My Aunt in America - Jesse Weiner

In 1946, my aunt from europe,
who was living in treblinka
when it was liberated by russian troops,
came to america, married a
bakery and cooked stuffed cabbage soup
with cheap fatty flanken which left
huge bubbles of strong flavored fat
floating, separating, joining.

when my aunt from europe got rich,
she used leaner meat,
ground sirloin to stuff the cabbage,
less rice and the soup wasn't as good as before,
sliced white bread rather than corn rye,
frozen dinners instead of pierogen.
when she fried she used fine olive oil
and mayonnaise in the chopped liver
instead of schmaltz,
and she was glad to forget the taste
of europe, the smoke of kishinev in 1903,
the smells of kielce in 1946 and
the ovens, always the ovens.

my aunt from europe learned to speak
without an accent, to dress like manhattan
instead of brooklyn, to shed each skin
after each finished season.
she told me- be an american, be
a human being instead of a jew.


Jesse WEINER
"My Aunt in America" first appeared in The Black Bear Review.

10x3 plus, #2 issue of poetry journal published and ready for distribution

Scott from On Track Communications delivered the magazine this past weekend and the mailers arrived today so I am ready to begin distribution. The journal looks so professional--On Track did a thorough job, as usual. Helene Lacelle's artwork printed crisp and clear, and the writing is varied, focused, great. First copies will be going out to the contributors (listed below), and then I will be filling orders and sending to libraries, other poets, creative writing programs, and organizations like Poet's House and the Wick Poetry Center. Anyone with suggestions on where to publicize and distribute the mag, please contact me. I also love hearing feedback--please make my ears burn.

More information is available at the web site: http://www.10x3plus.com/

If you have problems opening the web site, try googling 10x3 plus. Yes, it comes up now, or you can google Simar 10x3 plus.

Thanks to everyone who helped with this issue--especially the poets and the cover artist who were so generous with their work.

Love you all,

Sue Ann Simar

Guy R. BEINING--regarding DOLLOP 1-12--letter to Sue Ann Simar

3/2/08--Great Barrington, Massachusetts

Dear Sue Ann Simar,

Yesterday received your probing letter concerning Dollop 1-12. I'm going to comment on your inquiries as they fell in your letter. First, I'm sure you're above normal regarding work & images, being a poet and an editor, you'd have to be. Then you say that you still don't completely get the dollops. Dollop one, for example, is just a ruinously sad appraisal of the world today. Next you feel that "dollops seems almost an excuse for the larger work to get off easy and not have an overall cohesiveness." My take is that titles are overrated. Take that god awful poem Trees that every school child had to read. Yes, it is about trees. So what? Do you need labels to read poetry? Between 1978-1990, I wrote a long work entitled STOMA. I got up to over 2000 Stoma poems before I was done. Giving titles to each poem would have added nothing. I sometimes go for long periods where I title each poem, so it's not completely laziness. Must there be overall cohesiveness? Perhaps that makes me a laborer of poems rather than one who wants to compartmentalize. Then you say, "I may get a glimpse but it's like catching a shadow." That appeals to me & might irritate someone else. Poetry to me is the most powerful medium of all, but should not be reined in so easily. This next part in your letter I really like, even the "words without paints" part. You believe that they have a painterly quality & stage presentation. This is insightful on your part & emphasizes my concepts about poetry. It is theatre, art, etc. I've had art pieces in Vispo shows, i.e. visual poetry, & that is more direct but poetry is a thing to play with & not be boxed in by, as academia has done for years & years so they can have all those poetry workshops.
You like 4, 5, 6, 9, & 11 & you like the haiku man & wished that he were present sooner. Might have solidified things in your view, but as you can guess, I don't think much of haiku poets. I have appeared in haiku magazines but find most haiku poets are on the smug side, so he was rude in his entrance into this set of poems. Very typical. I agree with you on #6. It works well as it plays with a Dickinson poem. I also agree that the five poems you selected as best are probably the best of the 12 works. So you honed them down well......"



dollop 6. dollop 9. dollop 11. ---> These poems appear in the #2 issue of 10x3 plus.
Guy R. Beining does not use or have a computer, but the letter excerpt above and his poetry appear here with his permission.

dollop 4. - Guy R. Beining

the better strands of a day
had been abandoned.
someone had drawn
portions of a dream,
lifting up parts from
a circular drum while all pretenders
were left baring a common fiction.
a girl stood in the middle
of a road; her cheek bled.
fast forward to where
the girl's detached head
was set up as a bomb
which blew up a grocer
who had tried to rescue it.
such a sweet sweep of things
steeped in greed.
will a posse rule this dusty strip,
or will we just preen
as history gets soundly slapped?


Guy R. BEINING
from his series dollop 1-12.

dollop 5. - Guy R. Beining

the flurry of strings
must have numbed her
& the feeling of some terrible
sting was close behind,
or perhaps a sick wave
might spill onto the
attraction of her piece.

will the water remain calm
in backdrop of artist's loft,
knowing that in the nagging
onslaught the bowery will sing
without tweeds or longing?
was she thrown into emberness?
the statue of her eyes
chip away at me, & like a poet,
she stands off center.
the ballroom was blue & unmoved
& blended in with the sky.
the shell was that part left untouched.


Guy R. BEINING
from his series dollop 1-12.

A Simple Prayer

God, known in many ways, God, called by many names,
nurture within us an abiding respect for one another.
Remove from our hearts all violence and hatred. Replace
it with a passion for justice and peace.

10x3 plus

10x3 plus is a journal of poetry. The focus of 10x3 is to publish ten poets times three poems or three poets times ten poems. The plus includes poems, prose-poems, and features such as Jesse Weiner's The Structure of Complex Symbols. Poets can find submission information on the web site: http://www.10x3plus.com/.
The magazine was founded in 2007 and is professionally printed.

Hopefully, this blog site will display news and poems of 10x3 writers, and also news and poems of other poets.

Anyone with Say about the art of poetry is invited to participate.