RAIN SHADOW REVIEW A VIRTUAL WORKSHOP FOR INCARCERATED WRITERS APRIL 2023 Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal but which the reader recognizes as his own. ~Salvatore Quasimodo Nobel Prize for Literature

FEATURED POEM “Moon Ghazal” Dorianne Laux The Paterson Prize, Oregon Book Award

I can’t remember the first time I saw it, seems it was always there, even with me in the womb, the moon. It must have been night, above the ocean, making a path on the waves, gilded invitation, the parchment moon. Or the day moon, see-through-y wafer over desert, caught in the arms of saguaro, thin-skinned, heart-stuck moon. Blue as new milk, aquarium water, Mexican tile, blue as cold-bitten fingertips, nailbeds’ quick-blue arcs, half-moons. How I felt when I saw my first grown boy, round-eyed, all sinew and muscle, his calves, his biceps, plump as moons. Buttons, doorknobs, volleyballs, clocks, egg yolk, orange slice, violet iris, our planet a pupil, mote in the eye of the moon. The cell inside me splitting and splitting, worm of the fetus, tadpole, the glazed orb of the eye, my belly taut as the moon. The blood-streaked moon of her head pushing through, moons of the faces above me, urging me, pulling, promising the moon. There are earthquakes on the moon, water, not geologically dead, still acting like a planet: upheaval, turmoil, shaking her head, the moon. When I see the earth of you I still feel moonquakes, even now, after so many moons my round breasts swoon, your fingertips, small moons.

POEM ANALYSIS A ghazal is an Arabic poem characterized by couplets (stanzas with two lines), a complicated rhyme scheme, a focus on the themes of love and loss, and repeated words. Laux’s poem inhabits this traditional structure but is capricious (given to unaccountable changes in mood and behavior) in mimicking the moon’s effect on human mental health and feelings. Laux inserts the word “moon” 16 times in the poem. Its placement at the end of each stanza exerts a gravitational pull, mimicking that of the moon. And that repetition pulls our memories of the moon lighting the night to the surface. Laux delights us with internal rhyme: “even with me in the womb, the moon.” She intrigues us with layered meanings—the speaker is female and the moon is traditionally associated with feminine qualities, and since a baby’s sex is determined at the moment of fertilization, the moon influences the speaker’s in-utero development. The moon is a powerful symbol of the lifecycle. It waxes, wanes, and finally vanishes, but its apparent death isn’t final--the cycle repeats itself. It makes “a path/on the waves, [a] gilded invitation” leading the speaker through the phases of her own cycles. The moon’s influence is potent. It affects us during the mysterious times—at “night” and over the “ocean.” And it affects us in more playful times when the moon is a “see-through-y wafer over desert,” (reminiscent of dessert) “caught/in the arms of saguaro.” The moon is ever present, as “Blue as new milk, aquarium water, Mexican tile, blue/as cold-bitten fingertips, nailbeds’ quick-blue arcs, half-moons.” But while this list of similes is evocative, none of the images capture the moon’s sensuous spherical shape. Only after the speaker experiences the “thin-skinned, heart-stuck moon” and sees her “first grown boy, round-eyed,/all sinew and muscle, his calves, his biceps, plump as moons,” does she capture the moon’s globular glory: “Buttons, doorknobs, volleyballs, clocks, egg yolk, orange/ slice, violet iris, our planet a pupil, mote in the eye of the moon.” When cells in the speaker’s womb split and split, and the “worm of the fetus” develops with its “glazed orb of the eye,” the speaker feels as though her own belly, “taut as the moon,” contains something extraordinary. Laux captures the mystery of birth by depicting the faces of the people in the room with the speaker as “moons.” “Moons who promis[e] the moon,” making promises impossible to keep. Laux extends this metaphor when she also describes the “moon” of the baby’s head, but she counterbalances the associated sense of wonder with the reality of giving birth: “the blood-streaked moon of her head.” Welcoming a new baby home is like an earthquake on the moon. While the moon remains the “planet” in charge, she shakes “her head” at the “upheaval.” Even after time passes and the speaker has had time to the grounding “earth’ of the baby, she feels “moonquakes” and her “round breasts swoon” at the mere sight. Laux ends the poem with a beautiful image of the small moons embedded in the child’s fingertips. This child too will follow the moon’s cycles, and although an earthly being, the child embodies the moon’s lure and magic.

JOKE WITH DICK Why don’t you use a word processor, Dick?

Auto correct is my worst enema!

Thanks to Jeffrey Link FEATURED PROSE Excerpt from The Long Way Home: Detours and Discoveries Tom Montgomery Fate Professor emeritus at College DuPage where he taught creative writing for 30 years

In the morning I walked over to the gravel bar on Lookout Creek to take notes. Rain drip-ticked on the yellow maple leaves above me. Drop-tocked in the puddles collecting on the ground. Ping-ticked on a shiny black cedar log. Plop-tocked on an overturned plastic bucket some researcher left. Though the wet drum of rain was nuanced and lovely, when I got within 100 yards of the creek, the rush of whitewater overwhelmed everything. I sat on a flat rock in the hard rain listening to Lookout Creek. Given three days of rain, and all those boulders and deadfalls, it had a lot to say. Over time, the gurgling water dissolves rock, rots logs and leaves, and carries them downstream, along with trout and pine pollen and needles and cones, and bits of moss and lichen. Over time it will reshape its bed and banks and habitat, physically expressing its character and history in the forest. Over time, its diversity and biological health will be denigrated due to climate change and other human activities. Over time, as with all streams and rivers, Lookout Creek will measure and reveal both our culpability and response-ability as a species. Over time it will measure who we are. PROSE ANALYSIS T.M. Fate’s excerpt demonstrates the persuasive power of anaphora. The phrase “over time” is repeated with increasing frequency, underscoring the increasing urgency of our “response-ability” to act in the face of climate change. The sound of water has a profound soothing effect on our minds and physiology. Fate captures its drip-tick, drop-tock, ping-tick, and plop-tock and then delivers a percussive metaphor—“the wet drum of rain” to remind us of the creek’s “nuanced and lovely” music. Along the way, Fate mentions simple concrete details like a “gravel bar…yellow maple leaves…shiny black cedar log… [and] an overturned plastic bucket” to transport us to the scene.

Fate takes advantage of the creek’s name—Lookout Creek—as an omen of environmental destruction, for “Over time, its diversity and biological health will be denigrated due to climate change.” Fate gives Lookout Creek a full-throated voice. “Given three days of rain, and all those boulders and deadfalls, it had a lot to say.” The creek’s voice is quick, breathless, and interrupted as it “dissolves rock, rots logs and leaves, and carries them downstream, along with trout and pine pollen and needles and cones, and bits of moss and lichen.” But more than that, Lookout Creek deserves a voice, because it has helped create our world. Its “gurgling water dissolve[d] rock” and created “banks and habitat.” By the end of the piece, we remember an earlier mention of the creek’s “rush of whitewater [that] overwhelmed everything”—a positive sensation that now takes on a menacing tone because it pre-figures a world overwhelmed by climate change. A time when creeks and rivers run dry, a time when they “will measure…our culpability” if we have failed to protect them. A time when they “will measure who we are.” WRITING EXERCISE Keep the Quasimodo quote and Laux’s poem in mind and write about where you see the moon’s shape and its tug over your lifetime. CRAFT NOTES: John Gardner in The Art of Fiction speaks of concrete details as ‘proofs,’ which establish in the readers such firm confidence that the author is an authority, that we believe whatever she or he tells us. An author who is vague and opinionated, on the other hand, makes us uneasy and suspicious. And this applies to characters as well—a fact you can exploit. Any character—whether in a memoir, a fiction, poetry, or drama—who speaks in generalizations and judgements will undermine your trust. ‘It is odd but I must tell you that I have never felt so self-assured, so splendid, so brilliant…Apparently, it is necessary to find someone completely inferior to appreciate one’s own excellence. To be a prince in name is nothing. To be a prince in essence—it’s heaven, it’s pure joy’ (Irena, Princess of Burgundia, Witold Gambrowicz). We don’t have to know anything about this character or the play he comes from to know that we mistrust his judgement. (Janet Burroway, Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft, p. 9) CONTACT US: RAIN SHADOW REVIEW Author: Gillian Haines, except where noted Editors: Ken Lamberton & Dora Rollins P.O. Box 85462 Tucson, Arizona 85754-5462 [email protected] THANK YOU TO THE LANNAN FOUNDATION FOR ITS SUPPORT