TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 3 Asha Gowan ...................................................................................................................................... 4 Michael Cowan .................................................................................................................................. 5 Kenneth Farmer................................................................................................................................. 6 William Tribell .................................................................................................................................... 7 Chad Prevost ..................................................................................................................................... 8 Jennifer Avery ................................................................................................................................... 9 Chani Zwibel ...................................................................................................................................... 10 Andy Whitehorne .............................................................................................................................. 11 Peter Ristuccia .................................................................................................................................. 12-14 You can find these poems—in full—at the following address: http://issuu.com/thebluemountainreview/docs/the_blue_mountain_review_issue_1
~*~ Songs of Orpheus & the Quartet ..................................................................................................... 15-16
Introduction – We as a people have always thirsted for the connection art provides. Almost 18 thousand years ago, cave dwellers painted upon the walls of the Lascaux Caves. Although animals were the dominant creation present, there exists a deeper meaning that is shared between us and these primitive beings: one of mortality, of knowing what it is to live—and to die. Poetry, such as all forms of expression, is best left up to the interpreter, the viewer. In the following pages, you will witness a unique expression, shown in how one artist’s words have inspired another to find or form images that spoke as deeply. The interpretation is humbly gifted; the blessed moment of shared worlds, where one heart is left open, while another roams gently through, runs deep. In doing, like the cover of this magazine, the leap of a mortal foothold is risked to taste immortality, ever present in the dance of souls.
Q: What went through your mind when writing this particular poem? Sibylline is supposed to be the characterized embodiment of my growing pains, so to speak. I wrote this to a man I fell deeply in love with but did not pursue. To many, he was unlikely...worse yet, unfit for any amount of my affection but he really GOT me and I, in turn, understood him. He was my reader of dreams so to speak. But time has healed those fateful what-ifs of what loves could or could not have been. He has my eternal blessing and love.
Q: What went through your mind when writing this particular poem? Your dream girl. The one always there when you close your eyes. Most guys probably first saw her when they were young. She is everything fantastic and amazing about a woman. And, in your mind, she is queen. So, one day, you meet her in person. And there is nothing humdrum about her. She is eternal summer.
Q: What went through your mind when writing this particular poem? Ethanol and T.S. Eliot? I was checking out vinyls at the antique store on the Marietta square and saw a bunch of oscilloscopes on shelves in the back room. Most people say "dope" mean meth or heroin. I've never had either, but what else was going to rhyme with "oscilloscope?" I think a lot about science and spirit and how they shouldn't be divorced the way a lot of our contemporary culture seems to think on the surface. So they get jumbled up in my writing. Mostly, I just get a rhythm and some vowel sounds rumbling in my head and then some consonants eventually fill in the blanks. It ends up being a lot more melopoeia than logopoeia. Eliot's patient etherized on a table definitely crossed my mind. The first half of that one didn't have much specific meaning, if any at all. It stalled out more than ended. Then months and months later I was like "I gotta finish that one." And when I did, it sort of veered off in the direction of this breakup I'd recently gone through. I'm not totally satisfied with it, but at least I had wrapped it up. For now.
Q: What went through your mind when writing this particular poem? I would say optimism—interaction with non-jaded souls, for one who is jaded, the metaphor being the clarity of sight in the light, and perhaps lamenting rose colored glasses or even just the ability to ignore. Perhaps the whole piece is a "can't go home again" kind of thing, and a want to preserve such for those that can.
Q: What went through your mind when writing this particular poem? I'm not really sure what I was thinking when I wrote that poem some like 12-ish years ago or more, but I do think I was under the influence of Frank Stanford at the time.
Q: What went through your mind when writing this particular poem? I was at a huge turning point in my life when I wrote this poem. Several people, including "Dorian Gray's bastard son," were instrumental in helping me to cope with that turning point. I was driving on 515 at about nine o'clock at night processing all that had occurred, including a conversation and encounter with this fellow. I suddenly felt more like myself. Not confined by expectations, etc. The main thought in my head was, “I'm all right. As long as I can be myself.�
Q: What went through your mind when writing this particular poem? I was thinking about the place I grew up—Elizabeth, Pa. It is outside of Pittsburgh and the mineral resources made the city, but also became its undoing. Emotions are tied to that geography: the mountains and the rivers. I get homesick for the physical as well as the emotional aspect. Most of my family lives there, still. The part about the cloud comes from the Bible story in Kings where the Lord sends rain – 43He said to his servant, "Go up now, look toward the sea." So he went up and looked and said, "There is nothing." And he said, "Go back " seven times. 44It came about at the seventh time, that he said, "Behold, a cloud as small as a man's hand is coming up from the sea." And he said, "Go up, say to Ahab, 'Prepare your chariot and go down, so that the heavy shower does not stop you.'" 45In a little while the sky grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a heavy shower. And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel.… I was thinking of weather, God, the way a heavy sadness feels like overcast clouds. Elizabeth was and is a very conservative area, so the housewife's dress is speaking to the past where my grandmothers maybe had daydreams about More than The Home and Babies.
Q: What went through your mind when writing this particular poem? The poem, House of Brooks, is an ode to timelessness, the longevity of unbroken spirit. This house, which has stood for almost 2 centuries, has stories, has memory, has personality. The poem is a juxtaposition between the view of the home owner and the house itself personified. I wanted to write a poem that shared with the reader its verse by personifying the home into the old man, exploring both points of view simultaneously. Sharing with the reader its sense of the joy, the comfort it provides, as well as the ghosts buried in its past. Its words are intended to capture the essence of the grandiose sense of belonging and sense of welcome this place implants on the heart, nay the soul, of every visitor. This place has stood the test of time and therefore, so should any homage to its greatness. I have spent many nights within its kind walls and I always come away with a new sense of purpose; a reenergized drive. Somehow it demands that of its guests, of me. These are the conscious moments that bled into the writing. My choices come from personal experience and the sheer awe at this magnificent castle. To me, it is the story of family nurtured through history by this unwavering icon of greatness.
Q: What went through your mind when writing this particular poem?
The imagery is cosmic: the turning of the stars the night-sky suggests time on a vast scale-our experiences always seem timeless to us as they are ours, a part of ourselves, which as far as our inner reality is concerned, is eternal
Q: What went through your mind when writing this particular poem? Youth, especially for young men, is feral-what was tamed rebels against its domestication and seeks to be wild again. Young people, to create an identity that is uniquely theirs and independent of their forebears, reject-for a time at least-the tenets of their civilization.
Q: What went through your mind when writing this particular poem? This image is another component of the theme explored in the second image: coming of age. Rebellion is conditional to youth, in time, one becomes a man after the transformations of myth through time...
Q: What went through your mind when writing this particular poem? The Salvation of Cowboy Blue Crawford is as much about the Hyde as calm wisdom. He is aware that a revolver is the only language too many understand.
Q: What went through your mind when writing this particular poem? The Oracle is beyond Lily, Miss Dixie - the Oracle has a pulpit, the owl (as the mythology of Blue Crawford explains) - none of the heroes or anti-heroes are blameless. The Oracle reminds Blue why he can't become murder. It must happen - the violence and death: The Oracle cannot justify that obvious flaw. But Blue needs Miss Dixie. Lily needs Blue. Lily is the only woman Blue knows is real.