Movies Monday: Bill Nye: Science Guy

Click Here to Read: Bill Nye:  Science Guy Movie website.

Click Here to Read: ‘Bill Nye: Science Guy,’ a Portrait of a Fighter for Facts By Andy Webster in The New York Times on  October 26, 2017.

Click Here to Read: ‘Bill Nye: Science Guy’: Host of ’90s kids show turns his crusade to climate-change deniers By Lora Grady in the Washington Post on November 16, 2017. Continue reading Movies Monday: Bill Nye: Science Guy

A Note from Our Poetry Editor

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION TO POETRY MONDAY – 2018

The first Monday of each month, International Psychoanalysis features a different poet  in a column called Poetry Monday.  Since its inception in April 2008, most poems have been solicited from poets whose work we know and admire. Now, however, we also consider submissions, year-round, from all poets.  We welcome all types of well-crafted poetry, both formal and free verse, regardless of theme. We ask that you first review our archives and then consider sending your best work.  While we do not guarantee acceptance, we do guarantee careful consideration and prompt reply.  Please follow these guidelines for each submission:

5-7 poems, typed on white paper, one side of the page only.  Single-space within each stanza; double-space between stanzas, and indicate stanza breaks.  Include contact information in the upper right-hand corner of each page, and number the pages of each poem separately.

Although we do use previously published poems,( with citations) we ask that at least one poem in each submission be unpublished at the time of submission. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, but we must be notified immediately by e-mail (Psypsa@aol.com) if any of these poems has been accepted elsewhere.

DO NOT E-MAIL POEMS.  Send them by regular mail to:

Irene Willis
Poetry Editor
International Psychoanalysis
329 Pittsfield Road, #417
Lenox, MA 01240

Include SASE (for reply only) and a cover letter with contact information, publishing history and the titles of the poems you are submitting.

If three of your poems are accepted, we will contact you by e-mail and ask you to send a digital file of the poems as a single attachment, a color digital photo and an expanded bio.

POETRY MONDAY: January 1, 2018

Salman Akhtar

Good morning, and Happy New Year, everyone—the first day of 2018, after a tumultuous 2017.

In times like these, or at any time, it’s refreshing to read poetry, and I’m happy to say that our poet this morning is someone we’re honored to have on our pages, Salman Akhtar, who has contributed so much to our understanding of both poetry and psychoanalysis.

Dr. Akhtar, who comes from a family of renowned poets and writers in India, is himself the author of eleven poetry collections. I first encountered his work in a volume he edited called Between Hours: A Collection of Poems by Psychoanalysts (Karnac Books, 2012) and was struck by his poem in that book, “Summary.” With his permission, I was proud to include it in an anthology I edited, Climate of Opinion: Sigmund Freud in Poetry (IP Books, 2017).

Six of his eleven collections, The Hidden Knot (1985), Conditions (1993), Turned to Light (1998), After Landing (2014), Blood and Ink (2016), and Freshness of the Child (2018) contain his poems in the English language; the other five are in his native Urdu. He is also a prolific contributor to the psychoanalytic literature, having authored or edited eighty-nine books. For his distinguished contributions to psychoanalysis, he received the prestigious Sigourney Award in 2012. A psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and teacher by profession, Dr. Akhtar has been a Visiting Lecturer in Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School and currently is Professor of Psychiatry at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Supervising and Training Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia and (probably of the greatest interest to poets) a Scholar-in-Residence at the Inter-Act Theater Company in Philadelphia.

We hope you will enjoy the following three poems by Salman Akhtar: “The Limit of Instruction,” “A Wish,” and, reprinted here from Between Hours, “Summary.” In times like these, the third one is particularly instructive.

                                                                  –Irene Willis
                                                                     Poetry Editor

 

 

THE LIMIT OF INSTRUCTION

The Master said: Write every day even if later you throw it away.
The disciple said: But am I not to wait for the muse to arrive and for inspiration to arise?
Continue reading POETRY MONDAY: January 1, 2018

Symposium 2021: The Talking Cure: Past, Present and Especially Future

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

We’re excited to bring you Symposium 2021, entitled:  The Talking Cure: Past, Present and Especially Future
Saturday, April 17 by videoconference hosted through Mount Sinai.

Mark Solms, PhD, Chair of Neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town, and Christof Koch, PhD, President and Chief Scientist of the Allen Institute for Brain Science are the keynote speakers. Continue reading Symposium 2021: The Talking Cure: Past, Present and Especially Future

POETRY MONDAY: March 1, 2021

Good morning, everyone.  Here we are again, still masked (and perhaps double-masked) and socially-distanced, hands clean as we sit down at our computers.  I’m still alive and well, as I hope you are, too.
Our poet today, Tara Betts, a resident of Chicago, Illinois. Her varied background is reflected in the many facets of her career as poet, editor, scholar and teacher.  She holds a B.A. in Communication from Loyola University Chicago, and MFA in Creative Writing from New England College and a Ph.D. in  English from Binghamton, University in New York State.
A frequent presenter of her own work often in demand as a lecturer at conferences, she has been a featured performer at the Dodge Poetry Festival and has been invited to write the Illinois Bicentennial Poem celebrating the state’s 200th year sponsored by Illinois Humanities.
Already the author of two poetry collections: Break the Habit (Trio House Press, 2016) and Arc and Hue (Willow Books, 2009), she is currently working on a third, Refuse to Disappear, which we eagerly await.  She tells us that she tried to keep an overlap between the creative and the scholarly in her writing because she wants it to be accessible to a variety of readers.
A recent pleasant surprise for this reader was the current issue of Poetry magazine, which was edited by Tara Betts and two other guest editors, Joshua Bennett and Sarah Ross.  The issue, which includes an excellent introductory essay by Betts, features poems written by people who have experienced incarceration.  She herself taught poetry workshops in prisons for a number of years, and this issue has been in process since 2017.  It’s an important addition to anyone’s poetry library.
I’m happy now to present three poems by Tara Betts.  The first, “Think, Think” is from the December 2020 issue of Poetry Magazine, the second, “Gentle Collisions,” appeared in Poem-a-Day by the Academy of American Poets, and the third, “Go” after Gwendolyn Brooks’ “Old Mary,” is from Tara Betts’ book, Break the Habit.

                             —Irene Willis
                                Poetry Editor

 

Think, Think

Think about the air invisible as it uncurls
a wave of toxins.  Think about how its fingertips
trace the skin as a baton falls on the flesh
merely seconds later.  Think about how heavy
metals brown the water and we are told to drink.
Think about how many of us wonder when
the roofs over our heads will be tongues evicted
from the languages of home.  Think about how every
person needs a doctor, but everyone doesn’t get one.
Think about how savings mean nothing to the crazy
fine print circumscribed like obsolete glyphs.  Think
about how law books fall open and hopscotch for anyone
who keeps writing checks.  Think, think, think like
Aretha Franklin belting what you tryna do to me?
Think how the law keeps shuffling the numbers to fit
some constant where acknowledging who is human
is posited in some philosophy or some mathematical
equation that pretends that logic is its function, when
blood needs to find something superior, something
that denies how human is defined by a much wider net
cast by some divine fisherman, or perhaps an African
goddess in a gown laced with sea foam, but place markers
for faith are constantly moved toward a crucifix.  A human
can find more than one path, I hope.  Think about how,
every day, someone is hoping for some simple thing
like fresh bread lightly toasted, the ability to walk without
pain, a chance to shower, a moment free of fist and jeer,
a moment singing victorious as if we could level the wrongs
and leave the world upright, like a gospel-drenched woman
singing freedom, freedom after forgiveness, after you change
your mind, ‘cause you need to think (and act) to be free.

 

Gentle Collisions

extract longing.
                                            fold its edges
in gold paper
                                            to rest on a scale.
 the catapult of one
                                            plate plummets
the other swings
                                            bobs and waits
for a leaf of one’s
                                         want to waft down,
such gently collisions
                                            crush more than steel
crack more than bones 
                                          upon slight contact

Go

            after Gwendolyn Brooks’ “Old Mary”

If you examine the embers of my
life, they will be burned to the last.
If anything is worth loving, defense
rings its resonant siren.  Weaponry is
an option that boldly blacksmiths the
tender, blooming sprout of the present.

I seek methods to fortify a steely tense|
because the heart requires smelting.  It
wavers in the hungry yellow tongues, little
strong licks of heat that echo many hurts.

I cannot deny what rocked and kept me,
what once made me feel safe, gone now   
–ashes, dust, burned, singed, blown to|
a language that wind and soil must know.

This wild whisper runs inside me, and I
must answer it or the rustling of skin shall
molt what is left, I will never, I will not
allow myself to have half a life, so I must go.

Poetry Monday February 5, 2024

Alicia Suskin Ostriker

Good morning, Everyone

I hope we’ve recovered from the stress and joy of the holidays and can find some joy and love in our everyday lives.

Although it’s been only a year since we last featured this poet, I’ve been reminded of how much readers (including myself) love her work because of a wonderful (and almost reverential) book about her work: Everywoman Her Own Theology: On the Poetry of Alicia Suskin Ostriker, edited by Martha Nell Smith and Julie R. Enzer. (University of Michigan Press, 2018).

Here, for your pleasure, is last year’s feature in its entirety.

IRENE WILLIS
POETRY EDITOR

Good morning, everyone — and Happy New Year!
What could be better, on a dark winter day, than thinking about Spring?
Since readers have requested that we reprise some previous columns and since April is celebrated as  National Poetry Month here in the U.S., we are treating you (and ourselves) with one from April 2014,  featuring well-known poet Alicia Ostriker.
The Old Woman, the Tulip and the Dog, by Alicia Suskin Ostriker. Pitt Poetry Series. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014.
Why a review instead of a new-poet feature this month? Because next month is the official “pay attention to poetry” month, when we will all be bombardedwith press releases and “Hey, look at me!” e-mails and posters featuring poetry, and one book – one marvelous book – might possibly get lost in the fight for our attention.
It’s rare that a book with such a modest voice but such a commanding presence makes this reader want to set everything aside to revel in it and talk about it, but here it is. The journey it takes us on is existential, and the collection a tour de force.
“A very important thing is not to make up your mind that you are any one thing,” said Gertrude Stein, whom Ostriker quotes in her epigraph, readying us for what is to follow: a tripartite self in dialogue.
Some of you may remember “The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the  Dog,” which appeared in her prize-winning collection, The Book of Seventy:
To be blessed
said the old woman
is to live and work
so hard
God’s love
washes right through you
like milk through a cow
To be blessed
said the dark red tulip
is to knock their eyes out
with the slug of lust
implied by
your up-ended
skirt
To be blessed
said the dog
is to have a pinch
of God
inside you
and all the other dogs
can smell it
This was my first introduction to these three characters who, on second thought, may not be talking to each other at all but rather addressing the audience in a series of plain-language dramatic asides. We can almost see them on the stage, casting an occasional sly look or even a wink at one or both of their companions.
What Ostriker goes on to do here is take her cast on a long, philosophical journey, replete with the wisdom of experience. Each poem in the collection has a different title and theme, but they are all essential to the theme of our passage through life. At one point – and toward the end, at another, she actually places them on stage:
The Moment on Stage I
I am
happy to be
here
said the fragile old woman
when my beauty fades I
shall die
said the dark red tulip
Come on and
throw me
that Frisbee
said the dog
Don’t be misled by the simplicity of the language here; this is a perfectly crafted poem. The line break in the first stanza, for example, reminds us that every aspect of form enhances meaning:
I am happy to be
here
With most poetry collections, I have favorites – one or two that I know will draw me back again, that I will mark for saving and reading aloud to anyone who will listen (usually students, a captive audience). Not so with this one. I savored ever poem in it, couldn’t put it down, intend to recommend it, first to you, dear readers, and then to other poetry lovers in whatever remote places they can be found.
Irene Willis
Poetry Editor