Everly Gets a Book Blurb

Sorry, folks. I’ve been busy. My high school students have
just finished a week of mid-term exams and I’ve been grading
them, all 125 of them. Additionally, the Spring semester has
started at Passaic County Community College. I’m a
writing professor once again.

Today, I’ve a bit of time to share a smidge of good news. My book
manuscript, The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly: A Story of the American Civil War, is now officially a fothcoming book. The contract is in my hands. Additionally, historian and author Scott Mingus has agreed to provide the book with its first back cover blurb. Scott Mingus is the author of several books concerning the American Civi War and I’m very excited to have him be a part of my second book.

Here’s a link to Mr. Mingus’s website: http://www.scottmingus.com/Books_by_Scott_Mingus.html

On my Horizon…

I’m an author, a little know, unimportant author, but
still, I’m an author and I get excited when I get to do author type
things. Here are a few of those things.

1. There is chance, a small chance, that New Jersey poet David Vincenti and I will have the opportunity to take our Voices from
History poetry tour to the Massachusetts Poetry
Festival this spring.

2. Fellow Anaphora Literary Press authors and
I are hoping to arrange a New York reading. 3. My second
manuscript, The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly: A
Story of the American Civil War, is almost complete.

Details to follow.

A Poem from my Forthcoming Book

I thought I’d share a poem that will be featured in my new book, The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly: Poems of the American Civil War. Lost in a murderous shroud of war and hate, Everly kills an enemy, a young Confederate solider.

A dead Confederate soldier

Silken Filaments of Salvation

August 4, 1861 – Entry IV

His neck was thin. My fingers
slid around it as they might caress
your neck, Elizabeth. Yet, it was slicked
with blood so it felt as if I tightened

my grip around a fish. Hunched over
like Notre Dame’s bell ringer, I pulled
his head closer to mine. He might
have thought I meant to kiss him.

My heart, my mind, both bubbled
with some foul Satanic froth,
both marvelled at the deepening color
of his face, a deep purple, a fine wine.

I gulped the dying gasps of this boy
as if his death would envelop me
with the silken filaments of salvation.
My fingers tightened. His neck grew

thinner, a wet string. His mouth,
like a gate, opened, dark and wide,
attempting to conjure breath. His limbs
flailed attempting to embrace the air.

His eyes, opened wide like globes.
Damn you, I screamed. DAMN YOU.
And then, there was death. He was still
And I was lost. Dear God, I am lost.

I Wonder as I Wander – Why?

A few weeks ago, I wrote about one of my habits, a habit that, in part, compels me to write: I wonder. I grant my mind liberty and let it travel where it might. But why do I wonder?

As a child, I often visited places I was unable to travel to physically; however, I did travel to these places both mentally and emotionally. Simply stated, I employed my imagination. As all children do, I embarked on incredible adventures. I explored the reaches of space. I grappled with undersea tyrants. I flew. I spoke to animals. I became animals. I piloted starships. I…well, I did it all. But all kids do. Right? But I’m not a kid anymore. A few days ago, I turned 44. Guess what. I’m still piloting starships.

Psychological studies suggest that people wonder, or day dream, because it helps them relax, manage conflicts, boost creativity, and relieve boredom. I’ve no doubt that all of this is true, but I believe that, for me, it’s more. When my mind zooms me to new and other places, it’s asking me to knit reality to the dream. It wants me to blend each into one. When I write, that’s exactly what happens.

For the last few years, I’ve been writing about the American Civil War. My efforts resulted in my first book, Private Hercules McGraw: Poems of the Civil War. Currently I’m writing a second volume of Civil War poetry, The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly. Respectively, each book tells the story of its title character; however, it also tells my story. As I carved each story, I lived each story. I smelt the cannon smoke. I trod upon earth muddy with blood. For me, my poems are much more than poems; they’re memories.

So, I’m a writer. I write because I wonder and I wonder to weave reality with fantasy – but why do that?

Related articles

• Lt. Kendal Everly Finds His Lungs (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)

Tic Toc

Several weeks ago, I discussed one of the reasons why I write – I wonder. I sit and let my mind wander. It takes me all over the world. It takes me to imaginary lands. It ushers me through time. Sadly, it can’t bless me with extra time. As of late, I’ve had no extra time…none. That’s one of the reasons why the word “Hammer” appears in the subtitle of this blog. Writing is hard work. Sometimes, finding the time to write is even harder work. Still, I was able to write this poem. It’s from my developing manuscript The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly: Poems of the American Civil War.

Some Men

Some men – their blood is thick.
When their skin rips, their blood
doesn’t run like the blood of other men
It seeps: honey, syrup. It seeps.
Sweat can’t thin it. It doesn’t trickle.

It smears. Like a swab of paint,
it smears across a man’s skin.
Crimson paint. The color of barns
and rose petals and apples.
Like honey, it seeps. Other men,

their blood spits from their wounds,
streams across a quilt of air,
splatters the ground:
spilt wine, sweet, sweet wine.
But some men: their blood is thick.

Dueling Characters

Scott’s great snake. Cartoon map illustrating Gen. Winfield Scott’s plan to crush the Confederacy, economically. It is sometimes called the “Anaconda plan.” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve a friend, a fellow poet, who reads everything I write. Well, at least everything I send him. He, William, read and commented on each poem in my book Private Hercules McGraw: Poems of the American Civil War. He’s also read and commented on every poem in my ever growing, soon to be published second book, The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly: Poems of the American Civil War.

Recently, William made the following observation. “Here, in The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly, more than with the rebel series, Private Hercules McGraw, you seem to isolate on the singular enemy ["the man I was to kill"] rather than the mass – as if these soldiers fight soldiers rather than armies.”

William also commented, “It seems that the Union liutennant is more self-absorbed and takes his action as against individuals. The tenor of the Confederate representative has a nobler essence – suggesting the poet has a sympathy for the settled character of the South.”

Hmmmm? Do I like one character (Hercules) more than another (Kendal)?

I need to think this one through. Fascinating.

Related articles

• Private McGraw Receives Stellar Review (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)
• Voices From History (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)

Lt. Kendal Everly Finds His Lungs

Yup, the protagonist of my second book will breathe. The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly: Poems of the American Civil War is to be published. Anaphora Literary Press, the publisher of my first book, just sent me a “Yes, we want it!!”

I sent Anaphora a partial manuscript so I better get a move on. Time to write, write, write. I got a book to finish!

Writing Challenge: Migration

Once again, I’m posting a poem to meet New Jersey poet Adele Kenny’s writing challenge. Adele has tasked me to write a poem that somehow deals with a migration. In this poem, from my developing manuscript The Journals of Lt. Arthur Kendal Everly: Poems of the American Civil War, Everly, the poem’s speaker, laments on his new title. He is now a lieutenant in the United States Army. He’s been given his uniform. He’s been given his gun. He’s made a a noble, terrible migration.

Visit Adele’s blog to read her challenge.

Blue Suit

May 25, 1861

Indeed, burdened
with the robes of war,
I’ve been named lieutenant.

Gold buttons, as bright
as Ares’ eyes…and a sword
hanging from my hip,
a bolt of Zeus’ fury.

I’ve been given a pistol.
It’s cold and heavy – a dead thing,
but something terrible beats
within it, wicked and hungry.

I fear that in some tomorrow,
I’ll be asked to feed it.

Related articles

• Private McGraw Receives Stellar Review (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)
• Empathizing with Your Characters: His Hell, My Hell (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)

Writing Challenge: Shadow

Here’s a poem that I think fits, however not perfectly, the writing challenge offered on poet Adele Kenny’s blog, The Music In It. Adele asks her readers to write a shadow poem. If you’re interested, follow this link to Adele’s challenge.

This is one of the first poems in my developing manuscript, The Journals of Lt. Arthur Kendal Everly: Poems of the American Civil War. In it, Everly, a teacher, fears that war is imminent.

——-

This is the Place

April 1, 1861

Here, beneath these trees –
oak and ash – shadows lay
like blankets spread
for a community of picnics.
I feast on a moment’s song:

breezes, still laced
with March’s chill, weave
as ribbons about these limbs,
Giggling children dart
behind stalwart trunks

hiding from each other and me –
children teasing me, their teacher,
as I walked to school.

But this spring rumbles.
Men who drape themselves
in the dark robes of politics

brandish words as warriors
brandish swords –
and I am afraid.

Empathizing with Your Characters: His Hell, My Hell

Cannon at the First Battle of Bull Run (Photo credit: Jason Pier in DC)

My second manuscript is near completion. It’s titled The Journals of Lt. Arthur Kendal  Everly: Poems of the American Civil War. In it, poem by poem (one poem = one journal entry) Everly tell us a tale; he speaks of his journey through the Civil War.

Everly, a pacifist and a teacher, enlists in the Union army solely because he feels it is his duty to fight if his students are to fight. He feels compelled to protect their innocence. Sadly, he fails, despite valiant efforts. Sadly, he also fails to protect himself. He survives the war; yet he, in many ways, dies.

 

The final part of the book remains unwritten. It will deal with Everly’s experience in the Battle of First Bull Run. Everly will tell a gruesome story. His experience it that battle will, in many ways, destroy him. I find it strange that I’m hesitant to begin the destruction, so to speak. I’m hesitant to see what Everly sees, hesitant to feel what he feels because all he sees and feels will be torn from me. I will construct his hell and, in part, I will therefore construct a hell for me to lie in as well

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• On the Eve of Bull Run (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)