COFFEE WITH THE POETS: Jeannette Cabinis-Brewin

(Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin)

City Lights Bookstore and the NC Writers Network West now sponsor Coffee With the Poets every third Thursday of the month. Inspired by a similar gathering in Hayesville which has been in existence for a number of years, this program is only in its second month. Our first meeting featured poet Glenda Beall of Hayesville, former Program Coordinator for Netwest. Glenda read and discussed her new chapbook, Now Might As Well Be Then, published by Finishing Line Press.




(At the coffee and tea table)


Thursday's guest was Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin, who brought her beautifully rendered poetry to us, along with an intelligent and stimulating commentary. We could have talked on for hours about poetry, the mountains, environmentalism, spirituality...well, I could go on, but wouldn't you rather read some of Jeannette's poems? The ones that follow are from her chapbook Patriate, which won the Longleaf Press chapbook prize in 2007. She began with a quote from William Stafford, a voice that's been like a touchstone for her.

The Way It Is

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among

things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

--William Stafford

Jeannette then read this beautiful poem written as if in conversation with Stafford's poem.
Still That Way
--with thanks to William Stafford

The thread I follow winds among wild plum trees
in an orchard planted by black bears. It drops

in windblown loops from nine beanpoles
lately wound with tender pods, makes a beeline

for the garnet parade-hats of sourwoods on the ridge,
their cream tassels buzzing with next year's honey.

It's drawn upstream by the gravity of the mossy altar
we call The Stone Table, and weaves a circle round it

for safekeeping of leafy fair-linen and acorn-cup
chalices. As it trails down the road, the thread takes a zig

and a zag, caught up in an exuberance of happy dogs.
While I follow it, I am not lost. The dirt names itself:

here's the sandy soil where coneflowers poke
spike seednoses this way and that; here's the sreambank

where in spring the Quaker ladies throng, feet down
in the dampness. Here the sparrow grass sleep in their bed

and parsnips lengthen their white sweet bodies down into dark.
The granite heft of the knoll lies across a hidden stream

that springs up on north and south to spread into pools,
one upwelling frequented by bars, the other by blacksmiths.

Let me explain about the thread: it's wrapped around this house
from foundation stone to roofpeak, lies across the marriage bed

length and breadth so many times, it's warp and woof
of the blanket that, sighing, we draw over our nakedness.

beneath it his heart pounds like the beater bar of a loom.
and I listen. We grow old; some things are still steady, but we know

nothing can stop time's unfolding. Like the skein for a covered basket
it pays out, soft and pliant, as I wind and count the loops

around the board. From this window I see the places it has knit
into home: vegetable patch, wild grove, flowery verge, all now bitten

black with frost. The basket's no longer full and at any moment
I may draw up the raggletaggle end, frayed out to nothingness and my hands'

surprised, scribe a final airy O




(William Everett listens as Jeannette responds to his question. He will be August's guest author.)


One of our favorites was a new poem titled Still, in which Jeannette plays on that word. Here are some lines I especially like, Randolph speaking at the outset.


My daddy sometimes was known
to weld up a still, he grins.
He’d pretend and go along
with whatever wink and purpose was given.

Still and all, that was the way
the old-timers got around and along.
And it still is today.
Some things, over time, still strong

as double-run corn. Like
Randolph’s will, like love
for the burn, that likker-spike beyond flavor.

---from Still





An exemplary quote from Blaise Pascal is tailor-made for our contemporary rushed, texting, online lives: "The sole cause of our unhappiness is that we do not know how to stay quietly in our rooms."


Jeannette concludes the poem "Pupil" with similar instructions to us and to herself.

Learn to sit still. The dark


iris of the mind,


receptacle and organizer,


opens inside, synapses making


birds, movements, sounds, thoughts,


glass and wood--a hole in the wall--


into a whole and living thing.


The cage of mullions,


a hologram of creation:


each pane entirely full


of new and repetitive beauties.

(Netwest member Ben Eller)


Afterward, we had lunch at Spring Street Cafe, underneath the bookstore. Pictured are Jeannette, Bill Everett, and Newt Smith, Netwest Treasurer.

POETRIO: MARY ADAMS AND RHETT ISEMAN TRULL

Mary Adams reads from Commandment at this month's Poetrio.

Every month Malaprop's Bookstore features Poetrio, a gathering of poets, usually three, reading from their work on a Sunday afternoon. This month two of the featured poets were friends,

Mary Adams and Rhett Iseman Trull, along with William Swarts, someone I had the pleasure to meet at the reading. Mary's chapbook Commandment was published last fall by Spring Street Editions in Sylva, and Rhett's first book The Real Warnings was published recently by Anhinga Press.

Mary has been a friend for many years, first as a colleague at WCU and later as, well, a friend and sister poet, animal lover, and partaker of wine and pizza whenever we can get together. Her fist book, Epistles from the Planet Photosynthesis, was published by the U. of Florida Press. She is also a Milton scholar and expert in just about everything literary. I've devoted several posts to her, so I'll include the links-- http://kathrynstriplingbyer.blogspot.com/search?q=Mary+Adams. You may order her chapbook and her full length collection from City Lights Bookstore.

Rhett is editor par excellence of the new poetry journal Cave Wall, which she manages with her fabulous husband Jeff. She's a graduate of the MFA program in writing at UNC-Greensboro and a favorite of my ole friend Fred Chappell. I featured her as Poet of the Week last year on my laureate blog, so if you want to read more, which you certainly should, you should go to http://ncpoetlaureate.blogspot.com/2009/04/poet-of-week-rhett-iseman-trull.html

The third poet was William Swarts, whose book Strickland Plains has just been released. I'd not met Bill till this Sunday, but I can tell you that he will be the featured guest at Coffee With the Poets at City Lights Bookstore in the fall.

Here are some photos from this Sunday's Poetrio. Many thanks to Alsace and Virginia for making this series so enjoyable!

Mary responding to an unseen interrogator!

Mary's lovely mother Betty, on hand to hear her daughter read.

Rhett talks with members of the audience after her reading.

Rhett Trull signs the Malaprop's reader's registry.



In a dark cafe the author and friends drink to the publication of her chapbook and her reading at Malaprop's. (Actually it's Jack of the Woods, and it's dark because my flash wasn't working.)

ECHOES ACROSS THE BLUE RIDGE--FEATURING ROSEMARY ROYSTON

After taking a break for a few weeks from my blog, I'm back with big news. ECHOES ACROSS THE BLUE RIDGE: STORIES, ESSAYS, AND POEMS BY WRITERS LIVING IN AND INSPIRED BY THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS has arrived. For the next several posts I will be featuring the work of some of the contributors. This book will sell like hotcakes, so click on the link just above to go to the Netwest blog to order a copy.

My first author is Rosemary Royston, a young poet who just gets better and better. She lives in northeast Georgia. Her poetry has been published in The Comstock Review, Main Street Rag, and is forthcoming in Literal Latte and online at Dark Sky Magazine and Public Republic. She is the recipient of the 2010 Literal Latte Food Verse Award, and in 2004 she placed first and third in poetry, Porter Fleming Literary Contest. Rosemary has taught poetry courses at the Institute for Continuing Learning at Young Harris College, and she holds an MFA in Writing from Spalding University.

I especially love Rosemary's Dogwood Winter, the last of the three. It's a poem I wish I'd written! But I wouldn't mind claiming the other two, either.

Neighbor Lady

She has made them beds.
Beds of hay sporadically placed
in the ragged green pasture.
Pallets, really. Some say

she once lived north of here
had a high falutin’, high payin’ job.
Now she wears yellow rubber gloves,
like the ones I wear to clean the bathroom,

and there’s a turban of sorts on her head.
They say she’s the richest lady in the county.
Sometimes on a soft summer’s night
I see her truck on the property line

and in the air I can feel her presence
as she soothes those she loves so much.
She has spoken to me once: One cow
is worth ten good neighbors.

The Possibility of Snow

Ms. Callie is like a perfumed sparrow,
tiny and fragile in dress slacks,
the seam straight and pressed,
her sweater a matching shade of green.

When I hug her hello I’m afraid she will topple
under the weight of my slender arms.
At 80 her hair is coiffed and teased
and she’s just short of five feet,

only a head taller than my son, Luke.
We are visiting Angie, her daughter, (my friend)
and after talking and laughing over Oolong tea
we realize that my 7-year old has vanished—

he’s not in the guest room with the TV,
nor is he chasing the many cats around the house.
His drawing pad lies abandoned on the floor.
In the distance we hear a soft song of sorts

and are drawn to it, only to find him
on Ms. Callie’s bed, stretched out,
his head propped against the footboard,
conversing with her on the possibility of snow.

Dogwood Winter

Ants raid the bath, wasps claim the washroom,
even as the cool of winter looms.

The forsythia sings against a chorus
of green, yet the hue of winter looms.

The bunting’s a blur of vibrant blue,
off-setting winter’s gray loom.

Calves nurse in the open field, chilled
as the nip of winter looms.

Blood buds of azaleas burst forth
even though winter looms.

The creek hums a rain-filled song,
oblivious to the winter that looms.

Rosemary, thyme, and sage grow
in the sunroom, even as winter looms.