Part 2 of 4 Tuschen wrote in 2002: F. J. Bergman, the “Bringer of Storms and Space Lord Mother” with the deceptive haircut is also a fantastic photographer, poet, and performer. Add to that the fact that she is the number one person to look toward if you want any info on Madison poetry scene, click into madpoetry.com -“The Home of Mad Poetry.” It's her baby and she rocks it well. She also hangs out with the gang of syllable slingers called Cheap At Any Price Poets - check them out, she/they deserve all the attention due and given... - JT F.J. Bergmann writes poetry and speculative fiction, often simultaneously, appearing in Dreams and Nightmares, Farrago’s Wainscot, Kaleidotrope, North American Review, Pulp Literature, and a bunch of regular literary magazines that should have known better. No literary academic credentials, but sympathetic to those so afflicted. Editor of Star*Line, the Journal of the Science Fiction Poetry Association (sfpoetry.com), and poetry editor of Mobius: The Journal of Social Change (mobiusmagazine.com); awards include the 2012 Rannu Prize for speculative poetry, the 2013 SFPA Elgin Chapbook Award for Out of the Black Forest (Centennial Press, 2012), and the 2015 Rhysling Award for the long poem“100 Reasons to Have Sex with an Alien.” 32 srAr£SrREUPOETRYSNEEr Sept 5-18, 2002 Edjtor: John Tuscheo End of Summer the days are folding themselves Vol 1,#12 inward tugging the weather behind them which is getting shorter the bears are gliding into the unsuccessful suburbs trying to look as if they were already there and back again from the woods with a basket of clean white pebbles and moonlight the stars are an audience the moon is an observer a cloudy night is you dancing on an empty stage behind the shabby velvet curtains listening- for echoes F.J. Bergman ('Opyright 2002 Extra Edition for September 11 Tuschen wrote: Walt Whitman, the Grandfather of contemporary American poetry, wrote this during the Civil (sic) War. He nursed many people. He loved Manhattan. He felt much. He wept often. But he was also peaceful and joyous. Then he died... Nah... 34 srAr£SrREUPOETRYSNEEr September 11, 2002 Editor: John Tuscben EXTRA EDITION 9/11 Vol 1,#13 Editor's 11ote: Walt W1litma11, t!,e Gra11dfat!,er of co11temporary America11 poetry, wrote t!,is ► d11ri11g t!,e Civil (sic) War. He 11ursed ma11y people. He loved Ma11l,atta11. He felt much. ► He wept ofte11. But 1,e was also peaceful a11djoyous. The11 1,e died. ..Na/1... ► ► I am the man, I suffer'd, I was there * * * * I am the mash'd fireman with breast-bone broken, Tumbling walls buried me in their debris, Heat and smoke I inspired, I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades, I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels, They have clear'd the beams away, they tenderly lift me forth... from SONG OF MYSELF, 33 Walt Whitman (1813-1892) The author says: "Andrea is the author of six poetry collections, including An Ink Like Early Twilight and We Lit the Lamps Ourselves, both from Salmon Poetry, and Yaya's Cloth from Iris Press. A short-short collection called Coffee in Greece will be published by Anchor & Plume Press in April, 2016 apotos@gmail.com 36 srArESrREUPOETRYSHEU Sept 19 - Oct 2, 2002 Editor: John Tuschen MOTH MAN On our way to the store for butter, my daughter finds it hanging off the pillar of the strip mall it might have been a toy in the gift shop at the zoo this moth with gold and russet velvet wings as wide as my hand, its body a plump fruit. A kind man drinking his coffee at the outdoor table leans in to speak: Your daughter is the only one to see it. He picks it up, as if moths are his closest kin. Without bruising a wing, he lifts it onto his finger, and gives us its name: Cecropia. Inches away from my face, he holds it even with my eyes as if to say: Look in the concrete and fact of this Zife, wild truths alight. Vol 1, #14 Andrea Potos copyright 2002 Tuschen wrote in 2002: Andrea Potos’ chapbook of poems The Perfect Day was published by Parallel Press of the UW Madison libraries, and she is working on another manuscript of poems about Charlotte and Emily Brontë. Andrea, a long time bookseller at A Room of One's Own bookstore, also agrees that "it would be fun” imagining a meeting of the Brontës and the Beats... 38 srArESrREUPOETRYSHEU Oct 3 - Oct 16, 2002 Editor: John Tuscheo IN THE OLD BOOKSHOP When it happens it's always a blustery day, a leaden sky on the verge of release, the wind driving me inside for musty comfort and warmth. My shoulders relax, amber light envelopes me, Glenn Miller's orchestra croons from somewhere. My out-of-print search ends today, the one I have been waiting for gleams Vol 1, #15 off the third wooden shelf from the floor; dust moats float when I pull it swaddled in a seamless clear jacket to my breast- within its shine I see my face. Andrea Potos copyright 2002 Tuschen wrote in 2003: Tenaya Darlington writes for Isthmus and offers us a book of poems, Madame Deluxe (a National Poetry Series award winner) available at A Room of One's Own. Her poetry as well as her journalism has a courageous bitch quality undercut only by its honesty and frankness... JT Tenaya Darlington lived in Madison from 1997 to 2005. She worked as an editor and columnist for Isthmus and spent her other waking moments writing a poetry collection (Madame Deluxe, Coffee House Press 2000) and a novel (Maybe Baby, Little, Brown 2004). During that time meeting Tuschen and attending his readings were a highlight -- proof that Madison's bohemian scene was alive. Today, she lives in Philadelphia, where she teaches writing at Saint Joseph's University and pens a curious blog d e v o t e d e n t i r e l y t o c h e e s e , c a l l e d M a d a m e F r o m a g e (www.madamefromageblog.com). 40 srArESrREUPOETRYSHEU Feb 13 - Feb 26, 2003 Editor: John Tuschen The Headless Horsewoman By day, by night, I go headless, I go craving. Under the lunatic lights: writhing, Or through the passage Along the river, naked, I call for it, my own erosion. The neck mimics something But is only a pedestal. The mystery of how I got here Gives me vertigo. Sky with a body dangling. Or it is light, I go in and out of hedgerows, No sense of navigation, Body holding up sky. One flash epiphany: I was never A child, just an owl In a narrow bed, the darling Guest of a brain. Vol 1, #17 He who does not eat birds knows this. Petals are a gimmick. And eyelids. Quick, will your voice Fit in this cage? Do your feet go in this box? Too many questions for no head. It is better to think I am a hole, a thousand things rustling. Tenaya Darlington ► copyright2003 ► Tuschen wrote in 2003: Madison poet, John Lehman, is a busy one alright. A contributing writer for Isthmus, Mr. Lehman is also the "founder and associate publisher” of Rosebud, a nationally respected and distributed literary magazine based in Cambridge, Wisconsin. He is also the person responsible for the annual Wisconsin Academy Review John Lehman poetry award ($500 - poets can buy hell of a lot of duct tape with that kind of moola!) plus he, along with Madison Poet Laureate, Andrea Musher, published CUP OF POEMS and a side of prose which were available in cafés citywide. Mr. Lehman reads his work wonderfully and honestly. His poems are "justified" (justified, get it? justified!) aw well... JT The author offers: John "Cambridge Humanities Council" Lehman President and Founder, Rosebud Book Reviews 315 Water St Cambridge, WI 53523 litnoir@gmail.com 608-235-2377 (cell) www.RosebudBookReviews.com www.buildnewbusiness.info www.LehanInfo.com My books are available from Amazon and www.DamnGoodBooks.com. On Kindle they are under "John Lehman" and "Jack Lehman." If you don't have a Kindle you can get a free ap by clicking in the right-hand column. On the web site the books are available in "mini paperback" form. 42 srArESrREUPOETRYSHEU Feb 26 - Mar 12, 2003 Editor: John Tuschen In Other Words Employed I don't reside in this office building where March wind growls outside like a hungry stomach, nor spend the prime hours of my day locked in its padded eight-foot cell with a computer, telephone and electronic mail. So what am I doing here, you ask? I'm searching for dues as to where I really am when I put callers on hold, pretend to plan a report or sit and stare at florescent lights. Oh, yes, the evidence is here, attached to e-mails I have sent to myself at home: "the burning soles of boots," a "peek-a-boo Veronica Lake," the "elevator which stops unexpectedly at another floor'' and Mr. Shaw who is better known as Fate. These .are impulses from one part of my brain to another. Invisible as flying sparks in the day. But at night they ignite to become stories each burning like a trash ba1Tel on the comer of a street with twisting flames that mark faces of curious passerby who at times stop to warm their hands and look into my eyes. Voll, #18 John Lehman copyright 2003 Tuschen Wrote on 2003: Tom Neale is a Madison poet, singer/song- writer, city employee, union man, part-time philanthropist, full-time humanist and occasional meteorologist (witness Tony Castenada's 8:00 Thursday morning show on WORT– FM.) Mister Neale is also a historian, researching various myths and lies so prevalent in American culture, he rewrites them in verse and honesty. The above poem is a historical narrative on the Indian, Pocahontas... JT Tom adds: I now live in rural Wisconsin about 200 miles north of Madison on 5 acres along a trout stream with my wife, Susan Crane, two large dogs, Lander & Carter, and a young cat that adopted us, Arlo the Red Emperor. strongdogs@gmail.com 44 srArESrREUPOETRYSHEU Mar 13 - Mar 26, 2003 Editor: John Tuschen APRIL 11, 1617 / REBECC No princess - held. hostage Voll,#_19 by the invaders of her people's coastal country. John Smith'IJ salvation - colonizing propaganda. Married off to a penniless Englishman. Renamed Rebecca and carried off _ to her husband's mother country to become the ornamental curiosity of England's aristocracy. Returning to America, coming home to a colony· propped up by the trade in tobacco; she sickens and_ dies like so many others of a disease foreign to this hemisphere.. Dies two years before the first Africcµis are shipped into Virginia, to begin replacing the decimated native labor force building the tidewater plantations of the colonial elite. Dies a returning exile; never knowing she is destined to become a heroine in the victors' mythology of racial supremacy and empire. Tom Neale· copyright 2003 Tuschen wrote in 2003: Madison poet, Ron, Czerwien, is also the owner of Avol’s Bookstore (yeah, in that “Deco” building on Gilman, half-block off State Street [which has now moved into 315 W. Gorham with A Room of One’s Own. ed.]) where he hosts guest poets and open readings on the first Thursday of every godforsaken Wisconsin month. (These are now held at Mother Fools Coffee Shop at 1101 Williamson St. on the first Friday of every godforsaken Wisconsin month. ed.) Ron and his lady Helen slid on over to Paris last summer. Apparently he brought this little gem back for us. But “didn’t see one damn beret the whole time I was there!” he whispered to an eager Francophile in the dark DMZ known as Gino’s... - JT 46 srAr£STREUPt9ETRYSHEU Mar 27 - April 9, 2003 Publisher/Editor: John Tuschen Rue American Vol 1,#20 The evening's misdirection's and poor pronunciations end with a number of empty, passing taxis, each driver's dour expression leaving your room at the Hotel Senateur further removed than the fictional projection of an American in Paris, or the Japorama, run by an expatriate Vietnamese who feigns his ignorance of English tonight in response to military build-ups in the middle east, like any honest-to-god Parisian, and then, to leave no doubt, charges three times more for a liter of Badoit than the epicerie on the Rue Monsieur le Prince, where you pause to admire the graphic art on bright pyramids of biscuit boxes, rounds of cheese, sidewalk displays of fruit threatening cascade merely because you pass. Ron Czerwien copyright 2003 Poetry movements do not always occur in the big cities. There have been movements as significant to their own locale as others were to the entire country. Info on author? Use Google. Type in “poet john tuschen” 48 srArESrREUPOETRYSHEU April 10 - April 23, 2003 Editor: John Tuschen One Moment A saxophone snaps back at the night. Your fingertips are touching my fingertips and when you whisper 'I want you to want me,' your voice cracks hard like years of cigarettes and pain have taken away all the softness and your eyes, your green, green eyes look down or far as if looking at nothing's shadow and the comers of your mouth also move downward but only slightly as tho the smallest smile may appear next and surprise both of us Vol 1, #21 "The quiet voice of the subconsciously noisy" and then we would have to laugh a little at our tenderness - so small and gentle that it hangs on the alto saxophone note that's blowing away from us now unscathed and heaven-bound. Tuschen wrote in 2003: Poet Miriam Hall, a willing refugee from the vast Neanderthal savannas of McCarthy’s Appleton, seems to have found a place where her desire for creative expansiveness and camaraderie thrive. An activist as well as a poet, Ms Hall works at the Rainbow Book Cooperative on West Gilman Street and can be seen/heard at any of the many poetry readings around Madison - especially those progressive in intent. Jeezz! that’s all of ‘em. Right? - JT Ed.: Ms.Hall can also now be found at Shambala Studio on Baldwin Street near Williamson Street. Miriam Hall 50