#Vona Groarke

[soracities]

Vona Groarke, from “Six Months”

[Text ID: “Blue sky on the radio, all four car windows down. Is this what it means, then, to have friends?”]

[havingapoemwithyou]

[may] by Vona Groarke

[forewordreviewsmag]

Today, we’re pleased to spend a few minutes with Vona Groarke, author of a captivating new book about her great-grandmother Ellen O’Hara, who emigrated from impoverished County Sligo in Ireland’s south to New York in 1882. Foreword‘s Executive Editor Matt Sutherland reached out to her with a few questions after becoming enchanted with Vona’s innovative approach to telling Ellen’s story.

[luminouslotuses]

qsmp meetup gave me the feels

deadline by sundial // photos from roier, fitmc, bagi, and missa’s instagrams // foolish on twitter // quackity & baghera on twitter (reposted here) // quackity’s instagram // new romantics by taylor swift // forever’s instagram // bagi on twitter // @werenotreallystrangers // every time around by vansire // cellbit on twitter (reposted here) // screenshot from QSMP REUNION IN REAL LIFE twitch stream (reposted here) // @pixiecaps // photos from pac, fitmc, cellbit, and bagi’s instagrams + kristin’s twitter // pac’s instagram // bagi’s instagram // the family photograph by vona groarke // forever’s instagram // deadline by sundial

[ethereal-muses]

Blue sky on the radio,

all four car windows down.

Is this what it means, then,

to have friends?

– Vona Groarke, Six Months

[fdin2u]

Six Months

APRIL

My daughter buys

her first perfume.

It’s called ‘One Summer’.

MAY

Geese hemstitch the wetlands:

I foretell a skittery afternoon.

JUNE

Pick up the day

by four white hours;

shake it out

over long grass.

JULY

Blue sky on the radio,

all four car windows down.

Is this what it means, then,

to have friends?

AUGUST

The jet plane

tucking up its wheels

jolts me back years

to a light cadenza’s

lift-off in my womb.

SEPTEMBER

A twinge in my elbow chimes, pretty much,

with the indicator of the school bus in front

and the backbeat of whatever song

is plied on the radio.

My son knows the words.

This is my life.

Let me want nothing more.

–Vona Groarke, from Spindrift (2010)

[ijustkindalikebooks]

From Empty Nest edited by Carol Ann Duffy.

You can find the poem and a recording of it here (x).

[tiedtopages]

Too good not to share. G'night ✨

[theotherpages]

2021 Podcasts, Part 2

A reminder that all of the articles from this year’s poetry series are available as a podcast. Search on “Steve Spanoudis” to find all the episodes on iTunes, Anchor, Breaker, Spotify, Google Podcasts, RadioPublic and PocketCast. If you like the articles, please share.

Here are direct links to individual episodes on Anchor.fm:

12. Laila Chatti - Deluge - article by Kashiana Singh

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-12-Leila-Chatti-eun4c5

13. Tina Cane - Some Kinds of Fire

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-01---Tina-Cane--Anna-Akhmatova-euriuc

14. Richard Blanco - La Florida Room

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-14---Richard-Blanco-eutlfj

15. Michael Hamburger - Grape and Nut Letter - article by Nelson Howard Miller

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-15-Michael-Hamburger-euv861

16. Ted Kooser - In the Basement of the Goodwill Store

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-16---Ted-Kooser-ev0jd3

17. Keorapetse William Kgositsile - Anguish Longer Than Sorrow

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-17-Keorapetse-William-Kgositsile-ev40s

18. Melissa Balmain - Love Poem

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-18-Melissa-Balmain-ev653a

19. Kazim Ali - The Voice of Sheila Chandra - article by Kashiana Singh

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-19-The-gleaming-work-of-Kazim-Ali---The-Voice-of-Sheila-Chandra-ev7kld

20. Nora Dauenhauer - Amelia’s FIrst Ski Run

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-20-Nora-Marks-Dauenhauer-ev8fum

21. Vona Groarke - Still Life in Marble

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-21-Vona-Groarke-evaoi4

The full text of all articles is available at The Other Pages mirrors

on Facebook: https://facebook.com/theotherpages

And Tumblr: https://theotherpages.tumblr.com

(scroll down for content on either page)

[violettesiren]

What leaves us trembling in an empty house is not the moon, my moon-eyed lover. Say instead there was no moon though for nine nights we stood

on the brow of the hill at midnight and saw nothing that was not contained in darkness, in the pier light, our hands, and our lost house.

Small wonder that we tired of this and chose instead to follow the road to the back of the island, and broke into the lighthouse-keeper’s house.

We found the lower windows boarded up and the doors held fast, but one. Inside, we followed the drag of light through empty rooms of magenta and sky blue.

This house has been decided by the sea. These rooms are stones washed over by waves and spray from the lighthouse by which we undress

to kneel under the skylight. Our hands and lips are smeared with blackberries. Your skin, my sloe-skinned lover, never so sweet, your hand so quiet.

The sea is breaking and unbreaking on the pier. You and I are making love in the lighthouse-keeper’s house, my moon-eyed, dark-eyed, fire-eyed lover.

What leaves us trembling in an empty room is not the swell of darkness in our hands, or the necklace of shale I made for you that has grown warm between us.

Shale by Vona Groarke

[soracities]

...the backbeat of whatever song is plied on the radio. My son knows the words. This is my life. Let me want nothing more.

Vona Groarke, from “Six Months”, Spindrift

[havingapoemwithyou]

[april] by Vona Groarke

[marcopolorules]

COMO SI CUALQUIER COSA PUDIERA⠀ ⠀ Un artículo de hace dos años es lo que inaugura⠀ mi hoguera esta noche. ¿En qué andaba metida? ¿Qué he hecho?⠀ No es como si el mundo me increpara con un «¡Haz esto!» o⠀ un «¡Haz esto!». Y no es como si aprender una cosa⠀ suponga desaprender otra. El hogar es tumbarse⠀ cuando a una le apetece tumbarse, un cuenco de porvenir⠀ junto al lecho y una ventana a la altura de la mano⠀ de modo que al abrirse, como un diario, las jornadas y todo su cortejo⠀ se escabullen suavemente, ah cuán suavemente, del dormitorio.⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ AS IF ANYTHING COULD⠀ ⠀ A paper from the year before last is the start of ⠀ my tonight fire. Where was I? What have I done?⠀ It’s not as if the world was shouting, ‘Do this!’ or⠀ ‘Do this!’ at me. And it’s not as if learning one thing⠀ means unlearning one thing else. Home is to lie⠀ when you need to lie, a bowl of tomorrow left⠀ by the bed and a window at the height of your hand⠀ to open, like a diary, so the days and all their equipage⠀ slip lightly, oh so lightly, from the room.⠀ ⠀ ⠀ Vona Groarke ⠀ & Ruprecht von Kaufmann @ruprecht_v_kaufmann (artist)⠀ ⠀ *Fuente literaria: @emmagunst⠀ ⠀ #portraitpainting #oilpaint #oilpainting #oilpainter #oilpaintings #oilpaints #oilportrait #oilonlinoleum #contemporaryart #oilpaintingart #contemporaryartist #contemporarypainting #contemporarypainter #contemporarypaintings #contemporary_art #contemporarypainters #contemporaryfigurativeart #contemporaryoilpainting #modernart #modernpainting #artgallery #contemporaryartgallery #figurativeart #figurativepainting #figurativeoilpainting #figurativeportrait #vagabondwho #emmagunst #marcopolorules #ruprechtvonkaufmann https://www.instagram.com/p/CCfzLBan9za/?igshid=1uviqvikhxlw7

[circe-poetica]

Ghost Poem

Ghost Poem by Vona Groarke

Crowded at my window tonight, your ghosts will have nothing to speak of but love though the long grass leading to my door is parted neither by you leaving

nor by you coming here. The same ghosts keep in with my blood, the way a small name says itself, over and over, so one minute is cavernous

compared to the next, and I cannot locate words enough to tell you your wrist on my breast had the same two sounds to it. You are a sky over narrow water

and the ghosts at my window are a full day until I shed their loss. I want to tell you all their bone-white, straight-line prophecies

but the thought of you, this and every night, is your veins in silverpoint mapped on my skin, your life on mine, that I made up and lived inside, as real,

and I find I cannot speak of love or any of its wind-torn ghosts to you who promised warm sheets and a candle, lit, but promised me in words.

Vona Groarke, X (Gallery Press)

[mnic313]

“What I am after is silence in proportion to desire…”

— Vona Groarke, from “Purism”

[romance4tubelord]

_____in_greenland

so tired

of gender things[1]

assemble[2]

making[3] love[4]

in the time machine

no more a woman

was christ a man[5]

skin gesture

flesh and

bone[6]

lovers lie[7]

reluctant[8]

hearts[9]

turn

your

child[10]

face[11]

woke up[12]

shut down[13]

just give yourself to the air[14]

around her[15]

future lies like a love-letter[16]

in motion[17]

 you do not do

you not do or,

i made a model

mouthpiece to

recover you

dead

root stuck in my tongue

when they buried you

i am a lake

inside[18]

 silver[19] moon[20]

silver[21]

horses

ladders and gluepots are for the dead

rise to my[22]

fiction,[23]

applause

for icons[24]

stars are[25]

suspended[26]

with words[27]

the dead[28]

Did you or did

you not do

or do you not dig this excuse

that excuse

pleasure pain

truth

holding yes

no in one

hand

the blissful fist

spirit world

plays

 [1] Anne Sexton (1999) Complete Poems: Mariner Books

[2] Elizabeth Jennings (2002) New Collected Poems: Carcanet Press

[3] Gertrude Stein (1946) The Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein: Random House

[4] Elizabeth Jennings (2002) New Collected Poems: Carcanet Press

[5] Anne Sexton (1999) Complete Poems: Mariner Books 

[6] Vona Groarke (2002) Flight: Gallery Press

[7] Mimi Khalvati (1991) In White Ink: Carcanet Press

[8] Edna St Vincent Millay (1981) Collected Poems: HarperPerennial

[9] Edith Sitwell (2005) Collected Poems: Duckworth

[10] Anne Ridler (1994) Collected Poems: Carcanet Press

[11] Edith Sitwell (2005) Collected Poems: Duckworth

[12] Louise Gluck (1992) The Wild Iris: Carcanet Press

[13] Jo Shapcott (2000) Her Book: Poems 1988–1998: Faber & Faber

[14] Mairi MacInnes (1993) Elsewhere & Back: New & Selected Poems: Bloodaxe Books

[15] Imtiaz Dharker (1997) Postcards from God: Bloodaxe Books

[16] Elizabeth Daryush (1976) Collected Poems: Carcanet Press

[17] Kathleen Raine (2000) The Collected Poems of Kathleen Raine: Golgonooza Press

[18] Sylvia Plath (1981) Collected Poems: Faber & Faber

[19] IBid

[20] Sujata Bhatt (1988) Brunizem: Carcanet Press

[21] Sylvia Plath (1981) Collected Poems: Faber & Faber

[22] Menna Elfyn (1996) Cell Angel: Bloodaxe Books

[23] Denise Riley (1993) Mop Mop Georgette: New & Selected Poems: Reality Street Editions

[24] Jorie Graham (1996) The Dream of the Unified Field: Selected Poems 1974-1994: Carcanet Press

[25] Moniza Alvi (1993) The Country at my Shoulder: Bloodaxe Books

[26] Ruth Padel (1988) Rembrandt Would Have Loved You: Chatto & Windus

[27] Moniza Alvi (1993) The Country at my Shoulder: Bloodaxe Books

[28] Ruth Padel (1988) Rembrandt Would Have Loved You: Chatto & Windus

10.07.2011