norbert blei | mark twain revised

NOTES from the UNDERGROUND No. 211 | January 10, 2011

MARK TWAIN——-REVISED

by
Norbert Blei

“It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.”—Mark Twain

If he’s not our greatest American writer, he’s certainly our most beloved. His legacy to American letters runs deep. Old Hem drew the line in the sand in his beautiful book, GREEN HILLS OF AFRICA (1935) when he stated in chapter one: “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. If you read it you must stop where the Nigger Jim is stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The rest is cheating. But it’s the best book we’ve had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There’s been nothing as good since.”

Enter the academics of today, the ‘politically correct’ to revise our literary history. Make it safe. Twain dealt with enough stupidity of this sort in his own time and made a career of mocking it in talks and print, in a style uniquely his own. Tell it as it is (and have fun telling it).

Midwestern. American. Real.

(No bullshit.)

His defense rests—in all his works.

On the plus side of this new, revised edition of “Huckleberry Finn” that substitutes the word “slave” for “nigger” (edited by Prof. Alan Gribben for NewSouth Books, to be released in February) is that no school yet has expressed an interest in teaching it. On the minus side, the publisher’s comment that Barnes & Noble, Borders, and other bookstores have registered advanced orders—and that she was expecting orders from schools and libraries.

Here’s hoping the book bombs. Here’s hoping schools and libraries, especially, see the light of day: the truth of Twain.
Here’s hoping Prof. Gribben finds work editing romance novels.

If academia deems it necessary to protect our culture from Mark Twain, just imagine who? what? next.

And if a high school English teacher (who admires Twain) declines to teach “Huckleberry Finn”… “because it is too long” I suggest she relieve herself from the serious work of educating our youth.

Mr. Twain, I leave you the last word:

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.,”—Mark Twain

–Norbert Blei

A recent, short, and best biography of Twain in a long time. Packed with pertinent information, reads like a novel. From: The Library of American Biography. Author, David W. Levy, Prentice Hall, 2010.

PUBLISHER TINKERS WITH TWAIN

by
Julie Bosman (with Tamar Lewin)

A new edition of “Adven¬tures of Huckleberry Finn” is missing something: the n-word.

In its place, 219 times throughout the book, is the word “slave,” a substitution that was made by NewSouth Books, a publisher based in Alabama, which plans to release the edition in February.

Alan Gribben, a professor of English at Auburn University at Montgomery, approached the publisher with the idea in July. Mr. Gribben said Tuesday that he had been teaching Mark Twain for decades and always hesitated before reading aloud the common racial epithet, which is used liberally throughout the book, a reflection of social attitudes in the mid-19th century.

“I found myself right out of graduate school at Berkeley not wanting to pronounce that word when I was teaching either ‘Huckleberry Finn’ or ‘Tom Sawyer’ ” he said. “And I don’t think I’m alone.”

Mr. Gribben, who combined “Huckleberry Finn” with “Tom Sawyer” in a single volume and also supplied an introduction, said he worried that “Huckleberry Finn” had fallen off reading lists, and wanted to offer an edition that is not for scholars, but for younger people and general readers.

“I’m by no means sanitizing Mark Twain,” Mr. Gribben said. “The sharp social critiques are in there. The humor is intact. I just had the idea to get us away from obsessing about this one word, and just let the stories stand alone.” (The book also substitutes “Indian” for “injun.”)

Since the publisher discussed plans for the book this week with Publishers Weekly, it has been “assaulted” with negative e-mails and phone calls, said Suzanne La Rosa, the co-founder and publisher of NewSouth Books.

“We didn’t undertake this lightly,” Ms. La Rosa said. “If our publication fosters good discussion about how language affects learning and certainly the nature of censorship, then difficult as it is likely to be, it’s a good thing.”

The news set off a storm of angry online commentary, scolding the publisher for “censorship” and “political correctness,” or simply for the perceived sin of altering the words of a literary icon. Twain admirers have turned his hefty “Autobiography of Mark Twain,” published last year, into a best seller.

An initial print run of 7,500 copies has been planned for the revised “Huckleberry Finn.” The print edition is scheduled for publication in February, and a digital edition could go on sale as early as next week.

Mr. Gribben said no schools had expressed interest yet in teaching the book — nor did he say what ages he thought the edition appropriate for. In his introduction, however, he writes that “even at the level of college and graduate school, students are capable of resenting textual encounters with this racial appellative.”

Ms. La Rosa said the publisher has had advance orders from Barnes & Noble, Borders and other bookstores, and she expected more orders from schools and libraries.

Some English teachers were less than thrilled about the idea of cleaning up a classic.

“I’m not offended by anything in ‘Huck Finn” said Elizabeth Absher, an English teacher at South Mountain High School in Arizona. “I am a big fan of Mark Twain, and I hear a lot worse in the hallway in front of my class.”

Ms. Absher teaches Twain short stories and makes “Huck Finn” available but does not teach it because it is too long — not because of the language.

“I think authors’ language should be left alone,” she said. “If it’s too offensive, it doesn’t belong in school, but if it expresses the way people felt about race or slavery in the context of their time, that’s something I’d talk about in teaching it.”

[from THE NEW YORK TIMES Jan. 5, 2011]

THAT’S NOT TWAIN

Next month, you will be able to buy the single-volume NewSouth Edition of Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” edited by Professor Alan Gribben of Auburn University at Montgomery. It differs from other editions o those books because Mr. Gribben has turned the word “nigger” — as used by Tom and Huck — into “slave.” Mr. Gribben has also changed “Injun” to Indian, Mr. Gribben says he wants to make these American classics readable again — for young readers and for anyone who is hurt by the use of an epithet that would have been ubiquitous in Missouri in the 1830s and 1840s, which is when both books are set. He says he discovered how much Twain’s language offended readers when he began giving talks about “Tom Sawyer” all across Alabama in 2009. He has also acknowledged that what he calls “textual purists” will be horrified by his sanitized versions of the two classics.

We are horrified, and we think most readers, textual purists or not, will be horrified too. The trouble isn’t merely adulterating Twain’s text. It’s also adulterating social, economic and linguistic history. Substituting the word “slave” makes it sound as though all the offense lies in the “n-word” and has nothing to do with the institution of slavery. Worse, it suggests that understanding the truth of the past corrupts modern readers, when, in fact, this new edition is busy corrupting the past.

When “Huckleberry Finn” was published, Mark Twain appended a note on his effort to reproduce “painstakingly” the dialects in the book, including several backwoods dialects and “the Missouri negro dialect.” What makes “Huckleberry Finn” so important in American literature isn’t just the story, it’s the richness, the detail, the unprecedented accuracy of its spoken language. There is no way to “clean up” Twain without doing irreparable harm to the truth of his work. I

[from: The editorial page of The New York Times, January 6, 2011]

jeffrey winke | i’ll tell you so

Poetry Dispatch No.324 | June 28, 2010

JEFFREY WINKE: Review

Editor’s Note: As the book review pages of major and minor newspapers and periodicals dwindle in today’s high-tech/non-reading culture, it’s difficult enough to land a review of any significant book, let alone an insightful reviewer who understands the art of the review-essay. With that in mind, it’s damn near impossible to find a small, independent press receive a line of ink anywhere but old fashioned little magazines (the conscience of American literature) and some superb online literary sites such as Jeffery Woodward’s excellent site, http://haibuntoday.com devoted to the haibun.

In the early days of Cross+Roads Press (well over ten years ago) I was fortunate to occasionally receive a review of the books I was publishing in the local newspaper, The Door County Advocate. But that was under the independent ownership of the publisher/editor, Chan Harris, who happened to be a literary guy and was very supportive of the arts in this community. That all disappeared once the Gannett Corp. began its take-over of every local newspaper it could gobble up. These days, I’m forever thankful (as many of us small press writers and publishers are) for all the effort and work that Wisconsin writer, Charles Ries, does to distribute his reviews of countless important small press books to many fine print and online publications throughout the country.

I’m thankful as well to Jeffrey Woodward and the reviewer, Tish Davis, for the thoughtful and incisive review of Cross+Roads Press author, Jeff Winke’s new book of haibun that recently appeared in Haibun Today. –Norbert Blei

Review of Jeffrey Winke’s I’ll Tell You So
by Tish Davis
Dublin, Ohio, USA

I’ll Tell You So by Jeffrey Winke. Ellison Bay, WI: Cross+Roads Press, 2010. 5” x 8,” perfect bound, 102 pp. ISBN: 978-1-889460-23-9. $12.00 USD.

The eighty-five works in Jeffrey Winke’s first collection of haibun are fresh and innovative, portraying scenes and characters, whether real or imagined, from middle-class America. Winke capitalizes on the ordinary, offering first and third person narratives—snippets of characters and their conflicts—presented in ways that evoke compassion, a smile and sometimes a full belly laugh.

The haibun in the book are not arranged in thematic sections but, based upon their titles, in alphabetical order. Before reading the book from cover to cover, I found myself making initial selections by skimming through the titles such as “Electric Green Chokers,” “Hunchback With the Toy Poodle,” and “Reflective Tape Stripes Around Each Leg.” I quickly observed that Winke pulls his titles directly from the prose—something typically frowned upon in haibun. However, this did not deter my enjoyment of these works whose characters include a young couple awaiting passage at a security crossing, a group of friends enjoying a Wednesday night dinner, and Ernest, the parking lot attendant.

These selections are typical of a style that allows the reader to enter the piece from whatever vantage point he chooses. Sometimes the reader might recognize a friend or an acquaintance; sometimes the reader might see himself. Often these outcomes reveal weaknesses in the human condition and Winke uses that to make the reader both reflect on the situation and to laugh. Consider “Reflective Tape Stripes Around Each Leg” (70), for example. Even though the description focuses on Ernest, there’s also an implicit connection with the silver-haired executive and his date:

With the 18-inch red glowing parking wand visible, the stout presence of Ernest stands solid in the dark boulevard wearing his fluorescent-yellow breathable safety pants with two horizontal reflective tape stripes around each leg that makes him feel god-like powerful while directing the steady flow of luxury automobiles streaming their headlights into the gated parking lot where he occasionally—just for fun—halts a shiny black Jaguar XK to a full stop to leer at the strapless twenty-something trophy sitting in the passenger seat while growling, “ you gotta slow down, bud-DEE” to the silver-hair captain of industry who glares at Ernest with utmost contempt.

closing time bartender
collects empties
filled with stories

The leap from prose to haiku is very effective. Winke’s intentional ambiguity allows the reader to become both observer and participant. As the light dims, the reader can reflect on what version of the story the characters in the haibun might have told or the setting can revert to a bar perhaps familiar to the reader, and to stories known only to him.

Winke’s haibun average 150 words and all are written as a basic unit of one paragraph followed by one haiku. The settings vary but are typically mundane, ordinary places such as the office, kitchen, or laundry mat. Several haibun take place in bars, diners, night clubs or restaurants. However, this is by no means an indication of cookie-cutter haibun where writers, upon finding a successful formula, merely replicate a previous success. Winke’s variations are proof of a writer who knows what he wants to achieve.

In “Tilted at a Severe Angle” (86), one of my favorites, Winke’s use of tight, but figurative prose places the reader in a jazz club just as a sultry blonde arrives:

She sits at the bar next to Lamont. His black fedora tilted at a severe angle. She isn’t here for Lamont. Her snug blouse is open enough to the neck to show part of a spider web tattoo that flourishes behind soft cotton. She lights up a long-filtered cigarette, draws deeply, and swivels her dark-eye gaze to the sax player. With lips slightly parted, she exhales completely. The saxman nods recognition before bending his alto into one last passion sizzler that eventually melts back into a sweaty finale.

just barely
her breasts
in my space

The shift from the suggestive exchange between the blonde and saxman to the narrator is deftly handled with its implication of pheromonal influence. Although the title again is drawn from the prose (and yes one could argue that it could be deleted without loss), one can also assume that the narrator has readjusted his position on the bar stool in order to get a better view, thus allowing this phrase to serve a dual purpose.

In “I believe I am” (46), Winke again pulls his title from the prose, but here, it did not balance the piece nor did it strengthen a work that I found to be too introspective. The haibun begins:

I figured it out. I think. My life is a mystery novel. There are plots, sub-plots, and intriguing side characters who, at first, appear to be more prominent than they are. Things unfold for little reason at all, so it seems.

As the haibun progresses, the narrator, who doubles as protagonist in the imaginary novel, confesses that when he can no longer control the variables in life, he “holds his breath and waits for the narrator to jump in and add a sense of calm to the situation.”

The most promising part of this composition is the concluding haiku, but it failed to compensate for the deficiencies in the prose:

bigger, stronger–
that’s what the spam says
so it’s true

Winke’s voice is one we’ve come to recognize as light and witty. Even the best stand-up comic falls flat occasionally, so the reader should not be unduly disappointed by the few works in I’ll Tell You So that did not hit their mark.

The strengths in this collection are the third person narratives. “A Jar of Paint,” “Bait Floats to the Bottom,” “Below the Shallow Arc,” “Every Night and First Words,” “In a Slurred-Word State,” and “Slides Into the Keyway” are a few that come to mind. Here, the images linger and, when reread, can be enjoyed again as if one is meeting the characters for the first time.

Winke is at his best when the pathos is subdued and is combined with his lightness and wit. Consider “Thinks While Growing Impatient” (85), a work that on a first read might easily be dismissed as “alien humor.”

The crinkle sound is barely audible, but the dog hears it and perks her ears. The tall alien is preoccupied. With one of several lipless mouths it’s busy chewing on a one-pound bag of Twizzlers® artificially-flavored cherry bites—red licorice. Its content-analyzing mastication glands find little nutritional value. “Another oddity,” it muses . . . when it hears the low rumbling growl of the dog slowly padding down the carpeted hallway under a gallery of family photos—everyone looks happy, even Uncle Gary who had bit the end of a Glock last year. “Any time Anja,” the tall alien thinks while growing impatient at the designated pick-up point on the designated day at the exact designated time.

brisk rain—
she protects a letter
to an old friend

I enjoyed the image of the alien eating candy that’s artificially flavored, perhaps a little envious of the family whose portraits hang in the hallway. Of course, he probably has no way of knowing that their smiles are artificial too. Winke asks the reader, “What is real?” He provides the answer in the haiku that closes this evocative haibun.

I’ll Tell You So is a collection that can be read and reread, enjoyed “as is” or studied for its contemporary techniques. The cover is avant-garde, but the book’s roots are traditional, revealing American characters and themes uniquely presented by a fine writer.

[from: A Quarterly Journal, Jeffrey Woodward, Editor. Volume 4, Number 2, June 2010]

Jeffrey Winke by Jeffrey Winke

norbert blei | readings by norbert blei & music by jim spector

Readings by Norb Blei & Music by Jim Spector

Tracklist: Door in Winter: December Entries: 1. 29th Going for Milk 2. 30th A Remberance of Red 3. 31th The White Path 4. Christmas Eve in Door

All selections from DOOR STEPS © 1996 ELLIS PRESS, P.O. Box 6, Granite Falls, MN 56241

The Quiet Time: Door County in Winter. Readings from Norb Blei’s DOOR STEPS (The Days, The Seasons) Original music for guitar by Jim Spector.

In five seasonal essays and a daybook of 365 entries, Norbert Blei records the passing of days and seasons in Door County, in his life, in our lives.

A delicate balance between the rugged Door terrain and the author’s inner landscape, the entries of DOOR STEPS (the second book in Blei’s Door County trilogy, which also includes DOOR WAY and DOOR TO DOOR) range from objective, almost naturalistic observations to pure poetry.

Jim Spector is best known for his passionate solo flamenco recordings and his inspired concert performances. He has arranged, composed and recorded the soundtracks to award-winning documentary films and music from his compact disc recording “Flamenco Passions” (DCV002, Door Couniy Voices) has been featured on American Airlines. In this collaboration with Norbert Blei, the text provided the images to inspire a musical setting for sensitive, evocative readings.

Produced by Door County Voices, a division of Open Door Productions, Inc., P.O. Box 517, Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235. Readings performed by Norbert Blei. Original music composed and recorded by Jim Spector. Recorded at Sound Fanners, Sturgeon Bay, WI. Produced by Mark Thiede. Executive Producer: Cy Rosenthal. Photography by Dan Hatton.

Much more on Norbert Blei can be found on his web sites: Norbert Blei & Basho’s Road & N.B. Coop News

Editors note: This recording was originally released as cassette and is not longer available. Norbert Blei was so kind to send me one of the very last un-played tapes. Digitalized as mp3 in 320kps | 44100hz | Stereo quality by Markus Mayer in Vienna, Austria.

If you are interested in buying this digitalized tape, please click here…

hana hegerovà | rozvod | for norbert

Mráz držím v dlaních, svět zůstal stát.
V hodinách ranních nemohu spát.
Jediné slůvko rozdělilo nás.

Říkala jsem ti “mluvko”
a pojednou je tu zticha hráz.

To ty jsi se rozhod jako muž
a pravý chlap a řekl jsi:
“Rozvod, nechci jít dál podle starých map.”

Už ani nevím, kdy to bylo.
Přišlo to jako malá smrt.
Nejspíš byla zima, venku lilo
a jestli v nás z naší lásky zbylo aspoň čtvrt,
tak teď nezbylo už vůbec nic
jak po světle letních létavic.
Jen to jediné slůvko.
Rozvod.

Co bude dál? Spát budeš sám.
Čas dal, čas vzal. Prázdný je krám.
On vyprodal náš první bál,
rok kdesi stál a čekával.
Tvé dotyky lehké jak sníh,
smích putyky, co zná náš první hřích.
Náš pokojík v tom poschodí,
kam pikolík už nechodí.
Co bude dál, co bude dál, co bude dál?
Rozvod.

Soud soudí zločiny.
Proč máme k němu jít?
Tam vzdát se rodiny a zachovat klid?
Kdo zná nás víc než já a ty,
tvůj rub i líc, mé trampoty?
Čí bude stůl, čí bude skříň?
Chtěl jsi vždy půl, já, já jsem chtěla míň.
A teď nechci nic.
Chci vědět jen, jak dětem říct ten divný sen.
Co bude dál, co bude dál, co bude dál?

Mlčky jsi stál i ty ses bál říct: “Rozvod.”

norbert blei | variations on the theme of april

Poetry Dispatch No. 319 | April 19, 2010

Variations on the Theme of April

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the
roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,

(excerpt from Chaucer’s General Prologue to THE CANTERBURY TALES)

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

(excerpt from T.S. Eliot’s, THE WASTE LAND)

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it’s
spring
and
the
goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

(from e.e. cummings, a selection of poems)

jackie langetieg | one book

PoetryDispatch No. 308 | January 15, 2010

ONE BOOK

by
Jackie Langetieg

From age 6 when I punched letter by letter type into a neighborhood newspaper, I have written something—In my teens through an understanding English teacher who looked beyond the surface of my tough-girl attitude and acts, I entered into the joy of writing—both prose and poetry. My first book of sorts was done then—probably filled with mash notes to some boy or other but the words wanted to have their proper place. Then came the alcoholic years—mostly blurs but yet poems by the cartload from such phrases as the soul cried tears of blood to bucolic ramblings, usually ending with holes in the paper from frustrated pounding of pen or pencil. For years when I worked in State Government, I penned anonymous responses to bureaucratic bullshit memos about how to turn on the radiators or to keep the blinds drawn in place of air conditioning. I had a following; people enjoyed my sense of things. Two marriages and two children softened my edges as did the passing years, but still I was seeking the inner smile of writing accomplishment—The Book.

Enter The Clearing [Ellison Bay, Wisconsin]: I was looking for a quiet place to “find myself” in some safe place mentally and the music week was full—so the writers’ week it was. Every writing theme and effort I’d had became a legitimate benchmark on my journey. I began to tell people I wrote poetry, put work into little books so I could carry it around and savor it. What a high! Over the next 15 years, I wrote all the time and admitted to it; three books and two that I was working on, all lovingly typed, copied and stapled together with a cover carrying My Name.

It would be difficult to select a favorite book from those I’ve put together over the years—beginning in 1984 and having one I’m working on now. All these little books say something different about me—my first stumbling steps in writing poems; coming out of the poetry closet in the 1990’s and joining a group.

I tried sending poems out to little magazines as everyone seemed to be doing, but I was less than successful and each rejection was a death knell for that poem—I had no confidence at all when it came to accepting rejection or criticism. Reading helped; I began to enjoy the company of poets and began to read my work out loud at coffee houses. A great venue for being told I had a great poem, or many times, “a great reading voice”!

The real book, the book that made me a poet was White Shoulders. A real press published work, with credits and acknowledgements. This was my truth—I’d begun it as an exercise in different genre—a transition between poetry and prose. All my adult life, I’d given my mother the back-handed remarks that made me who I became—the teen who acted out, got drunk, the failure at marriage and alcoholic—all her fault. Suddenly, it became important to me to give her the chance to respond to my accusations—difficult because she had died 12 years earlier. So began the book, originally titled, Mother’s House. It is a lovely book with a beautiful sensitive cover and a content of absolute honesty, much of which tears away the years of excuses I made for my screwed up life. It was cathartic writing it, editing it and finally seeing it as a finished beautiful product, and I had begun to hear her voice explaining to me what her life was about during those years—I’d write something bitchy, and she’d respond by telling me of her fears and life as a single parent; this was a revelation to me and my truth began with the telling of that story, which became White Shoulders, a conversation between a daughter and her deceased mother, published beautifully by Cross+Roads Press. At last I had a legitimate book of my own to hold close and share with others, and the absolute thrill when I first saw it come alive through the brown paper packaging will remain as the most exciting and emotional event of my life.

The important part of my writing is keeping the truth of the poem and my own dignity in the writing. I’ve never considered myself anything but an individualist, feminism is grand for those who have carried me along, but I’ve had my hands full staying true to me. I’m a decade past the baby-boomers and have had to bear the guilt of the fifties ingrained in the back of my left knee whenever I’ve tried to be a woman of the times—usually overdone with my lack of perspective. I’ve recovered from most negatives in my younger years, abuse, alcohol, tobacco, divorces. I live alone now and enjoy every minute of it—and it’s safer than getting involved with the old people-pleasing games of my youth.

There have been two more books since White Shoulders, and one: Just What in Hell is a Stage of Grief? is my story of losing my 33 year old son to booze and sleep apnea. It was important to me to have a written dialogue with him and myself about the days following his death and I’m very pleased with the book; it’s not everyone’s choice for reading, but the purpose has been completed. I hope to complete another book within this year and perhaps if I write again about The Book, it may be about one to come—but for now White Shoulders defines my library and influences each poem I write with truth.

PROSE

• Bar Code, Little Eagle Press 2008, and Peninsula Review, Sister Bay, WI 1989: “The Staring Contest”
• Rosebud, Cambridge, WI, Issue #1, Winter 1993-94: “Choices”
• Women’s Recovery Journal (?), 1993: “My Name is Jackie”
• Cats’ Meow, Maine Rhode Publ. Woolwich, ME 1996: “Business Venture”
• Tasty Morsels, Lonesome Traveller Publ. Madison, WI, 1996: “Camellia” and “Role Model”
• Poetry of Cold, Home Brew Press, Fish Creek, WI, 1997: “Darkness of an Early Morning Snow”
• Detours II, Lonesome Traveller Pub.1998: “The Shoji Screen”
• Coming Home to Door, Home Brew Press 1998: “The Dinner Party”

BOOKS

• Three Legged Cats and Other Tales, Wheels Press, 1989
• Private Thoughts, Wheels Press 1991
• Coming of Age, Wheels Press, 1992
• White Shoulders, Cross+Roads Press, Ellison Bay, WI 2000
• Just What in the Hell is a Stage of Grief, Ghost Horse Press, Verona, 2008
• Confetti in a Silent City, Ghost Horse Press, 2008

AWARDS

• 1988: Joyce Web Poetry Award, Wisconsin Regional Writers Assoc. “Shoes”
• 1997: First Place Poem, Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets Trophy Award. “Living Separated from Him”
• 1999: First Place Poem, Wisconsin Academy of Arts, Sciences & Letters Annual Award, “Tai Chi in Four Movements”
• 2000: Jade Ring, Wisconsin Regional Writers Assoc. “Casals’ Cello”

POETRY

• Barefoot Grass Journal, Vol 1, Fall/Winter 1997: “Stone,” “Invitations,” “Generations”
• Writing Across the Boundaries Between Poetry & Prose, Lonesome Traveller Pub., 1999: “Mother’s House”
• Reflections on the Train, Detours: Poems of Travel by Land, Sea, Air and Mind, Lonesome Traveller Pub., 1997; RobinChapman’s Blog, http://robinchapmanspoemaday.blogspot.com/ 2006: “Reflections on the Train”
• Poems of Love, Lonesome Traveller Publishing,1998: “If I Were to Take a Lover”
• Wisconsin Academy Review: Summer, 2004: and RobinChapman’s Blog, 2006: “Father Writes to Mother From California”
• Wisconsin Academy Review: Spring, 2003 and RobinChapman’s Blog 2006 “Letter to My Daughter”
• Wisconsin Academy of Arts, Sciences & Letters: Spring, 1999 and Taijiquan Journal, Minneapolis, 2004: “Tai Chi in 4 Movements”
• Wisconsin Academy of Arts, Sciences & Letters: 1996 “The X-Ray”
• Wisconsin Academy of Arts, Sciences & Letters: 1998 “Ablutions”
• Word of Mouth, May 1993 & Spondee Internet: http://www.spondee.net/“Jason at 23, White, Adriatic Sea”
• Poetry Dispatch #118 Norbert Blei, Ed Internet 2007, http://poetrydispatch.wordpress.com/ “Once Again I Fail To” and Excerpt from White Shoulders
• 100 Words, University of Iowa, ** “Second Sight”
• Midland Review, University of Oklahoma, May 1993 and Spondee Internet Site “Jewels”
• Looking Out the Window, The Writers’ Place, 1994 and Spondee Internet Site “In the Party Room at the Nursing Home”
• Peace Project, 2003 Exhibit: “Women Drumming”
• Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets Calendars 1991-2010: Various poems -
• Slender Thread, Little Eagle Press, Bailey’s Harbor, WI 2008: “Universal Sorrow on City Street,” “Old Woman Lays Husband to Rest,” “Paper Pink Iris”
• Tiger’s Eye, Tiger’s Eye Press, Oregon, 2008: “Old Woman Lays Husband to Rest”
• The Aurorean, Encircle Publications, ME, Vol. XIII 2008-2009: “Seasons”
• Silk Road, Pacific University, Oregon, Vol. 3 Spring 2008: “Pentimento II”
• Chaffin Journal, East Kentucky University, 2009: “Aneurism”

OTHER

• Volunteer and President of Board of Directors for The Writers’ Place, Madison, WI 1996-98
• Editor, Looking Out the Window, The Writers’ Place First Annual Literary Anthology, Madison 1995
• Co-Editor, 2004 Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets Annual Calendar