was the managing editor of every CKP book published between its inception in 2000 and 2013—that’s 70 books!! Such an amazing statistic called for a special tribute which would feature poems from several of the books that she edited along the way. So…starting today and continuing through the 31st or well into November, we will showcase poems in Florenz’ honor. Each writer represented chose a poem of their own—from the book that Florenz worked on—and sent it to us, in many cases with a personal note to or about Florenz. We will publish one of these poems each day on our blog. We hope you will join us in this special tribute.
A special thank you to the poets who sent tributes. Your books were all so important to Florenz. She loved poetry; she loved CavanKerry, and she loved your poems.
I was always aware of how important Florenz was in my life and the life of CKP and that of our books, but it wasn’t until several years into the life of the press that I realized how important she was to the writers themselves. The first time Teresa Carson, CKP Associate Publisher, and I went to the AWP conference together, we met many CKP poets for the first time. We had been working together on their books for several years and had spoken to them on the phone, but we had met very few in person because our writers come from across the US. On that first day, as Teresa and I struggled to stabilize a poster showcasing many of these same writers, and for the next four days, as we met and talked with visitors to our booth, we were virtually deluged with writers asking if either of us we were Florenz. The drop in tone as we answered, “no, I’m Joan” or “no, I’m Teresa,” was not lost on us. Florenz was the CKP person that these writers felt connected to. She bore their “child” from acceptance through to publication. She listened and assuaged the anxiety of each of them as they went through the process of delivering their ‘child’. She was the midwife. They wanted to meet and to thank her.
When we got home, we told her about her celebrity status and teased her that she was the heroine and we were ‘chopped liver.’
But Florenz’ imprint on CKP and the world of readers and writers, we feel, also calls for a more permanent tribute to accompany this banquet of poems. Since we are located in NJ and are supported by the NJ Council on the Arts, CKP traditionally says “thank you” by publishing one book by a New Jersey writer every 12 to 18 months. From this moment on, we will name this book for Florenz and establish the Florenz Eisman Memorial NJ Collection, the first of which will appear in the fall, 2016-spring, 2017 season. As always, it will be selected from open submissions. An avid reader of all literature, a gifted writer herself, and the godmother of all 70 CavanKerry books, Florenz’ imprint will last as long as CKP does. We can think of no better way to honor our beloved friend.
Warmly,
Joan
