we're off

to the hometown of Zeno Cosini

Kurt by Ian

Poems by Aldo Palazzeschi

Sometimes, after looking
at the portrait for a long time,
I no longer see the canvas, the frame,
or the wall − I can no longer make out anything,
only that woman who seems
to abandon her pose
and move, to come forward
as though to say something to me,
who comes, perhaps, with severity
to scold me, to chase me off!
Oh come on! I shake myself,
it’s impossible...

See InTranslation for four poems translated from the Italian of Aldo Palazzeschi along with a short intro by Nick Benson. The piece above is from 'The peasant-woman in mourning.' Also just posted to InTranslation: writing by Héctor Hernández Montecinos, translated from the Spanish by Daniel Borzutzky; by Suryabala, translated from the Hindi by Puja Birla; short fiction by Victor Hugo Viscarra, translated from the Spanish by Forrest Hylton; poems by Ángel Escobar, translated from the Spanish by Kristin Dykstra; and writing by Carmen-Francesca Banciu, translated from the German by Elena Mancini.

Poem by Lauren Castaldi

Conflict of Interest

I’m looking at pink purple and white stripes in my bed sheets.

She got mad at me for saying when I look at her I could throw up.
Who could blame her?

Margarine is one molecule away from plastic; no animals will go near it.
Why don’t humans just eat butter?

He’s ignoring my phone calls.

Your most important organ is your heart, so protect it.

This is the first time I’ve had a conversation with another boy that made me smile in a while.

Teenagers’ diets make our joints and muscles highly inflammatory.
Sugar equals sore body.

Love is sweet but self‐destructive. Kind of like sugar…

The same woman behind me in line for tickets was behind me in the bathroom.
She didn’t notice.

I saw him at church with his lame new girl.
Seriously, I could throw up.

Dolphins are the only other animals that have sex for pleasure.

All others simply are pro‐creating. Sometimes I feel like humans are the stupid ones in
the animal kingdom.

Do you think alligators ever suffer a broken heart?
I think not.

If I could take back the time I was with him I wouldn’t.

If I could take back the trip I brought him on where he met his new love,
Hmm. I wouldn’t.

I went to see a show in New York on a day so cold my fingers might have been bleeding, but
just warm enough that cold rain poured down.

That’s my favorite weather, the kind that leaves you numb but fresh.

I wonder if the people in foreign language texts know their faces get drawn into
the opposite sex.

Do people in Mexico say hello in Spanish conversation as we say hola?

Today was the first day I got butterflies in my stomach at the sight of someone since him.

A feeling long overdue.

In sports you shove the opponent to the ground and don’t say sorry, but at the end of the game
you’re expected to shake their hand.

Always be sportsmanlike when dirty play is involved.

Dancing is expressing the meaning of music in your interpretation of it.

Words are easier said than done.

Forever has different meanings for guys and girls.

Guys define it as, “Forever until I meet my next girl.”
Girls are devastated when they find out the hypocrisy of the male definition.

I don’t regret hurting her
He doesn’t think twice about hurting me

A boy foreign to my thoughts is now racing through them.

I have to make my bed.

[This poem was read by Frank McCourt at the ASAP Celebration of Young Writers, May 16, 2009, at the Town Hall of Washington, CT. Lauren's work is also in this year's issues of the English Journal and the Stray Shot.]

Not a still from some epic film, not yet at any rate. This is happening now. President Obama has called for the Burmese regime to release Aung San Suu Kyi. Read about it here and here.

Poem by Kirsten Bouthiller

if this is too small to read, click on it to get a jpeg; thanks to Kirsten for this poem.

illustration by Victor Bogachev

detail from Age of Great Kings by Victor Bogachev

Poem by Karen Layman

Creating a world with you

Is even more fun than watching you draw, or watching you watch me draw

Or being like normal teenage girls and painting our nails and doing our hair and gossiping about boys

Partly because you know my characters as well as you know me

Partly because of their personalities, partly because you can become them so well

Partly because the stars that we cannot see through the ceiling but we know are there, or because of our friend’s obsession with ceiling fans, or because of the fan that has been attached to the ceiling that is blocking the stars and the combination of the ceiling and the fan makes us all laugh

You don’t have to watch your brothers when you’re with me—you aren’t their mother, your mother is their mother

You can say what you want with me—no one will tell

You are my friend

And we are goddesses—together we create the world of Areita, the isle of Vanisa Elitra, the city of Neras, and all the world and all its inhabitants

All your worst fears, nightmares materialize in this world and are destroyed forever by the characters that the two goddesses created

Our champions, our chosen ones to carry out our bidding on horrors that our own lives have given birth to, the personified villains and monsters that maybe once upon a time were the vicious gossiper and the kid that ratted on you for no good reason and have now become the Joystealer and that goody-two-shoes Paladin that is trying to slay our Vampire chosen ones

And the characters—the chosen ones—are more than abstract ideas, more than just tools for creating a game, telling a story

They are friends—perhaps some of the truest friends you may ever have

They will always understand, always know what you’re going through

And you will never be alone

So go ahead, tell me what a horrible person you are, and how selfish you are, and how you deserve to starve to death, or whatever other horrible punishment you dream up for yourself next

Every time I will tell you otherwise

And one day, maybe years down the road from here

Maybe one day you’ll believe me.




Congratulations to Karen Layman, who won The Gunnery's 2009 Poetry Contest with this poem.

The Daymaker premiere

The Daymaker -- Movie Premiere
Friday, May 8th 8:30PM
Emerson Performing Arts Center

Trailer: http://vimeo.com/4519695
Scene: http://vimeo.com/4211174

Featuring: Zach Elston, Hope Simpson, Sam Cobb, Pat Loglisci

The Daymaker follows a quiet boarding school student who collects audio recordings of the environment around him. His routine is altered when a fellow student begins communicating with him in the back of an antique Bible, found in the basement of his school’s library. Suddenly the world he has been recording serves a different purpose, since he is no longer confined to being who he has always been.

Screening followed by Q&A with director Kurt Bailey and actor Zach Elston.

Congratulations to the poets

Congratulations to the poets recognized recently at The Gunnery for their outstanding accomplishments this year:

Ian Engelberger, recognized for his consistent engagement in the arts and especially his contributions to the enjoyment and study of poetry. Ian's work appears here regularly.

Karen Layman, winner of the 2009 poetry contest. Karen's work will appear here soon!
Yuze Michael Sun, Kirsten Bouthiller, and Callie Carew-Miller, recognized for their outstanding contributions to the enjoyment and study of poetry. Yuze's translations have already appeared here, and we hope to publish work by Kirsten and Callie soon. (Above you're looking at a version of Kirsten's variation on Frank O'Hara's "Having a Coke with You.")

Victor Bogachev, winner of the poetry recitation contest, for his exceptional recitation of "The Raven." We hope to bring you illustrations and a story by Victor in the near future.

Dan Goldberg and Lauren Castaldi, whose poems were chosen to be read on 5/16 at the ASAP celebration at the Town Hall, Washington. Their work will appear here shortly also...

photo by Ian Engelberger

Poems by Thomasin Alter

I

I’ve confined myself to knowing nothing.
I’ve built this cage of wires and hair,
I can’t escape it.
But it’s mine, and that’s something.
I don’t mind being lonely.
I don’t mind being empty.
I’d rather pretend that this is vacant
than know that it is occupied.
Please, please,
don’t mind.
Don’t spend your time.
This cage is impenetrable,
you’ll never break through.
I’ll catch you in my web.
I’ll eat you. I’ll have you.
--
The ground is heavy with
new beginnings, you slip your
fingers under my skin,
and you suck on the blood
flowing wickedly
through my veins.
I sit here, soggy,
hoping you’ll forget.
But you don’t,
I can see that,
I can see it in
your teeth and
your toes. I know.


II

Static of frog noise, 10 pm walking
Back from pruned hands, fixer fix
ing gray. I expose. Cracked lens, crooked
eye vision lop
sided. Warts, slimy telling sorry tales of
Yesterday, tomorrow, to
day. Machine, over and over,
static of repetition. Fixed time fixed
aperture, fixed f stop
ing down. I stop at a pond. I grab at a
frog.


III

We lift our feet in the same place
One step ahead, you
Refusing
you guiding leading foraging
you in the act of deception
you-
casting shadows where they do not belong
making strangers of branches
lifting my lids too high stretching too hard
making a fool of this night.
but I still lift my foot here,
I still listen for the rustling of your leaves
and my ears
wait impatiently for the creaking of your bones


IV

My legs hurt
That familiar ache
Childhood is thrust back
wards, four words--
‘this pain is old’
‘this
knee is raw’
‘my mother loved me’
‘my father
hasn’t yet’
but it’s not that simple and
age has taught me that, experience
shows me
the truth. Or some shade of it.
Some hue that tells me, ‘no
this is not’ ‘no
this can not’
‘no, it never has’
but it’s still a dull gnawing,
this pain, static of it-- might i
be growing,
still? stretching my bones
into possibility

[Thanks to Thomasin for sharing these poems with us.]