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marvin bell & monopoem giveaway

José Angel Araguz Leave a comment

Obsessive – Marvin Bell

It could be a clip, it could be a comb;
it could be your mother, coming home.
It could be a rooster; perhaps it’s a comb;
it could be your father, coming home.
It could be a paper; it could be a pin.
It could be your childhood, sinking in.

The toys give off the nervousness of age.
It’s useless pretending they aren’t finished:
faces faded, unable to stand,
buttons lost down the drain during baths.
Those were the days we loved down there,
the soap disappearing as the water spoke,

saying, it could be a wheel, maybe a pipe;
it could be your father, taking his nap.
Legs propped straight, the head tilted back;
the end was near when he could keep track.
It could be the first one; it could be the second;
the father of a friend just sickened and sickened.

from Nightworks: Poems 1962-2000 (Copper Canyon Press, 2000)

This week’s poem is impressive in the way it works the theme of obsession via sound and rhyme. The first stanza is pretty straightforward with its end rhymes; tension is created within each line, however, by the subtle use of consonance within each line (“clip” “comb” “mother” “home” “paper” “pin”). Obsession is implied in the use of the word “it” to open each line. The poem departs from this structure, repetition, and rhyme in the second stanza. The voice then becomes clearer, distanced. This distance and interruption then makes the return to rhyme in the third stanza all the more dramatic. This last stanza’s rhymes, however, are slant/off (“pipe” “nap” “second” “sickened”). This fraying of the preciseness of the first stanza brings the poem back into the immediacy of obsession, with the poem’s ending adding more possibilities to what “it could be” rather than resolving the obsessive meditation.

monopoem prep 2 080917

[image description: an ink and pencil sketch of three marbles]

This particular poem compliments my latest Mosca Dragón monopoem which features my poem “Canicas” from my book, Small Fires (FutureCycle Press) which also dwells on childhood memory.

This new monopoem also features the ink and pencil sketch shown here and will be sent along to the 10 winners of the Small Fires Goodreads giveaway. Thank you to all who entered!

I have a small number of extra copies of this monopoem, so if you are interested in receiving a copy of this monopoem, send an email to thefridayinfluence@gmail.com

Happy marbling!

José

 

 

Small Fires excerpt & Goodreads giveaway announcement!

José Angel Araguz 2 Comments

This week I am excited to announce a Goodreads giveaway for my latest poetry collection, Small Fires (FutureCycle Press). I’ll be giving away ten signed copies of the book. Deadline is August 10th, 2017. Check out the details here:

Goodreads Book GiveawaySmall Fires by Jose Angel Araguz

Small Fires

by Jose Angel Araguz

Giveaway ends August 10, 2017.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

 

To help celebrate this announcement, I am presenting an excerpt from Small Fires in the form of both a poem and some commentary. The poem is entitled “Hail from Corpus Christi” and as I mention in a Q&A conducted by Carve Magazine, working on this poem was key into finding the themes of the collection.

Hails from Corpus Christi – José Angel Araguz

I would be belted after dinner,
my food eaten with the moon,
the night a table where a place
is set, and a place diminishes –
hardened, chucked out of the sky,
milk-glow, but a rap like a stone,
the kind in movies thrown at windows
to get someone’s attention – I was all
attention as my mother’s boyfriend
turned to rain and thunder,
clouds broke into fists and cries
broke the sky of my sleep with lightning
that held fast in me, turned me
into that color – a hardened flash
falling through the years into a room
where I tried to restrain the weather
of what I felt, but raised
my voice, punched the wall, the table,
clawed after and clutched your arm
as you tried to leave before
hearing what I had to say,
clutched and pulled away to see the white
of where the blood had left, a hardened
streak that burst into
your hand hard across my face, your voice
no longer a voice I knew,
a voice that from then on
kept me at a distance,
would harden and check me for years,
distrustful, despite our apologies,
despite tears and my own diminishing
voice, a pebbled voice, a grit,
shit shit shit under my breath
every time we’d argue, knowing
there was nothing I could do
but take it, hold my clouded self,
not wanting to hit, ricochet, scatter.

*

For more commentary on this poem, check out the rest of the Carve Magazine Q&A.

Happy hailing!

José