Marc Jampole's Blog
May 30, 2021
May 7, 2021
WINNING BY LOSING, LOSING BY WINNING
Coming from a family that prized athletic competition has made me often explore in fiction and poetry the differences and similarities between winning and losing, in sports and in other human endeavors. One notion that has haunted me is winning by losing, or losing by winning. Victories that cost the victors so much that they soon lose the war. Victories that help the overlords, but not those who did the actual fighting. Victories that bring the hollow feeling that the winner will have to do it all over again the next day. Perhaps my favorite poem among these musings on defeat and victory is “The Wrestler.” In it I toy with the Hindu idea of pursuing the perfection of your actions in battle instead of focusing on the final outcome, a concept most compellingly presented in the chapter of the Hindu epic Mahabharata called Bhagavad Gita. America has cheapened the complexities of the Bhagavad Gita into the often spouted but rarely believed homily, “It’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.”
Like most of my poems, none of the voices in “The Wrestler” is the poet. Narration of the poem is shared by an omniscient narrator and the thoughts of the main character. The elision back and forth between the two voices approaches the fictional device called free indirect discourse, which Flaubert essentially perfected in Madame Bovary, and has served as a cornerstone of experimental fiction ever since.
“The Wrestler” was published a few years’ back in Ellipsis. The basic story is one of adolescent rebellion—a young man, having proven that he is the best wrestler, allows himself to lose a championship match because it’s more important for him to see the disappointment on his father’s face than to win. I use the same story in a quite different context in my novel, The Brothers Silver, which Owl Canyon Press is releasing in less than a month.
THE WRESTLER
His wrestler’s arms elevate
his dying father from the bath,
towel the anorexic wheezing flesh.
His wrestler’s fingers ram at buttons
swelling narrow holes of flimsy night clothes,
like punching bolts through steel, one shot,
one shot, one shot, and then you’re done
and then your pill for pain, and then your
noisy sleep, snores and disconnected words,
sling-shot carp on what I have and have not done.
In one of many rooms of father’s empty house
his wrestler’s legs incline and hands release
and slowly father rotates off his wrestler’s frame
onto bed and wakes, mutters lost championship,
then falls to sleep again.
Why high school wrestling thirty years ago?
So much has happened.
I wrestled the ladders I climbed, wrestled
the metal I welded, wrestled the bread I baked,
all a giant wingless loving-hating angel
I could never conquer, so I held on
and holding on, I could never lose,
and the angel was you.
Fetal cradle quivers porridge steam,
father hisses cold, I’m cold.
His wrestler’s hands corkscrew clumps of flesh
through a second set of sleeves,
then spreads the leaking body out again.
Is his father finally falling into deeper dreams?
You mythed yourself as Krishna teaching
way of works for men of action,
to me, Arjuna, perfect incarnation,
slaying Bhisma, Karna, armies of Kurus.
On my own I found performance with no thought of prize,
control, control, control, relinquish.
Enter other sons, boxer, goalie, fullback,
and smoke cigars outside the room,
last vacation renovation new investment,
exhale the fumes beyond a fan,
remember father’s backdoor laughing smokes,
elaborate athlete handshakes to the wrestler,
younger brother, you the man, you the best
to volunteer for nursemaid work,
a big, forgiving man, after years of silent rift.
Great warriors always winning;
my deeds could never match.
Often thinking, never saying
I look like you, but I’m not you.
You said talent isn’t everything.
You called it my pattern:
wrestle and relinquish quit school,
wrestle and relinquish quit the rigs,
wrestle and relinquish quit the marriage
quit and drift, quit and start, quit and switch,
quit before the winning, wrestle and relinquish.
Alone in stale tobacco lamp glow:
painful diapasons pierce the wrestler’s thoughts
that coast to feeble huffing once a shout,
meager bone once buck ram strapping,
restless drift once righteous resolution.
Sleeping father, dying father,
mythless thing itself, here is act itself:
Circle, take down, near fall,
defensive escape, defensive reversal,
I’m up eight-zip, another takedown,
you’re yelling pin, pin, pin,
reverse, takedown, near fall, control,
you’re waving rolled-up program,
eleven-oh, be careful now,
fifteen points an automatic win,
control, control, control,
he escapes, I reverse again, fourteen-two,
circle, play out clock, seconds left, twelve, ten,
you’re shaking someone next to you,
that’s my son, that’s my son,
five seconds, I’m winning eighteen-four,
everyone knows who’s best, everyone knows,
circle front of you, now I make my perfect move,
collapse the knee, roll to right, pull him over,
careful, let them think it’s him,
heave my shoulders back and down control
relinquish touch the mat I’m pinned I win.
Marc Jampole
Published in Ellipsis #44 (2008)
Like most of my poems, none of the voices in “The Wrestler” is the poet. Narration of the poem is shared by an omniscient narrator and the thoughts of the main character. The elision back and forth between the two voices approaches the fictional device called free indirect discourse, which Flaubert essentially perfected in Madame Bovary, and has served as a cornerstone of experimental fiction ever since.
“The Wrestler” was published a few years’ back in Ellipsis. The basic story is one of adolescent rebellion—a young man, having proven that he is the best wrestler, allows himself to lose a championship match because it’s more important for him to see the disappointment on his father’s face than to win. I use the same story in a quite different context in my novel, The Brothers Silver, which Owl Canyon Press is releasing in less than a month.
THE WRESTLER
His wrestler’s arms elevate
his dying father from the bath,
towel the anorexic wheezing flesh.
His wrestler’s fingers ram at buttons
swelling narrow holes of flimsy night clothes,
like punching bolts through steel, one shot,
one shot, one shot, and then you’re done
and then your pill for pain, and then your
noisy sleep, snores and disconnected words,
sling-shot carp on what I have and have not done.
In one of many rooms of father’s empty house
his wrestler’s legs incline and hands release
and slowly father rotates off his wrestler’s frame
onto bed and wakes, mutters lost championship,
then falls to sleep again.
Why high school wrestling thirty years ago?
So much has happened.
I wrestled the ladders I climbed, wrestled
the metal I welded, wrestled the bread I baked,
all a giant wingless loving-hating angel
I could never conquer, so I held on
and holding on, I could never lose,
and the angel was you.
Fetal cradle quivers porridge steam,
father hisses cold, I’m cold.
His wrestler’s hands corkscrew clumps of flesh
through a second set of sleeves,
then spreads the leaking body out again.
Is his father finally falling into deeper dreams?
You mythed yourself as Krishna teaching
way of works for men of action,
to me, Arjuna, perfect incarnation,
slaying Bhisma, Karna, armies of Kurus.
On my own I found performance with no thought of prize,
control, control, control, relinquish.
Enter other sons, boxer, goalie, fullback,
and smoke cigars outside the room,
last vacation renovation new investment,
exhale the fumes beyond a fan,
remember father’s backdoor laughing smokes,
elaborate athlete handshakes to the wrestler,
younger brother, you the man, you the best
to volunteer for nursemaid work,
a big, forgiving man, after years of silent rift.
Great warriors always winning;
my deeds could never match.
Often thinking, never saying
I look like you, but I’m not you.
You said talent isn’t everything.
You called it my pattern:
wrestle and relinquish quit school,
wrestle and relinquish quit the rigs,
wrestle and relinquish quit the marriage
quit and drift, quit and start, quit and switch,
quit before the winning, wrestle and relinquish.
Alone in stale tobacco lamp glow:
painful diapasons pierce the wrestler’s thoughts
that coast to feeble huffing once a shout,
meager bone once buck ram strapping,
restless drift once righteous resolution.
Sleeping father, dying father,
mythless thing itself, here is act itself:
Circle, take down, near fall,
defensive escape, defensive reversal,
I’m up eight-zip, another takedown,
you’re yelling pin, pin, pin,
reverse, takedown, near fall, control,
you’re waving rolled-up program,
eleven-oh, be careful now,
fifteen points an automatic win,
control, control, control,
he escapes, I reverse again, fourteen-two,
circle, play out clock, seconds left, twelve, ten,
you’re shaking someone next to you,
that’s my son, that’s my son,
five seconds, I’m winning eighteen-four,
everyone knows who’s best, everyone knows,
circle front of you, now I make my perfect move,
collapse the knee, roll to right, pull him over,
careful, let them think it’s him,
heave my shoulders back and down control
relinquish touch the mat I’m pinned I win.
Marc Jampole
Published in Ellipsis #44 (2008)
May 3, 2021
DON'T ASSUME THE SPEAKER OF A POEM IS THE AUTHOR. OFTEN, IT'S SOMEONE ELSE; SOMETIMES IT'S MANY VOICES
One of the most central issues in writing anything is voice, at least for me. When beginning a piece, I always ask myself, who do I want to do the talking in this poem or story? Is it a man or a woman? How old? What are his or her major concerns? Quick to anger or patient? Socially aware or a dunce? Educated or not? Humble or fat-headed? Any accent or speech impediment? If I’m writing in the third person, I ask myself whether the all-knowing narrator is a character in the story, and whether he/she/they/it can spy into the hearts of just one character or many characters?
Consequently, unlike many contemporary authors, you cannot approach my work thinking that the “I” speaking represents me. My “I’s included famous composers, images in paintings, people with Parkinson’s disease, adulterers, suburban dads, and characters from fiction, among many others. I have also used collective voices, such as the collective voice of hunters, survivors of war and pestilence, and losers of athletic competitions. I have even written material from the point of view of animals and plants.
When appropriate, I have always enjoyed creating pieces in which there is more than one voice talking. The first time I attempted a piece of creative writing with multiple voices was “The Death Song of Lenny Ross.” Lenny Ross was a minor figure of mid-20th century American history: He was a child prodigy who won $100,000 on one 1950’s television game show, and $64,000 on another. He grew up to be a key political advisor to Jerry Brown and a college lecturer. But as he aged, Lenny began acting more and more strangely. In old school parlance, he went crazy. He increasingly had obstreperous outbursts, lost his attention span, couldn’t keep a job, and eventually committed suicide at the age of 39 in 1985.
My poem tells the life of Lenny Ross in seven voices, including Lenny’s. It seems like it was yesterday, but the Pittsburgh Quarterly originally published “The Death Song of Lenny Ross” about 30 years ago! One can also find the poem in my first collection of poetry, Music from Words.
BTW (or FYI), my novel, The Brothers Silver, which Owl Canyon Press is releasing on June 1, also unfolds in what one early reader calls a “symphony of voices.” In total, the 12 chapters have 10 distinct voices, each with its own vocabulary and personality flaws. No one tells the whole story, because no one knows the whole story.
THE DEATH SONG OF LENNY ROSS
Lenny Ross was a Whiz Kid quiz show contestant as a child in the 50’s who later became an advisor to Jerry Brown and held several academic positions.
Dow’s theory analyzes market action.
Fundamentals deal in corporate prospects.
When stocks are good, T-bills suffer,
and when the market shakes its head and shoulders
it’s getting ready to reverse direction.
What a boy you are, Lenny Ross, Lenny Ross!
What a genius boy you are!
And why not you, Lenny?
Why not you to win the hundred thousand
answering quiz-show questions
on stocks and bonds and whatever?
Why not you the youngest?
At five you talked like Walter Lippmann.
At six you built a TV by yourself!
What a boy you are, Lenny!
What a genius boy you are!
Our tort system, from English common law,
changes many features of that older land.
The principle’s the same,
that assets yield to no man save one who has them.
Eschewing class, we’re guided by associations,
men maintaining liberty by joining others openly.
as Tocqueville described, recalling Edmund Burke.
He grasped all aspects of the reading,
wrestling levels none of us had thought about,
as we sat silent, listening to his playfulness
with concepts none of us had heard before.
And yet so kind he was to all of us, his elders,
so patient telling us his thoughts.
What a mind he had, Lenny Ross,
and what a knowledge of the law.
A head that talks, an academic side man,
I know that’s what they think of me.
Great idea, Lenny! What a brain!
I want to be a man of action, commanding heads of state
I want to run for President one day.
I have a master plan.
It’s all up here!
Slow down, Lenny Ross, finish one thing!
I told him that a thousand times, at least,
then watched him stagger back and forth
among his shriveled plants and dusty chairs,
popping frozen peas at open mouth
and throwing out ideas like cannon shot.
And it was up to me to understand
that he had skipped ahead to chapter five.
Slow down, Lenny! I can’t keep up.
But he persisted with a logic of his own.
Here’s the plan:
We’ll write a treatise on the rights of students
and with the money earned, we’ll buy these artists:
Fieldes, Moore and Greaves;
minor works by minor painters.
By lending them to small museums,
their values will inflate,
and then we sell and start a franchise.
I knew his reputation: Fired from Harvard,
bewildered students, uncompleted books.
But those first flowing days in Sacramento,
those synergistic days!
We watched him use a roll of tape and scissors
to cut and splice my program.
The spaceship earth, the new age economics,
the art of Zen applied to government....
It was all there.
If things had turned out differently, Lenny Ross,
you would have been my Commerce Secretary.
A six-month freeze on wages
without a freeze on prices,
followed by a year of frozen subsidies,
after which we send a thousand troops to Spain
as warning to the Sheiks to drop the price of oil.
I’ll send the President a memorandum
when I’ve wrapped my piece on Masons.
It’s full of great ideas.
Don't call me anymore, Lenny Ross,
I've had about enough of you
and your constant chatter leading nowhere.
You can't keep quiet long enough to love me.
You touch my thigh, then start to babble economics,
then write a sentence down, then phone a friend,
remember I'm in bed and ask me
what I think of Bergman’s latest flick.
I can't take it anymore, Lenny Ross!
Genius, shit! Just get it up and keep it up for once!
A thermo coupler made of fiberglass
Kabuki language representing social graces
Venture funds investing in technology
In five years’ time, the baby boomers will
Stendhal’s real name was
Juan Gris merely described what he
Sawmills replacing windmills along the Flemish…
You're back home, Lenny Ross,
and we'll take care of you.
No more taking jobs and quitting three months later.
No more lying under cars reciting lectures.
You'll rest awhile, Lenny, and then you’ll see.
You’ll land a cushy job.
…theory of addled value William Cullen
Randolph the red-nosed option underlying
Tinto Ramm Dass vodanya Montana the Puritan
migraine persecution of the Cotton Mather
tell Jerry my name is Gemini
Carter Wilson Picket the symbol of an angry
zero coupon to beat the plowshares into Isaiah Berlin…
My voice now, Lenny,
my voice calm, first time in years,
looking through the waters of the Capri Motel pool,
hearing waves applaud with plastic hands,
smelling chlorine smoke, tasting acrid starlight fruit.
Jump, Lenny Ross.
Remove this yoke of expectation.
Jump, Lenny,
jump to freedom...
Marc Jampole
Originally published in Music from Words (Bellday Books, 2007) and Pittsburgh Quarterly Volume I, #1 (Winter 1991)
Consequently, unlike many contemporary authors, you cannot approach my work thinking that the “I” speaking represents me. My “I’s included famous composers, images in paintings, people with Parkinson’s disease, adulterers, suburban dads, and characters from fiction, among many others. I have also used collective voices, such as the collective voice of hunters, survivors of war and pestilence, and losers of athletic competitions. I have even written material from the point of view of animals and plants.
When appropriate, I have always enjoyed creating pieces in which there is more than one voice talking. The first time I attempted a piece of creative writing with multiple voices was “The Death Song of Lenny Ross.” Lenny Ross was a minor figure of mid-20th century American history: He was a child prodigy who won $100,000 on one 1950’s television game show, and $64,000 on another. He grew up to be a key political advisor to Jerry Brown and a college lecturer. But as he aged, Lenny began acting more and more strangely. In old school parlance, he went crazy. He increasingly had obstreperous outbursts, lost his attention span, couldn’t keep a job, and eventually committed suicide at the age of 39 in 1985.
My poem tells the life of Lenny Ross in seven voices, including Lenny’s. It seems like it was yesterday, but the Pittsburgh Quarterly originally published “The Death Song of Lenny Ross” about 30 years ago! One can also find the poem in my first collection of poetry, Music from Words.
BTW (or FYI), my novel, The Brothers Silver, which Owl Canyon Press is releasing on June 1, also unfolds in what one early reader calls a “symphony of voices.” In total, the 12 chapters have 10 distinct voices, each with its own vocabulary and personality flaws. No one tells the whole story, because no one knows the whole story.
THE DEATH SONG OF LENNY ROSS
Lenny Ross was a Whiz Kid quiz show contestant as a child in the 50’s who later became an advisor to Jerry Brown and held several academic positions.
Dow’s theory analyzes market action.
Fundamentals deal in corporate prospects.
When stocks are good, T-bills suffer,
and when the market shakes its head and shoulders
it’s getting ready to reverse direction.
What a boy you are, Lenny Ross, Lenny Ross!
What a genius boy you are!
And why not you, Lenny?
Why not you to win the hundred thousand
answering quiz-show questions
on stocks and bonds and whatever?
Why not you the youngest?
At five you talked like Walter Lippmann.
At six you built a TV by yourself!
What a boy you are, Lenny!
What a genius boy you are!
Our tort system, from English common law,
changes many features of that older land.
The principle’s the same,
that assets yield to no man save one who has them.
Eschewing class, we’re guided by associations,
men maintaining liberty by joining others openly.
as Tocqueville described, recalling Edmund Burke.
He grasped all aspects of the reading,
wrestling levels none of us had thought about,
as we sat silent, listening to his playfulness
with concepts none of us had heard before.
And yet so kind he was to all of us, his elders,
so patient telling us his thoughts.
What a mind he had, Lenny Ross,
and what a knowledge of the law.
A head that talks, an academic side man,
I know that’s what they think of me.
Great idea, Lenny! What a brain!
I want to be a man of action, commanding heads of state
I want to run for President one day.
I have a master plan.
It’s all up here!
Slow down, Lenny Ross, finish one thing!
I told him that a thousand times, at least,
then watched him stagger back and forth
among his shriveled plants and dusty chairs,
popping frozen peas at open mouth
and throwing out ideas like cannon shot.
And it was up to me to understand
that he had skipped ahead to chapter five.
Slow down, Lenny! I can’t keep up.
But he persisted with a logic of his own.
Here’s the plan:
We’ll write a treatise on the rights of students
and with the money earned, we’ll buy these artists:
Fieldes, Moore and Greaves;
minor works by minor painters.
By lending them to small museums,
their values will inflate,
and then we sell and start a franchise.
I knew his reputation: Fired from Harvard,
bewildered students, uncompleted books.
But those first flowing days in Sacramento,
those synergistic days!
We watched him use a roll of tape and scissors
to cut and splice my program.
The spaceship earth, the new age economics,
the art of Zen applied to government....
It was all there.
If things had turned out differently, Lenny Ross,
you would have been my Commerce Secretary.
A six-month freeze on wages
without a freeze on prices,
followed by a year of frozen subsidies,
after which we send a thousand troops to Spain
as warning to the Sheiks to drop the price of oil.
I’ll send the President a memorandum
when I’ve wrapped my piece on Masons.
It’s full of great ideas.
Don't call me anymore, Lenny Ross,
I've had about enough of you
and your constant chatter leading nowhere.
You can't keep quiet long enough to love me.
You touch my thigh, then start to babble economics,
then write a sentence down, then phone a friend,
remember I'm in bed and ask me
what I think of Bergman’s latest flick.
I can't take it anymore, Lenny Ross!
Genius, shit! Just get it up and keep it up for once!
A thermo coupler made of fiberglass
Kabuki language representing social graces
Venture funds investing in technology
In five years’ time, the baby boomers will
Stendhal’s real name was
Juan Gris merely described what he
Sawmills replacing windmills along the Flemish…
You're back home, Lenny Ross,
and we'll take care of you.
No more taking jobs and quitting three months later.
No more lying under cars reciting lectures.
You'll rest awhile, Lenny, and then you’ll see.
You’ll land a cushy job.
…theory of addled value William Cullen
Randolph the red-nosed option underlying
Tinto Ramm Dass vodanya Montana the Puritan
migraine persecution of the Cotton Mather
tell Jerry my name is Gemini
Carter Wilson Picket the symbol of an angry
zero coupon to beat the plowshares into Isaiah Berlin…
My voice now, Lenny,
my voice calm, first time in years,
looking through the waters of the Capri Motel pool,
hearing waves applaud with plastic hands,
smelling chlorine smoke, tasting acrid starlight fruit.
Jump, Lenny Ross.
Remove this yoke of expectation.
Jump, Lenny,
jump to freedom...
Marc Jampole
Originally published in Music from Words (Bellday Books, 2007) and Pittsburgh Quarterly Volume I, #1 (Winter 1991)
May 2, 2021
21ST CENTURY AMERICA GIVES TOO MUCH TO THE WINNERS AND THINKS TOO LITTLE ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE
All societies sort themselves into winners and losers, but the fruits of winning differ,
depending on the society. Compared to historical trends, the United States is giving
more to the winners and less to everyone else than at any time since at least the Gilded
Age of the second half of the 19th century. Supporting the inequitable distribution of
wealth that plagues America is a winners-and-losers ideology that glorifies winners as
celebrities and mocks participation trophies.
My poem “What About the Losers?” unfolds as a variation on the theme of losing,
tracing the collective thought process of those who have lost competitions, first blaming
luck, then the social order, then reveling in the humiliation of losing as if they were
second comings of St. Augustine, until finally the losers blame themselves. The second
stanza tells a parable of the rejection of the win-lose social structure: a man declines the
symbols of success as represented by a tree of life laden with coupons for the spoils of
winning. Instead, he swims to a distant land only to discover that the cheering crowd
that greets him is merely interested in making noise, and cares not for his performance.
“What About the Losers?” was published in my first book of poetry, Music from Words. I
later took a few lines from it, embellished them and placed them in a diatribe one of the
characters gives in my novel, The Brothers Silver, set for publication by Owl Canyon
Press on June 1st. I think it’s my son’s favorite of my poems, which is interesting
because he almost always wins everything, and when he does lose, he does so
gracefully and with little if any emotional discomfort, and afterwards always analyzes
why he lost and how he can improve. Just as I taught him: like the joy of swimming in
the second half of the poem, the joy of competition always resides in the game itself,
and not in the praise or blame that may come from the outcome.
WHAT ABOUT THE LOSERS?
What about the losers?,
second place or worse,
far from cheers and exultations
head in hand or pacing claustrophobia,
at least we played the game,
so close and yet so far:
if it wasn't for that hit, that swing,
bad hop, bad turn, bad call,
ball rolling off the fingertips,
fleeting lapse in concentration,
practiced my butt off, studied for years,
made the right moves, met the right people,
flattered, bantered, kissed their asses,
did without, planned ahead,
if it wasn’t for contracting markets,
change in habits, insufficient cash flow,
someone with more contacts,
friend of brother, second cousin, old school tie,
secret handshake, lies and accusations,
loser, loser, loser, loser,
failure, lemon, floperoo,
I don't want a stupid ribbon,
don't want the sloppy seconds,
second best, second hand,
greasy gruel at B-list parties,
legless wine, polyester fabric,
cloying banquet consolations,
finalist who never had a chance,
blew the chance I had,
never strong enough, never smart enough,
didn’t work enough, wasn’t hungry,
too small, too slow, too bored,
too lazy, too distracted, too fucked up,
I deserve to lose.
In the corner of an empty room
a lonely man constructs his fantasy:
a tree of life unfolding overhead
molting blue and silver leaves, each a coupon
for woman's love, exotic travel,
expensive cars, enormous houses.
He reaps his slips of paper,
presses them against his aging body
like a multicolored blanket
then stands up naked,
throws them to a rising wind
and watches as they drift and climb
toward ancient burnt-out stars,
scales his leafless tree,
jumps into the olive ocean,
swims to distant treeless coast.
Crowds of people cheer
for the joy of making noise.
Marc Jampole
Published in Music from Words (Bellday Books, 2007)
depending on the society. Compared to historical trends, the United States is giving
more to the winners and less to everyone else than at any time since at least the Gilded
Age of the second half of the 19th century. Supporting the inequitable distribution of
wealth that plagues America is a winners-and-losers ideology that glorifies winners as
celebrities and mocks participation trophies.
My poem “What About the Losers?” unfolds as a variation on the theme of losing,
tracing the collective thought process of those who have lost competitions, first blaming
luck, then the social order, then reveling in the humiliation of losing as if they were
second comings of St. Augustine, until finally the losers blame themselves. The second
stanza tells a parable of the rejection of the win-lose social structure: a man declines the
symbols of success as represented by a tree of life laden with coupons for the spoils of
winning. Instead, he swims to a distant land only to discover that the cheering crowd
that greets him is merely interested in making noise, and cares not for his performance.
“What About the Losers?” was published in my first book of poetry, Music from Words. I
later took a few lines from it, embellished them and placed them in a diatribe one of the
characters gives in my novel, The Brothers Silver, set for publication by Owl Canyon
Press on June 1st. I think it’s my son’s favorite of my poems, which is interesting
because he almost always wins everything, and when he does lose, he does so
gracefully and with little if any emotional discomfort, and afterwards always analyzes
why he lost and how he can improve. Just as I taught him: like the joy of swimming in
the second half of the poem, the joy of competition always resides in the game itself,
and not in the praise or blame that may come from the outcome.
WHAT ABOUT THE LOSERS?
What about the losers?,
second place or worse,
far from cheers and exultations
head in hand or pacing claustrophobia,
at least we played the game,
so close and yet so far:
if it wasn't for that hit, that swing,
bad hop, bad turn, bad call,
ball rolling off the fingertips,
fleeting lapse in concentration,
practiced my butt off, studied for years,
made the right moves, met the right people,
flattered, bantered, kissed their asses,
did without, planned ahead,
if it wasn’t for contracting markets,
change in habits, insufficient cash flow,
someone with more contacts,
friend of brother, second cousin, old school tie,
secret handshake, lies and accusations,
loser, loser, loser, loser,
failure, lemon, floperoo,
I don't want a stupid ribbon,
don't want the sloppy seconds,
second best, second hand,
greasy gruel at B-list parties,
legless wine, polyester fabric,
cloying banquet consolations,
finalist who never had a chance,
blew the chance I had,
never strong enough, never smart enough,
didn’t work enough, wasn’t hungry,
too small, too slow, too bored,
too lazy, too distracted, too fucked up,
I deserve to lose.
In the corner of an empty room
a lonely man constructs his fantasy:
a tree of life unfolding overhead
molting blue and silver leaves, each a coupon
for woman's love, exotic travel,
expensive cars, enormous houses.
He reaps his slips of paper,
presses them against his aging body
like a multicolored blanket
then stands up naked,
throws them to a rising wind
and watches as they drift and climb
toward ancient burnt-out stars,
scales his leafless tree,
jumps into the olive ocean,
swims to distant treeless coast.
Crowds of people cheer
for the joy of making noise.
Marc Jampole
Published in Music from Words (Bellday Books, 2007)
May 1, 2021
DESCRIBING EMOTIONS BY MAKING THEM OBJECTS
Capturing emotions in words sometimes reminds me of trying to catch a beam of light in the hand. I’ve tried lots of common rhetorical tricks with varying degrees of success: describing the physical characteristics of the emotion; using a description of nature to evoke the emotion; telling a story that hopefully leads the reader to an epiphany of the emotion; comparing the emotion to something else. Often, I have turned the emotion into a physical object, alive and animate, or inert but taking up space in a surrealistic scene. One chapter in The Brother Silver, for example, unfolds as a discussion between the various emotions a character feels, each one assuming an appropriate personality and point of view.
A few years back I wrote a cycle of poems in which I used language equivalents of Cubist painting to describe emotions as if they were paintings. About half of the poems, including “Cubist Fear,” made it into literary journals, and all 12 are in my chapbook, Cubist States of Mind/Not the Cruelest Month (Poets Haven Press, 2017). I later took images from “Cubist Fear” and one other Cubist poem, “Cubist Anger,” and inserted them into a panic attack that one of the characters experiences in my novel, The Brothers Silver, which Owl Canyon Press is releasing in June.
The publisher of Poets Haven Press died at a very young age about 18 months ago. The website remains up, but one can no longer order any Poets Haven books from it. It’s available on Amazon, but you have to select the option that isn’t Poets Haven. You can also contact me directly on Facebook Messenger or thebrotherssilver@gmail.com and I’ll sell you a copy (as long as my supply lasts).
CUBIST FEAR
Emerging from patches of blackness
brutal heads and bodies lug their clothes
on shoulders hanging sideways next to them,
rambling menace blown through streetlamp streaks,
the blinking eyes of feral cats embroider other shadows
stalking light that freezes, splinters, soars.
Rectangular sirens blare, then fade to silence, fade to
shouting mouthless goodbyes turning gray and brittle,
haunted triads wince, afraid to delve a brown abyss
of pasted magazines, of posters, strips of parchment.
Golem is a letter A that crushes other letters into dust,
the dust is golem hiding from itself in squares,
every color I can think of flashes dreaded choking,
flashes ghastly chilling deadly bleak unknowns.
Marc Jampole
Published in English and French in Recours au Poème 2016; Cubist States of Mind/Not the Cruelest Month (Poet’s Haven, 2017)
A few years back I wrote a cycle of poems in which I used language equivalents of Cubist painting to describe emotions as if they were paintings. About half of the poems, including “Cubist Fear,” made it into literary journals, and all 12 are in my chapbook, Cubist States of Mind/Not the Cruelest Month (Poets Haven Press, 2017). I later took images from “Cubist Fear” and one other Cubist poem, “Cubist Anger,” and inserted them into a panic attack that one of the characters experiences in my novel, The Brothers Silver, which Owl Canyon Press is releasing in June.
The publisher of Poets Haven Press died at a very young age about 18 months ago. The website remains up, but one can no longer order any Poets Haven books from it. It’s available on Amazon, but you have to select the option that isn’t Poets Haven. You can also contact me directly on Facebook Messenger or thebrotherssilver@gmail.com and I’ll sell you a copy (as long as my supply lasts).
CUBIST FEAR
Emerging from patches of blackness
brutal heads and bodies lug their clothes
on shoulders hanging sideways next to them,
rambling menace blown through streetlamp streaks,
the blinking eyes of feral cats embroider other shadows
stalking light that freezes, splinters, soars.
Rectangular sirens blare, then fade to silence, fade to
shouting mouthless goodbyes turning gray and brittle,
haunted triads wince, afraid to delve a brown abyss
of pasted magazines, of posters, strips of parchment.
Golem is a letter A that crushes other letters into dust,
the dust is golem hiding from itself in squares,
every color I can think of flashes dreaded choking,
flashes ghastly chilling deadly bleak unknowns.
Marc Jampole
Published in English and French in Recours au Poème 2016; Cubist States of Mind/Not the Cruelest Month (Poet’s Haven, 2017)
April 30, 2021
PANDEMIC CULTURAL WARS DISTRACT US FROM OUR MANY WARS & OUR ENORMOUS MILITARY BUDGET
That health directives such as wearing masks and getting vaccinated have become battlefields in a cultural war against science has made for a continuing stream of headlines and analysis in the news media. Fighting (a term I use figuratively to connote political activism of all sorts, but not actual combat) the anti-science idiots is something that we shouldn’t have to be doing. Just like we shouldn’t have to be spending energy and resources fighting to preserve voting rights; establish and re-establish civil rights for racial, ethnic and sexual minorities; prevent police brutality; end sales of assault weapons; and the other no-brainer social positions that people in a free secular republic should be taking for granted, instead of battling to preserve or establish against the irrational ignoramuses of contemporary cultural conservatism. The effort to overcome the right-wing’s anti-scientific and racist lunacies is costly, time-consuming and heroic.
And it’s all a distraction.
Meanwhile, the wars continue. Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria. U.S. troops in 150 counties.
Meanwhile the cost of war continues. More than $700 billion a year wasted by the United States—as much as the next 12 countries combined!—for troops, weapons, supplies, equipment, fuel and training in killing other human beings. Included in that $700 billion are billions to develop new nuclear weapons and robot weapons that will operate without the direction or intervention of humans.
Meanwhile, the number of victims of war grow. The most obvious victims of war, of course, are the innocent people that soldiers kill, maim, and drive from their homes into refugee status. But soldiers are also victims—of physical injuries and emotional scars that often never fully heal. And so are their families, who first have to fret constantly while their beloved soldiers are in war zones, and then pick up the pieces when war-broken men and women return home. Moreover, the vicissitudes of war can force soldiers, the civilians they are supposed to hurt, and the families they leave at home into uncomfortable moral compromises. My poem, “Maya,” which one can find in my first collection of poetry, Music from Words, is about the emotional and moral cost at home of wars on foreign shores.
MAYA
Afterwards my gloom observes you
gather floor-strewn tumulus of clothes.
The bathroom light reveals a passing wraith,
spectral furnishings and photographs that knit
at once to shaft of light, compress to darkness.
Muffled water arrows pound an unseen slurry.
What lie this time—long lines, wrong turn?
Will he smell me on your body?
Will he lacerate your qualms with blissful chatter
when you push his wheelchair, spoon him soup,
climb inside the chores of cleaning up a war?
I am sieve you comb through sand in search
of tender, vital jinnis. And at that fragile burst,
in that isogloss between conceived and real,
mist of golden pooling in your lap,
swan-dive open wing enflaming overhead,
were you with me or with him
with someone else or by yourself?
The water stops, the door unlocks unsettled light
like a man who’s run away from thoughts.
Marc Jampole
Originally published in Music from Words (Bellday Books, 2007)
And it’s all a distraction.
Meanwhile, the wars continue. Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria. U.S. troops in 150 counties.
Meanwhile the cost of war continues. More than $700 billion a year wasted by the United States—as much as the next 12 countries combined!—for troops, weapons, supplies, equipment, fuel and training in killing other human beings. Included in that $700 billion are billions to develop new nuclear weapons and robot weapons that will operate without the direction or intervention of humans.
Meanwhile, the number of victims of war grow. The most obvious victims of war, of course, are the innocent people that soldiers kill, maim, and drive from their homes into refugee status. But soldiers are also victims—of physical injuries and emotional scars that often never fully heal. And so are their families, who first have to fret constantly while their beloved soldiers are in war zones, and then pick up the pieces when war-broken men and women return home. Moreover, the vicissitudes of war can force soldiers, the civilians they are supposed to hurt, and the families they leave at home into uncomfortable moral compromises. My poem, “Maya,” which one can find in my first collection of poetry, Music from Words, is about the emotional and moral cost at home of wars on foreign shores.
MAYA
Afterwards my gloom observes you
gather floor-strewn tumulus of clothes.
The bathroom light reveals a passing wraith,
spectral furnishings and photographs that knit
at once to shaft of light, compress to darkness.
Muffled water arrows pound an unseen slurry.
What lie this time—long lines, wrong turn?
Will he smell me on your body?
Will he lacerate your qualms with blissful chatter
when you push his wheelchair, spoon him soup,
climb inside the chores of cleaning up a war?
I am sieve you comb through sand in search
of tender, vital jinnis. And at that fragile burst,
in that isogloss between conceived and real,
mist of golden pooling in your lap,
swan-dive open wing enflaming overhead,
were you with me or with him
with someone else or by yourself?
The water stops, the door unlocks unsettled light
like a man who’s run away from thoughts.
Marc Jampole
Originally published in Music from Words (Bellday Books, 2007)
A YEAR INTO THE PANDEMIC AND MISSING THE BEST OF TIMES:FAMILY GATHERINGS AT HOLIDAYS
A year into the plague, we’ve now missed two Passovers, one Rosh Hashanah and one Thanksgiving, the three holidays on which my wife and I generally gather with lots of family. We’ve also missed untold visits from friends and family from out of town, or our frequent outings with those in the New York area. We’ve all mastered the art of the Zoom, but it’s not the same. For one thing, there has been no ripping apart a challah and tossing pieces to everyone, no ritual carving of a turkey or brisket, no taking seconds on cake while complaining that you’re stuffed. In short, no food sharing. Everyone eating their own food on a Zoom call just doesn’t hack it.
On the plus side, though, the technical distance enforced by Zoom has strangely immunized me to the gloomy dread of death that has infected me at family events since I was quite young. From maybe the age of ten, part of me has always feared that somebody at a large family gathering would die before I saw them again. I would analyze to myself who would be the most likely and from what cause—cancer, heart disease, accident, suicide. But now, instead of wondering whether this time will be the last I see anyone, and everyone, on Zoom I assume that everyone will survive and that we’ll all be together on the other side of the pandemic. Given we are in a global health crisis, my confidence in survival strikes me as more foolish and irrational than my previous anxiety!
A few years back I wrote a poem about the secret presence of death—future and past—looming over family events, contrasting the fact that we die alone with the wonderful joy of togetherness we feel at a family dinner or celebration. Main Street Rag published “The Best of Times” two years ago.
The Best of Times
Black-bean spare ribs, tangy cabbage salad
celebrate a high school graduation.
Silent dread invades me as I think
that this will be the final family time
for one of us: aunt and uncle in their eighties,
another uncle soon retiring from a stressful job,
sickly sister, secret addict, cousins overweight:
there are just too many here today
and a single marching time, always forward
into dark unknowns for all of us, one by one,
and all the ones who come after,
and all the ones who come after that.
Though one by one we die alone,
tonight we gnaw on bones together,
banter cherished stories heard before
and we want to hear again,
stories in stories of whistling past shadows,
swinging at the short end of a long rope,
kinfolk no one’s met in whirling waters,
huddled over steamy bowls of hope,
the best of times reduced to anecdote
or ancient bas-relief, tableaux emerging
from a plaster that is life itself, being lived,
every moment, even as it hardens into past.
Marc Jampole
Published in Main Street Rag (2019)
On the plus side, though, the technical distance enforced by Zoom has strangely immunized me to the gloomy dread of death that has infected me at family events since I was quite young. From maybe the age of ten, part of me has always feared that somebody at a large family gathering would die before I saw them again. I would analyze to myself who would be the most likely and from what cause—cancer, heart disease, accident, suicide. But now, instead of wondering whether this time will be the last I see anyone, and everyone, on Zoom I assume that everyone will survive and that we’ll all be together on the other side of the pandemic. Given we are in a global health crisis, my confidence in survival strikes me as more foolish and irrational than my previous anxiety!
A few years back I wrote a poem about the secret presence of death—future and past—looming over family events, contrasting the fact that we die alone with the wonderful joy of togetherness we feel at a family dinner or celebration. Main Street Rag published “The Best of Times” two years ago.
The Best of Times
Black-bean spare ribs, tangy cabbage salad
celebrate a high school graduation.
Silent dread invades me as I think
that this will be the final family time
for one of us: aunt and uncle in their eighties,
another uncle soon retiring from a stressful job,
sickly sister, secret addict, cousins overweight:
there are just too many here today
and a single marching time, always forward
into dark unknowns for all of us, one by one,
and all the ones who come after,
and all the ones who come after that.
Though one by one we die alone,
tonight we gnaw on bones together,
banter cherished stories heard before
and we want to hear again,
stories in stories of whistling past shadows,
swinging at the short end of a long rope,
kinfolk no one’s met in whirling waters,
huddled over steamy bowls of hope,
the best of times reduced to anecdote
or ancient bas-relief, tableaux emerging
from a plaster that is life itself, being lived,
every moment, even as it hardens into past.
Marc Jampole
Published in Main Street Rag (2019)
April 26, 2021
A POEM FOR PASSOVER THAT IS NOT ABOUT PASSOVER
Long before I read Mercea Eliade’s assertion that Yohanan ben Zakkai (and not Jesus Christ) was the most important religious figure in the first century of the common era, Zakkai was one of my heroes because he managed to escape from Jerusalem under siege by the Romans through a clever ruse. He was my favorite Jewish personage when I was in Hebrew school as a youth. When I read Catch-22 in my early twenties, I compared Zakkai to Orr, the real hero of Joseph Heller’s masterpiece by virtue of managing to escape to Sweden and live out the war in peace.
According to legend, Zakkai escaped Jerusalem inside a coffin that was carried outside the city walls for burial. He made his way to Yavne, about seventy miles west of Jerusalem, where he founded a center of Jewish learning that replaced Jerusalem as the focal point of Judaism after Jerusalem was overrun and the temple destroyed. Zakkai’s great advance, according to Eliade in his masterful A History of Religious Ideas, was to replace animal and grain sacrifice with prayer in Jewish rituals.
Most Jews don’t think of Zakkai at Passover, but I do because he represents the brand of Judaism that I like: dedicated to freedom, humanistic, willing and able to change to meet new conditions. A few years back, I wrote a poem published in Jewish Currents that imagines Zakkai’s thoughts as he lay in the coffin and pretended to be dead. His memories propose that the enjoyment of sensual experience is a form of holiness.
Enjoy, and Happy Pesach to my family and all my friends and followers.
BEN ZAKKAI IN THE COFFIN
– During the siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai escaped the city by hiding in a coffin, then founded the great Talmudic school in Yavne.
The seeing of the eye
Near the walls of the city
I begin my descent
The hearing of the ear
My students calling me to prayer
my wife calling me
The discernment of the heart
In the hills above the city
I saw her with child
The passions of the moment
The wind among the olive trees
the gleanings of the field
her hand at my cheek
The delight in forming syntax,
the delight in making phrases
Waters separating
mountains skipping
former rain, latter rain
a sign upon the door
you shall have no other
The repetition of names
Preserving, unfailing, forgiving
compassionate, infinite, wise
The weave of permutation
To love her in the flesh
to love her through the law
to love the law in her
to love the flesh in law
The transient conversations with the sacred
Gates shattered, bars broken
surrounded by night
the pages on fire in my hand
The praise of sleep
and the praise of awakening….
How will I remember it all?
Marc Jampole
Published in Jewish Currents Vol. 60 #4
(July-August 2006)
According to legend, Zakkai escaped Jerusalem inside a coffin that was carried outside the city walls for burial. He made his way to Yavne, about seventy miles west of Jerusalem, where he founded a center of Jewish learning that replaced Jerusalem as the focal point of Judaism after Jerusalem was overrun and the temple destroyed. Zakkai’s great advance, according to Eliade in his masterful A History of Religious Ideas, was to replace animal and grain sacrifice with prayer in Jewish rituals.
Most Jews don’t think of Zakkai at Passover, but I do because he represents the brand of Judaism that I like: dedicated to freedom, humanistic, willing and able to change to meet new conditions. A few years back, I wrote a poem published in Jewish Currents that imagines Zakkai’s thoughts as he lay in the coffin and pretended to be dead. His memories propose that the enjoyment of sensual experience is a form of holiness.
Enjoy, and Happy Pesach to my family and all my friends and followers.
BEN ZAKKAI IN THE COFFIN
– During the siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai escaped the city by hiding in a coffin, then founded the great Talmudic school in Yavne.
The seeing of the eye
Near the walls of the city
I begin my descent
The hearing of the ear
My students calling me to prayer
my wife calling me
The discernment of the heart
In the hills above the city
I saw her with child
The passions of the moment
The wind among the olive trees
the gleanings of the field
her hand at my cheek
The delight in forming syntax,
the delight in making phrases
Waters separating
mountains skipping
former rain, latter rain
a sign upon the door
you shall have no other
The repetition of names
Preserving, unfailing, forgiving
compassionate, infinite, wise
The weave of permutation
To love her in the flesh
to love her through the law
to love the law in her
to love the flesh in law
The transient conversations with the sacred
Gates shattered, bars broken
surrounded by night
the pages on fire in my hand
The praise of sleep
and the praise of awakening….
How will I remember it all?
Marc Jampole
Published in Jewish Currents Vol. 60 #4
(July-August 2006)
REFLECTIONS ON THE GREAT WATER CYCLE AND THE DEATH OF A BROTHER ALMOST 20 YEARS AGO
We’re approaching the twentieth anniversary of the death of my younger brother Leslie, the result of brain injuries sustained from falling off a roof and landing on concrete. In contemplating his life and death, my mind always wonders what has happened to the people into whom his skin, bones, and kidneys were transplanted. That always leads me to remember that humans are 98% water. When we die, that water returns to the great water cycle that serves as one of Earth’s prime motors: Rain onto land and into oceans, rivers, ponds, and lakes to evaporation from these bodies of water, the ground, and all living creatures to rain again. Along the way, the water of living things gets a mix of water from every other source. In a real sense, the Earth has transplanted water of all past living things into all of us, and our water (and other chemicals) will someday be part of other living things.
And yet, the water and other substances that constitute our physical beings are not us. Each of us is defined more by our consciousness than our physical make-up. From one point of view, we are little more than past and future rain, yet we are so much more than that. It is interesting to speculate, though, whether any of us contains water that once was Shakespeare, Dante or Shin Na’in. When thinking of Leslie in this context, Pascal always comes to mind—perhaps because both were so intellectually gifted in so many different fields, talents that did not help either in facing his internal demons.
Leslie’s death was sudden, but so is all death. One minute someone is alive, the next minute, they’re gone. The transition from life to death always surprises, even when it is expected. The high mortality rate of Covid-19, especially in the early months, is one more reminder that death can come from out of the blue at any minute.
Some years back, all these ideas about the cycle of life and death coalesced into a poem, “My Brother Still Runs Like Rain,” which Ellipsis published.
MY BROTHER STILL RUNS LIKE RAIN
My brother’s bones and kidneys must be walking
somewhere now, transplanted into other men,
perhaps in steady rain the hour before the sunrise.
Each raindrop holds the water molecules
of former living things, now decomposed,
transformed to ice and steam, then cloud.
Soon former raindrops walk the city streets,
soon future raindrops step between
the fallen branches, over muddy cracks.
Raindrops somewhere in the world
once formed my brother’s water base,
and Pascal’s, too, centuries past.
And yet this rain is not the same as them,
insensate liquid fall, just bounce and pool,
cover, spread, run in rivers at the curb
like my brother used to run at dawn,
bare-chested, under buds of water
clinging to the limbs of leafless trees,
through umber streets, counting footsteps,
leaping over puddles, chased by clouds
that promised downpour any minute now.
Marc Jampole
Originally published in Ellipsis #46 (2010)
And yet, the water and other substances that constitute our physical beings are not us. Each of us is defined more by our consciousness than our physical make-up. From one point of view, we are little more than past and future rain, yet we are so much more than that. It is interesting to speculate, though, whether any of us contains water that once was Shakespeare, Dante or Shin Na’in. When thinking of Leslie in this context, Pascal always comes to mind—perhaps because both were so intellectually gifted in so many different fields, talents that did not help either in facing his internal demons.
Leslie’s death was sudden, but so is all death. One minute someone is alive, the next minute, they’re gone. The transition from life to death always surprises, even when it is expected. The high mortality rate of Covid-19, especially in the early months, is one more reminder that death can come from out of the blue at any minute.
Some years back, all these ideas about the cycle of life and death coalesced into a poem, “My Brother Still Runs Like Rain,” which Ellipsis published.
MY BROTHER STILL RUNS LIKE RAIN
My brother’s bones and kidneys must be walking
somewhere now, transplanted into other men,
perhaps in steady rain the hour before the sunrise.
Each raindrop holds the water molecules
of former living things, now decomposed,
transformed to ice and steam, then cloud.
Soon former raindrops walk the city streets,
soon future raindrops step between
the fallen branches, over muddy cracks.
Raindrops somewhere in the world
once formed my brother’s water base,
and Pascal’s, too, centuries past.
And yet this rain is not the same as them,
insensate liquid fall, just bounce and pool,
cover, spread, run in rivers at the curb
like my brother used to run at dawn,
bare-chested, under buds of water
clinging to the limbs of leafless trees,
through umber streets, counting footsteps,
leaping over puddles, chased by clouds
that promised downpour any minute now.
Marc Jampole
Originally published in Ellipsis #46 (2010)
April 24, 2021
Save the Day – June 6th, 7 PM EST – Zoom Book Launch Party for “The Brothers Silver” by Marc Jampole
Save the Date: June 6th
Zoom Book Launch Party for
“The Brothers Silver”
A new novel by Marc Jampole published by Owl Canyon Press
Date: SUNDAY, JUNE 6TH
Time: 7:00 PM EST (6:00 PM CST; 5:00 PM MST; 4:00 PM PST)
Introduction by Gene Hayworth, Owl Canyon Press Editor-in Chief
Marc reads a few short excerpts from The Brothers Silver
Tom Strelich, author of the awarding-winning Dog Logic interviews Marc
Questions from the worldwide Zoom audience
Join Zoom Meeting
https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/93421002383
Meeting ID: 934 2100 2383
Passcode: S1lver
Join by SIP
93421002383@zoomcrc.com
Join by H.323
162.255.37.11 (US West)
162.255.36.11 (US East)
115.114.131.7 (India Mumbai)
115.114.115.7 (India Hyderabad)
213.19.144.110 (Amsterdam Netherlands)
213.244.140.110 (Germany)
103.122.166.55 (Australia Sydney)
103.122.167.55 (Australia Melbourne)
149.137.40.110 (Singapore)
64.211.144.160 (Brazil)
69.174.57.160 (Canada Toronto)
65.39.152.160 (Canada Vancouver)
207.226.132.110 (Japan Tokyo)
149.137.24.110 (Japan Osaka)
Meeting ID: 934 2100 2383
Passcode: 522860
Marc Jampole wrote The Brothers Silver (Owl
Canyon Press, 2021), Music from Words (Bellday Books,
2007), and Cubist States of Mind/Not the Cruelest Month
(Poet’s Haven Press, 2017). His poems and short stories have
appeared in many journals and anthologies. A former TV news
reporter and public relations executive, Marc writes the OpEdge
blog and has had more than 1,800 articles he has written have
been published in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines.
SPONSORED BY OWL CANYON PRESS
Zoom Book Launch Party for
“The Brothers Silver”
A new novel by Marc Jampole published by Owl Canyon Press
Date: SUNDAY, JUNE 6TH
Time: 7:00 PM EST (6:00 PM CST; 5:00 PM MST; 4:00 PM PST)
Introduction by Gene Hayworth, Owl Canyon Press Editor-in Chief
Marc reads a few short excerpts from The Brothers Silver
Tom Strelich, author of the awarding-winning Dog Logic interviews Marc
Questions from the worldwide Zoom audience
Join Zoom Meeting
https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/93421002383
Meeting ID: 934 2100 2383
Passcode: S1lver
Join by SIP
93421002383@zoomcrc.com
Join by H.323
162.255.37.11 (US West)
162.255.36.11 (US East)
115.114.131.7 (India Mumbai)
115.114.115.7 (India Hyderabad)
213.19.144.110 (Amsterdam Netherlands)
213.244.140.110 (Germany)
103.122.166.55 (Australia Sydney)
103.122.167.55 (Australia Melbourne)
149.137.40.110 (Singapore)
64.211.144.160 (Brazil)
69.174.57.160 (Canada Toronto)
65.39.152.160 (Canada Vancouver)
207.226.132.110 (Japan Tokyo)
149.137.24.110 (Japan Osaka)
Meeting ID: 934 2100 2383
Passcode: 522860
Marc Jampole wrote The Brothers Silver (Owl
Canyon Press, 2021), Music from Words (Bellday Books,
2007), and Cubist States of Mind/Not the Cruelest Month
(Poet’s Haven Press, 2017). His poems and short stories have
appeared in many journals and anthologies. A former TV news
reporter and public relations executive, Marc writes the OpEdge
blog and has had more than 1,800 articles he has written have
been published in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines.
SPONSORED BY OWL CANYON PRESS
