Day 1: Mystery Playground features "Grandiflora"

Again this year, my friend Deb Lacy joins 30 Days of The Five-Two featuring a poem at Mystery Playground each of the tour's four Saturdays. Today, apropos of early spring, Rosemarie Keenan's "Grandiflora". —Gerald So

Rosemarie Keenan

GRANDIFLORA

He wasn't all mine
no matter what he said.

I saw him tending to them,
pretty things
just blooming.

Spending my money
to water
them with wine.

I’ve learned pruning is essential
for maintaining roses' health,
with shears or sometimes saws.
While wearing gloves, of course.

He wasn't all mine
no matter what he said.
He spread himself around
like ashes on this flower bed.


Rosemarie reads "Grandiflora":



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Rosemarie confesses: "Roses are a traditional symbol of love but sometimes love goes wrong. Still, the flowers need tending."

ROSEMARIE KEENAN, with her husband Vince Keenan, writes as Renee Patrick. Their debut novel, the classic Hollywood mystery, Design for Dying will be published by Forge books in April 2016. Rosemarie's poetry has been featured at The Five-Two and in Silver Birch Press's anthology Noir Erasure Poetry.

Rosemarie Keenan

HOLIDAY HOURS

Deck the halls
Midnight to six
Last downtown department store
Twelve-man crew

String giant ornaments from the ceilings
Wrap lights around every pillar
Throw up walls for Santa's workshop
Get it all in place before
They start lining up

Four hundred yards of garland
Hung under the watchful eye
of the foreman
Devon slipped off
Not to the can, like I told the boss
But to Fine Jewelry
And Better Watches

These old stores are something
Monumental
Windows made for 8-foot wreaths
Merchandise in drawers
With locks from 1924


Gerald So reads "Holiday Hours":



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Rosemarie confesses: "When I was little my father worked at a department store. One November, very late, after the store had closed, he took me for a tour of the Santaland he'd helped install. Ever since I've wondered about a store's life once the customers are gone."

ROSEMARIE KEENAN, with her husband and writing partner, Vince Keenan, is a 2013 Winner of the William F. Deeck Malice Domestic Grant for Unpublished Writers which they won for their novel, Design for Dying. She lives in Seattle, where she is a research administrator.

On Erasure Poetry

As I blogged Sunday, Silver Birch Press's NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology is now available. In this post, I'll describe the feel of erasure poetry, and of many poems in this particular anthology.

One reason I'm drawn to poetry is its independence from narrative. Yes, narrative helps clarity, and erasure poetry can feel disjointed—"experimental"—diverging from an existing narrative. However, poetry's purpose is often to get at sensations that don't fit neatly into stories. Several poets in this anthology used Hammett and Chandler as source material, but each poem feels new and uniquely the poet's.

I don't consider Robert B. Parker a noir author, but I used the first page of his first Spenser novel, The Godwulf Manuscript, for the phrase "Victorian whorehouse". Parker used it figuratively, to describe a university president's office; I used literally, as the setting of my noir poem.

The NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology also features 5-2 contributors Rosemarie Keenan, Catfish McDaris, and David S. Pointer. If you'd like to see it your local independent mystery bookshop, contact me, and I'll pass the details on to publisher Melanie Villines.

And let me mention another Silver Birch Press erasure poetry anthology, accepting submissions until December 31. Poets are asked to create Valentine's Day-themed poems from page 214 of the book of their choice. I chose Active Server Pages Bible by Eric Smith.

Silver Birch Press's NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology Available Now

• 
  Back in July, 5-2 alum Catfish McDaris alerted me to a submissions call for poems made by redacting passages from existing noir and hardboiled novels. The first sentence of Robert B. Parker's The Godwulf Manuscript sprung to mind. Lovable literate thug Spenser makes his debut likening a university president's office to "the front parlor of a successful Victorian whorehouse." My poem pays homage to that stinging simile, and to the late Parker, whose eloquence hooked me on hardboiled fiction.
  
  For our help bringing contributors to the anthology, publisher Melanie Villines listed Catfish and me as contributing editors. The 122-page, digest-sized book is on sale now at Amazon.com.


• Also of interest to noir aficionados, Melanie tipped me to L.A. historian Kim Cooper's upcoming first noir novel, The Kept Girl:
  
  

  

  Kim Cooper's The Kept Girl is inspired by a sensational real-life Los Angeles cult murder spree which exploded into the public consciousness when fraud charges were filed against the cult's leaders in 1929.
  
  The victim was the nephew of oil company president Joseph Dabney, Raymond Chandler's boss. In the novel, Chandler, still several years away from publishing his first short story, is one of three amateur detectives who uncover the ghastly truth about the Great Eleven cult over one frenetic week.
  
  Informed by the author's extensive research into the literary, spiritual, criminal and architectural history of Southern California, The Kept Girl is a terrifying noir love story, set against the backdrop of a glittering pre-crash metropolis.

  
  Through December 25, you can help publish The Kept Girl by subscribing to a special edition for $65 (which includes additional perks).


• Looking ahead to Valentine's Day, Silver Birch Press is calling for Valentine's Day erasure poems made by redacting page 214 of the book of your choice. If enough submissions are accepted by December 31, they will be published in an anthology.