Half Starts and Trail Offs

That lady on the bus ate a bag of peanuts. Check: Jenny O’Grady, Adam Robinson, and Kate Wyer

Apr 25

MeredithUncategorized 3 Comments

Note: Dear readers, Forgive the stuttering timing of my posts of late. I have the best of intentions (we all know how those go), but I have to admit that the thesis project eats up pretty much all of my time. I’m going to try to be better as we finish out the month, which should be helped by the series of guest blogs I’m super excited about featuring. Thanks for bearing with me, and enjoy!

In my time at the University of Baltimore MFA program, I have had the great good fortune to meet some unbelievable talented writers, book artists, and publishers. They are the kind of people who inspire with me with their creativity and drive. Today I want to focus on three people who not only write amazing poetry but also help further the art through a publishing endeavor.

Jenny O’Grady

I’ve known Jenny for several years now; we first met by coincidence at a poetry reading/launch party for an issue of the Little Patuxent Review. And she’s been in my life in one way or another since as friend, mentor, professor, and even my boss at UMBC. In that time, I’ve learned that her poetry is by turns whimsical, documentary, and heart-wrenchingly honest, but always beautiful. This is an excerpt from a prose poem recently published in the “What You’re Writing” section of the Urbanite (read it in full–it’s about 3/4 of the way down the page)

When we married, we were barely into our 20s. Yet, we knew what we wanted; we knew what we needed to do. We checked things off our checklists, lickety-split. We earned our degrees. Check. We grew our careers. Check. We bought a little house with a green, sloping yard and an extra bedroom. Check.

In addition to her wonderful poetry, Jenny is a book artist–she was featured in the Bonefolder’s 2009 Bind-O-Rama–and she just recently started an awesome online journal called The Light Ekphrastic. The journal pairs writers and visual artists who trade something they’ve already done. Then each one creates something new based on the piece they were given. It’s produced some really fun, inspired work. You should visit the site and check it out; she’s actually accepting submissions for the August issue as we speak. And be sure to check out Jenny’s own website, Kinetic Prose.

Adam Robinson

Adam is graduating this year from the MFA program, and it was fun to watch his manuscript and book come together. He’s the type of poet I’ve always envied for the seeming ease he has in creating poetry that simultaneously lulls its reader while barring its teeth. He has a way of mixing everyday language and the mundane things of life into something surprising. He just had a book, Adam Robison and Other Poems, put out by Narrow House Press here in Baltimore. Here’s an excerpt from his poem “I’m going to have SEX with these people,” which you can read in its entirety here.

This lady on the bus
could pass for a man

She chewed half a
cigarette in her mouth

Had jowls

She did knitting

From the back of the
bus I loved this lady’s
what is it

In addition, Adam is also the man behind Publishing Genius Press, which produces full-length paper back books, the Chapbook Genius series, isReads (an outdoor journal of poetry posted in public spaces), and EveryDay Genius (an online journal updated everyday Monday through Friday). He’s put out some amazing things, which you should go and learn about on the press website and blog.

Kate Wyer

Kate is a poet I have followed closely and admired since I met her a few years ago. Her writing has a lucidity and strength of voice I envy. She has an ability to make her reader accept what she writes as fact, no matter how impossible it is in real life. This is an excerpt from her poem “Peanuts,” which you can read in its entirety here.

The moon gave us a bag of peanuts.
We took them in our aluminum fists.
The moon did not know us by sight,
by our flags. She spoke, Da?

We were silent.

Kate is also in the midst book arts project that I’m fascinated with. The book, called And, Afterward, is a take on the exquisite corpse games of the surrealists. Kate has a collection of writers and artists passing around a book she made and each adding a spread. I’m lucky to be doing one of the spreads, and I’ve fallen in love with what everyone else has done. You can see photos of the book and the spreads here.