Welcome to PoemAlley, Stamford, Connecticut's eclectic venue for poets, poetry reading and discussion! Open to anyone living in Fairfield County and the surrounding area, we meet Tuesday nights at 7:30 pm at Curley's Diner on 62 Park Place (behind Target) . Come contribute, get something to eat, or simply listen!
This
coming Tuesday Edison Jennings will read at Virtual Curely's via Zoom selections from Intentional Fallacies, his first full-length collection (Broadstone, 2021)
following the release of three chapbooks. A Tennessee Williams
Scholar at Sewanee (University Of the South) and recipient of two
Virginia Quarterly Review Conference scholarships, Edison hails from
the Appalachian hills of southwestern Virginia where he works as a
Head Start school aide and bus driver/safety monitor. On the state
level, he serves as a Virginia Commission for the Arts fellow.
Though
he writes essays, Ed is drawn to poetry mainly because “I like the
density, the wit, and the figuration of (it)... and the way it
sounds—primarily the way it sounds.” Working in rhymed, blank and
free verse, Ed generally favors the latter.
As he
explains below in an August 15, 2021 interview with Rattle
editor Tim Green on the poetry journal's video channel (starting at
15:30) the “Rattlecast”, his poetry usually flows based on the first one or two lines he sets down; other times, he
deliberately tries to compose his work in advance. The title of his
latest collection being a play on the
modernist dictum that the reader's interpretation of a piece should
be made independent of what the poet intended, delves into the notion
and outcomes flowing from the deliberate promulgation of false ideas, or
priorities.
For
instance, the piece below stands in opposition to the unfledged,
escapist Silicon Valley promises of Mars colonization, orbital hotels
and Transhumanist paradises. “Country Song” demonstrates Edison's
honest fascination with the eternal tension, frequently in
oft-overlooked rural settings, between life's wearing compromises and
struggles and the mortality of life against the ineffable splendor of
the world as it is:
Country
Song
She
styles hair, does manicures too,
at
Sassy Girl’s Bonbon Salon
(The
Place To Go For A Killer Do),
and
he drives a long-haul truck,
popping
Addies to stay awake,
selling
weed for an extra buck
to
pay off their subprime loan
and
not have their house repo’d.
“We’re
screwed,” he says, “screwed to the bone.”
Then
she tells him he’s her hot mess,
brushing
back a wisp of his hair.
Their
politics? An easy guess.
And
though they get high, they somehow survive
and
managed to raise three kids
(who
say they’ll visit, but never arrive).
Last
night she held him while he was asleep,
and
heard him mutter, “not nothing will keep.”
Whoever
dies first, the other will weep.
Sign on to Virtual Curley's this Tuesday, February 1, 2022, 7 pm at:
