A Wild Surmise

Other Works by the Author, Title Page, Copyright, Acknowledgments, Recordings of the Poems, Dedication

Also by Eloise Klein Healy Building Some Changes A Packet Beating Like a Heart Ordinary Wisdom Artemis in Echo Park Women’s Studies Chronicles Passing The Islands Project: Poems for Sappho A WILD SURMISE NEW & SELECTED POEMS & RECORDINGS ELOISE KLEIN HEALY Red Hen Press | Pasadena, CA A Wild Surmise: New & Selected Poems & Recordings Copyright © 2013 Eloise Klein Healy All Rights Reserved No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner. Book design and layout by David Rose Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Healy, Eloise Klein. A wild surmise : new & selected poems & recordings / Eloise Klein Healy.—1st ed. p. cm. ISBN 978-1-59709-759-8 I. Title. PS3558.E234W55 2013 811’.54—dc23 2012030769 The Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, and Sony Pictures Entertainment partially support Red Hen Press. First Edition Published by Red Hen Press www.redhen.org Acknowledgments I would like to thank the editors who originally published the new, selected , and uncollected poems, some in slightly different versions, in Askew, Audemus, Bear Flag Republic: Prose Poems From California, Black Clock, BLOOM, Chance of a Ghost: An Anthology of Contemporary Ghost Poems, Chickasaw Plum, Electronic Poetry Review, Feminist Studies, Gertrude , Lambda Book Review Literary Spotlight, The Los Angeles Review, Matrifocus: Cross Quarterly for the Goddess Woman, Ms. Magazine, Poetic Dialogue Project, poeticdiversity.org, poetrymagazine.com, Prairie Schooner, RATTLE, The Rattling Wall, and The Women’s Review of Books. • “Recipe With Dogs” was included in Terry Wolverton’s Writers At Work What’s Cookin’ Postcard Project. • “Mr. Twister” was written for Susan Silton’s The Tornado Project. • “At the Altar of the Peregrine” was written for display at Chan Chich Lodge, Belize. • “The Summer She Died” was written for Other People’s Memories/ Found Photos: A Dialogue with the Anonymous, an exhibit curated by Paula Gray at the Mendocino College Art Gallery. Offering gratitude is an important part of putting together a book such as this one—new poems, poems selected from previous collections, and poems that for one reason or another never got into my other books. These poems all share one thing besides me having written them—another person cared about them, listened to them with me, read them, or heard them at a reading or on the radio. I didn’t write any of these poems just for myself. They are all public acts; they were meant to live in the world. Many years ago, May Swenson told me that poems are perceptions , and it is true that my poems reflect and replicate mine. Many poems started because of a “what if?” proposition and I followed those leads. I have been fortunate to live in a vibrant poetry community in Los Angeles, though we have definitely been under the radar much of the time. Thankfully, amazing editors and publishers chose to put my work in print or in digital format, and I am grateful to them every day of my life. Early on, I won a first book prize, The Beyond Baroque Foundation’s NewBook Award for Building Some Changes. James Krusoe was my editor and he taught me how to put a book together. A Packet Beating Like a Heart, under the editorship of Jacqueline De Angelis and Aleida Rodriguez, was the first poetry collection published by Books of a Feather Press. Ordinary Wisdom, a limited edition letterpress book, was handset and printed by Susan King of Paradise Press at The Woman’s Building in Los Angeles (later reprinted by Red Hen Press). Nancy Bereano published Artemis in Echo Park at Firebrand Books, one of the first lesbian feminist publishing houses in the country. My chapbook, Women’s Studies Chronicles, was part of the Illuminati Press’s Laguna Poets Series (#99), published by Pat and Marcia Cohee. Kate Gale and Mark Cull of Red Hen Press published Passing, The Islands Project: Poems for Sappho, and now this book, A Wild Surmise: New & Selected Poems & Recordings. There’s an important underlying story here beyond my own publishing history—the growth and importance of independent publishing in American letters from the mid-twentieth century onward. I began my...