Category: Backlist Wednesday

Diane Jarvenpa has long been a favorite poet of mine, ever since reading her first book, Divining the Landscape. Like many of us she leads several lives: poet, parent, Finnish folk singer. Ok, that last role is, admittedly, rather unique and remarkable and something she does under the stage name, Diane Jarvi.

Ten years ago, in 2005, I printed her chapbook Ancient Wonders: The Modern World. This modest chap, six poems and six matching illustrations by Sheralyn Barnes, sold out faster than any chapbook the press has published, with the possible exception of Superman: The Chapbook by Dorianne Laux. Because copies are no longer available, I thought I’d try scanning the pages and constructing a digital facsimile as small compensation for the vast majority unfortunate enough to miss the original print version.

About a year ago, Diane recorded Ancient Wonders and allowed me to make an experimental digital version. The result of that experiment is an ebook with embedded audio and is available only for iBooks.

And if you’d like to own a print version of the poem sequence, it’s included in her full length collection, The Tender, Wild Things (New River Press, 2007). Highly recommended.

The design is as stark as a January parking lot at midnight in a blizzard. A lot of white space, a minimal amount of ornamentation. The author has playfully referred to the book as his “White Album.”

The book itself consists of forty poems. Each poem is seven lines long. Written during the winter of 1998-1999, these small poems lodge some daily aspect of our yearly travail through this often difficult season. Fittingly, there are a fair number of grim realities, but I think the uplifting surprises win out, glittering snow, bright sunlight, warm company. Here’s a poem that contains a little wishful thinking during our current week of below zero temperatures:

BEGINNING TO PUT WINTER BEHIND US

The sun comes out with a flash, as if taking
earth’s photo. The sky preens its blue feathers
on the telephone line, and sings. One can hear
a drone of lawnmowers, from the future….
Why don’t I feel happier? A small, weak hand
is tugging at my sleeve, the way an old person
who can no longer speak up says, “I’m still here….”

Because the soul can be lost by a single glance…

With Valentine’s Day just ahead, it seems a good moment to revisit a chapbook filled to the brim with desire, overflowing with thoughts about longing, love, and eros. The chapbook is Perfect Harmony and it contains a poem written eight centuries ago by Ibn El Arabi, an Andalusian Sufi mystic and poet. Over the course of this poem, love at first sight is elevated to the level of philosophy and religion, ecstasy intensified “to the point of perfect harmony.” That this poem remains immediate and passionate all these centuries later and in another language has much to do with labors of Timothy Young; always good to have a poet translate a poet.

100 copies were printed in 2009 with the assistance in the print shop by the translator. The Spectrum type was set by hand, letter by letter, then inked and impressed upon pages of Ingres paper. Autonomous drawings by Dalyce Elliott accompany the text. These pages are sewn into Khadi wraps. The paper and type alone are a kind of Valentine.

In addition to the chapbook version, this poem is included in Timothy Young’s most recent book, To the Palace of Kings: Selected Longer Poems (Red Dragonfly Press, 2014) and is available on a CD, Perfect Harmony. The latter, an union of spoken word and brilliant musical accompaniment, comes highly recommended, is only available direct from the translator: mail $10 per CD plus $3 shipping to Timothy Young, 1610 Fernwood St., St. Paul, MN 55108.