BRIAN CLEMENTS on
Jack Myers, “Telepathic Note to Poet Friends” +
William Matthews, “Attention Everyone"

Jack Myers
Telepathic Note of Poet Friends

Friends, I’m lonely today. 
Nothing’s broken, only today I have no bones 
and this softness needs an escort toward its death. 
So I’m watching the slow tarantellas of the snowflakes 
wink and go out, thinking you’ve been crushed by less. 
Lately I’ve admired the classic themes 
of Western movies: silence, practice, and space. 
Each of us has waited for it to happen, 
no matter what. It doesn’t matter what. 
It all comes down to facing a gun 
and trying to say it while the sun fires away, 
the horses melt, and next door a woman shrieks 
a perfect poem at her kids. In other words, 
we’ve all spent years in rooms snowing darkness, 
packing it into shapes of music, or maybe lovers. 
So somewhere far off I hear a black piano resound 
in sympathy. All I wanted to say, my friends, is 
I’m amazed that you’re still singing.
 
William Matthews
Attention Everyone

Gloom is the enemy, even to the end. The parodies of self-knowledge were embossed by Gloom inside our eyelids, and the abrasion makes us weep, for no reason, like a new bride disconsolate in the nightgown she had sewn so carefully. The dog comes back from the fields, lumpy with burrs. I put down my pen and pull them out; it is a care I have taught him to expect. I’ve always said it would be difficult.
     I’m declaring a new regime. Its flag is woven loam. Its motto is: Love is worth even its own disasters. Its totem is the worm. We eat our way through grief and make it richer. We don’t blunt ourselves against stones—their borders go all the way through. We go around them. In my new regime Gloom dances by itself, like a sad poet.
     Also I will be sending out some letters: Dear Friends, Please come to the party for my new life. The dog will meet you at the road, barking, running stiff-legged circles. Pluck one of his burrs and follow him here. I’ve got lots of good wine, I’m in love, my new poems are better than my old poems. It’s been too long since we started over.
     The new regime will start when I lift my eyes from this page. Here it comes.

Brian Clements is the author or editor of 15 print and digital collections of poetry, including anthologies such as An Introduction to the Prose Poem, volumes of poetry from Quale Press, Texas Review Press, and Meritage Press, and innovative online projects.
Brian earned the PhD from Binghamton University in 1993 and, since then, has taught writing and literature at Binghamton, Broome Community College, University of Texas at Dallas, University of North Texas, Southern Methodist University (his alma mater), and Western Connecticut State University, where he was the founding Coordinator of the innovative MFA in Creative and Professional Writing.

In December 2012, Brian’s wife worked as a teacher at Sandy Hook School–which his son, Jacob, a young jazz musician, and his daughter, Sarah, both attended–where twenty children and six educators were murdered by an unstable individual with access to massive weaponry. Since then, Brian, his wife Abbey, and his daughter Sarah have been active in the movement to reduce gun violence by fighting for a better system of background checks for all gun purchases, better tracking of weapon ownership, holding those responsible for negligent gun fatalities and injuries accountable, getting assault weaponry and military ammunition off of the consumer market, and releasing the stranglehold that the National Rifle Association holds on so many national office holders.
To those ends, collaborated with co-editors Alexandra Teague, Dean Rader, and publisher Beacon Press: Bullets into Bells: Poets and Citizens Respond to Gun Violence. This anthology of poems by major poets, including 5 former US Poets Laureate, includes responses to each poem by gun violence survivors, activists, and political/religious/community leaders, including Samaria Rice (mother of Tamir), Lucy McBath (mother of Jordan Davis), Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody Williams, and Senator Chris Murphy. The goal of this project is to bring audiences around the country into conversation about our gun violence epidemic and to discuss ways that individual citizens can help make change.