How To Love The Empty Air by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
Thanks to Ava of Wunderkind PR, I am giving away one print copy of ‘How To Love The Empty Air’ by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz.
Description How To Love The Empty Air by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
Vulnerable, beautiful and ultimately life-affirming, Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz’s work reaches new heights in her revelatory seventh collection of poetry. Continuing in her tradition of engaging autobiographical work, How to Love the Empty Air explores what happens when the impossible becomes real―for better and for worse.
Aptowicz’s journey to find happiness and home in her ever-shifting world sees her struggling in cities throughout America. When her luck changes―in love and in life―she can’t help but “tell the sun / tell the fields / tell the huge Texas sky…. / tell myself again and again until I believe it.” However, the upward trajectory of this new life is rocked by the sudden death of the poet’s mother. In the year that follows, Aptowicz battles the silencing power of grief with intimate poems burnished by loss and a hard-won humor, capturing the dance that all newly grieving must do between everyday living and the desire “to elope with this grief, / who is not your enemy, / this grief who maybe now is your best friend. / This grief, who is your husband, / the thing you curl into every night, / falling asleep in its arms…”
As in her award-winning The Year of No Mistakes, Aptowicz counts her losses and her blessings, knowing how despite it all, life “ripples boundless, like electricity, like joy / like… laughter, irresistible and bright, / an impossible thing to contain.”
Poem From How To Love The Empty Air by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
“Somnolence”
In my dreams, I’m always trying to wake up.
Usually, it’s because I think I’m late for work.
Even now, when writing is my only job, and
I’m a very kind boss, this anxiety plagues me.
Sometimes I’ll get out of bed in the middle
of the night and rush to put on pants and shoes,
not noticing the darkness everywhere. In my dreams,
I’m always behind, always forgetting something,
always disappointing someone. But when I wake,
the world shifts: I know who I am and what I have
to do. This is maybe why I am a morning person.
How happy I am to wake in this life I call mine.
Praise How To Love The Empty Air by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
“Grief is one of the most impossible things to put words to…Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz does the impossible.”—Sarah Kay, author of No Matter the Wreckage
“Aptowicz is something of a legend in NYC’s slam poetry scene. She is lively thoughtful, and approachable, looking to engage the audience with her work and deeply committed to the community that art and slam poetry can create.”—Jo Reed, NEA
About Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz is the author of seven books of poetry, including The Year of No Mistakes, crowned the Book of the Year for Poetry by the Writers’ League of Texas. She is also the author of two books of nonfiction, most recently Dr Mütter’s Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine, which spent three months on the New York Times Best Seller List.
Recent awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the ArtsEDGE write-in-residency at the University of Pennsylvania and the Amy Clampitt Residency. When not on the road, she lives in Austin with her husband Ernest Cline, author of the New York Times bestselling Ready Player One.
Remembrance Of Things Present: Making Peace With Dementia by Peter Maeck
Publisher: Shanti Arts LLC (April 18, 2017) Category: Health, Alzheimer’s Disease, Dementia, Photography, Memoir, Poetry Tour dates: Aug-Oct, 2017 ISBN: 978-1941830802 Available in Print & ebook, 70 pages
Peter Maeck celebrates his father’s brave, good-humored struggle with Alzheimer’s Disease. With lyrical prose, rhyming verse, and his own photographs, Maeck traces his personal journey from resistance to acceptance of a loved one’s dementia, and suggests how the affliction can draw patients and caregivers together instead of driving them apart.
Maeck says, “As if to compensate for my father’s fading memory, my own memory became more acute. As Dad shed future considerations, I projected further ahead. Then I realized that all my forward and backward looking was pushing me away from my father; thus I had to meet him where he was increasingly living: in a constant present tense.”
As the book reveals:
Dad and I then moved from a prose relationship into one of poetry, less literal and more metaphorical, where we engaged more in rhyme than in reason, freezing time initially but then melting it and coming together in that lyrical realm between what had gone before and what was yet to be.
When presenting his story at TEDx events, Alzheimer’s Association gatherings, and mental health conferences in the U.S. and abroad, Maeck hears caregivers, familial and professional, confess their frustration, regret, despair, and even rage when dementia is diagnosed. Clearly, caregivers need and deserve care giving as much as their patients do. “Remembrance of Things Present” aims to comfort, console, and inspire persons with Alzheimer’s Disease and other forms of dementia, their loved ones, clinicians, researchers, and all whose lives dementia touches. As Maeck says, “If art can offer no more than symptomatic and palliative relief from the effects of Alzheimer’s Disease, that is no less than modern medicine has done to date. Ideally, art and science can work together to reduce dementia’s effects and ultimately reach a cure.”
My Thoughts Remembrance Of Things Present: Making Peace With Dementia by Peter Maeck
When I was in senior high school, my Grandma Elgia, my father’s mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. After the diagnosis, she deteriorated very fast. My aunt tried to care for her but it became too difficult and she was put in a nursing home. There were not as many options back then. It was a very long goodbye; she lived over 10 years after the diagnosis. My father use to tell me never to let him get that way, as if I would have any choice.
Several years ago my Aunt Marcie got it and then around 2004 my father was diagnosed with it. He passed in 2007 due to an unrelated illness. I think he would have been glad for that. The Alzheimer’s was just starting to get worse at that time.
Peter Maeck’s father also got diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, He wrote about his experience with his father during that time. After the introduction he writes of his experience in an extended lyrical narrative poem. I know that many people skip over introductions but I highly recommend you read it first. It gives a lot of important and interesting background information. It is not boring, I promise!
The poem it’s self is beautifully done. I am not a big fan of poetry but I breezed through it and enjoyed it very much. Maeck is also an award winning photographer and many beautiful and engaging photos are included in the book. I read the Kindle version and the photos don’t show up as well as I would have liked. I got the pdf so I could see the photos better. For that reason, I suggest that you buy the print version if your ereader only displays in black and white.
I am convinced that I will eventually have Alzheimer’s when I am older. I do hope I am wrong of course! Having witnessed its affects first hand, I found ‘Remembrance Of Things Present: Making Peace With Dementia’ by Peter Maeck a comfort. If you are looking for concrete answers, this book will not give you any. I found it more like a support. In fact, there are support groups popping up now a days for family members and caregivers and I think it would be a great book for members to read and discuss. Well written, well laid out, thought provoking, and comforting…For all those reasons, I highly recommend ‘Remembrance Of Things Present’.
5/5
View Peter Maeck on TEDx
Praise for Remembrance Of Things Present: Making Peace With Dementia by Peter Maeck
“I absolutely recommend this book. This book has touched me so much since my grandfather in his latter days suffered from dementia. The poems are so beautifully written and touching and I am so happy to see there is more awareness about this disease.”- Elizabeth M. Bokango, Amazon Reviewer
“I’ve had the privilege of attending Peter Maeck’s TEDx Talk about his father and Alzheimers Disease. His book ‘Remembrance of Things Present’ complements and beautifully illustrates his spoken prose and poetry on a difficult subject. He takes us on a lyrical journey from a relationship with his father through the confusing and anger filled diagnosis to a new place of acceptance of a disease that separates, yet bonds the two of them ultimately on a spiritual level. I recommend this book for all who have loved ones who may be facing similar circumstances. 5 stars for sure!”-Kristen Makita, Amazon Reviewer
“What a great little book! Moving, insightful photos integrated with passionate and creative poetry create a unique telling of the experience Peter Maeck had with his father’s journey through dementia. I had the opportunity to experience a live dramatic presentation of ‘Remembrance of Things Present’ by the author at a TEDx event. It was truly moving and entertaining. This book allows revisiting of that experience and creates a similar experience for others. Maeck demonstrates his unique combination of talents weaving photography and poetry into a book that everyone should read and reread.”-Amazon Reviewer
“Beautiful collection of photographs, poetry, and prose from an artist grappling with his changing relationship with his aging father, who has Alzeimer’s disease. From the first page, the author reaches beyond easy narratives we sometimes hear about aging – that life becomes simpler, for example. Instead, the author delves bravely into the grief he feels about his father’s dementia, and how their relationship changes as their memories take divergent paths. Ambivalence, hope, fear, confusion, anger, joy – Maeck approaches his feelings with extraordinary compassion, wisdom, and insight. Taught me to approach my own ambivalence about aging with more gentleness. The book, with its combination of text and images, is a moving and engaging read – highly recommended!! Will deepen your understanding of grief, aging, and dementia. A must read!”-Athena Torri, Amazon Reviewer
“I loved the all the layers in this book — pictures, narratives, confessions and inquiry. The author’s father is pictured, here swathed in a scarf as in a monk’s cowl, there stepping lightly with a walker, there standing and inhaling a harmonica. There are photos of children lost in reverie, and of old people at play. Women and men are on trains and beaches and at amusement parks. The accompanying text is a rich conversational musing, the author’s response to other authors and ideas – on aging, on art and poetry and relationships, and on what it can mean to grow older. The conversation concludes with a long tribute in rhymed tetrameter couplets, remarkable for it’s genuineness and poignancy. I expect to be looking at this book again and again.”- Daniel Chodos, Amazon Reviewer
About Peter Maeck
Peter Maeck is a multi award winning writer, photographer, speaker, and teacher. His plays and dance scenarios, including for Pilobolus and MOMIX Dance Theatres, have been produced in New York City, Europe, and Africa. Peter served as a U.S. State Department Cultural Specialist in Tanzania and Morocco. He has created sales and management training programs for corporations worldwide. His photographs have been exhibited in the United States and internationally.
Peter holds a B.A. in English magna cum laude from Dartmouth College and an M.F.A. in Playwriting from Brandeis University. He has presented “Remembrance of Things Present” as a TEDx Talk in the U.S. and abroad.
Giveaway Remembrance Of Things Present: Making Peace With Dementia by Peter Maeck
This giveawayis for the choice of one print or ebook. However, print is available to the U.S. only. This giveaway ends on October 31, 2017 at 12 midnight pacific time. Entries are accepted via Rafflecopter only.
Belle of Two Arbors by Paul Dimond and Poetry by Martha Buhr Grimes
Thanks to Serena M. Agusto-Cox of Poetic Book Tours, I am giving away one print copy of Belle of Two Arbors by Paul Dimond and Poetry by Martha Buhr Grimes.
Description of Belle of Two Arbors by Paul Dimond and Poetry by Martha Buhr Grimes
Born at the turn of the twentieth century in Glen Arbor, near the dunes of Northern Michigan, young Belle is the first child of a gruff stove works boss and a crippled mother who weaned Belle on the verse of Emily Dickenson. When a natural disaster results in her mother’s death and nearly takes the life of her younger brother Pip, Belle creates a fierce, almost ecstatic farewell song. Thus begins her journey to compose a perfect Goodbye to Mama.
At 21, Belle ventures south to Ann Arbor for university, with teenaged Pip in tow. There, she befriends Robert Frost, Ted Roethke and Wystan Auden and finds that her poetry stands alongside theirs, and even with that of her hero, Dickinson. Her lyrics capture the sounds, sights, and rhythms of the changing seasons in the northern forests, amidst the rolling dunes by the shores of the Great Lake.
Despite the peace she finds, Belle also struggles in both homes. Up north, she battles her father who thinks a woman can’t run the family business; and clashes against developers who would scar the natural landscape. In Ann Arbor, she challenges the status quo of academic pedants and chauvinists.
Belle’s narrative brings these two places to life in their historic context: a growing Midwestern town driven by a public university, striving for greatness; and a rural peninsula seeking prosperity while preserving its natural heritage. Through the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War II, and the Post-War Boom, Belle’s story is hard to put down. Her voice and songs will be even harder to forget.
Praise for Belle of Two Arbors by Paul Dimond and Poetry by Martha Buhr Grimes
“The Belle of Two Arbors is a beguiling story about a talented woman from the back of beyond who dares to establish her own identity. Capturing the upper reaches of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, Dimond creates a new American fable that, like the great novels of Willa Cather, both lacerates and heals: An ingenious feat of fictional biography.” –Theodore Rosengarten, National Book Award All God’s Children: The Life of Nate Shaw and MacArthur Fellow
“Paul Dimond’s Belle of Two Arbors is historical fiction at its most informative and engaging. Belle is poet, protectress, matriarch and muse, whether advocating for a more inclusive University in Ann Arbor or promoting the preservation of America’s premier national lakeshore in Glen Arbor. Fans of the poets Frost, Roethke, Auden and Dickinson are in for a treat: Belle weaves their histories in Michigan and the legacies of Dickinson and Frost in Amherst expertly with the fictional characters. A treasure of a read!” –Barbara Stark-Nemon, author of award-winning historical novel, Even in Darkness
“Dimond imagines the intertwined lives of literary giants in a saga as evocative as Faulkner, with plot lines as cracking as Hemingway’s short stories in Michigan’s northern woods. Belle’s bravery and artistic consciousness are an inspiration.” –John Dempsey, Chair Michigan Historical Commission and co-author Michigan Notable Book Award Ink Trails: Michigan’s Famous and Forgotten Authors
“In the company of Paul Dimond’s extraordinary Belle, we witness the turbulence of a rapidly changing America in the first half of the 20th century. In her roles as poet, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and conservation leader, Belle interacts with a well-realized cast of characters, both imagined and real, most notably the poet Robert Frost. In this full and searching ‘portrait of a lady,’ Dimond renders the opportunities and obstacles that shape Belle’s story in such a way as to remind us that her world is also ours in the making.” –Donald Sheehy, Ed. The Letters of Robert Frost. Vols. 1–2
Guest Post by Paul Dimond
A Sample of Belle’s Letters (and poems) to Frost
The historical novel The Belle of Two Arbors covers the years 1913 -1953 while the title character Belle ages from 13 to 53. She learned to love Emily Dickinson’s posthumously published poetry at her invalid mother’s knee. After her Mama dies in the opening scene in a tragic natural disaster, Belle continues to raise the 6-year-old brother she saved and to compose poems, often of her Lake Michigan and Sleeping Bear dunes, bay and shore. As private as Emily Dickinson but tethered to two safe Arbors (Glen up north and Ann downstate), Belle fledges to the University of Michigan. Over time, she meets and becomes a friend and colleague in composing poetry with three real-life poets, Frost, Roethke and Auden. As Belle leaves her two Arbors only a handful of times, their friendships deepen more with their regular correspondence than the poets’ fewer visits to her two arbors. As one example, consider a small sample of Belle’s letters to Frost.
Spring 1927. When younger brother Pip’s wife Rachel dies giving birth to a girl, Belle drives non-stop to Amherst to help. Frost and his wife Elinor take all three into their home in town for the rest of the semester. After Pip’s graduation, the family drives back to Ann Arbor. There, the 1927 Michigan Yearbook greets Belle. The cover is an embossed image of the 400-foot memorial tower Saarinen designed for Michigan’s late President Burton, who brought Frost to Michigan, became one of Frost’s closest friends, and for whom Frost gave the eulogy before 4000 mourners in 1925. Belle’s note:
Thanks to you and Mrs. Frost for taking Ruthie, Pip, and me in when we were most in need. I don’t know how we could ever express how much this meant to us. As a token of our gratitude, I hope the cover on the attached gift reminds you that Michigan will always welcome you. It may take quite a while before Burton’s proposed bell tower ever rings One-O to call you back. In the interim, please remember that Pip, Ruthie, and I will be at the front door of Cambridge House here and Belle Cottage up north to welcome you, Elinor and [your daughter] Marj into our two sheltering Arbors any time.
Spring 1931. Over the prior decade, Belle and Frost challenged each other to write proper elegies for their long-lost mothers. A Frost letter to Belle suggests that including his unpublished first try, “The Lovely Shall Be Choosers,” in his Collected Poems has just won him a second Pulitzer Prize: “This should relieve me from any obligation to write another “Goodbye to Mama”—at least for as long as you don’t finish yours!” Belle rises to his challenge and shares her third try in her reply:
I know you don’t really think the poem to your Mama Belle [his mother’s nickname was also Belle] made all the difference, but I do hear its sound better now. Your note mocking my style inspired me to sing my “Goodbye to Mama” at last. If it meets your challenge, I hope you’ll share any better goodbye to your mother you may hereafter compose. As ever, your younger Belle,
Goodbye to Mama
water below ice
spilling from our fishing hole—
sly silence—and then— one long lonely Crack!
our fishing shanty’s heaving sigh—
spinning silver shards—
brother ‘neath my arm—
her gloved hand waving toward shore:
Mama’s gray goodbye—
frozen arm flailing
reaching for life, pumping hard
through unforgiving gray shock—
now stroking steady
in peaceful rhythmic splendor:
lake lips caressing
the hills and valleys
of my cold suffering soul—
O! Blue Salvation…
Later that spring, at the first ceremony awarding Hopwood prizes for creative writers at Michigan, Frost concludes by honoring Belle for writing a better elegy for her mother.
Spring 1934. Frost shares several letters with Belle describing the slow death and painful loss of his youngest daughter Marj from infection incurred in giving birth to a healthy baby. In the text of the novel, Belle describes her reply: “All those who accused my Robbie of being so driven to defend his reputation and to campaign for his poetry as to forget—or worse not to care for—his family and friends missed the measure of this man. Yes, the poet too often bristled with sharp hackles, but the man fought his darker side to help his family and friends in the worst of times, as he’d helped Pip, Ruthie, and me. Even when railing against the sickness, scatteration, and death visited on his family, and suffering the loss of his youngest child, I knew he and Mrs. Frost would make room to care for Marj’s baby, Robin. And I told him so in my letter, thanking him again for all he’d done over the years and wishing him well in nurturing his new grandchild. I explained I enclosed a letter from Pip for [Frost’s son-in-law] sharing his experience as a widower raising a child. I closed:
I also enclose a poem I composed walking our dunes. Yes, I shed tears for your Marjorie and for you, but I also remembered your benediction at Rachel’s memorial service in Johnson Chapel. You reminded Pip he had to go on. A poet is who you are: you have promises to keep and miles to go before you sleep. Please give Robin a hug and hold her close: May she comfort and bless you, too.
Blue
(for Marjorie)
she stands alone
on this weathered dune,
the great lake below
twin to the azure sky—
on the jagged horizon
she can barely see
two tiny islands bob and
weave in the churning waves—
a cobalt wind hurls
slate clouds from the west
to blot out the sun and
buffet the sandy shore
with blue tears.
Fall 1937. Frost wrote Belle, “It’s been a rough fall. The doctors had to rip a vicious cancer from Elinor’s womanhood.” He closed his long letter by asking about a new poem he enclosed: “Although the critics will argue over its possible meanings as much as ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,’ let your old friend know if at long last I met your challenge to sing an adequate goodbye to my Mama Belle.” Belle replied:
My Dear Robbie,
I’m sorry about your Missus and pray for her recovery. I doubt you getting sick will help her rally: you must stay strong, for her and for your family.
Your “Silken Tent” sings beyond my challenge. Eons from now, the elegist will still say it as a memorial for a mother (or for a similarly selfless nurturing wife), but your critics will longer debate its many possible meanings. They miss the magic of your best poems: tied by the senses to daily experience on this earth, your voice soars by the pull of metaphor into a dream that sounds a different tune each time heard. I hear another in your perfect sonnet, a proposal to engage a lover that no woman could ever resist. In this regard your new poem tops the rush of “Blue Salvation” I included in my “Goodbye to Mama” at your urging.
Auden changed the final stanzas to one of his Marx Brothers satire plays and created a searing “Funeral Blues” for a lost mate. Without changing a single word, your new poem offers more divergent readings. Oh my Scots minstrel bard, please take care with your magic powers as they tripped me up once again.
In thanks, I attach a song to let you know that our dear Burton’s Memorial Bell Tower at long last rings at Michigan. As ever, Your other Belle
For Frost
Up the tower stairs I slowly climb,
Careful to stare straight ahead—
Past the stony walls I go,
Ascending higher, vertigo at bay,
Until I reach the chamber.
Searching, I stand among them—
Fifty-five majestic bells of bronze—
Where is the one among the many
that rang those many years ago
when we walked this way at midnight?
Were we falling with the snow?
The carillonneur knows its place,
Secures me in a southwest corner,
Strikes this special bell for me
Whose timbre is so deep and low
You must listen closely for its groan.
I touch its base, feel its solid rumble:
Oh, yes! The Bourdon! One-O!
About Paul Dimond
Since birth Paul Dimond has shared his time between Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan, and Glen Arbor amidst Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in northern Michigan.
Prior to researching and writing The Belle of Two Arbors, Paul Dimond served as the Director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, tried several major race case that divided the U.S. Supreme Court and served as the Special Assistant to President Clinton for Economic Policy. He has also practiced law, chaired a national real estate firm and continues to spend his time between the two Arbors. He is an alumni of Amherst College and the University of Michigan Law School. Visit his Website.
Giveaway of Belle of Two Arbors by Paul Dimond and Poetry by Martha Buhr Grimes
This giveaway is open to the U.S. only and ends on June 16, 2017 midnight pacific time. Entries are accepted via Rafflecopter only.
How To Love The Empty Air by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
How To Love The Empty Air by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
Belle of Two Arbors by Paul Dimond and Poetry by Martha Buhr Grimes
