When to break a line, Slushies. And why? What’s the shape your poem takes, and how does the poem’s form serve its complexities, subtleties, and heart? Three poems by Karl Meade are up for consideration in this episode of The Slush Pile, and they call the editors into conversation about trauma in literature, narrative (in)coherence as craft, and the pleasurable risks of stair-stepped stanzas. Poet L.J. Sysko joins the conversation on this episode of The Slush Pile as we discuss “Beach Fall,” “Christmas Break,” and “Doom Eager.” (If a tree falls in the woods, Slushies. ...
When to break a line, Slushies. And why? What’s the shape your poem takes, and how does the poem’s form serve its complexities, subtleties, and heart? Three poems by Karl Meade are up for consideration in this episode of The Slush Pile, and they call the editors into conversation about trauma in literature, narrative (in)coherence as craft, and the pleasurable risks of stair-stepped stanzas. Poet L.J. Sysko joins the conversation on this episode of The Slush Pile as we discuss “Beach Fall,” “Christmas Break,” and “Doom Eager.” (If a tree falls in the woods, Slushies. Ammiright?)
At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, L. J. Sysko, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, Alex J. Tunney
Karl Meade’s work been published in many literary magazines, a few of which he didn’t even donate heavily to, or previously serve as editor—including Literary Review of Canada, Tusculum Review, Arc Poetry Magazine, Grain Magazine, Chronogram, Umbrella Factory Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, Event Magazine, The Fiddlehead, Open Letter, Under the Sun, and Dandelion. His work has also been mistakenly longlisted for four CBC Literary Prizes, shortlisted for The Malahat Review’s Open Season Creative Nonfiction Award, and Arc Poetry Magazine’s Poem of the Year. His novel, Odd Jobs, written as a solemn literary manifesto, was a finalist for the Foreword Reviews Book of the Year for Humor, and an iTunes Top 20 Arts and Literature podcast—“Laugh Out Loud,” one listener said of this grave work.
Karl’s chapbook “Doom Eager” has just been released in September 2023 by Raven Chapbooks, just in time for us to publish this podcast, which has waited longer than it should for release!
Author website: www.karlmeade.com
Guest Editor: L.J. Sysko
L.J. Sysko's work has been published in Voicemail Poems, The Pinch, Ploughshares, Rattle, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. She is the author of a poetry chapbook, BATTLEDORE (Finishing Line Press, New Women's Voices series). Poetry honors include several Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg awards, two fellowships from Delaware's Division of the Arts, and poetry finalist recognition from The Fourth River, The Pinch, and Soundings East. Sysko holds an MFA in poetry from New England College.
X: @lj_sysko
Instagram: @lesliesysko
Facebook: @lesliesysko
Author website: http://www.ljsysko.com
beach fall
for Holli and Terry
Mountain to stone, prairie to sand, redwood to ash,
from here I can see the heart of the sea, but not the beach
he fell on. I can see the picture
window you sit in—waiting, watching the shore, iPad in lap, short-haired
Flossy at your side, the one who dug your dad’s
water bottle from under him. I don’t know why
you brought his suitcase to his wake
empty—what it was between you. Only he knew the words
you could not say. The doctors’ words for you—non-verbal, spectral—sent him
back to rage. He said they weren’t worth the hair
on a dead chicken, that aut-ism was just too much self for them to take
from you. He knew what his raging
love could do: four hours a night on the couch, talking
through your iPad. He called himself Manitoban, the prairie farm-boy
who watched his dog run away for three days, the rain-man
to lead you out, teach you how to mouth the O, the awe
in Holli. Yes, from here I can see the redwoods
fall, the mountains decay, his sea-bed—
they say all the big hearts of the earth
love where they fall, that his heart stopped
before he hit the beach. But we both know
why his mouth was full of sand.
Christmas break
for Doug and Arlene
The earth heaves, the ice cleaves. Erosion
cuts the heart from every stone, while every night
I watch you drive your family past a starving glacier, turn
from a truck laden with salt. You head off
the head on, take the bumper to the heart, leave
your family straining your lungs’ last
words from the floor of the minivan.
I’m on the floor beneath my desk, straining
to plug in the phone that I will blame for years: why
did I plug it in? Every night
I watch the driver’s stoned eyes, petrified as your broken
daughters in the back. Every night
I piece you all back together: brake, I say, turn
over and over while the glacier leaves
its terminal moraine. I gather the stones,
offer them to the moon, last witness
to your last turn. I turn
to your wife, try to face her head on
with what the earth knows:
core to crust, mouth to lung
the rupture comes, the rupture
stays. Every Christmas
she wakes to the words
brake, turn.
doom eager*
because one of us
took a spike to the lung
a minivan to the chest
hit the beach with his heart
to say nothing of the one
whose only breath was broken water
because I believe
the hand, the wound, the moon
is how I show you where I fell
through the hole I thought I was
diving for pearls through the green
fuse of ice in my dream of you
because I run naked
through the forest on a moonless night
with a penlight in the hand that broke
my mother’s heart waning at the seed
of light the moon won’t show me
because its dark side calls all of us
because I believe
I’ll find your heart in the east
your marrow in the moon
fever just before the sun rises
I’ll swim for it all day forgetting
how the earth turns east south west
circling all night forgetting
there is no moon
in the new moon
because the only way out
is my hand on your chest
I walk the shore all night
dream back the back of the moon
because the only cure
for the wound
is the wound
*after Ibsen, Graham, Moore: an Icelandic term for the isolation, restlessness, caughtness an artist experiences when sick with an idea
