Samuel Ace, I want to start by saying

 

I want to start by saying I hear the filter in the turtle tank like a fountain.

 

I want to start by saying like a fountain in the middle of a field of wildflowers.

 

I want to start by saying that today would have been my father’s 84^th birthday,
            that he died eighteen days before his 79^th.

 

I want to start by saying that he was young and that death took him by surprise.

 

I want to start by saying that my mother died nine months ago, less than four
            and a half years after my father.

 

I want to start by saying the beginning of this sentence.

 

I want to start by saying that a child could have been born in that time.

 

I want to start by saying that a whole year has gone by since my godchild’s birth.

And so begins the accumulative book-length poem by American poet Samuel Ace, the deeply intimate I want to start by saying (Cleveland ON: Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2024), a work composed from a central, repeating prompt. The structure is reminiscent of the echoes the late Noah Eli Gordon proffered, composing book-length suites of lyrics, each poem of which shared the same title—specifically Is That the Sound of a Piano Coming from Several Houses Down? (New York NY: Solid Objects, 2018) [see my review of such here] and The Source (New York NY: Futurepoem Books, 2011) [see my review of such here]—or, perhaps a better example, the late Saskatchewan poet John Newlove’s poem “Ride Off Any Horizon,” a poem that returned to that same central, repeated mantra (one he originally composed with the idea of removing, aiming to utilize as prompt-only, but then couldn’t remove once the poem was fleshed out). “I want to start by saying,” Ace writes, line after line after line, allowing that anchor to hold whatever swirling directions or digressions the text might offer, working through the effects that history, prejudice and grief has on the body and the heart. I want to start by saying articulates past racial violence in Cleveland, subdivisions, loss, “trans and queer geographics of family and home,” chronic illness, love and parenting, stretched across one hundred and fifty pages and into the hundreds of accumulated direct statements. Amid a particular poignant cluster, he writes: “I want to start by saying that I accepted the conditions of my father’s love.” There is something of the catch-all to Ace’s subject matter, the perpetually-begun allowing the narratives to move in near-infinite directions. As it is, the poem loops, layers and returns, offering narratives that are complicated, as is often the way of family, writing of love and of fear and of a grief that never truly goes away. Further, on his father: “I want to start by saying I was frightened to upset the balance of our connection.”

            I want to start by saying that I’ve been out of the house twice today.

 

            I want to start by saying that now I am sitting with a friend over coffee.
                        She mourns the loss of friends because she’s in love with someone who is trans.

 

            I want to start by saying the familiarity of so many stories.

 

            I want to start by saying that I mourn the rise of rivers, the smell of creosote,
                        the relief of summer monsoons.

And yet, through Ace’s perpetual sequence of beginnings, one might even compare this book-length poem to the late Alberta poet Robert Kroetsch’s conversations of the delay, delay, delay: his tantric approach to the long poem, always back to that central point; simultaneously moving perpetually outward and back to the beginning. “I want to start by saying the deep orange skies of the monsoon.” he writes, mid-way through the collection. “I want to start by saying we have returned to Tucson.” Set into an ongoingness, the lines and poems of Samuel Ace’s I want to start by saying is structured into clusters, allowing the book-length suite a rhythm that doesn’t overwhelm, but unfolds, one self-contained cluster at a time. His lines and layerings are deeply intimate, setting down a deeply felt moment of grace and contemplation. The book moves through the strands and layers of daily journal, writing of daily activity and thoughts as well as where he emerged; how those moments helped define his choices through the ability to reject small-mindeded prejudices. Through the threads of I want to start by saying, Samuel Ace may be articulating where he emerged, but all that he is not; all he has gained, has garnered, and all he has left behind. As he writes, early on:

I want to start by saying perfect in what world.

I want to start by saying desire.

 

essays in the face of uncertainties

“But to say that one is suspicious of absolutes,” writes Siri Hustvedt, in the introduction to her A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women: Essays on Art,Sex, and the Mind (2016), “is not the same as saying, for example, that the laws of physics do not theoretically apply to everything.” I am thinking about change and about progress, and about the straight line. I am thinking how not even a perfectly straight line is consistent, given it has still a beginning, a middle and an end. Each element can’t be mistaken for another. Even if we appear unchanged by the end of this period, we will remain changed. What intrigues me is in how those changes might manifest, from the largest to the smallest. Who might we become?

I watch as more than a couple of friends via social media express frustration with their situations, whether the opportunity for quiet solitude, or the frustration of missing out on being able to meet up with friends or family. Some have birthdays they are unable to attend to; others, deaths. There is no simple solution. A few days ago, I was invited to participate in a birthday greeting for American poet Samuel Ace, asked to send in a video of no more than thirty seconds in length. I had our young ladies participate, fully aware of how excited they would be, yet again, to sing happy birthday. With no disrespect to Samuel Ace, a fine human being and remarkably gifted poet, I should point out that our young ladies would sing happy birthday just as easily and enthusiastically to a rock or a goat or a pencil sharpener, I’d wager, as to a stranger via video over the internet. The only variance is that when Rose turns at the appropriate time to be reminded who it is she is singing for, so she can sing out their name. Happy birthday, dear… (“Samuel,” I whisper) … Samuel, happy birthday to you.

American writer John Pavlovitz’s May 4 blog post, “I Think You May Be Wasting Freedom,” responds directly to those of his fellow citizens’ protests against lock-down. It is hard to comprehend how there are those in any part of North America that would conflate a Black protester’s anti-police violence sign “Stop Shooting Us” with a white protester’s anti-lockdown slogan “I Want a Haircut,” and Pavlovitz has clearly had enough. And why are so many of the signs by anti-lockdown protestors continually misspelled? As Pavloviz writes:

You are interpreting your temporary and fleeting inconvenience as perpetual and inhumane persecution—that’s how soft and sad we’ve become, how small our battles now are, what we see as worthy causes.

I am thinking about letters, and the amount I’ve sent out into the world, and the few I’ve received in turn. I am thinking about the social media responses to my postcards, Stuart Ross and Alex Porco responding with slightly confused delight at the poems that appeared in their mailboxes. Porco, specifically, who couldn’t believe I had sent him a poem by William Bronk, one of his favourite poets. How did you know? he asked. I seen him post on Bronk some days earlier, and decided that sending him a copy of the Bronk postcard I had on hand seemed most obvious.

Perhaps, this too, an example of something that can only be seen from a distance.

 

essays in the face of uncertainties

 

Samuel Ace, Our Weather Our Sea

I met a man who was a woman who was a man who was a woman who was a man who met a woman who met her genes who tic’d the toe who was a man who x’d the x and xx’d the y I met a friend who preferred to pi than to 3 or 3.2 the infinite slide through the river of identitude a boat he did not want to sink who met a god who was a tiny space who was a shot who was a god who was a son who was a girl who was a tree I met a god who was a sign who was a mold who fermented a new species on the pier beneath the ropes of coral

I met a man who was a fume who was a man who was a ramp who was a peril who was a woman who carried the x and x’d the y the yy who xx’d the simple torch

I rest (the man who) a woman who tells the cold who preferred a wind who was a silo a chime who met a corner a fuel an aurora a hero a final sweep (“I MET A MAN”)

Because I am behind on everything, I am only now getting into American trans and genderqueer poet and sound artist Samuel Ace’s fourth full-length poetry title, Our Weather Our Sea (Black Radish Books, 2019). The poems in Our Weather Our Sea simultaneously exist as sequence, accumulation of lyric fragments and as a lengthy, single sentence. The book is sectioned into four—the opening prose poem, “An Ocean-Like Hush,” the accumulated suite-section of self-contained prose poem fragments, “I MET A MAN,” the call-and-response of lyric journal sketches, “HIS LETTERS WERE NOT LOSS,” and the seven extended prose poems that make up the final section, “THESE NIGHTS.” At the core of the collection is an engagement with body and gender and language, and the interplay between body and gender and language.

I came to deliciously corrupt

But so tempting so luscious so impossibly thick that so unattached so hung so strangled    but so taunted so vast so very sad that so pictured so styled so invited    but so ancient so familiar so clean that so breathless so desperate so spoken for but so seductive so labile diseased and dangerous that so marred so pocked so long    but so marred so pocked so long that so seductive so labile diseased and dangerous    but so breathless so desperate so spoken for that so ancient so familiar so clean    but so pictured so styled so invited that so taunted so vast so very sad    but so unattached so hung so strangled that so tempting so luscious so impossibly thick (“I MET A MAN”)

It’s easy to understand Samuel Ace’s engagement as a sound artist, given the importance of sound and cadence through the lyric on display here, one that sweeps and staggers and twists in wonderful ways. Perhaps these are poems meant to be heard aloud, finally. As well, beneath and through the lyric repetition and shifts of language come a sequence of engagements of daily life, from love and sex to friends, and even touching on daily activities and errands. As he writes as part of “January 9^th 5:01:55 AM,” in the third section: “Well enough the interpush   the putty / ass   the hot tub itch   the bearded / farts   poop on the rug   the concrete / crack   I’ve been singing for the lost / my spirit dog   my tao of days [.]” He writes on simple things, on complexities, and writes with sudden twists and breaks and turns. In a 2018 interview over at Touch the Donkey, Ace spoke specifically of three poems that appeared in the journal, that now also sit in the third section of this recent collection:

A: In “So here is a crib” and “Where are you hiding,” as in much of my recent work, I am interested in how language intersects with specific moments of daily life. The pieces are fugue-like, using repetition and other sonic/musical elements to create layers of meaning as the poems unfold. I believe that “The cells” does the same, in the context of the hidden and daily violence of incarceration, forced isolation and solitary confinement.

Ace writes of being able to openly and fluidly exist with certainty and principle, writing out possibility, and the possibility of change, and becoming. Ace writes of a softness and stillness as well as a violence, both figurative and literal, as he writes in the poem “Standing at a Desk of Cranberries,” from the final section in the collection:

I’m just like you   some dying   some grief   some scotch   my final please unhooked from fire and earrings   knees in the grass singing into the sorted dirt   my beach a tree pleading with the summer surf   walking or chased   a finned orange fish that sucks at my sleep   a morning trail in lavender musk   preacher mounds   a human fever   a corner room settled in blue plaid  a pot of red bowls   a curtain of frames   a pitted eye   a hill   a chimney   a pear

Touch the Donkey supplement: new interviews with Eckes, Cain, Spinosa, Ace, Good, Morrison, Cardon and Boisvert

Anticipating the release next week of the nineteenth issue of Touch the Donkey (a small poetry journal), why not check out the interviews that have appeared over the past few weeks with contributors to the eighteenth issue: Ryan Eckes, Stephen Cain, Dani Spinosa, Samuel Ace, Howie Good, Rusty Morrison, Allison Cardon and Jon Boisvert.

Interviews with contributors to the first seventeen issues (over one hundred interviews to date) remain online, including: Laura Theobald, Suzanne Wise, Sean Braune, Dale Smith, Valerie Coulton, Phil Hall, Sarah MacDonell, Janet Kaplan, Kyle Flemmer, Julia Polyck-O’Neill, A.M. O’Malley, Catriona Strang, Anthony Etherin, Claire Lacey ,Sacha Archer, Michael e. Casteels, Harold Abramowitz, Cindy Savett, Tessy Ward, Christine Stewart, David James Miller, Jonathan Ball, Cody-Rose Clevidence, mwpm, Andrew McEwan, Brynne Rebele-Henry, Joseph Mosconi, Douglas Barbour and Sheila Murphy, Oliver Cusimano, Sue Landers, Marthe Reed, Colin Smith, Nathaniel G. Moore, David Buuck, Kate Greenstreet, Kate Hargreaves, Shazia Hafiz Ramji, Erín Moure, Sarah Swan, Buck Downs, Kemeny Babineau, Ryan Murphy, Norma Cole, Lea Graham, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, Oana Avasilichioaei, Meredith Quartermain, Amanda Earl, Luke Kennard, Shane Rhodes, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Sarah Cook, François Turcot, Gregory Betts, Eric Schmaltz, Paul Zits, Laura Sims, Stephen Collis, Mary Kasimor, Billy Mavreas, damian lopes, Pete Smith, Sonnet L’Abbé, Katie L. Price, a rawlings, Suzanne Zelazo, Helen Hajnoczky, Kathryn MacLeod, Shannon Maguire, Sarah Mangold, Amish Trivedi, Lola Lemire Tostevin, Aaron Tucker, Kayla Czaga, Jason Christie, Jennifer Kronovet, Jordan Abel, Deborah Poe, Edward Smallfield, ryan fitzpatrick, Elizabeth Robinson, nathan dueck, Paige Taggart, Christine McNair, Stan Rogal, Jessica Smith, Nikki Sheppy, Kirsten Kaschock, Lise Downe, Lisa Jarnot, Chris Turnbull, Gary Barwin, Susan Briante, derek beaulieu, Megan Kaminski, Roland Prevost, Emily Ursuliak, j/j hastain, Catherine Wagner, Susanne Dyckman, Susan Holbrook, Julie Carr, David Peter Clark, Pearl Pirie, Eric Baus, Pattie McCarthy, Camille Martin and Gil McElroy.

The forthcoming nineteenth issue features new writing by: Michael Robins, Ken Hunt, Rob Manery, Rae Armantrout, robert majzels, Stephanie Strickland, Kate Siklosi and Marie Larson.

And of course, copies of the first eighteen issues are still very much available. Why not subscribe?

We even have our own Facebook group. It’s remarkably easy.

snow day (excerpts from a work-in-progress,

            Here is a system. Time pours from its mouth.

                        Lisa Robertson, The Weather

First thing this morning, Christine and I each receive an email regarding the cancellation of buses across the school board. The warmer temperatures bring the potential for freezing rain. We live too close to the school to take the bus; for the cancellations to affect us. I still bundle both children for the sake of our Rose, and another day of junior kindergarten. Neither cancelled, nor snow: what kind of snow day is that?

Anna Gurton-Wachter responds to my email. Monty Reid responds to my email. Nikki Sheppy responds to my email. Stephen Brockwell responds to my email. Neil Flowers responds to my email. Pearl Pirie responds to my email. David O’Meara responds to my email. Annick MacAskill responds to my email. Christine McNair responds to my email. Sarah Burgoyne responds to my email. Shazia Hafiz Ramji responds to my email. Christine McNair responds to my email. natalie hanna responds to my email. Christine McNair responds to my email. Christine McNair responds to my email. Christine McNair responds to my email. Christine McNair responds to my email.

Ian Williams responds to a photograph of my home office: “Don’t you feel perpetually overwhelmed?”

“I saw the photo of your writing desk and wanted to close the door.”

*

When I repeat a story, it is because I am close to learning something new about it.

The willingness to explore an already familiar terrain. Freezing rain.

Rose barely notices. Our toddler, Aoife, remains unimpressed. Fixed, in a grimace.

My father’s boyhood story of his overactive dog, losing a leg to machinery. My father’s boyhood story of his overactive three-legged dog.

The snow and the driveway and the entire fabric of nature. Out of memory, out of sight. I will not leave the house.

When I repeat a story. What might I have missed.

Reading Kate Greenstreet, I’m held by the integrity of her collage and coherence. “All our bones, and the mountains.” Rereading Rosmarie Waldrop, the linear abstracts of her Blindsight. I am attempting, yet again, to describe.

Snowmen, sizzle. A break in the tide. Are we meant to apologize.

For the weather, I mean. The snow. A Canadian stereotype. I’m sorry.

*

A year ago, I wove a lock of Emily Dickinson’s hair into a poem. In the Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College, a lock of her chestnut brown set under glass.

Mt. Holyoke, where Emily Dickinson was classmates with the Robertson sisters, far from their Glengarry County. Margaret Murray, who would go on to become a successful novelist, and Mary, called home by her father, for the sake of marriage. Mary, who became mother to novelist Ralph Connor, literary pseudonym of the Rev. Charles Gordon, who himself would become father and grandfather to novelists.

That I could write. That I could also write. As I am writing.

Sacred Emily. From Gertrude Stein’s 1913 notebook: “Foolish is foolish is.”

The first impulse with fresh snow: to make a mark upon it.

In an email, Samuel Ace writes: “Emily haunts the whole valley on that side of the river – from Amherst to South Hadley. There’s a specific New England interiority – brought on by the snow and the quiet of the woods – that I feel so strongly when I’m there. One has to scratch one’s way into being.”