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January and February I gathered
with six other poets at the public library reading and writing our way through Hoa Nguyen's A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure David Bradford's Dream of No One But Myself Each week we sat in a circle spoke the poems aloud to each other took note of aspects that stood out used our notes to generate invitations wrote in our notebooks for an hour what might an invitation summon?
For me this process is half conversation half line-
age other writers around us tapped into ancestry and how do we track the history of the sounds we make marks on the page? Writing as a contract trace of mind charcoal rubbing on a gravestone these dead thought shards never spontaneously arising there's that old syllable behind the curtain persistent cough persistent cough when I want to begin I begin with what came before caressing the half-remembered web
When I think of reviews I think
what the book means or how it made me feel what it connects to a place in a pattern yes I'd like to see for myself what about whether it inspires me to write? Another way of asking is this a book I can talk to what sort of words are held open? In pursuit of sounds I don't have to get it to hear it audible logic of a struck syllable Skreee skreee gulls in the harbour too hot library radiators there we are speaking poems behind masks and then hot tuna lunch breath (my own) trying to find a path on the page Poetry notebook the cursed object appeased by cursive feeding on line after scratched out line poems about: 1. family (history) 2. history (war) 3. war (language) 4. language (memory) 5. memory (history) 6. food (family)
Dream of chewing
greasy grey and tail wall winter presses on us and storms In the glove compartment our stash of white vinegar packets for french fries or kid cleanup Invited towards my own ancestors how they got here the personal war in the larger ones patched cloak of “civility” over perfect desperation Also poems about whales? Pretty sure they came to land turned around again largest evolutionary “nope” I consult my notebook for the day: wanderer labourer fatherer gatherer Longing for the returny vibe
What do you do with a first draft?
Some share our writing at the end of the workshop my hands always tremble there goes the clumsy baby up on the table again I wrote “dark Satanic mills” said park Santana spills apologies to Blake and my dream of summer Reading out loud isn't the worst way to release a word and in the library socially distanced we get a little closer (feeling) Not exactly not scared but one person's draft invites another's never a craving but overflowing and some room remains in the room Our family never said how you felt you had to show it a lot of silent displeasure and going-along-with the feelings always the threat “don't make me be clear about it” Here's a first draft of a mother's death first draft of a fraught marriage first draft of the unrequited Ah yes, the baby once again dancing clumsily at the table's edge
Before the workshop
I stand on the library steps crunching an apple, mask over beard spend next two hours resisting the impulse to pick apple flesh from teeth Put in a family trance inheritances mostly silent stories I don't have about grandmothers recipes I can't follow into language I can't speak In the end only the longing is intimate Far enough back there's a war a little practice conflict for a later conflict I've got tucked in my genes Son seems pretty good at the drums he's only one but he hits and there's a rhythm is it the blow that's coded or the beat doesn't he raise his hand just like me? Where did I learn? Dream of the no rules house as I balance our budget items lost through carelessness items lost to a “learning opportunity” items lost through malice items carried to a nest in branches items returned in exchange for apricots items reclaimed during afternoon naps items discovered while cleaning months later Has an accountant ever discovered how to value the ephemeral? Poems out there little time machines Skipping their way back and forth Tracing the crooked imperial slice from before birth onto tomorrow's conflict carried in a mother's hairline How good to speak with you once again many years later right now Thank you Hoa Thank you David  Ben Gallagher is a poet and essayist who lives in West Dublin, Mi'kma'ki (Nova Scotia) with his wife and two children. He is a Zen practitioner with the Oak Tree in the Garden sangha.
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