The Main Street Rag
Fall 2008
Main Street Rag, PO BOX 690100, Charlotte, NC 28227-7001
704-573-2516, contact us
Feature:
The Boy Whose Hands Were Birds:
An Interview with Roy Seeger, Winner of the 2008 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award
Interview by M. Scott Douglass
“Drought Wood” by Kristin Sherman
“Dr. Calvin Stamps Does Not Respect Women” by Katherine Lien Chariott
“Frobisher Laramie” by Tim Lehnert
“The Hessian Downfall” by William Haas
“I Would Prefer Not To” by Rosa Shand
“Award-Winning Award Winners” by Mark Brazaitis
Reviews by Maureen Alsop, David-Matthew Barnes, Heather Jane Collings, Richard Allen Taylor, and Eric A. Weil.
of the following work:
Along These Rivers: Poetry and Photography from Pittsburgh edited by Judith R. Robinson and Michael Wurster, The Prince with the Golden Hair by Irene Blair Honeycutt, The Spaces Between Things by Linda Benninghoff, Normal Forms by Dana Sonnenschein, The Boatloads by Dan Albergotti, and Signals by Ed Madden.
Poetry by
Roy Seeger, D. N. Baldwin, Louis Daniel Brodsky, Bob Caldwell, Barbara Cranford, Phebe Davidson, Shelley Savren, James Deahl, Anthony DiMatteo, Sanford Dorbin, Jason W. Dockery, Gary Every, Diana Festa, Mary Dingee Fillmore, Paul Fisher, Rebecca Foust, Carol Hamilton, Mary Harris, Lowell Jaeger, Mike Jurkovic, Jonas Kyle-Sidell, Max Snavlin, Eric Lee, Lyn Lifshin, David T. Manning, Richard W. Moyer, Randy Minnich, B. Z. Niditch, Richard K. Ostrander, Walter Rentschler, Judith K. Robinson, Bethany Rountree, M.A. Schaffner, Brad Spencer, Jeanne Stauffer-Merle, Brittney Blaskowitz Prichard, Elizabeth Swann, Richard Swanson, David Ward, Richard M. Merelman.
Cover Art: M. Scott Douglass
Photo Feature: Gerald Wheeler
Roy Seeger
Aiken, SC
*The Art of Sleep # 6
The clothes of my enemy are not my
enemy—I understand this. I should know
better: spending my nights plotting vengeance
on my father’s lederhosen. But still…the acquiredhistory of them is opposed to the history I
assume (in rarified fits of sleep), like buttons sewn
on my Thrift Store attempts at formal dress.
Ceremonies were held. Formal attirewas appreciated. Torches passed. I cry
out misshapen lapels, & watch them grow.
Frayed edges, I say, are from previous
owners. Sudden movement shows a desireto flee the crime scene—a sure sign of guilt.
Buddy, I say—it’s all crime scene. All guilt.
*Also appears in Roy Seeger's new book, The Boy Whose Hands Were Birds, due for release from Main Street Rag November 1, 2008 and available in The Main Street Rag Bookstore
Diana Festa
New York, NY
The Veteran
They laid the young man on the kitchen table,
two women pushed the blood into a pail. I helped
turn the body, I was ordered to—
then the difficulty of washing
blood off my hands.I look for words to depict
war, a language for pain resembling fear,
for helplessness,
words that could reshape images branded in memory—
the dispossessed, eyes staring in the dark, mouths open
in unheard screams, hands reaching
for a helping hand.Earth was turned over, crops withered.
There was a horse lying at the hayfield edge,
a finger on the street,
with her brains oozing.The village fool paced the street,
E’ adesso che devi aiutarmi, adesso, Dio.
Now is the time to help, now God.
There was blood
in the water saved for drinking.Wars breed veterans, a community breathing
from memory.
I am a veteran, still residing
in my trench, in bursts of fire, craters of screams—
still looking for words
to understand.
Max Snavlin
Westminster, MD
Today, the President
Today, the president
went under for a colonoscopy
and power slowly passedto the vice president.
The vice president took a nap
and power slowly passedthrough the air to a wasp walking
across my parking lot risking everything
as he slowly preferredto walk. The wasp fell,
breaking his thorax,
where power slowly passedto a man in his kitchen
going through expired coupons,
listening to the news,
where power slowly dissolved.
Richard K. Ostrander
Fayetteville, NC
Eid in Afghanistan
Celebratory fire from the DSHK
Machine gun arcs overhead
Into the briar bramble mud hut
Roofs of the village bellow.
Reloading, Afghani soldiers laugh,
The feed tray cover slapping shut
Like a mouse trap on its little neck.
Orion looks on impassively,
Fatigued from the continual chase.
I wish him good hunting
As lead from the machine gun
With no addressee seeks
Whatever awaits in the end.
Tomorrow marks the height of Eid Ul-Adha
As Muslims believe it was Ishmael
Not Isaac Abraham led to sacrifice.
We will slaughter a cow.
Commander Assad and the Sub-Governor
Will personally attend as we present
Him a six inch Bowie knife
Which he will soon baptize.
The cow sniffs the air; twitches its ears.
Tonight I am rocked to sleep
By the slow jackhammer of bullets;
Each one a small piece of fate,
A small sacrifice of angry fireflies
In enfilade over the village, Inshalla.
Katherine Lien Chariott
Shanghai, PRC
Dr. Calvin Stamps Does Not Respect Women
Calvin once complained that there were not enough strippers in the world. I know you won’t believe this, because of how he presents himself to the general public, his sensitive intellectual routine, his frequent declarations that he is, after all, a “radical feminist,” but it’s true. It’s true, but still I know it will sound unbelievable, particularly to those of you who buy Calvin’s line about how he isn’t really a man at all; that, really, he is a “lesbian trapped in a man’s body.”
It will be especially hard to believe for his adoring grad students, even more so for the half-dozen of you (and you know who you are) who are convinced that you are Calvin’s chosen protégé. But, believe me or not, Calvin, the Dr. Calvin Stamps, Professor of English and Philosophy, cultural critic and detective novelist, said it: this is a fact. I know this, because he said it to me.
This was almost seven years ago, during my first month of grad school, but I remember it all in precise detail. (Unfortunately for me, I remember everything related to Calvin in precise detail.) I was sitting in his office, facing him, when he stood up and announced it. “What this world needs,” he said. “Is not more literary critics, but more strippers. There are way too many academics in this world already, but there aren’t nearly enough strippers.”
After his declaration, I, of course, sat in shocked silence; then I began to laugh a nervous, excited laugh. Surely, the laughter was meant to imply, he was joking. Surely, he could not mean that he wanted more strippers in this world!
“Right,” I said, “Dr. Stamps. And not enough pornography either!”
But Calvin shook his head. “I can’t agree with you there,” he said. “There’s actually quite enough pornography. And please, call me Calvin.”
I did, and then in the daze brought on by first-name contact with a certified genius, I left his office. I went home to think, mainly about Calvin, as I now called him, and his strippers and his porno. To tell the truth, Calvin (as Dr. Stamps) was someone I had already spent a lot of time thinking about; someone I had thought about every day, since we met. But that night I thought about Calvin in a different way. In a first name kind of way. Who was this man, really, I wanted to know, and, really, what did he believe? He seemed serious about the strippers, but how could he possibly be serious about the strippers, and yet he seemed so very serious….
On and on, in an unpleasant circle that continued until I decided to just give up on Calvin, both understanding him and the man himself. Despite this decision, I showed up at his office the next day and asked him out to a bar. And, though I am not a stripper, and, as far as I know, have no stripper-like qualities, Calvin said, “Sure.”
This was almost seven years ago, like I said, but, like I also said, I remember every damn detail about every damn moment of my life that involves Calvin. So I could tell you all about that night, could describe quite perfectly the look of the stars in the sky as we walked down the street; the look of the street itself, deserted like a ghost town for three whole blocks; the dingy perfection of the bar we ended up at, sitting opposite each other. But all that doesn’t matter, not any more than the moment we came together. (I leaned across the table trying to work up the courage to say something, anything, to Calvin. Before I managed it, he beckoned me even closer with a finger. “You realize this has turned into a date?” he said. And then he kissed me.)
What matters about that night is this: something Calvin said to me. In a totally casual, totally unashamed way, he told me that, not only did he have a subscription to Playboy, but he also had one to Hustler.
“I used to subscribe,” he said, “to Penthouse, but that just wasn’t for me.”
And me, what did I say, what did I do? I smiled, I giggled, I said, “Really?” And I decided then and there that I didn’t believe him. Although he had no reason to lie, I could not believe he was telling the truth. Not considering who he was (an intellectual giant and my professor) and certainly not when he kissed me, as he did again, right after the Penthouse comment. And yes, I did kiss him back, in the middle of that crowded bar, with the aftertaste of just-pronounced porno on his lips.
I admit it, even though I know that, though you don’t want to and probably won’t judge Calvin for this night, you will probably somehow manage to condemn me for it. And you will surely blame me when you find out that I went to bed with Calvin that night, and the next morning and the next afternoon, the next night, etc—for five years. After all, what kind of woman does that with a man she claims is a misogynist? And, while we’re at it, what kind of woman writes an open letter to a whole university proclaiming that she did that with a misogynist?
Want the rest of the story (and more)?
The conclusion to this can be read in the Fall 2008 issue which is available direct from MSR for $8 at
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