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FLUORESCENCE
Poems by Jennifer K Dick
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Originally from Iowa City, Jennifer K. Dick, author of Fluorescence (U of GA Press, 2004 winner of the Contemporary Poetry Series), holds a BA from Mount Holyoke College, an MFA from Colorado State and a DEA from Paris III: la Sorbonne Nouvelle where she is a doctoral candidate in Comparative Literature. New work appears in Aufgabe, Diner, The Canary, The Colorado Review, Green Mountains Review, and Tears in the Fence (UK). She also had poems included in the anthologies Short Fuse edited by Philip Norton and Todd Swift (Ratapallax Press, 2002), 100 Poets Against War, edited by Todd Swift (Salt Press, 2003) and the forthcoming anthology, In the Criminal's Cabinet (Oct 2004) edited by Val Stevenson. Previous editor of Upstairs at Duroc, Jennifer K Dick lives in Paris where she organizes readings, mailings of reading events and works at the Université de Marne la Vallée and Oxbridge Summer Programs abroad. She will be reading in the USA in fall 2004. (email: fragment78@aol.com)
COMMENTS ON FLUORESCENCE
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Of Fluorescence, Carol Snow said: Jennifer Dick's painterly use of repeated motif is masterful, expressive, quite extraordinary. 'What isn't to be trusted is translated': Dick's translations delineate danger - imminent and experienced - particularly beautifully. Fluorescence includes a variety of poetic approaches; throughout, one feels the poet's intelligent presence and a moving 'hope to verify.' -- Carol Snow, author of Artist and Model and For.
Laura Mullen said: Jennifer Dick's Fluorescence is moving. Both emotionally engaging and in motion to match the realities of our moment, her poems are accountable to the truths of a violent kaleidoscope world. Terrorism and suicide are part of this landscape, but this poet is equally dedicated to an understanding of the internal tensions of the lyric voice and the human heart. 'The dream [is] already morphosing,' where our loves and lives are broken into shifting fragments and echoes, 're-returned' under threat of erasure. Her gift is to have found in the shards a new language with the energy and beauty of a Delaunay composition: her poems lift up into light all we cherish, all we should most fear to lose. -- Laura Mullen, author of The Surface, Tales of Horror and After I Was Dead.
Outside judge, Cole Swensen, remarked: The project underlying this collection is precision, and Jennifer Dick carries it out beautifully, always keeping her language as sharp and explorative as her questioning. A strong, beautiful book throughout. -- Cole Swenson, author of Goest, Noon, Try, Such Rich Hour, etc.
Reading the book is like watching film footage of an explosion at a railway station in reverse; we begin with language in diaspora-words scattered across the page, across consciousness, across the political map-and we arrive, curiously, at a reconstituted world of forms. It is the literary progression from trauma toward understanding; and readers, in the end, will be left with the timely and ethical understanding that words are 'abbreviations for what is in their hands.' -- Srikanth Reddy, author of Facts for Visitors: Poems
FALL 2004 READING SCHEDULE
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jmcleod@ugapress.uga.edu (John McLeod) Press Packets, book orders for readings events, and publicity liaison for Julie Carr and Jennifer K. Dick.
10 Oct: Sunday at 11:30am, Mary Baine Cambell (campbell@brandeis.edu) & Jennifer K Dick (fragment78@aol.com) read in Worcester at Poetry Oasis for the Diner Magazine series. Poetry Oasis series at Tatnuck Booksellers on Chandler St in Worcester--the reading is in the Foundry Room. www.spokenword.to/diner. Organized by Eve Rifkin. seavoice@mac.com or greenpoet@greenpoet.com
13 Oct: Wednesday at 7pm. Julie Carr (Carrjuli@aol.com) and Jennifer K Dick read at Odyssey Bookstore in South Hadley, MA across from Mount Holyoke College. www.odysseybooks.com. organizer, Joan
14 Oct: Thursday at 7pm. (PLEASE NOTICE THE CHANGE OF VENUE!) You are invited to a reading of poetry by Julie Carr and Jennifer K. Dick on Thursday, October 14, 7pm. Julie and Jen will be reading from their new books just out from The University of Georgia Press' Contemporary Poetry Series. Both books were chosen for the series by Cole Swensen. The reading will take place at the Greater Boston Buddhist Cultural Center at 950 Massachusetts Avenue. Refreshments will be served. Please come help us celebrate these first books!
15 Oct: Friday at 7pm. Julie Carr and Jennifer K Dick open the monthly series at Arts + Literature Laboratory at all gallery in New Haven: www.allgallery.org New Haven, CT. Organized by Suzanne Heyd: sheyd@snet.net
16 Oct: Saturday, 2pm. The Bowery Poetry Club in NYC (308 Bowery Street, by Bleeker and Houston) invites Julie Carr, Jennifer K Dick & Michelle Noteboom (michelle.noteboom@free.fr) to read preceding the Segue Series. Entry $7. (info: 212-614-0505 or www.bowerypoetry.com) Organiser Bob Holman: holman@bowerypoetry.com
19 Oct: Tuesday at 8pm in NYC release reading for Aufgabe #4: at Bar Reis , 375 5th Ave (between 5th & 6th streets), Brooklyn, NY, (F, M, R to 4th Ave/9th St.) Tel: 718-832-5716. Sawako Nakayasu (sawako@factorial.org) will read (bilingually) from her selection of Japanese poetry in translation, Jennifer K Dick, Michelle Noteboom Jeffrey Jullich, Susan Landers, Jill Magi, Ted Mathys, Chris Martin, Trey Sager, Africa Wayne will also give short readings from the new issue of Aufgabe magazine. Organizer: E Tracy Grinnell: etgrinn@earthlink.net
20 Oct: Wednesday at 6:30pm at Jefferson Market Library. Ethan Gilsdorf, Michelle Noteboom, Julie Carr and Jennifer K. Dick are invited to read by Ratapallax magazine and Press. See for more info/bios and photos: http://www.nypl.org/branch/local/man/jmr.cfm or http://www.rattapallax.com/reading_102004.htm Organized by Ram Devineni, editor: devineni@rattapallax.com
24 Oct: Sunday at 7pm, Michelle Noteboom and Jennifer K. Dick read in Washington DC at Bridge Street Books, 2814 Pennsylvania Ave NW (at M St NW). http://www.dcpoetry.com/bridgestreet.htm Organized by Rod Smith.
28 Oct: Thursday at 7:30pm: Jennifer K. Dick, Bruce Meyer, and Sue Chenette read at the Hart House Library, Hart House, University of Toronto, 7 Hart House Circle, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H3.
29 Oct: Friday at 7pm. Jennifer K Dick, Sue Chenette & Elizabeth Glenny read at the Niagara Gallery A charming-looking frame house in the Niagara Falls area. (Check it out at www.NiagaraGallery.ca) Phone: 905 892 3111 Email: niagaragallery@niagaragallery.ca NG location: 1948 HWY 20, RR1 Fonthill, Ontario, LOS 1 E6 (Hwy20 at the 406 and accross from the drive-in theatre).
2 Nov: Election Day Tuesday: 7pm, Prairie Lights Books in Iowa City, IA will see Julie Carr & Jennifer K Dick read from their books, followed by a big family and friends gathering with judge, poet Cole Swensen, who selected these works for publication. To be broadcast live on WSUI Radio 910 am. www.prairielights.com and www.prarielightsbooks.com Organized by Jan Weissmiller: jan@prairielights.com
7 Nov: Sunday at 7, Jennifer K Dick & Shin Yu Pai (shinyu32@hotmail.com) read in Wicker Park for Chuck Stebelton's series at 1564 N. Milwaukee, Chicago, IL. Listed on: http://www.myopicbookstore.com/poetry.html Organized by Chuck Stebelton: eyeple@earthlink.net
11 Nov: Thursday at 7pm, following afternoon visit to Deanna Ludwin's E210 Intro to lit course. Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO invites alum Jennifer K Dick to read and chat with MFA students and her old faculty. Organizer: Judea Franck: jdfranck@lamar.colostate.edu
15 Nov: Monday at 7pm. Jennifer K Dick and Steve Meyers read at Johnson College in Durango, CO. Event sponsor/place TBC.
16 Nov. Jennifer K Dick reads in Los Angeles, CA at the Valley Poetry Project at the Cobalt Café with a LA poet, followed by an open mic.
19-20 Nov: Friday & Saturday, all day--Irvine, CA. Conference "Diasporic Avant-Gardes" will hear Jennifer K Dick talk on the works of Myung Mi Kim and Claude Royet Journoud. A TON of folks will be reading and talking at this 2-day conference organized by Barret Watten and Carrie Nolan. Hear also Jean-Jacques Poucel's chat on Jacques Roubaud, Lyn Hejinian read, etc! http://www.hri.uci.edu/Diasporic_Avant-Gardes/Program.htm
21 Nov: Sunday at 7:30: New Brutalism Series, 21 Grand St. in Oakland, CA, Julie Carr & Trane Devore (trane@berkeley.edu) read. Listed on: http://www.21grand.org/calendar.html Organized by Cynthia Sailers: cynth265@yahoo.com
1 Dec: Wednesday at 7:30 Jennifer Dick and Julie Carr read at DIESEL, 5433 College Ave Oakland CA, 94618 You can also go to www.dieselbookstore.com for more info! dieselevents@yahoo.com (organizer: Hannah Cox)
2 Dec: Thursday at OPEN BOOKS: A Poem Emporium, 2414 N. 45TH St. in Seattle, WA (206) 633-0811 Julie Carr and Jennifer K Dick read from their new books, Fluorescence and Mead: An Epithalamion, available through University of Georgia Press (1-800-266-5842), small press distribution, amazon, etc.
5 Dec: Sunday at 7:30 Jennifer K Dick and LA poet Bill Marsh (b-theater@factoryschool.org 8 Dec: Wednesday at 8pm. Jennifer K Dick will read w/Los Angeles writer Judith Pacht at the Ugly Mug Caffe in Orange, CA. Organizer: Steve Ramirez (SJRamirez@kbhome.com) Ugly Mug Caffé, 261 North Glassell (1.5 blocks north of the Orange Circle), Orange, California Tel: (909) 322-5123. Website: poetryidiots.com
Dec: Stephen-Paul Martin, Bill Marsh and Jennifer K Dick read for the Poetry Guild series. Date still TBC, but following the 8 Dec event. Organizer: Bill Marsh (b-theater@factoryschool.org )
POEMS
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As in, beginnings
The small girl knows the staircase leads. A bed of lilies sleeping pink and yellow in their green pads doesn't alert her to the wall-blur, the set of amber stairs up then around, as where he and she followed long Oudaïa cliffs to higher out at sea views silent by glass-shards at the turret door. She couldn't open over the blue. Rope knotted, gnarled, gripping something like her chin. She kicks the rip in the wall, day less certain than the harbor. Her wide eyes in the shadow of the 4 x 4, the box of billiard balls at her side rolling. The sound is a splotch of plaster behind her orange tunic as she watches the sealed in, the sealing that counts, the tea-stained white-wash where up round he leads closer into the have-come-dry mid-afternoon like arid suns over Rabat in the trails down undering. The shutters chipped leaving paper, papering his thumb up near where she, poised, leads, is led, following here, it's the blur of, like foliage marking a stain where rubbed, she, up turning down into, knows the set of tides of wavelets letting out by the palms, the ferns, the tabled café overviewing the sealine leaning. Then farther, is, as in, beginnings, as in turning towards or backwards, stumbling intos or on and on and on upwards.
In the Garden
She comes into vanishing words. Scintillating, rounding the hollow vowels she whispers against to re-evoke peaceful views. Forgetting eaves, she scavenges in her throat. Turns her back in sleep, closes the vast plains like musk. Herself mixing with his. Forgets the body. Language before in that other breast, bending, flower blooming against his breath. Her distaste, body sweat, wants the first apple rounding smooth as a poison icicle. She mouths the rotund, opening mouth over him, eyes trying her childhood. Great barriers against salt. Her ejaculation returning to Eve. Before the woman's palm, to taste of it.
She feels very small
Everyone stops to watch.
As they make love furniture appears in the room. Floodwaters, muddy, rush past town. She is fascinated by the cherry-apple-sized insect and takes a bite of it. In the tunnel, two innocent women. Snow. A sense of beauty, of peace. A children's choir sings in the courtyard while her mother is in the kitchen cooking a feast. There is a woman rocking outside on the lawn. Everyone in the town sits on the wall. No one is on the benches. The town is a Chinese ink print. On the underside of the arched bridge a tank, mist, jungle, bamboo. When it sinks its fangs into her forearm she raises the arm to stare in its eyes. Its transparent wings form a large, clear bubble around its body. She laughs, doubtful.
In the tunnel, two enemies. The short girl frowns.
Shutters
What isn't to be trusted is translated. The sly eye, the blue clown-nose, the green in the back or under confetti. He confesses it was some sort of adoration. He doesn't say 'love' or 'take me swimming.' Though the park is in the lagoon, ferns splitting ear hairs by his muzzle. She nuzzles close, a third his size. Then maybe elsewhere. Something in his gaze transparent. Oil-slick bubble blue-pink shimmer. Glitter-striped cap, and a bag of muffins in the kitchen. A honeycomb buzzing by the pastel to flee. Tarpaulin scratched a tight net over the scene. Somewhere keening. She preens in the hold-back opening crowd. His hand steadies. Falters. It is the click snapping. The nap of numbers. The way language means. Signals.
Anti-dote.
If she was doted, if she was a small girl, if the bottle were not white or large or set up on the shelf. As if there were no Sunday strollers, kids swaying on the street, windows sucked closed with a pop. If there were not things to go, places to do over in the corner or niche of. But she is forgetting, back down one by one the stares uncertain now in the fuchsia lolling over the balcony, in the palm of her bottling over and over against. To antagonize: unlatch, catch, pour over the waiting glass of 'Larger', 'Smaller' now, something in the awaiting. Her anxious needles.
