Sep 6 2015

Poet Republik-Joanna Fuhrman

This month’s featured poet, Joanna Fuhrman asks, among other questions “the meaning of the space/between the prongs of the unplugged iron?” What shouldn’t we allow in? In this age of surveillance and sophistry, what remains sacred? What profane? Does one bleed into another? Is all the world a stage? and if so, then must we let everyone watch? Where do we locate the real? Post a poem, video or story that reveals that every elusive commodity: truth. Yeah, I know you’re thinking about John Keats right now, we know what he has to say about truth, but what do YOU, tiny human giant, have to say?

The World is Burning, But Everyone Needs Sleep

Why bother to lift the cloud’s galvanic veil?
Why remove the halo contact lenses
from my solid white eyes?

If so many crows like to watch the blurred
screen of my face, how can I be expected
to understand the truth of the obstinate
fire hydrant? The meaning of the space
between the prongs of the unplugged iron?

Maybe it’s enough to bask in the shadows
of the thighs of the monumental icon,
to rescue dented souls with the tongs
of a sparkling imagination, to stretch out,

on the floor of our carpeted basement,
counting the heads of our ceramic turtle collection
until the meditative gesture
becomes you, and you it.

So don’t ask me to sleep on the other side
of the bottled-water bed.

Don’t tell me to flick on the light, and stop
drinking cocoa from the Van Gogh
museum’s ear-shaped mug.

Yes, there may be a river of tomato-juice blood
surrounding our neoclassical-pueblo duplex condo,
but that doesn’t mean the blinds should be open,
that everything should be allowed in.

me brooklyn

Joanna Fuhrman is the author of five books of poetry, most recently The Year of Yellow Butterflies (Hanging Loose Press 2015) and Pageant (Alice James Books 2009).  Her poems have appeared in many journals, including LitNew American WritingThe BelieverFenceQuarterly WestConduit, and American Letters and Commentary; and in anthologies published by Soft Skull Press, HarperCollins, New York University, the Pushcart Press, Bloomsbury and Carnegie Mellon University. She teaches poetry writing at Rutgers University and Sarah Lawrence,  in her Brooklyn apartment and through Teachers & Writers Collaborative and Poets House. For more see: joannafuhrman.com and http://theyearofyellowbutterflies.weebly.com/.
Originally publication (with correct line breaks) can be found in the Fall 2015 issue of The Homestead Review

Comments

29 Responses to Poet Republik-Joanna Fuhrman
  1. Abigail M says:

    What is real to some might be ignored based on someone’s level of understanding and acceptance. My perception on reality focuses on visual experiences this planet has faced and it takes one image or clip to express 1000 words into thoughts. For me one monumental experience that became vivid was loosing a family member in a car accident. That day was a dark moment in time for me and became crucial for me to accept. I didn’t realize what kind of impact it brought into my life until the very moment of realization. That loss gained more then just sympathy, it created an outline on life that determines what separates me from the truth. It can happen to anyone and it happened to me, these visuals only existed in movies or television I never believed I would encounter such a tragedy, but I did and that allowed me to build character. As much as I wish it wouldn’t of ever happened I accept the consequence and I carry faith within an eternal after life. To some people that might be oblivious but for me its a safe zone that keeps me connected with my lost family member and I carry them within me hoping to someday meet with them again after my time has passed on earth. That reality is the truth behind my spiritual beliefs.

  2. E. Salceda says:

    We can find true in the same place where we hide it.
    We can tell the truth, but we always choice to lie.
    We can express what we feel, yet we choice what others think we feel.
    We show society we are strong while we are not.
    I think we all know the meaning of true, but most of the time we don’t accept it. Sometimes is more comfortable for us to be living a lie than tell what we really feel and think. It is easier to say you are okay than tell everyone why you are sad or mad. Life events such as losing a loved one could make you feel the desire to not accept truth. We live in a society were stress is present in everything, and for some reason this could help people to be more susceptible to lie. Accepting the truth and what does it means, it is a process because you have to be able to accept everything the way it is. You have to be strong to accept the good and the bad. You have to be honest to tell the truth without any lie. You have to be intelligent to recognize when someone is lying to you.

  3. hilda says:

    Recently I came across an image that made my heart saddened. The image showed a service man of some kind picking up a lifeless body of a child laying on the shore of the beach. I hear about violence and war around the world, but living in the United States in the beautiful state of California I don’t recall reading nowhere in the books people fleeing for safety. The image was real, being a mother of two and my only instinct as a mother is to protect wish the best for a child. The image really gave me an eye opener of what life is outside and the meaning of protection.

  4. J. Serrato says:

    One very true fact that will always stay is that no matter how many friends or followers you have on Facebook or Twitter, you will always just have 150 true friends in your life time. It doesn’t matter if you have hundreds or thousands of these people on social media we now know thanks to The Dunbar Number, that you will never have any number that large of close friends. This is simply because that ‘s just how we operate as humans no other reason is out there for this fact, you may feel special about all those Twitter followers but in reality they may just be there to look at your pictures than to have a conversation with you.

  5. K. Aguilar says:

    I believe truth is within reality. The things that we go through, the hardships we face.. pretty much inhabit everyone’s life. But the thing is we learn from out mistakes and move one. Whatever happens in life, we ultimately have to accept it one way or another. In life the people we meet affect us more than we think……. Things happen in this world that are just ridiculous, and there are tons of dangers out there that few of us are lucky to be unaffected by could ever know or understand. Others bring out our qualities, and the places you go, affect you and basically every person is a sum of their individual experiences. Kid Cudi basically describes all of that in a nut shell from his song GHOST! where he portrays going through the undeniable truths of life.

  6. R. Olson says:

    Anyone can smack a smile onto his face every morning
    Anyone can write a “Thank You” letter to an estranged relative
    Anyone can compose feelings of guilt and remorse after hurting another person
    You can lie to the world, but you can’t lie to yourself
    You can trick your brain into thinking you’re right when you’re not
    But you know when you are wrong
    The world is a deceptive place
    Everyone is two-faced
    Everyone is fake
    Everyone lies
    The world has no honesty
    No sincerity
    No truth
    But all we can do is trust one another
    Because without trust, the world would be an empty place
    Without trust, there is no love
    And without love, there is no hope

  7. A. Tipton says:

    As someone who’s seen one mother and three step-mothers and a stepfather whose relationship with my mother is based on half-truths and just a general dishonesty, I have been taught and led to believe that true love has to grow from a foundation of lies because true honesty brings pain and sorrow and that just breaks hearts.

    Over the last few months, I have unlearned this so-called truth and learned the real truth – that this pain and sorrow brought on by hard truths is well worth it when one sees the light that comes at the end when people are made stronger and closer.

  8. C.Perea says:

    Because your reality is different than mine, I trust what is not a lie. You speak to the sky and I speak to the moon, fact is we all evaporate and reality remains a question.

    And I feel as I cannot hide, no matter where I turn there is one in sight. It’s soft skin and gentle cry, as the square screen mirrors what I want.

    I often wonder If your reality is my desire, as I emerge in endless happiness one day at a time. But as I continue to show my expression for everyone to see, don’t really know if I should keep it to me.

    The world expresses three is a family, as the world is a fixed reality. My reality is different than yours, but for now I leave it for the sky to choose.

  9. H. Avalos says:

    You know what hurts the most now a days?
    Lies
    Lies that are told by your loved ones
    Lies that literally feel as if you were punched in the stomach
    Lies that feel like a sharp knife going through the skin and feeling the warmth of the blood,
    Honesty became a rare quality in people
    Honesty is rare to find
    Honesty is like finding a needle in a haystack
    Honesty is like a precious diamond, pretty to look at, but only a few can have
    Honesty became like a pricey and rare thing to have
    Honesty I have, do you?

  10. S. Garza says:

    Just yesterday, I was at my grandma’s house watching the news when out comes this heartbreaking story that made me teary-eyed and deeply saddened. At a church service in Charleston, there was a 21-year-old boy, Dylann Roof, who shot and killed 9 African Americans including a pastor. As more information was being released, there was an interview of one of the victim’s mother who was present that day and was talking about how her son, Tywanza Sanders, had taken several shots and still tried saving an old woman’s life before he died. And with his last breaths, he managed to tell his mother that he loved her. After the nightmare that day Sander’s mother went to Roof’s hearing and said that she herself had forgiven him for killing her 26-year-old son. That very moment was real; a mother who had lost her son had forgiven her son’s killer. And Sander’s, who had managed to tell his mother that he loved her just as he was about to die. This tragedy really opened my eyes to what life is and how one should not take life for granted, because you can be here one day and be gone the next. This dreadful moment of reality that took place at a church in Charleston really gave me an understanding of what the meaning of truth is.

  11. A.Molina says:

    There are who people who cry, suffer, and worry each day
    there are people who smile to hide their pain
    and it wont wash away you’re hurt
    even if you rub off the dirt

    we dissemble ourselves from what is real
    which limits the time
    we take to heal
    we pretend, we don’t see the things we do
    we pretend we see the things we do
    to chastise everyone’s thoughts
    will continue to make the world distraught
    The world and all that we see
    The false limits of reality

  12. M. Hernandez says:

    When we are young, our world is built on lies
    Santa will come if you are a good girl
    The Tooth Fairy will surly pay you a visit tonight
    Oh no, this shot won’t hurt
    Some we can see straight through,
    But these lies are made to make the world magical
    They make the world bearable

    When we grow up we want the truth
    We want honesty
    Or so we say
    And in fact we do want truth
    It’s just not always the truth the world can give us

    We construct a world to our liking
    Play the part so perfectly
    Tying to make every fiber of our beings believe
    Silencing the ever questioning nuisances within
    We become the façade
    And except everyone to follow the script

    We were taught to live in a world of make believe
    We yearn for our desires to ring true
    We need the made up perfect world in our head
    So we take the lies, the half-truths and the uncertainty
    If it lets us play make-believe a little longer

    When they become too much to ignore
    Or someone shoves them in our face
    We are angered because our world is shattered
    Like the fragile looking glass it was
    And we scream we wanted honesty and truth
    When in fact we wanted fiction

  13. Dalila says:

    D. Ramirez

    She had the perfect life; loving parents, a sister, roof over her head and food on the table.
    Like any other teen ager, she falls in love, and creates a new life. At nineteen she returns home with her bundle of joy.
    Who knew that six months later those loving and accepting parents would now look upon her from up in the sky.
    What a surprise life brought across her. She could now be a broken woman. But that is not for what her parents raised her.

  14. J Perez says:

    Individuals “picture-perfect” lives are influenced by great sophistry. Sophistry which is eventually stripped by one’s own reality as dishonesties do not last forever and sooner or later become undressed. Many individuals who are dishonest to others are being dishonest to themselves to begin with. In my opinion, family is and should remain sacred in every individual’s existence since family is the core element of any individual’s success. So, why bother to uncover the already uncovered. In other words, why try to look for outside support when the best support comes from home.

  15. K Best says:

    Bound by silence, my mind a cell.

    Blinded, deafened- can’t hear the bell.

    The bell that sounds freedom to speak

    My blinded eyes struggle to peak

    Into the land of harmony-

    A place where darkness cannot be.

    For spoken word brings to the light

    The whispered wrongs hidden by night.

    So when I speak what I believe,

    I see the world I can retrieve.

    A world of goodness and knowledge;

    A world with truth at every edge.

    It’s in this world I wish to live,

    And so I write the truth I give.
    -AlyxTighe3

  16. S.Arroyo says:

    The Truth Of Life
    by Atish Home Chowdhury

    Never thought of life too easy,
    No I mean it is too busy.
    Not much time to think and do something new,
    people who think the same are very few.

    Righteous paths once followed,
    The bitter pill one has swallowed,
    Truth always hurts,
    But not the pure soul.

    Accept the truth as it is there,
    With not much fear.
    Today or tomorrow,
    Everyone has to accept the same,
    So being truthful to one and all,
    should be every person’s aim.

    Truth never makes any one sad,
    But it purifies the soul!

  17. C Johnson says:

    What does ‘truth’ mean?

    Is it a lack of lies
    or is it honesty
    Is it laying yourself bare to the world
    letting them judge you
         or not judge you
    as they see fit
    Is ‘truth’ something we seek
    or do we run from it fearing
    what it may reveal
    about others…
    about ourselves
    Is my truth the same as yours
    or do our truths differ
    in some fundamental way

    Will your truth ‘set you free’
    or will it imprison you
    Will my truth shield you from pain
    or cause you to ache from its sting
    Will a lack of truth help you sleep easier
    or keep you up at night wondering if
    what they said/didn’t say will be the thing
    which breaks you
    Will the truth enlighten us
    showing the way
    bringing inevitable closer…

  18. B. Reyes says:

    I deal with truth everyday as do we all. It often feels like a non emotion or given much thought. We all want truth. My children deserve the truth. From everything around us that seems broken, from politics to our courageous miitary. To all school goers public and private. Our churches the leadership around us in our counties. Truth is needed more so now than ever before. For all backgrounds and family configurations.Truth helps in guidence of a decision, right from wrong on a deep consciousness level. That definition to have awarness by the mind of itself plus the world emerges from the operations of our brain. Living life to help others to be any age including your fifties taking classes and educating yourself to be that one more knowledgable adult making a difference in this world. Truth of leaving your last child through much life adversity at her university. The truth found inherself knowing a plan sticking to it not budging. Falling behind to make sure he/she has the tools to struggle in this world.Truth and or trusting your Military children are well when deployed simultaneously.Truth when a hurricane,tornado and medical surgeries are needed home and away from home.That the truth known to some comforts, guided and lessons are learned by politicians, the public our religions. You can consume yourself with the truth and move forward each day. From your heart, mind and deep in your soul. It is that powerful including the strenghth to learn from it.

  19. L. Barber says:

    The aged photo lays cracked and dulled from time. Curled and separated at the square corners;
    A smiling mother
    A full-chested proud father holding an ebullient four year old squirming to get down.
    His arm rests at his wife’s generous hip while her emaciated breast presses against the soft flannel shirt covering an abdomen of muscle and sinew.
    A snapshot of a waterfall rushing towards its base destination, slowly sculpting a future of a hollowed crevice never to be seen.
    The dry terrain in the photo almost wafts at the images feet. The desolate void of the background concentrates her eye once again to the laughing child, head thrown back in unmindful joy.
    A photo found long after the grip on the mother’s hip left black drops of blood in the crevice of marriage
    and the strength of the man’s abdomen drowns a sullen child in the waterfall’s abyss.
    The viewer recalls the photo in her mind’s eye never to believe in what she sees and believing in her truth.

  20. Aleda Aprill Valdez says:

    Why is our world full of sorrow? So much pain and suffering
    With women and children begging for money on the street
    but people choose to pass them. This world is full of people
    who do not care for others but only for themselves
    We must see each other as one color and help those in need
    If we choose to ignore, this world will never recover.

  21. RRAMOS says:

    As the sun begins to rise
    As the roosters begin their song
    The masks begin to come on
    Is it real? or is it fake?
    As the layers begin to unravel
    Like an onion begging to be peeled
    Does anyone even know what is real?
    With fake posts and stretched truths
    Like a mime pulling a rope
    Round of applause this is the show
    Like the sun piercing the clouds
    Will the truth be revealed?
    Or will it remain hidden in the clouds?

  22. M. Sullivan says:

    Is it sacred if it makes life harder?
    Is it good if it makes things worse?
    Is it precious if it hurts?

    She asked me if she looked pretty, I said “no.”
    She wouldn’t talk to me for weeks.
    He asked if everything would be okay, I told him, “maybe”
    He walked away, head down, looking at the ground.
    They asked me if I finished my homework, I sighed, “I didn’t”
    We fought for hours.

    When asked if the dinner was good, I replied, “yes.”
    I became their favorite.
    When asked if a dress made her look fat, I answered, “no.”
    We cuddled for the night.
    When asked if there was an afterlife, I exclaimed, “Absolutely”
    They smiled and sang all day.

    Should truth be revealed if it hurts?
    Should lies be told it make us smile?
    Should promises be made if they only last a while?

  23. S. Anaya says:

    The Truth In You

    I seek the truth in you
    The weak lie is not you
    So speak up, yes you

    The truth hurts but it works
    The truth simplifies and dignifies
    The truth soothes preserving your youth

    I ask the truth of you
    Cry now, take a tissue
    So speak up, yes you

    The truth signifies and modifies
    The truth is within and the best way to begin
    The truth is a good start especially for sweethearts

    I need the truth of you
    Simply choose your venue
    So speak up, yes you

    The truth to any degree
    Is a starting point to be free
    Just like one and two make three
    So speak up, yes you
    If you agree
    -Sylvia Chidi

  24. M. Vallejo says:

    Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
    Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
    Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,
    Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
    How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
    Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
    To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
    Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
    Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car,
    And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
    To seek a shelter in some happier star?
    Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
    The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
    The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

  25. J. Barbosa-Boykin says:

    Everyone says life is easy
    but its because they haven’t lived in mine.
    The world has a lot to offer
    but if you face it with your arms crossed it will whirl you in.
    People come and go in our lives
    and pass like a summer breeze.
    Some stop by to smell the flowers
    others stay long enough to pick them.
    The people who make a difference
    are the ones who stop and plant the flowers in our lives.
    Life is a daily challenge and we must face it like warriors.
    The more prepare we are for the battle
    the more victorious we will be!

  26. M. Ongy says:

    Well-being

    my mind is filled with dreams and thoughts
    things that will never happen ever
    things that my teachers and employers taught
    to try and make me clever

    things I love but also what I hate
    imagining a beautiful first date

    my mind is filled with beautiful things
    like world peace and my future wedding ring

    I hate the fact that I’m always stuck in the clouds
    but for me
    it’s always the best place to be

  27. T. Wilson says:

    I don’t know what it is to lie
    Jeans have never made anyone look fat
    The dog really did eat my homework
    The tire on my car really went flat
    I swear I was studying with my friends,
    Not drinking beer and smoking pot
    The only time I lied
    was in bed, when I had that bug
    Yes, it was a coincidence
    there was an exam that day
    My mother has never cooked a bad meal
    My father has never told a bad joke
    I stand by all my choices
    I really do love myself

  28. Misael Rodriguez says:

    Lately I’ve been tough to reach. I spend a lot of time on my own. Sometimes I feel so depressed, I can’t seem to get out of this slump. A lot of things are hard to swallow: losing a loved one, heartbreak, lonliness. All these things can get to someone but one cannot let others say you are not beautuiful. Maybe we should trade shoes to see what it is like to be you or me and see our struggles through eachothers eyes.

  29. Noemi Hernandez says:

    This poem makes me reflect on things that have happen in the past. It makes me feel that some times in the moment of not knowing what to do things are crystal clear but their is always something that makes t difficult to face reality.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *