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

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GOD IN HER RUFFLED DRESS, Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein). What Books Press, 363 South Topanga Canyon Boulevard, Topanga, CA 90290, 2023, 110 pages, $17.00, paper, https://www.whatbookspress.com.

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:

https://lisabmusic.com/#god-in-her-ruffled-dress-new-poetry-book-audiobook

Happy Birthday, Mom!

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1955My mother will be 82 years old tomorrow; I’m going to visit overnight, and three of her sisters and a niece will be meeting me and my sister in Allyn, at Mom’s new home, to have lunch–and cake!

Here is a picture of Beverly with some of her sisters, a sister-in-law, and a niece, and five of their young children. My mom is the young woman in the middle, looking right at the camera. In this picture, she is pregnant with me.

With my mother now in care, I’ve been thinking about my grandmother’s illness toward the end of her life, when she was still being cared for at home, and of this poem (originally published in Calyx, a Journal of Art and Literature for Women).

*

To Carry On

My grandmother’s name was Arada–
In another language, “fertile field.”
I am the second child of her eleventh
And grew up next door

On the old creek road. When Granma
Was old, she took six pills a day,
Thought she saw babies
On the chair, on the pillow, on the floor

Beside her bed. “Careful,” she said,
“Don’t sit on the baby.”
Her daughters cared
By turns, departing after

Like moons into the dark of planets.
From the threshold once
I heard her call, “Don’t forget me,”
But I had already turned into the hall,CAM00421

To a time before names were spoken.
My aunts moved aside invisible bundles,
Clucked their tongues
And counted pills. “She’s never been sick

Except to have babies.” They smoothed
A blue blanket under her chin,
Smoothed back her black hair.
When I dream of my grandmother, my dream

Is a word from a wordless deep,
A shaft of light. She is tiny
And wrinkled. I wrap her in my arms.
I bear her up the stair.