“This world of dew
is a world of dew,
And yet, and yet”
—–Kobayashi Issa (Japan, 1763-1828)
from the frontpiece of “Pitcher of Moon”
And a new poem, “Darwin’s Worms” from the book.
“Pitcher of Moon” has been almost a year in the making. Nick Nicholson, a long time friend from Australia took on this project and produced a lovely book. He did the design, the formatting and all the interfacing with Createspace and the cover photographer, Gary Hart. Nick did much more and without his hard labor, this book would have not come to life.
Gary Hart (www.garyhartphotography.com) was the photographer Nick picked and bought the rights to use this photo for the cover of the book. Gary Hart was very generous to us as I could have not afforded his usual price for his photographs. I am very thankful for his kindness and generousity. Please check out his website.
I have just received the proof copies and after approval here will AOK them for sale on Createspace. Should be a matter of days or a week before it is available. Those who have bought my previous three books from Lulu.com will notice that I have jumped ship. Lulu was fine for a while, but Createspace offers a lot more for writers. Nick and I intend to bring over all three previous books (A Seasoning of Lust, The Zar Tales and White Cranes of Heaven) to Createspace in time. Later this spring, we will also be publishing “The Nightingale’s Song” at Createspace.
It is so good to have this project finally done. Without Nick, I would still be moving in a circle. Nick cut through all the issues and I am deeply appreciative of his creativity.
Lady Nyo
The end poem of “Pitcher of Moon”….
Darwin’s Worms
The soil has lost its excellence.
Worms hide in the
Deep sullen earth
I imagine curled up,
Embracing worm castings
And each other,
Desiccated former selves
Pale little ghosts
Awaiting the fertility of spring
The watering of a hard rain.
I squandered the bloom months,
Thinking paper and pen
Would bring its own blossoming
Scarcely seeing the vitality outside
Windows,
Allowing cabbage moths and beetles
To dominate
My nod to farming,
To self-sufficiency,
My tithe to the earth.
Ah, the soil is hardened
By the sins of the season.
Sharp winds make
furrows
The cold buries down,
Deep, deep down
Torments, teases any life
That would show a feckless head.
Especially those hopeful worms
Now bundled in worm-sleep.
The words, verse,
I chose to cultivate
Over cabbage, collards
Failed to bloom.
Better I had plied the hoe
And bucket to that
Than a fevered pen
To paper.
It is now winter
And the fallow earth
Plays a waiting game
Knows I have failed
In pulp and soil
And mocks with a barrenness
I feel inside and out.
Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2014
With special thanks to Adam Phillips for the title of this poem.
Tags: "Darwin's Worms", "Pitcher of Moon", Createspace, dversepoets.com, Gary Hart, Jane Kohut-Bartels, Lady Nyo, lulu.com, New book, Nick Nicholson, poetry, to come: "The Nightingale's Song", www.garyhartphotography.com
Lady Nyo's Weblog 
January 8, 2014 at 4:32 pm
Congratulations! 😀
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January 8, 2014 at 4:48 pm
Thank you!
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January 9, 2014 at 6:11 am
Congratulations, Jane. >KB
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January 9, 2014 at 10:31 am
Thank you, KB! Life can get back to some sort of ‘normal’. I am so thankful to Nick and Gary for their work.
It’s a small book, no more than 75 pages…but it’s tight..thanks to Nick.
Well, maybe ‘normal’ will last for a couple of days, but I have this “Nightingale” coming right on the heels of this book….but this spring, not winter! I am trying to (again) disappear into the Japanese literature just to tune myself into this coming period, but I am a bit tired.
Thank you, KB. With the intensity of preparing this book over, I can now get back to visiting poets…and you are on the top of the list!
Jane
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January 9, 2014 at 12:37 pm
This book looks gorgeous. The closing poem is sublime and perfect. Perfect. Captures everything you wanted to say. love CS
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January 9, 2014 at 3:16 pm
Thank you, CS! I am “over the moon” about how it turned out…the visual is so much better than had I been left to my own resources.
Yeah….I haven’t written a new poem in almost a year and thought poetry was gone, gone, gone…but that gave me some new air.
Thank you for reading and your lovely, supportive comment!
Love, Jane
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January 11, 2014 at 10:52 pm
No wonder you are “over the moon”! I love that book cover…it would make me buy the book even if I didn’t know the super lovely author with red shoes. ;-P
As always, your poetry is marvelous…Congratulations!
Love
CZ
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January 12, 2014 at 1:34 am
LOL! I’m snorting with laughter here….I am hiding from the Fani Flamenco (teacher) cause I really don’t want to take those intense classes again…LOL! My knee ached after only 6 classes!
Thank you, CZ! I love that cover, too! I have painted my last three covers for the last three books and NOBODY liked them….except the third. LOL! Said they didn’t look professional. Probably right. LOL!
Thank you, CZ…that poem is the last one in the book and came fast. I probably need to do some rewrite, but right now, my brain is scrambled. I’m coasting, too. LOL!
Love,
Jane
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January 14, 2014 at 2:41 pm
Hi Jane,
Congratulations on the publication of the book. The cover is so stunningly beautiful. I loved the line: “Ah, the soil is hardened, by the sins of the season”.
Love,
Kara
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January 14, 2014 at 3:38 pm
Thank you, Kara!
I am so glad it’s over….the preparing of this book, however, Nick’s hand in the cover, doing all the formatting, etc….getting it up and running and to press….I can only say that he made it so easy. LOL! If putting together a book is EVER easy.
Gary Hart is the photograhper. Nick shopped around and brought some pix to me…and we together picked this one. Gary was wonderful. He gave us a wonderful price for his work and it was so well worth it. I had done a small painting (wc) for the cover, and Nick suggested that we go with a photo. He was so right…made all the difference.Nick will be doing the cover and other photos in the next book: “The Nightingale’s Song”….probably out this late spring. We both need a break. LOL!
That poem was just written a few weeks ago….and I had had a long spell of ‘no-poetry’ in the brain…so it was surprising. It was a last minute decision, but I wanted to include it…so Nick formatted it in. Yep, I like that line, too.
Thank you, Kara, for reading and your wonderful comment. I think in a few days the book will be available at Createspace. Or perhaps it already is. I just have proof copies here and haven’t looked yet.
Love,
Jane
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January 14, 2014 at 9:24 pm
woot. i can not wait to have a copy on my shelf…that is awesome…congrats…as to the poem its intriguing as the end cap in the book…i like the allusions you draw between writing and gardening….and there are sins of the season that harden the ground…a fav line there….
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January 14, 2014 at 9:51 pm
Hey Brian…thank you for reading and your comment.
“Pitcher of Moon” is at Createspace….I think. I haven’t checked yet. Nick Nicholson in Australia has been doing all the heavy lifting, and I have to check whether this is for sale yet…I think it is. LOL! I’m just exhausted right now, Brian. Books are harder than they look.
“Darwin’s Worms”….hehehe. We had to change the format to squeeze that ending poem in and Nick was so gracious. He did all this work on the formatting and getting to cover for the book. You know yourself what a bitch it was getting things in order. A couple of false starts and some nasty (and expensive) detours…but in the end….I’m ‘over the moon’ on how it turned out.
Thank you, again, Brian. Good to see dversepoets up and running again.
Jane
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January 15, 2014 at 5:58 am
WooHoo Jane – Congratulations and I’m sure it’s a vast relief to get it out for publication.
I loved the poem – I think you let the words lie fallow because they certainly bloomed here. I wrote too – just a little children’s tale. Christmas was long…in a way still going on. Talk to you soon. Again so happy for you.
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January 15, 2014 at 7:44 am
It looks beautiful, so it seems the wait and effort were well worth it – congratulations!
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January 15, 2014 at 9:42 am
Dear Marina Sofia….thank you. I’m ‘over the moon’ on the looks of this! LOL! The poetry ain’t bad, neither. LOL!
I love that photo by Gary Hart. I think it made all the difference in the presentation. But the lion’s share of credit goes to Nick Nicholson in Australia…who pulled it all together. The writing was the easiest part.
Thank you so much for reading and your comment. Will be right over. Now that this is in the can, I have time to visit.
Hugs, Jane
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January 15, 2014 at 10:04 am
Congrats on the book…if the poems within it are as captivating as this one, I’m sure it will be a success.
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January 15, 2014 at 10:14 am
LOL! Thank you! I only can think that all this work and what happens now? LOL!
Funny, I thought that after this book, there would be no more poetry, but alas, that doesn’t seem to be the matter at all. I thought I would work on a novel, but perhaps the season here (winter) and the silence, the fallow landscape is giving it’s own sense of purpose. I hope so, because that last poem seemed to generate something else….and more poetry. Perhaps poetry is a river inside and doesn’t stop rippling over the bones?
Thank you so much for reading and your comment.
Lady Nyo
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January 15, 2014 at 10:30 am
Dear Gay! Yes, it’s a vast relief to get this out finally. Has been a year in the production, and frankly? Publishing is satisfying for the obvious reasons, but also you wonder….is this also some sort of waste of time? LOL! You keep going over the same collection of poems and you wonder….will there ever be anything new? LOL! Well, Winter is my favorite writing time…and it’s a great time for poetry I think. All that dullness, that crispness, the silence and the calm of the Earth seems to pull us deeper into ourselves. I am still waiting for real cold winter to start…the kind that is gun-metal grey in skies and you need constant warmth to settle in and comfort the bones. We had 6 degree weather last week here, in Atlanta, and this is so unusual, but what is ‘usual’ now with weather? This morning their is a tease (by the weather forecasters….) for snow flurries, and so I am up at 4am to await such an event, but so far…nuthin’! LOL!
I don’t know whether we do have control on whether our words lie fallow as you say, or they just aren’t there? LOL! But talking to other poets, writers, it is comforting to know their own cycles….
Am preparing for the big push for “The Nightingale’s Song”….but that will come later this spring/summer. Nick already has the manuscript back in Australia, and he is doing all the photography and the cover. I am twittling my thumbs on whether to write ‘more’ on the tale, or just leave it at 12 pieces….I am learning you really can’t force these things, because they come from some where either deep and unburied or outside of us. REading Matthew Fox on “Creativity” it gives me some hope that it does surface…in its own time….but he is a very hopeful writer on this stuff. LOL!
Christmas was short here…a month only between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but long enough. I love Winter, because it makes me attend to the stillness, the silence, the crisp burned off landscape and the cold. Perhaps growing older makes these seasons more precious? A passage of time, a passage of life.
I will come today to your site with bells on. A children’s tale? I am intrigued! And I am so happy to hear from my dear Gay, book or not.
Love, Jane
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January 15, 2014 at 12:08 pm
dearest Jane, I just re-read your closing poem, and I think it is perfect as is. Spare, yet fertility-in-waiting, like worms do through the frozen season. I would not change a word in it. There’s a reason it came fast to you. plz leave as is. I agree that as we get older the seasons become more precious.
guard those knees. love CS
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January 15, 2014 at 2:48 pm
Dearest CS….sometimes a poem closes the door to itself…and you move on, regardless of previous intention. I think that is what is happening here. I had intention of revamping it, or doing something, but now? Nah.
It has beens so long before another poem has come into my brain…and I think you right. it came when it was ready to come…I am learning there is nothing good done when you force stuff. I’ve done that before and either ruined, messed up something, or what I produce is weak, weak, weak.
I am presently reading Matthew Fox’s “Creativity”. he ties our creativity into this constant human impulse towards the Divine. But of course Fox would.
Meister Eckhart says that Gratitude is the ultimate enabler. (good to hear this word: enabler in a positive way!) Gratitude is the ultimate prayer…and when we create we are aroused to action.
“If the only prayer you say in your whole life is “thank you” that would suffice.” Gratitude is what gets us creating.
Like those worms in waiting.
As we know, there are people, very close to us, at least in blood, who ignore and demean what we produce. I have very recently experienced this (again) with the announcement of this new book. It was pointedly ignored, this mention by me. And the reason is because with some….in the fundamental elements…their ideas of creativity have to serve only their “god”…or their idea and embrace of their idea of god…and since mine doesn’t to them…it is to be denied. But there is no argument now for me: what I do produce is my connection to God, and the creative spirit is the God-Spirit.
You know I have always struggled with where creativity comes from. I am clearer now and the confusion, isolation and loneliness that we experience in life with the rejection by some….well, it isn’t necessary when we embrace our creativity as being Spirit-led. You know I study Shinto, and of course this is a great grater on some folk, because it doesn’t fit their idea of spirit. Too bad. It is all the same but the ignorance of some will not see this. But that isn’t our problem or issue. Our issue is to keep creating. With that, we become fuller, and more drawn closer to the Universal Spirit.
Thank you, CS. You know, you know. Perhaps as we age, not only are the seasons more precious, but our abilities to weave something of ‘good’ increases?
Love, Jane
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January 15, 2014 at 4:28 pm
smiles…i am glad it all worked out for you despite the hiccups along the way….very thought provoking comment you left at my place this morning….i think there are people that add to the dark and those that add to the light in this world…while i would usually ascribe creativity to the light, dont you think creativity could be a tool for the dark as well…not that it is great and i think some art adds little value at times beyond tearing down…but even destruction can become a creative force paving the way to the new…though what is that new…
on a side not was having a conversation the other day about math scores…as there is a dramatic shift down a couple years ago and i wonder if evolutionally we are losing some of the skills because of our dependence on computers…where that ties into the previous comment are in that becoming after destruction and are the same trends happening in art, morality and other areas…
enojoying this thought process and really has me considering some things….
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January 15, 2014 at 5:07 pm
Oh, Yeah, Brian…I absolutely agree! The darkness has a purpose. We accept the Mileys of the world because we are bored. We aren’t thinking for ourselves and creativity comes from that particular place…it is generally, generated by all sorts of things, but it’s and internal process directly affected by the outside world. There is no art for art’s sake in my opinion. Creativity serves love and compassion…that is the growth hormone in the process…the act.
I think we are not destroyers: we have a choice…but some…like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc..and now our modern day destroyers.
But! Otto Rank said that all neurosis is a blockage (I’m paraphrasing here) of creativity. The neurotic has failed to achieve normal development and corresponds to the failed artist.
Creativity is so central to our lives and health that we put it central in our very lives…as for darkness….?? Well, it has a name: ‘quasidivine’. Look at the ruler for life in North Korea today! Yikes! This is a failed attempt, the ‘artist manque’ of creativity…
And the creativity of the demonic? (this darkness?) It’s the urge in every being to assert ourselves, to affirm ourselves, etc. through violence, aggression, etc. It is a turned inside out creativity.
Oh, Brian…there is so much more to this issue….but that is also why we as poets, etc..need to constantly consider what we are doing and what we are producing…is it from a positive spirit of love and compassion or violence and aggression? Your poem evoked all that in me….what we see on tv and movies…and you are so right. But we have to take the microscope to our own behavior, what we produce in the name of creativity…and sift through the sands here of intention.
Love, Jane
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January 15, 2014 at 6:28 pm
Congratulations Jane… your poem is so powerful. Sometimes the fallow earth provides us an opportunity to grow something unexpected, untamed, more beautiful than we could have imagined when digging, hoeing, toiling… sometimes we just have to wait and see what appears… then we will know how to tend, tenderly… begin anew from a place of patience, kindness, love.
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January 15, 2014 at 8:42 pm
Hi Laura! Oh, it is so good to read your words…and thanks. Am glad this book is finally real. It almost wasn’t.
yes, begin anew from a placed of patience, kindness, love. We forget that I think….but I also think that those of us who have suffered physical ailments, etc…know that we have to begin anew almost each day…sometimes every day.
Thank you, Laura. I had hoped Tony Maude would have read this, and I have tried to reach out to him about his own publishing, but I guess he just doesn’t have time. But I am very thankful that you did. I’ll be over this evening.
Blessings, Light and Love to my dear Laura!
Jane
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January 21, 2014 at 1:21 pm
Hi Jane,
Congratulations on the book! The book cover is beautiful and the ending poem seems appropriate. It captures a lot of the healing journey for me – from self-sufficiency to being patient. It is a beautiful poem to end the book. xxTR
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January 21, 2014 at 2:13 pm
Hi TR! Thank you! Nick hasn’t received his copy yet, he’s in Australia, but should this week and then it will be released on Creatspace. They did a wonderful job on this book…but of course, Nick’s eagle eye was a main part of this.
I am glad you agreed with the placement of the ending poem. I struggled a little to have that there….Nick thought it should either be left out or be in the Nature Section, but I had an idea that it would appeal to poets and writers because of that struggle internal. What you mentioned, the healing journey from self-sufficiency to being patient…I think that most people don’t understand this…and have to come to a place where this becomes ‘real’ and true to them…part of that total process as ACON’s…to real healing and recovery.
Thank you, TR. The comments that I am receiving here make it all worth it…We do write from our traumas and it’s most important to go beyond that ‘place’ to the healing…when we are able to do so. It takes so much time and effort….actually, a lifetime…and frankly?? The journey never ends.
Hugs,
Jane
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