Episode 67: Poprocks and Monocles

In this week's podcast, we welcomed Samantha from Abu Dhabi to the home team in Philly!

The group was in a celebratory mood for lots of reasons. Did You Know: Tim Fitts is the co-founder of Philly's Home Brew Reading Series, which will not only provide you with free beer, but also, an experience only to be described as a "full blast".

Before we got into the poems, Kathleen could be heard chanting, "I love my job, I love my job." That's right, speak it into existence!

The first of several poems, was written by *robo voice* Stephanie Berger. (Listen to the episode and you’ll get it.) "Just To Give You An Idea," is a dense piece with surreal lines. Or according to Jason, "feels like the whole universe. Incredibly expansive and intimate at the same time." Whew! Just take my breath away, while you're at it.

Next up, is a fun read titled, "It Doesn't Hurt That She Is Beautiful." After reading the poem, do you agree that it has "little land mines" or "pop rocks" (or both)? This piece brought a wave of nostalgia amongst the crew. Kathleen was brought back to reading a book by a brook (see what I did there?) as her husband went fly fishing. However, this piece put Kathleen and Tim Fitts at opposite ends and although they did not literally arm wrestle, they did figuratively speaking, as true literary geniuses do to settle disagreements over poetry.

Thirdly was "Below His Monocle" which had us evaluating its depths down to point we were arguing how many exclamation points are too many in a poem. It got so fiery that our sound engineer, Joseph Zang, threatened to cut off Tim's mic!

After they were able to cool down, we continued with "Only Light Where The Leaves Once Were." You just have to read that one yourself to be hit by the fantastic ending.

Dear Stephanie Berger, Tim is begging you to let him use your creative genius for the title of his next set of short stories: How does "Truth, Marrow, Stone and Consequence" sound?

Tune in to hear Jason's sad attempt at French, as he refers to Wallace Stevens', "Le Monocle de Mon Oncle" while Kathleen ups the ante with both The Handmaid’s Tale AND The Great Gatsby. Or if you're a Tim Fitts fan, as a person, not an author, although that's okay too, take his advice and read "The Beginning Of His Excellent and Eventful Career" by Cameron MacKenzie.

Finally, listen in to possibly comprehend how we ended discussing monocles in the 21st century. Do you have one? More importantly, do you want one?

 

Fifteen facts and one lie about Stephanie Berger:

• Stephanie is a natural born redhead. 
• At the age of 1, she drank from a $500 bottle of grand vin Château Latour. 
• At the age of 8, she ate a pigeon in a Parisian cafeteria. 
• Stephanie was raised by not one, but two cultural sociologists.
• She is left-handed. 
• She is a switch-hitter.
• The first poem she remembers writing was called "Dog and Cat Baseball at Sunset."
• Her favorite place to write is at the bottom of a canyon or the site of a spring. 
• Her favorite herb is tarragon. 
• Her favorite sound is suction. 
• Her favorite section of an essay is the introduction. 
• Her least favorite section of an essay is the body. 
• Her favorite goddess is Mnemosyne. 
• She once had a 21-year-old cat named Daphne. 
• Her partner's name is Alex. 
• Her business partner's partner's name is also Alex. 

 

JUST TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA Imagine this rock here is the center of the universe. Imagine this rock is your belly button. Divide your body into halves, then quarters, & then: make a planet. This leg of our journey will take about 500 years. I would like to stop & show you why along the way, but the bones, they’re telling us to keep moving. Seas of femurs, pools of pelvises, arranged as arrows & symmetrical suns. Here you find a hole & make something in it. Your aesthetics reflect a fear of empty space, a terror of the vacuum, like a sleeping feline with the face of an owl & the tail of a snake must be sacrificed. I returned to the fetal position in the afterlife. My soul made a circular journey down the river & up the Milky Way. Now I’m back! So, let me tell you a little something about caves & rivers. No one shall pass through but by me. My belly button is the center of this universe, a sacred valley, surrounded by mountains filled with silver so luxuriously. We all want to look a little richer than we are. Those ear plugs are a status symbol. We all know that baby alpaca is cool to the touch, that eucalyptus towers above the peaks & helps us breathe at the site where we can see the founder of the lightning bolt, that golden idol with a hole where his heart should be. A mole on his face in the shape of Peru. Jesus with a guinea pig laid out on the table. Mother Mary with coco leaves puffing out her cheek. Teenage girls grinding the corn like teeth. I believe in reciprocity: offering my tears & receiving your laugh, splitting my body into two & giving you half. This is the point where our two valleys meet. That’s why we’re in a wind tunnel.

 

 

IT DOESN’T HURT THAT SHE IS BEAUTIFUL As she descends into the canyon, she becomes the descent, the way an action can become solid as a steeple. I can be the downfall of man! That sunburst of flesh! For I am the moment the desert meets water from the mountains, an instant connection, a language that can travel into your memories like a fiction, like water from the earth, a landscape more various than the human heart. But she isn’t human. The way her nose comes down the center of her face like a coin, like candle wax, a waterfall. A beautiful creator. A dutiful daughter. Excitedly, she babbled, more adorable than any brook. Things come to a head. They come into it. You reach a point in your life. There is a point in every life at which you can see no further, a black hole in a bucket, & so you let it drip, clear as a window in the water. It is important to remember there are windows in the water.

 

 

ONLY LIGHT WHERE THE LEAVES ONCE WERE Truth, marrow, stone, & consequence. She didn’t earn a dime of it. The light, hammering down on the desert from the opposite side of your expectations as the morning shifts to afternoon. His hat tilted low over one eye, he was practically debonair in his exhaustion, drunk on the feather in his cap. She asked who gave it to him. Once she’d skinny-dipped with some kind of demigod & his daughter. She found a dog in the water & the word for “family” was born. She wanted to eat the lilies, to be filled & floating on the water like a body. I can see her, sun-drenched & precise & yet, we have never met. Love is a mystery that way, more civil than any city, like a pilgrim who reaches her destination & cannot bear to stop.

 

BELOW HIS MONOCLE Before the pharmacy, above the apothecary, I lived for a spell. With broomsticks in a closet with no name. Along the spine of the hill, below the ashen face of heaven, I waited for his ovine spirit to graze my face. She held her breath so tightly it escaped her, she lied in the desert, like it’s just so cruciform that the vultures sitting down for dinner with gods are like gentlemen in comparison, cartoonish only to the hawker, the rhyme of her cracked lips. It is everywhere, this sack of pronouns, holding onto each other for dear life—its fetching beaks & blouses, boutonnières. It is dear to glare imperially from one’s mountain-palace. If vulgar, it is vulture, valiant, a peach and so chatty, she inhaled the words voluptuously with a churchlike desire to conceal her meaning. The tremendous gentleness of that moment smothers me, divested of its garland, its daughters, the page holding itself together like a life.