Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein), GOD IN HER RUFFLED DRESS

Just a little shout-out this afternoon for singer / poet Lisa B, whose book, God in Her Ruffled Dress, I reviewed for Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature for Women. (You can find the review on-line, here.)

It’s a romp of a book, much worth reading and recommending. Lisa B, also a singer and songwriter, plays with sound, and weaves together color and image in ways that continually surprise and please me.

Here’s one poem wedding past with future, history with fantasy, Emily both at her writing desk, sewing together the fascicles of her poems, and working as a computer programmer. Surprise, surprise!

EMILY DICKINSON AT WORK

she pulls

the thread

through the linen

on the embroidery frame

and at her writing table

through the white packet

of paper poems

the next morning tapping

the keyboard

piecing together

the html

<br> <br/>

marking and closing

the breaks

a figure in a white dress

silent under

fluorescent lights

at her place at the long table

beside the other programmers

listening to the enclosing

emptiness a white

pillow invisibly

holding the lines of code

on her screen

where she glimpses

her own

reflected smile

“I can make the zigzag stitches

Straight—when I am strong—

Till then—dreaming I am sewing”

the shape of God walking

through it like bird’s feet

tracks in the snow

“I’ll begin to Sew

When the Birds begin to whistle—”

a song hummed

under her breath

a bare small wind

she painstakingly places

the letters and brackets

she for whom

“Success in Circuit lies”

here and now are not

where everything

that ticked has stopped

no part of her shaven

instead tick by tick

her mind the mind

forming the frame

—Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein) 

You can find Lisa B at her website, www.lisabmusic.com.  She is working on a second audio version of the book, in “spoken word” format. Follow this link to find vendor links to both the paperback and the audiobooks: