He Doesn’t Know, poem by Patrick T. Reardon (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

HE DOESN’T KNOW
by Patrick T. Reardon

A jolly good reason to run the world.
A serious religion.
A curious leaden feeling.

If you only tried.

SOURCE: “A Terrible Tragedy” by Patrick T. Reardon (Chicago Tribune: July 9, 1999).

PHOTO: John Keegan by Jerry Bauer.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I cheated here. I used an interview I did in 1999 with the great military historian John Keegan, who died in 2012. I was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune then, and you can find the story I wrote here. I didn’t go back to my notes of that interview, but only used the quotes that are actually in the story. Taken by themselves, they made a pretty interesting commentary on war, but that was too literal for my taste, so I did a lot of carving. I liked blossoming the ideas out.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Patrick T. Reardon‘s poetry has appeared in a wide variety of publications, including Westigan Review and Rhino. His essays have run in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, National Catholic Reporter, U.S. Catholic, and, in Ireland, in Reality magazine. He is the author of five books, including Catholic and Starting Out, and has contributed chapters to six others.  He is writing a history of the Chicago Loop and has lectured at the Chicago History Museum. For nearly thirty-three years, he was a reporter at the Chicago Tribune.  His website is patricktreardon.com.

A Certain Sanity, poem by J.S. Watts (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

A CERTAIN SANITY
by J.S. Watts

Is that coffee fresh enough?
Pour some of the coffee out of the other cup
A little sugar’s the Sicilian way
You don’t know these things yet
But there’s a difference
It’s necessary to do it. Why I am here, and why I started
The difference between the actor and the painter
an opportunity to have an audience.
You can’t know it sometimes just by reading it
it’s a good time to fall in love
like Icarus flying close to the sun,
going a little closer and closer, knowing
as soon as he gets close those wings
are going to get burned.
These are the seeds,
whatever this dream is that we’re in right now
You’ve been touched
being able to touch it and understand it,
the stage is really like a magnet.
And you come back and the rhythms have changed
letting in more light and seeing where that goes
a certain sanity
a kind of enigma
you know what I see? Survivors.
people who have endured and come through

SOURCE: Al Pacino interview by Julian Schnabel in Interview magazine (February 1991).

PHOTO: Al Pacino by Brigitte Lacombe, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I suspect I have secretly been in love with Al Pacino for some time. I am fascinated by the contrasts of the man: the private man and the worldwide celebrity, the subtle actor and the outrageous ham, a love of the stage and totally at home in films and, of course, the wide range of contrasting characters he has chosen to play.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  J.S.Watts is a British writer, the author of Cats and Other Myths (Lapwing Publications), Songs of Steelyard Sue (Lapwing Publications), and A Darker Moon, a novel of literary fiction and dark psychological fantasy (Vagabondage Press). Her poetry, short stories and book reviews appear in variety of publications in Britain, Canada, Australia, and the U.S.,  and have been broadcast on BBC and Independent Radio. J.S. has been Poetry Reviews Editor for Open Wide Magazine and Poetry Editor for Ethereal Tales.  Visit her at jswatts.co.uk.

You Think?, poem by Laurie Kolp (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

YOU THINK?
by Laurie Kolp

taste yourself golden,
a privilege of being that:

          between human and
                              orangutan

feed the dog,
eat cake

          but don’t play with me

SOURCE:  Betty White interview, Huffington Post (June 12, 2012).

PHOTO: Betty White by Chris Pizzello, AP, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I was inspired to look up an interview on Betty White after seeing yet another hoax that she had “dyed” peacefully in her home (they left out the hair part). Anyway, my mom and I used to watch The Golden Girls reruns while she was bedridden just before her death.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Laurie Kolp is an award-winning poet with more than three dozen publications worldwide, including the 2015 Poet’s Market and Diane Lockward’s The Crafty Poet. Laurie’s first full-length poetry collection, Upon the Blue Couch, was published by Winter Goose Publishing in 2014 and is available on Amazon. Learn more about Laurie at lauriekolp.com.

Power Strip, poem by Fay Roberts (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

POWER STRIP
by Fay Roberts

SOURCE: “Interview with Burlesque Dancer Dita Von Teese,” pagedaily.com (Sept. 2014).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: “Power Strip” isn’t a simple erasure – it’s a combination erasure and concrete poem taken from an interview with burlesque artist Dita Von Teese. I had the idea of an erasure forming a shape, and realised that an obvious one would be the outline of a body. Rather than this being a subjectifying image, I wanted to celebrate the female form, and how better than with the words of a powerful female burlesque artist? True burlesque is about power and celebration rather than dressing-up or titillation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Fay Roberts is a peripatetic percussive performance poet by night and a professional projector by day.  She runs the Cambridge branch of the Hammer & Tongue slam series, and her own poetry label Allographic (which functions as a small press and a platform for performers), along with hosting critically-acclaimed Fringe show “Other Voices Spoken Word Cabaret.” Visit her at fayroberts.co.uk.

Photo of Fay Roberts © Louise Frohock, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 

Attached to, poem by Patrick T. Reardon (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

Attached to
By Patrick T. Reardon

A piece of land like a fable in paradise

SOURCE: Isabelle Huppert interview, timeout.com.

IMAGE: Isabelle Huppert at 2009 Venice Film Festival by Nicolas Genin.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I love watching Isabelle Huppert, the great French actress. So I grabbed a recent interview of her — only to find it filled with a lot of facts and very little oomph. Nonetheless, there were a few phrases that fell together and gave also gave me a title.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Patrick T. Reardon, a Chicagoan born and bred, is a former scholar-in-residence at the Newberry Library.

After Marlon’s Interview, poem by Barbara Eknoian (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

AFTER MARLON’S INTERVIEW
by Barbara Eknoian

This was not my last sight of him
that evening.
But at 2 in the morning
cabarets are shuttered;
only cats remained to keep me company
and drunks and red-light ladies.
I had trudged more than a mile
to the main street district
of stores and cinemas.
Then I saw Brando
sixty feet tall.
There he was, in comic paper colors,
on a sign above a theatre
that advertised “The Teahouse
of the August Moon.”
Rather Buddhalike, too,
his pose depicted in a squatting position,
a serene smile on a face
that glistened in the rain
and the light of a street lamp.
A deity, but, more than that,
a young man sitting
on a pile of candy.

SOURCE: “The Duke in His Domain” by Truman Capote, The New Yorker (November 9, 1957).

PHOTO: Marlon Brando by Philippe Halsman (1950), ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Barbara Eknoian‘s work has appeared in Pearl, Chiron Review, RE)VERB, and Silver Birch Press’s Silver, Green, and Summer anthologies, and Cadence Collective on line. She has received two Pushcart Prize nominations and is a member of Donna Hilbert’s poetry workshop in Long Beach, California. Her first young adult novel Chances Are: A Jersey Girl Comes of Age, and her poetry book Why I Miss New Jersey are available at Amazon. She is currently working on a generational novel.

Smack in the Middle, poem by E. Kristin Anderson (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

Smack in the Middle
by E. Kristin Anderson

Irreverent, your star has
this year found out.

Pitch perfect, as ever, you sleep,
so many panicked things,
not supposed to be rocking rules.

I know you think there’s a girl –
everyone’s the smallest one.

SOURCE: “That Girl” (interview with Anna Kendrick) by Laura Ferrara, Glamour (August 2014, pages 168-173). Photos from the interview at models.com.

PHOTO: Anna Kendrick by Dan Martensen, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: E. Kristin Anderson‘s first nonfiction anthology, Dear Teen Me, based on the popular website of the same name, was published in October of 2012 by Zest Books (distributed by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). She’s worked at The New Yorker magazine, has a B.A. in Classics from Connecticut College, and is currently an online editor for the YA & Children’s section of VCFA’s literary journal Hunger Mountain and a contributing editor at Found Poetry Review. She’s published poetry in many magazines worldwide, including Post Road, the Cimarron Review, [PANK], Asimov’s Science Fiction and forthcoming work in Cicada. She also has poems forthcoming in the Silver Birch Press Great Gatsby Anthology. Her first chapbook, A Guide for the Practical Abductee, was just released by Red Bird Chapbooks, and her next chapbook, A Jab of Deep Urgency, is forthcoming in October from Finishing Line Press. Her work also appears in Futuredaze, an anthology of YA fiction and poetry, and in Coin Opera 2, an anthology of poetry about video games. She blogs at EKristinAnderson.com.

Cornered the niche, poem by Claire Trévien (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

Cornered the niche
by Claire Trévien 

Do you have to be the witch
          or the queen tomorrow?

Mrs Lovett, Bellatrix, Miss Havisham.
          Different textures, different temperatures,

you always start from the inside out:
          reinvent a corseted
                                        wow.

You want to have fun with
          self-definition; your houses
a reluctant vampire that
          never really wanted to grow up.

They think they have
          got you sussed,
                    but you’ve got plenty of room
                    for stubbornness, darling.

SOURCE: Helena Bonham Carter interview by Daniel Radcliffe , Interview magazine (May 2012).

PHOTO: Helena Bonham Carter by Peter Lindbergh, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I adore Helena Bonham Carter and the confidence and flair she brings to every part, as well as her gloriously and defiantly dishevelled appearances on red carpets. She is everything I want to be when I (fail to) grow up.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Claire Trévien is the Anglo-Breton author of Low-Tide Lottery (Salt, 2011) and The Shipwrecked House (Penned in the Margins, 2013), which was longlisted in the Guardian First Book Awards. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Best British Poetry 2012, The Forward Book of Poetry 2014, Magma, and The Guardian.  She edits Sabotage Reviews and the forthcoming anthology Other Countries: Contemporary Poets Rewiring History.

A Weapon of a Girl, poem by Roxanna Bennett (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

A WEAPON OF A GIRL
by Roxanna Bennett

Could I be crazy, amazing? My twisted
confessional is not slander if followed
by a question mark. I’m sick of saying
it’s crazy that I’m crazy, I’m a girl.

If I could just find someone who looked
at me like I’m a girl. Like a girl they want
because they don’t know me, I’m crazy.
Because of guys who write and say they want

to chain me up in their basements I have no
social life. It’s crazy, being scared in the middle
of a conversation on a bus, in the mall, or
an airport bathroom at four in the morning.

If I could find someone who just looked at me
like I’m a girl. Like a girl they want to be.
It’s crazy that I’m thought of as a weapon,
I’m a girl. The cartoon character most people

see me as is crazy, a rumour of a girl.
I never had a conscious decision to be
crazy, my actual life has no shocking
angles, my actual dimensions are not

crazy. I’m a girl. I need love everywhere.
If I could just find a guy who wants
to know the girl, the actual never girl,
like, a guy who wants to know stories

of who I was before this, and things that
didn’t happen on an awards show—
it isn’t true that I’m a rumour of a girl.
I’m a weapon of loss, loneliness,

sadness in a song. I told my mother:
do not complain about this life.
It’s crazy, amazing. You don’t know me,
I just look grown up. I’m a girl. Why

would you obsess over guys, they don’t
like it. Or me. Because I’m crazy. Just
a girl they never know. It’s ludicrous
to love a girl. They can’t have me.

SOURCE: “Taylor Swift’s Telltale Heart” by Nancy Jo Sales, Vanity Fair (April 2013).

PHOTO: Taylor Swift (Vanity Fair, April 2013).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I am not Taylor Swift’s target audience and have heard little of her music, but, even so, have been aware of the way she’s perceived as being “boy crazy,” which is a stupid thing for anyone to say about anyone. Reading this interview, I was struck by how many times the word “crazy” was used and what that must mean to a young woman who really is working very hard and trying to have a life inside of a fishbowl. And how terrifying it is that because so many men have threatened to chain her up in their basements, who have tried to break into her apartment, who want to use her and hurt her, this woman they have never met, that she has to have a 24-hour security detail, is actually crazy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Roxanna Bennett is a Canadian writer whose nonfiction and poetry have been published in numerous North American and UK journals. Her first collection of poems The Uncertainty Principle is available now from Tightrope Books.

Beyond Fiona’s Rubicon, poem by Leah Welborn (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

BEYOND FIONA’S RUBICON
by Leah Welborn

Yes, always tragedy to have
gotten there first. A problem
to get anywhere absolutely
from beginning to end,
everything a novelty to fight
against forever.

Lately I’ve been snapped
up into a movie, somebody
else’s poems…left alone,
the moribund slut,
the orotund mutt,
an idler wheel.

(in between things
makes such a big difference,
like it connects everything)

With friends I’m not really
human, but some big mix of
gears. As is everybody.
Like the driver of the screw.

A little afraid I used to be,
watching someone being really
alive. It splits and hurts, and yet I
can’t stop. I wonder why
they all think I’m so sad?

SOURCE: Fiona Apple interview by Matt Diehl, Interview magazine.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Fiona Apple’s music has provided the soundtrack for my adult life, as her first album debuted when I was in college. I consider her songwriting to be second only to that of Joni Mitchell, and think she’s been greatly underestimated, in part because of her reputation for being angry and sad (two things women must never be). In reality, she’s grown as a person and an artist since her 1996 debut. I tried to reflect some of that change in “Beyond Fiona’s Rubicon,” while maintaining a sense of the emotional vulnerability at the core of her work. (Photo of Fiona Apple by Sebastian Kim.)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Leah Welborn is a writer/poet who resides in Denver, Colorado, with a small menagerie of animals. Her work has appeared in Mental Floss, Bust, Inked, Poets & Artists, Connotation Press, Contrary, and other publications. Her poem entitled “The Rock” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She holds an MFA from Antioch University.