I was pleased to discover that the first issue of Bindlestiff is live. My poems “I’ll Turn but Clouds Appear” and “Human Distance” are included.
O at the Edges
Musings on poetry, language, perception, numbers, food, and anything else that slips through the cracks.
O at the Edges 
Gratz Bob 🙂
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Thanks, Paul.
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I read and felt your words, substantial poetry good work. I like them both, well done Robert well done. 😇
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Thank you, Ellen. Much appreciated.
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Now to salk the words you write *collar up whistling* ‘incognito *
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Stalk i meant stalk… grrrrrr escaped typo
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Ha! I would blame it on autocorrect.
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Congratulations, Robert!!
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Thanks very much. It’s always a pleasure.
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Congrats Robert
I hit the like button
On both
To see your name
What an accomplishment
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Thank you, Sheldon. It’s always fun.
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Congrats!
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Thanks very much.
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Awesome, congratulations
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Thank you!
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Well I wish I could say I’m getting tired of congratulating you, Robert, but I’m not. Kudos!
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Ha! Thanks, Michael. It just goes to show that if you send enough poems out, some of them will find homes. 🙂
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I just offered that advice myself yesterday. And I quoted your advice about finding publications that feel like conversations with your own
Now to practice what I preach.
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Get to work! 🙂
And remember that rejections aren’t a statement about the quality of your work. I received 19 last month, a new record. 🙂
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Wow! Okay, a record I can break easily. But yes, I resolved to get serious with submissions. Will keep you posted. Thank you.
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Yeah, I need to get busy and submit more so that I can break the record.
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I would have thought that the bookstore owner mentality would have had you approaching that systematically. Submissions, that is.
I look forward to more motivating announcements from you.
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Well, I was busy in August and didn’t keep up. My usual practice is to send rejections to another publication with a few days. So now I’m getting caught up.
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Great poetry.
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Thank you.
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Congrats. 🙂
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Thanks very much.
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Apart from edges, and into deeper darkness,
our scars crawl, remaining aloof.
Congratulations and excellent work! Loved them both.
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I’m so pleased they resonated for you, Tanya. Thank you.
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Congratulations. Nice poems.
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I’m so pleased you liked them. Thank you.
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i’ve read Human Distance before. it has a satisfying envoi: the poem is fragmented & complex, but when that envoi comes along we realize that all human considerations are complex & fragmentary, they have as you say “no scale” which could terrify us, or we could just accept the blows & brushes as they come & keep plowing on, keep guessing, keep seeking heavenly forms, looking for the absent life we may have just misplaced in a coin purse or elsewhere..
As for “what is the longitude of grace?” i keep turning something up & then everything changes & i forget or lose it, distances between me n’ that then that n’this, then then n’ this & crikey i don’t know where my hands begin & end after a while.
i am fond of the turn in I’ll Turn But… there is a blog dedicated to the poetic turn, structureandsurpise.wordpress.com, i think the essays on there will be right up your alley Robert. there are dolphin turns & all manner hinged on but, yet, O, then etc, & Robert has given us the culinary turn. i like to think my poems give a stomach turn.
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Thanks for the blog recommendation. I’ll take a gander tomorrow, when I’m less sleepy.
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Your poems will turn stomachs only in the way that a sense of weightlessness does – a flip of bewilderment and an acknowledgment that something has happened. We may not know what’s occurred, but damn, it was an interesting feeling.
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you never cease to astound Robert.
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Nicely done. Both are really terrific poems. And the site looks good, too.
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Thank you. I’d lost track of Bindlestiff and was pleasantly surprised to find the poems up.
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Congratulations Bob! ‘Human Distance’ is just perfect. The longitude of grace- wow! And who can resist the smell of garlic and tomatoes frying with spices….
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Thanks, Mek. And yes, the lure of garlic is very strong. Mmmmm.
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🙂
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Congratulations. I went over and read your work and I really enjoyed I’ll Turn but Clouds Appear. Human Distance felt introspective, almost absentminded yet consious of what “he” was doing. I can see “his” eyebrows pulling together as an answer was trying to be reached.
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Thanks very much. The poems were written at about the same time and started from a common impulse. But they diverged, as these things often do.
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You’re welcome.
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I vaguely remember translating ‘I’ll turn…’ but you have changed it enough for me to doubt my memory. Congratulations.
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I vaguely remember writing it. Ha! And thank you.
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Both are lovely!
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Thanks very much!
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And “leading” poems at that. Congratulations, Bob. I think I’ll be saying/thinking about scars crawling for awhile now. Great reading!
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Thanks, Leigh. And those scars have secrets, too!
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Most intriguing (in Spock-like voice), Bob. I might have to explore that idea further . . .are scars visible, nonpsychological manifestations of secrets? If one has a scar and never speaks about it and no one else sees it . . . well, I definitely know, it still exists and hurts, unfortunately.
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I certainly have no answers!
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