Monday, December 28, 2020 - From our poetry archives: Mervyn Taylor’s “Things I Can’t Throw Away,” from Issue No. 2 - Autumn 2017.
There are two times of the year when I love Mervyn Taylor’s poem, “Things I Can’t Throw Away,” the most. The first is in the late spring, when the weather is getting warmer and the first embers of summer air can be felt, which brings forth the natural impulse of spring cleaning –––– throwing out the old and thus, making room for the new.
The other time of the year is around this week (between Christmas and New Years), as well as over the next few weeks –––– after the excitement leading up to Christmas has elapsed, and before the speed and activity of a new year have returned once more.
I love the poem for its intricate detailed descriptions of the items that Taylor considers throwing away; for instance: “The key my daughter made / with my initials her first stay at sleepaway camp.” And also for its forthright approach to describing one facet of New Yorkers’ relationships with their living spaces: our apartments only have so much room; and we can’t keep everything forever. Even so, we can and often do end up keep things around for a while –––– and in echoing Taylor’s poem, that “a while” often becomes a lot longer than we’ve ever planned. Enjoy Taylor’s poem below; and also note, his newest collection of poems, Country of Warm Snow, was released earlier this year, and is available for purchase through his website.
_________________
THINGS I CAN’T THROW AWAY
Mervyn Taylor
Like the garlanded Buddha,
a gift from a fortune-telling mom
who came to class on parents’ night.
The key my daughter made
with my initials her first stay
at sleepaway camp.
The red shoes with elastic across
the instep that pained like the dickens
after a few hours’ wearing.
A diseased plant that refuses to die,
or get well. It sits in a quarantined
corner of the kitchen.
Cards from a mysterious ‘Fifi,’
signed with puckered lips, whose
husband has since passed away.
A Jet centerfold, featuring
an old girlfriend on board a yacht,
somewhere in the Bahamas. And
a simultaneous painting, ripped
across a cloudy moon, done by
four stoned artists around a table.
Twice a year, I declare these things
dead, junk, clutter. I line them up
by the door. Then they beg, and I
put them back, the house squaring
itself and sighing, my new loves
finding space among the old.
Saturday, December 26, 2020 - From our poetry archives: “I’ll Follow You” - Jason Koo
Jason Koo’s “I’ll Follow You,” captures the sweet languor felt within the first few hours of the morning light; as a beloved begins readying for the day, and eventually, walking out the door. I like this one as a companion piece for the languor that accompanies Boxing Day: having the balance of an entire year resting within the rearview mirror, while also enjoying the quiet and peace of the week leading up to New Year’s Day ––– it is sweet.
________________________________
I’LL FOLLOW YOU
It is sweet to kiss the ear of your kitty
as he sleeps. Sweet to pull the high-top sneakers
off your girlfriend’s feet as she sleeps.
Sweet to discover she is not completely asleep
by the way she lifts her second foot a little
to make the untying easier. Sweet to wake up
to the sound of her silence in the bathroom
as she readies herself for work, touching up her face
as gently as your kitty laps water from his bowl.
At these times you don’t question anything,
what is love, whether you’re working hard
enough, whether you’re not missing something
somewhere else. Life couldn’t be elsewhere.
She comes to kiss you goodbye and rests her head
on your chest for a moment, so sweet to pretend
you’re asleep through this, sweet to listen to her
walk out your door remembering to lock it,
sweet through the hall, sweet through the second
door, through the gate, the sweet of the latch,
sweet imagining the singular sounds she makes
as she moves through the rest of her day.
So sweet you don’t ask how to reconcile all this
with what sweetness you feel alone after she leaves.
Friday, December 25, 2020. by Jordan Myers
Happy holidays to and from our city. Even with the quiet and surreal shadows and echoes that fell across New York this year, still, something happens when you walk the streets here. You don’t have to stay for long; once it gets inside of you, you can carry it with you for all of your life, if you want. Neither a promise nor a pledge, not even a vow. Just whispers of the imagination, rooting themselves within you —- memories of future timelines / resting in peace beside you, weaving dreams of past lives together with a now that’s still sleeping / however deeply / and however soundly / you’ll allow.
Thursday, December 24, 2020 - “Home for the Holidays” (1995). by Jordan Myers
Home for the Holidays goes a lot farther than its title would suggest. Not to be mistaken for a Lifetime or Hallmark seasonal family comedy, Jodie Foster’s sophomore effort as a director carries artistic chops, the likes of which are lifted by its cast ––– most notably, Holly Hunter, Robert Downey Jr. and Dylan McDermott.
Claudia Larsen (Hunter) works in art restoration at a gallery in Chicago –––– even if only for the film’s first five minutes. Few plot devices can set a film in motion with the same blend of energy, fear, and freedom as being let go, and such is the case here. Claudia responds by booking a flight to her parents’ house for Thanksgiving, thus sending her home . . . for the holidays. Her brother, Tommy (Downey Jr.), makes a surprise visit as well, bringing along a friend who may or may not be his new paramour, Leo Fish (McDermott).
This is what happens in seasonal family films: at least once or twice, connections between family members have to unravel to a near-breaking point, and then –––– just before it appears that all is lost –––– ravel back together again, all the while making everyone stronger and more resilient as a result. Home for the Holidays does this at least once, but only kind of.
Its strength lies less in the raveling or unraveling of connections, but more so in the overall climate that’s created by the interwoven lives of the three Larson siblings, Claudio, Tommy, and their sister Joanne (Cynthia Stevenson), who, when enraged, walks slowly and deliberately on a stair-master, which is the same machine she uses to bring to a head an altercation with Claudia by offering, “Do you mind? This is the only thing that I do all day that I like.”
The question of whether Claudia and Leo will form a bond strong enough to keep them together across a fifteen hundred mile distance (Leo might be living in Montana, but it’s unclear ––– he travels a lot!) is alluring enough. Two or three of the film’s strongest moments take place after everyone else has either gone to bed, or have busied themselves with other tasks, and it’s just Leo and Claudia in the frame, charming one another. In one such moment, while wrapped within the euphoric calm of a night that follows a day filled with boisterous family gatherings, Leo, standing outside Claudia’s door, asks her to be brave. It’s a beautiful, quiet, and spellbinding scene; you won’t be able to look away.
Wednesday, December 23, 2020 - Postcards from New York: Eighth Avenue (between West 34th & 35th). by Jordan Myers
Sunday, December 6th, 2020 was clear and bright, and on an impulse that morning I went walking down Eighth Avenue. I didn’t have a destination in mind; though I thought I might end up at the Strand. Ten months into Manhattan’s pandemic rhythm, I was still struck by the quiet of the streets here. Though more and more, I’m forgetting what this place felt like before this past March. I was drawn to this view because the buildings in the distance felt so far away; as though even crossing the street wouldn’t bring them any closer –––– they were too high up there; they were too close to the sky. I imagined the views from the windows facing Eighth Avenue; what the people who looked out at the city form inside those rooms and hallways and stairwells might see and feel. A city already at rest ––– sleeping in, and sleeping even more soundly on a quiet and sunny Sunday morning.
Monday, December 21, 2020 - It’s not loud; you can hear it without listening / closely. by Jordan Myers
The snow is thawing here.
You can hear the drip-drop
from the melting in the
courtyard below. It sounds
like rain. You don’t have to
listen very closely. It’s not loud;
you can hear it without listening
closely. It’s steady; it’s slow.
The snow is thawing here.
Sunday, December 20, 2020 - City facades: Hudson Yards, as seen from West 41st Street. by Jordan Myers
The smoke stacks from the skyscrapers that make up Hudson Yards blended with the grey clouds that stretched over Manhattan this afternoon, the city’s last day before the 2020/21 Winter Solstice. The blue glass held strong and still amongst the orange construction barriers and lines, which stood beneath the yellow lights, barely visible before the arrival of the night’s sky. And the cranes ––– tall and slender –––– as cranes are apt to do, lifted steel, lifted glass, and lifted concrete / forever upwards / and always closer and closer / toward the sky.
Saturday, December 19, 2020 - City facades: East 47th & Vanderbilt. by Jordan Myers
An intuitive impulse guided me to pull the color from this photo; which is a shot I captured earlier today, while walking around Midtown Manhattan. East 47th & Vanderbilt is a neighborhood where I’ve never spent time under purely social circumstances, or for curiosity’s sake. Instead, I’ve only walked these streets when heading to and from Grand Central Station.
Typically it’s a district that’s heavily peopled with men and women in business attire –––– wielding briefcases; speaking into cell phones; and jumping into and out of taxis ––– though like much of Manhattan (as well as the city in general these days (and this year)), there were more shadows and signs of former-hurriedness than actual hurriedness.
This gap in the skyline, as seen from the ground felt massive; as though a piece of the city had been pulled out and set aside for cleaning and repair. The change, of course, would only be temporary. I don’t know what buildings were here before; nor do I know, as of the writing of this post, what structure is being built here now. Something gigantic I’m sure. Commercial office space or a building of similar ilk, which is at once a lore from the past, as well as ––– perhaps, a stalwart for the future. We shall see, what will become of East 47th & Vanderbilt.
Thursday, December 17, 2020 - City facades: Lower Manhattan, as seen from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. by Jordan Myers
Here’s a view that anyone with a camera (or a camera phone) who has ever found themselves walking the Brooklyn Heights Promenade has tried on for size ––––– at least once.
I took this photo a little over three weeks ago, the afternoon before Thanksgiving, November 25th, 2020, as I was walking around Brooklyn Heights and Dumbo, and waiting for the word on my car, which I had left with New Xcell. One thing that living in a version New York, which has been buried and sacked by this virus over the last nine months has brought is the ability to see even familiar sights in a new light.
What’s a tourist trap if there are no tourists? And what’s to make of obligatory photo locales like this one; places that once attracted thousands of selfies each day, which have evolved ––– even if only for a little while, to the forlorn and the quiet; with the city for the first time in quite some time, taking a breather, and catching its breath.
Wednesday, December 16, 2020 - C.Q. - No. 8 - 2020
Hunkered down this evening amongst the snowstorm; chipping away at Issue No. 8 - 2020.
Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - City facades: Williamsburg’s Havemeyer & South 2nd. by Jordan Myers
I was sitting inside Blue Collar burger waiting for a veggie burger and french fries; and also waiting for tomorrow’s snowstorm, which I knew was aways away. First would come today’s lunch, followed by tomorrow’s snow. This afternoon in Williamsburg was the calm before the storm; and in this regard, it did not disappoint. Clear blue skies. The temperature n the mid-to-high thirties. And a humidity in the air that –––– despite the cold –––– felt a bit like a July afternoon.
Although tomorrow’s snow wasn’t in sight, it’s approach could be felt all the same. As I was sitting inside Blue Collar for a while, and waiting, the sight of the two red buildings in the first panel of this triptych caught my eye. It wasn’t just that they were boarded up, but even more so, the fresh look of the paint on these two buildings ––– fire engine red and basking in the glow of the mid-afternoon sun. Who knows how long their window frames had been boarded up for? Since November’s election? Since the protests broke out in May? Since Covid’s arrival in March? Or even before?
One thing I learned this year, more than any other, is the fallacy of time. With enough research and investigation ––––– knocking on the right doors, and making a few phone calls here and there –––– eventually, I could find out when, and why, these windows were boarded up. Then from there, I could go down the list: Time. Date. And rationale –––– check. But what would this solve? And who would it serve? The photographs speak of Tuesday, December 15, 2020 at 2:02pm. Any added facts would just be that, facts. They wouldn’t take anything away from these photographs; though they wouldn’t add anything either.
Sunday, December 13, 2020 - Thought Experiments. by Jordan Myers
Try imagining a city, any place, any place, or any city, without a deadly virus. See if you can feel the pulse of the city. See if it has life, examine its meaning. It has meaning. Now try the same thing -––– the same imaginative output –––– with a city, any place, or any city, that does have a deadly virus ––– one that’s spreading and comes in waves and in surges, first, second, and third and who knows how many more. See if it has life, examine its meaning. It has meaning.
Compare the first imaginative space to the second. What’s different about the two and what do the two have in common? Now take the deadly virus completely out of the frame. It’s not that it’s not in the second imaginative space (the second city), but that it never existed at all –––– that it was never a concept or an idea that could actually be conceived of by the mind and then articulated through language.
This is called the the third imaginative space, the third thought experiment –––– not the absence of the deadly virus but the the absence of its absence; a presence that never was. Now take New York City. Take Eighth Avenue or Third Avenue if you prefer. The east side or the west side. Or the Upper West Side or the Upper East Side. Or Lower Manhattan or Upper Manhattan. Or Midtown Manhattan. Or Brooklyn.
Take any one of the five boroughs and pick any one of the neighborhoods within the five boroughs and superimpose the three aforementioned imaginative spaces on any one of the street corners of the neighborhood of choice. Is it night or is it day? Is there sunshine or is there rain? Is it windy? And what day of the week is it? A weekend or a weekday? Is it a holiday and if so, which holiday?
Pinpoint the expression on the face of the woman exiting the subway station at the northwest corner of the intersection you’ve chosen. She’s wearing a forest green rain jacket and grey denims and black flats and she’s in a hurry –– walking quickly. She’s in a rush and in a matter of moments she’ll be ordering a double espresso cappuccino from a fancy bodega around the corner.
If you were wondering about the day of the week understand that it’s Thursday. And if you’re wondering why she’s in a hurry and whether there’s a virus spreading or not understand that she thinks she’s running late but she’s actually quite early –––– the person she’s going to meet has been delayed, for a while. He’ll be late. She’ll be early. She doesn’t know this. You do.
There’s a cadence and a rhythm to her thoughts as she’s waiting for her cappuccino. She’s going over her lines and thinking through her thoughts. Putting words to her decisions; rationalizing her rationalizations. Applying logic to logic.
The man she’s meeting doesn’t want to be late but it’s ten minutes until he’s supposed to be there and the train is still stalled in the station and as he looks down at his watch again he understands in that moment that without question he will, indeed, be late. Already he’s actual late. He won’t be there on time.
Superimpose any one of the imaginative realities upon the scenario described herein; and watch as the tide washes over and between and throughout each of them. Look, watch –––– notice how the city can hold each of these realities, equally. See how the city can hold them all the same. The city can hold them. They’re held by the city. The city is holding them.
Thursday, December 2020 - Reflecting on the three weeks remaining in 2020.
With less than three weeks between this evening and New Year’s Day all I can think about is January 1, 2020 ––––– well before whispers and murmurs of Covid-19 had fully-infiltrated New York’s collective consciousness. I stayed in the last New Year’s eve of the teens, December 31, 2019 –––– the decade after the Aughts and before the Roaring Twenties, take two.
So much had happened from 2010 through the very end of 2019, my first full decade as an adult; and the first time I witnessed ten years slip by while forming experiences and memories that I could fully comprehend and reflect upon. The Nineties carried me through age four through fourteen; and the Aughts pulled be across the bridge over age fourteen through twenty-four; but the tens (the teens): when I travelled from age twenty-four to thirty-four –––– those were the first ten years that I was all-in for.
Mostly what I remember about New Year’s Eve last year is a feeling of wonder –––– the absence of knowing. Knowing that I wanted Curlew Quarterly to continue and grow; knowing that I wanted to remain in New York –––– and to get to improve upon my ability to actually enjoy the city’s rhythm and energy; and knowing that I had grown, evolved and matured over the last ten years; though otherwise, not know much else about what the next ten years would hold.
I just kept thinking, “‘2020’, how is this even possible, can that date even be real?” I remember when Y2K was a thing! Not to mention B2K. I remember having a conversation with a friend while in middle school about the year 2010 –––– a year that felt as though it existed in a far away land, where it was resting just before the cusp of the abyss. Now that abyss is ten years long gone. And in three weeks’ time, the same can and will be said for this year.
What happened this year? Who was I? What became of this city? How does anyone decide what to write about when so much has happened and is happening all at once If New York became a ghost town this year, then these ghosts, my god, they’ve had so much to say. So much.
Wednesday, December 9, 2020 - Brooklyn Poets’ Annual Awards Gala: December 14, 2020 @ 7:00pm.
No other organization has been as integral to the vision and success of Curlew Quarterly as Brooklyn Poets. All the way back in October of 2016, I first heard the organization’s founder and executive director, Jason Koo, read his poem, “Morning Motherfucker,” which served as an important catalyst for the creation of our journal.
At the close of each year, Brooklyn Poets hosts an awards ceremony, wherein winners of poem of the month (crowned at monthly Yawp open mics) compete for the honor of poem of the year. Moreover, the distinct honor of Yawper of the Year is awarded to one poet who has not only created work that shows particular merit, but also, has embodied compassion and diligence in nurturing the work of fellow-poets within and beyond the organization’s ever-growing poetry community. This year’s gala is online via Zoom, registration details can be found here. We’d love to see you there.
