In Search of Poets and the Owner of a Dog Photo
The State of the Paper
Welcome to the month of September, when things are changing, crossing between summer and fall. When life and weather and activities are thrown up into the air and come crashing down on top of your still blissfully summer dreamy vacation brain. Unlike my promise in August’s edition I have not finished my novel/novella. I have made some middling, though not disheartening progress with it. My attention has been somewhat split between a new short story I have been piecing together and trying my hand at poetry (more on that in a second). Also very excited to announce that the Paper’s secret project #1 was just released. If you haven’t seen it they are bookmarks made from 100% Philly trash. Check out the PTP instagram for a full video on how they are made.
That’s enough self promotion for now, September’s issue is packed with questions about poetry, a missing owner of a photo, the next Claude-by-Cheese, and as always Ruth’s Book Corner. Please enjoy the Paper, and I appreciate everyone’s support.
-Niall
Am I a Poet
Maybe a year ago, I pontificated on the fact that I finally felt and, in some fashion, acknowledged myself as a writer. This being a near life-long chase of the elusive title, one where I internally grappled with what it means to be one who writes. Now that I reached my quota of SAT words to validate my writer’s title, we can move on. My acknowledgment of my writing status has more to do with the view point on authorship and the publishing industry shifting and decoupling. This is all to say I find myself in a strange new territory as of late.
My relationship with poetry is an odd one, I’ll say. It never clicked well with me in school and it wasn’t until I saw the sick ass cover of Mary Oliver’s Dream Work, that I even wanted to purchase a book of poems. I marched myself all the way to two bookstores to track it down. To say I instantly fell in love would be an overstatement. I was determined to vibe it out and guess what? If you’re determined to like something enough you’re gonna like it. It does help that the thing in question is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s collection. So after a moving 90 pages, I felt no closer to understanding poetry but I could say I liked it and I loved the imagery that Oliver employed.
After reading a scattered few of Mary Oliver’s works, I received Louise Gluck’s entire collected work for Christmas. This hearty 900 page behemoth was the first step into poetry as a broader concept outside of the walls of Mary Oliver. It led me to contemporary Irish poetry and started my examination of the function of wording and structure in my own work.
This influence has gone so far as for me to attempt my own poetry. It feels like fumbling in the dark and with the thought that you look foolish the whole time. That’s at least how it felt for me the first time I wrote poetry. It’s a vulnerable thing to know you are not good at something even though you feel good about your ability to write as a whole. Nonetheless there were times where attempting poetry was the only way I felt I could get across the feeling of something I had experienced. I even published a few here for you all to read. Probably the second most surprising thing to me in all of this was that I was getting to a point where I couldn’t delude myself into thinking I was writing bad poetry.
Thus you find me so. Caught in the weird realization that I fit my own definition of what a poet is. If anyone else said all that to myself that I just did, I would have to say “you’re a poet…and you don’t even know it, but your feet show it, cause they are Long-fellows.” (Thank you Steve Casey for that one).
MISSING: Owner of a dog’s polaroid
Found, a single polaroid of a Boston Terrier. Left propped against the brickwork corner of Mt. Vernon and 21st. The dog is smiling, its attention captured by something else. It is a striking side profile that is sure to be missed by the owner. If you have any information regarding this polaroid’s owner, please write in.
Claude-by-Cheese Vol. 6
The captain screamed some choice words into the fury of the storm. They were ones I hadn’t heard before, and that is saying something because I considered myself somewhat of an expert of the sailing tongue. Once more she unleashed her volley of swears as waves crested the side of the ship and threatened to sweep us away into the frothing white water. Somewhat belatedly I realized that the curses were directed towards me.
“What?”
I shouted over the roar of the wind, my paws gripped around a rope taught with sail. They were icy with terror, painfully so, as I strangled the coarse cords with all of my strength. The captain made some frantic movements that were mostly obscured by the sheets of rain. In return I made a shrugging motion with my shoulders as the crew scampered and pinwheeled around me. They tied and pulled and lashed against the force of nature that bore down on us.
The captain gave up her movements and quickly leaped from the quarter deck. She slammed down only a length from me, sending scared crew mates hurrying away from us. She closed the gap in an instance and tugged me free of my grip, shaking me by the sopping lapels of my jacket.
“The Ten Furries to you and your unmarked town. You have sent us down the poisoned deep and I will split your fur for it!”
“I swear the passage will be at the Salmon Head peninsula I identified. We just haven’t found it yet!”
The words I spoke were lacking in conviction, as in this moment it really did seem like a pipe dream I was chasing. When we had set out, the captain, introduced to me as Milkweed, was full of cheery optimism that we would find this passage way I was looking for. That had all evaporated when the storm rolled in from out of nowhere. Her face, proud with the prominent ears of a white-footed mouse, clouded over into something dark and angry, turbulent against the brown and grey of her fur. It had all happened so fast that I had remained rooted to the same spot I found myself in now.
“There is no Salmon Head, it doesn’t exist in this storm.”
That was true, there was no way to spot it unless our keel was practically right up on it. She shook me some more and my next words spluttered feebly against the pelting rain.
“We just have to keep trying, we have to keep going!”
“I am not going to risk life and tail to get you to some magical cheese town!”
I had to fight down the urge to correct her rant, it would do no one any good to be stuck on semantics at a time like this. Instead I gritted my teeth and prepared to defend the continuation of our search. A shout from above cut me short and halted our fight.
“PORT SIDE!”
Captain Milkweed and I were at the port side rail, both straining our eyes to see what the lookout had spotted. Out of the wind and the rain a craggy tree strewn head of a salmon jutted forth from the water.
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
Milkweed did not pause to answer, her rain slick legs springing her into action.
“Pull hard to starboard! Every paw on deck, we need to steer us away from the shore! ALL PAWS ON DECK!”
She was sprinting and bellowing orders to an already frantically moving crew. I ran after her, far unsteadier on the rain slick boards.
“No, we have to get closer! What are you doing, that’s Salmon Head!”
I flung the words at the trailing navy blue of Milkweeds captain’s coat. She did not hesitate for a moment, making directly for the wheel. I again shouted a plea to her as I scrambled up the quarter decks stairs.
“This is the way to Claude-by-Cheese, we can’t turn away from it now!”
She had the wheel and was leveraging her entire body mass against it, trying to turn her ship hard to the right. Her eyes glowed a fierce black with determination as she wrestled against the river.
“We are going to be chewed by rocks if we don’t turn now. Let me do my job!”
Seeing and feeling the creak of protesting wood turning to obey its captain, my goal seemed to be snuffed out right before my very eyes. With sudden unknowable anger and fear, I launched myself at the wheel. Milkweed was surprised by this and not ready to have someone yanking the spoked wood from out of her grasp. The ship groaned a loud protest as I spun us the other way.
“What are you doing?”
Milkweed had recovered and was now battering my side as well as trying to wrestle the wheel back. I clung on for all I was worth.
“A quarter turn is a quarter wheel, and a salmon-headed peninsula is a brown bear’s meal!”
I roared the explanation, my voice cracking with slight hysteria as we wrestled over control of the ship.
“Give it up! You are going to get us all killed!”
Milkweed screamed and I just laughed back at her. I couldn’t be turned from the course, not when I was so close. As if nature would not let me have the last laugh, a lightning bolt split the sky and struck our mast. Milkweed loosened her grip for a moment, horror leeching across her face. I yanked at the wheel, my paws nervous with adrenaline and in that instant I felt that this crazy tail-chasing journey might have an end to it. Also, in that instant, we crashed.
Ruth’s Book Corner
Daniel Mason’s North Woods was a stand out favorite of my reads in 2024. The story telling was wrapped in this lovely New England nature imagery. It was just what my little mouse heart desired. I can’t sing its praises enough. The reason I bring Daniel Mason up is because his newest book Country People was released on July 1st of this year. So of course I dove right in with glee.
Country People follows a family moving from California to Vermont for the wife’s new visiting professorship role at a prestigious university. The husband is 12 years late on his PhD in Russian folktales, and provides the narrative drive of the book as he struggles to find his place in this new life all the way across the country. He rambles and gets distracted, delighted by new stories and twists that the small town throws his way. Thus the story meanders exploring these new exciting tidbits the husband finds fascinating. From the therapeutic threshing of wheat with a scythe to a secret society bent on finding the existence of a tunnel system that will lead them to a city at the center of the earth. This is all interspersed with a local radio program called the Miscellaneous Minute. If this all sounds interesting enough to you dear reader, just wait for the best part. It’s funny, witty, and guaranteed to make you chuckle if you are anything like me.
Like North Woods, Daniel Mason (or his team) hired a team of excellent narrators for the audiobook. It adds a lovely dimension that enhances the overall experience of this book. While the rambling nature of it all might not be everyone’s favorite, I still would recommend a read or listen. The book is supremely charming in a way that makes my whiskers shake with mirth. ‘Til next time dear readers.
-Ruth