Review: Richard Merelman's Imaginary Baritone

Richard Merelman has aptly named this collection The Imaginary Baritone (Fireweed Press 2012) as every piece exhibits low undertones of what it means to live. This collection of 32 poems is an insight to the mind, and the poems fit nicely together like puzzle pieces tell a larger story. This collection gives us a collage of people and places, whether actual events or fictional stories. There is commentary on a mother and father’s place in a family or a member’s place in the religious community and how they all fit into the world around them. It reminds me that no matter how small I feel sometimes, the world is not as large a place as it feels.

A poem published in Common Ground Review (Spring/Summer 2012), “Lizavetna Petrovna,” offers a perspective on historical truth, as well as on the human experience during times of war. Although language is a barrier in this piece, the author is still able to fully communicate the experience he’s had with the audience. The poem provides a reminder that we are all connected in some way and some concepts - sadness, grief, longing - are universally understood. Through Merelman’s writing, I feel as if I was there in that museum carefully watching Lizavetna Petrovna recount these memories: I don’t even know what she looks like, and I still want to cry for her.

My two favorites (because I can never choose) are “Walking the Labyrinth” and “Her Portrait.” The structure of “Walking the Labyrinth” jumps off the page because of the zig-zag form it follows; for example, the line “pause at the center” is placed where the poem changes directions; not only is this an interpretation of the poem but a literal interpretation of the structure. “Her Portrait” is short but poignant.  It all happens so quickly, the reader must be sure to pay careful attention or it will be over before you realize anything has even begun. A young boy and his father share a moment, not entirely understood by the young boy, by throwing a portrait of the mother into a river; however, the reason for this action is not explicit, it is left to the reader to interpret and decide. I think I love this piece so much because I can’t imagine why they would do such a thing and I’m left feeling curious. Overall, the whole book is fantastic and it makes me think a lot about how people fit into not only their own lives but in other people’s lives as well.

 

--Review by Cassandra Deal

 

This piece is the first in a new venture.  Common Ground Review is interested in reviewing books by its contributors.  If you are a contributor with a book, and you would like it reviewed on the blog, please let us know.

Queries

Is the Fall/Winter 2012 issue ever coming?

Yes.  Yes, it is.  We have sent copies to all the contributors as of March 15th.  If you should have gotten a copy but didn't, please let us know.  If you'd like to purchase a copy, send us a check for $10.

But if the Fall/Winter 2012 issue is out, what happened to the poems I sent last July?  Are they doomed?  I haven't heard anything!

That is our fault.  We are very sorry.  We were overloaded this year with both submissions and obligations.  But the good news is, your poems are not doomed!  At least, not yet.

Technically, we have deadlines for regular submissions. We would like to read all the September 1-February 28^th/29^th submissions for consideration for the Spring/Summer issues, and all the March 1^st-August 31^stsubmissions for consideration for the Fall/Winter issues. Sometimes, however, we read something that’s come in late, and it just fits perfectly into the previous issue, which we are in the process of formatting. So we add it. Sometimes, we fall behind. And so at the moment—with sincere apologies to those who are still waiting—we are considering all the submissions from last summer (and earlier) for the Spring/Summer issue.

What about the Poetry Contest?

Our contest deadline for the 14^th Annual Poetry Contest has officially passed, and we are reading the entries in the first round. 

But if you're reading the poetry contest entries, what about the poems I sent in earlier?

We're reading those, too.  Sometimes one editor will like a poem that another editor isn't thrilled about, and then we wait to hear from the third....  The poems we don't like get the fastest action, ironically.  Poems we do like tend to take more time.

 

Fall/Winter 2012 almost ready!

This is Lorna Ritz's new cover!  and it's giving us terrible problems because we can't get the dimensions exact enough for the printer.  But we are working on it....

Winter Issue

When we started reading for the Fall/Winter issue last summer, we had high hopes of publishing it in the "Fall" part of the year.  Fall became late Fall, and late Fall became Winter, and Winter is so cold that every time we go outside, the chill and the icicles and the crunching of snow underfoot tell us to go in and finish working on the magazine.  And have some hot chocolate.

We are still reviewing, discussing, and accepting work for the Fall/Winter issue.  We think we can finish this first stage very soon.  If we hear from the accepted authors in good time, we will be able to format the magazine and get it to the printer in early February, so it will truly be a Winter Issue.

And we thank you for your impatience!  The emails you've sent asking what ever happened to your submission?  they galvanize us into action.  

Next post, we'll have the Fall/Winter cover picture for you.

 

Guy Fawkes Day!

In England, this is a day for fireworks!

Here, we are still going through the submissions for the Fall/Winter issue.  We made a number of decisions back in August, and then we had to move offices just before classes started, which meant that a stack of your manuscripts, logged and ready to read,  went into boxes for longer than we'd intended.  Those boxes are now open, and Andrew Varnon, Joanna Novak and I are reviewing and discussing them over the next couple of weeks.

Sometimes we see fireworks.  This is brilliant!  we say, and there's no doubt at all that it will go into the magazine.

Hmmm, we say at other times, and then we each lobby for our favorites.

I hope you are our favorite.

Back in June

Poetry Journal Editors Panel

I realize now that before it actually happened, I should have blogged about The Riverwood Poetry Festival in Hartford (June 21^st-24^th, yes, sorry, you’ve missed it this year).  It looked really great: among the events, four Poets Laureate read one night (Dick Allen (CT); Walter Butts (NH); Lisa Starr (RI) and Sydney Lea (VT)), and Nick Flynn all by himself on another. 

And I was on a panel of poetry journal editors, trying to characterize our journals and what we looked for.  We each read two poems we had accepted and explained some of what we liked about those poems, and the audience asked questions—two in particular seemed to strike a nerve.

The first was, why does it seem you have to have an MFA to get published?

The second was, doesn’t anyone accept poems that rhyme anymore?   

We all had our answers.  Of course you don’t have to have an MFA to get published, and we (all the editors on that panel, but also we editors at Common Ground) don’t actually look at your credentials: we look at your writing.

However, people who’ve worked to get an MFA may have these advantages: they’ve had a period of intense concentration focused on making their writing shine; they’ve had experienced teachers giving them advice; they’ve run their poems through the gauntlet of their peers’ criticism, and then they’ve revised their poems some more.  (All praise to those who have gone through and survived!)

The MFA writers may have these disadvantages, though: their poems may sound “workshopped” and/or more like their mentors than like themselves; the work may have lost energy and innovation as it gained polish; the writer may have chosen to shy away from risky moves, for example, deciding to err on the side of intellectualism rather than passion, fearing that passion might be overly sentimental or naïve.

Or it might rhyme.  (That’s a joke!)

Personally, I don’t think rhyme should hijack the poem.  The poem is not about rhyming.  If rhyme has a point, if it adds rhythm and meaning to the poem’s content, then I’m fine with it.  But even then, I want the rhyme to be created from the best-chosen words; I want the rhyme to please and surprise just the way I want the rest of the poem to do.

If you want to look up the other journals whose editors were on the panel, here they are:

Caduceus: http://tfuscomedia.com (Tony Fusco)

Connecticut River Review: http://ct-poetry-society.org/publications.htm (Pat Mottola)

CT Review: www.easternct.edu/connecticutreview (Lisa Siedlarz)

Dogwood: www.dogwoodliterary.com (Sonya Huber)

Drunken Boat: http://www.drunkenboat.com (Ravi Shankar)

It’s at the Printers’!

At the Printers’!  I hope that sounds exciting, which it is, and not too much like the excuse for delay, “It’s in the mail.”

“In the mail,” that is, sent out to the contributors and subscribers, is the step after the step after next.

Let me tell you what happened:  we had the poetry contest winners, and we were finalizing the other acceptances, when my computer—the one which has the publishing program—was infected with a malicious virus.   The wonderful IT people basically re-built my computer.  The process took more than a week.

I may have lost some records (my apologies if I end up contacting you twice about the same thing), and I did lose the customized (blank) template for Common Ground Review, but I was able to use a version of the Fall/Winter issue as a template.

So we formatted the issue and the cover, and the printers are now sending us a sample proof. That really is in the mail; once we get it and can okay the order, the printers will get to work.       

In the meantime, we’re getting address labels ready and putting them on envelopes so we can send everything out as soon as possible, and I can actually say, “It’s in the mail!”