Martha Collins at Brockton Library and Self-Portrait After Hopper

In my Examiner article on Jess Barnett last night, I said that “staring at a Franz Kline could knock your right over if you don’t have your footing right to begin with.” I’m not sure there is a more accurate description of Martha Collins and her poetry.

I count Martha as one of the top ten or twenty living American poets. The funny thing is, she is the living embodiment of the phrase “looks can be deceiving.” Martha is a small woman who looks somewhat gentle. Get her in front of one of her poems, and it is like being in the ring with Tyson. Bam, bam, bam. Relentless. Unwavering. Hearing her read on Saturday, there were moments when the audience let out audible sighs—as if hit in the gut, the chin. Combine that with her ability to bring unflinching truth and inventive strategies for creating new poems, and seeing Martha Collins read is always a treat.

She read from her new chapbook “Sheer,” and her latest book, “Blue Front,” as well as a new series of poems in progress, “White Papers.” All great.

I was in the process of jotting down ideas for a new poem, largely spawned by this idea of appearance and sound and the conspiracies of the two of them together. Above, see the first seeds of something new. I am not sure that William Carlos Williams or O’Hara made messy yellow-pad notes before starting lines, but I certainly do sometimes.

The Brockton Public Library has this poetry program once a month. It features a poetry workshop, an open mic, and a few feature poets reading. I read a draft of “Surf Girls Are Easy,” that went over pretty well.

The photo above is one of some random self-portrait series I have been working on. Took it during a poetry workshop at the Brockton Library. It looked so much like a self-portrait against Hopper’s “Sun in an Empty Room” from 1963, I couldn’t resist.