What I’m Reading Now

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THE OCEAN CANNOT BE BLUE, POEMS by Kirsten Hampton. Turning Point, 2019, www.turningpointbooks.com.

Detail from “One Drop” Rule

If there is         one

emerald         anchovy

darting in         the water

the ocean        cannot be blue

— Kirsten Hampton, The Ocean Cannot Be Blue

In truth, I read this book a while back — within days of a lovely afternoon tea when the author signed a copy and gifted it to me. This morning I’m rereading and appreciating the poems again for their agile wisdom, complexity, and artistry.

The Ocean Cannot Be Blue is comprised of 49 poems, some of which are in numbered parts that could stand alone, some of which are letters from the historic court case, Loving v. Virginia (1967), in which the Supreme Court ruled that laws banning interracial marriage violate the 14th amendment. With this story as its spine, the book offers a lens into history, but also into the poet’s own marriage, and to all the ways families weave themselves together. One poem is about a whale displayed in the Caroline County Visitor Center (“Excavated 1991, 14 million years old”), and, later, these lines: “She is a case closed, / then reopened, / in a quarry — / of chance find” where excavating a whale suddenly speaks to the precedent found to reopen the Loving case. One poem is a 2-page lexicon delineating the 1960s. How does it all work together? One word that comes to mind is an artist’s word: chiaroscuro. Dark and light dance together throughout this compelling collection. On a beach walk, “the sleeve of sunset” leads to these lines, running down the center of the page, like vertebrae:

Then darkness

then darkness

reveals

how seeing

outward

becomes the same

as looking

within

The poems and the stories unfold in layers. Water is another theme running all the way through the book, from the gorgeous cover art and the title of the collection to beaches, rivers, the Chesapeake bay, blood, watercolor paintings. In one poem, “Portrait” — “Backwash, sea rise, tidal range, / groundwater” — the poem overflows with salt water that reshape a continent as human events reshape a country.

And this poem:

Women of the Chesapeake

for Mildred Loving

Each heart
an estuary
aorta and vein
riverine channels
cells and platelets
circulate
as though drum
and stripers
saltwater churns with fresh
in beat with the inlet sea

Now the chambers
of my heart
fill more slowly
rise
with systolic tide
your body
lies low
in the aquifer
memory of you
runs in the watershed

— Kirsten Hampton, The Ocean Cannot Be Blue

If I hadn’t already pushed toward violating copyright laws, I would include “Letter To My Daughters” which makes crystal clear the ways the Loving story and other threads — particularly her artist mother — illuminate the poet’s life.

By the way, you can find five more poems by Kirsten Hampton at Beltway Poetry Quarterly.

I don’t feel I have done the book justice, so I’ll end by saying simply that I wasn’t merely impressed by it, didn’t merely marvel at its amazing composition, I really loved it, and recommend it to you.

photo by B Reid

Sleeping Lessons, a chapbook by J. I. Kleinberg

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SLEEPING LESSONS: A POEM IN PARTS, J. I. Kleinberg. Milk & Cake Press, 2025.

If you find yourself awake in the night, fretting over political mayhem, have I got a book for you.

Twenty numbered parts. Twenty first lines: She taught me how to sleep –

A Dickinsonian cascade of variations on a theme.

Instructions for falling asleep: “string  / the stars hung overhead,” “listen for the sea,” “name the gemstones  / in the sky behind my lids,”  “memorize a poem of breath / each molecule of air a wing / upon my tongue.”

Descriptions of a “she” who is part mother; part ghost; part earth, our home hung spinning in space: “her sweater pressed against / my cheek, the blanket satin / frayed by dreams.”

Kleinberg is also an artist (see her blog featuring her word art, chocolate is a verb). Each line is compressed, every word weighed and weighted, and the effect overall – hypnotic.

iv.

She taught me how to sleep –
explained that I could savor
slumber’s flavor as it settled
on my tongue, each grain
of sweet a recipe devised
by bees, who understand
the dance of flight, the taste
of work, the tidy hexagram
of night.

– J. I. Kleinberg

Sleeping Lessons is a delight. Ideas for dreams, and maybe for your next chapbook on a theme.

You can find the book at Milk & Cake, and via either of Kleinberg’s websites, chocolate is a verb or The Poetry Department.

Plum Blossom Wine

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PLUM BLOSSOM WINE, Poems by Li Qingzhao, trans. by Sibyl James and Kang Xuepei (Empty Bowl Press, 2024).

I had a hectic week, but this morning—with no where to go, no errands, no doctor appointments—I decided to read a book of poems. I cheated, perhaps, by picking up a small book.

But, oh my. Mostly I am here to tell you how exquisite and inspiring I found this “small” —only 30 poems, printed in a 7 X 5 inch format—but powerful book, produced by Empty Bowl Press. The original Chinese of the poems written by Li Qingzhao, a Song dynasty poet (1084-1151) faces the English translation by Sibyl James and Kang Xuepei. I don’t read Chinese, and have, really, not a clue about it, but there’s something about seeing (and almost feeling) the weight of the original characters that deepens the experience.

I remember the January day when I picked this up, from a book display at Book Tree in Kirkland. Despite my resolution to buy fewer books, I couldn’t resist it. (Just look at that cover!)

James and Xuepei explain in the introduction how in their partnership they tried to honor the original spareness and artistry of the poems. They do a brilliant job. They add titles to the poems, but preserve the poet’s habit of naming the song each poem honors. (Alas, the music is lost.)

Their introduction also succeeds in briefly sketching for us the life of Li Qingzhao, a rare woman poet of her time, lucky enough to be educated, and to have married a husband (also a poet) who valued her voice. When exiled during a time of war, she lost almost everything, including her husband. Her poetry persists. Even writing of despair, her lines sing.

Just to Console Myself

To the tune of “Washing by the Stream”

Healed again, but my temples suddenly gray.
From bed, I watch the thinning moon
climb my screen, drink cups of cardamom
steeped like tea.

Good to lie reading in bed, loving
the look of rain outside my door.
All day beside me one consoling friend,
Osmanthus, the sweet olive.

—Li Qingzhao

It was a lucky way to spend my time.

Kang Xuepei is a Chinese translator with three other books. Sibyl James is a Seattle native, though she lived and worked in China for a year; this is her fourteenth book (or fifteenth?). You can learn more about Plum Blossom Wine at its page at Empty Bowl Press.

Apple blossoms from my morning walk

A Couple of New Things

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Thanks to a submission push I did last fall, I have a new piece up at Afterimages, which is definitely a substack  you want to check out. Click on this link to go directly to “Photographic Evidence of My Mother’s Childhood.”

And I have a new book review, posted today, at Escape Into Life.

Bird Ornaments by Angel T. Dionne

There was such a great turnout for the reading at Edmonds Bookshop last night — and I came away with renewed friendships and new books. Really glad I made the effort to be there. Really grateful to my daughter Emma for having dinner with her dad.

More soon,

Bethany