Modest Aspirations ~ Poems & Stories
Title:
Modest Aspirations ~ Poems by Gerald Locklin & Stories
by Beth Wilson
By:
Gerald Locklin & Beth Wilson
Genre: Poetry &
Short Fiction, Trade Paper
Publisher: Lummox Press (PO Box 5301 San Pedro, CA 90733-5301)
www.lummoxpress.com
Pages: 144
ISBN:
978-1-929878-08-6
USA Price: $15 + $3 Shipping
Canada-Mexico Price: $15 +$5 Shipping
WORLD Price: $15 + $10 Shipping
Publishing Date: April 2010
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Gerald Locklin is now a Professor Emeritus of English at California State University, Long Beach, where he taught from 1965 through 2007, and continues as an occasional part-time lecturer there and in the Master of Professional Program at the University of Southern California. He is the author of over 125 books, chapbooks, and broadsides of poetry, fiction, and criticism, with over 3000 poems, stories, articles, reviews, and interviews published in periodicals.
Beth Wilson was born and raised in Oklahoma. She got a Bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Central Oklahoma, and a Library Science degree from the University of Oklahoma. It was while she was studying creative writing at UCO that she met the poet and author Gerald Locklin. As a full-time reference librarian and mother of two small children, Beth writes short stories and poetry whenever she can find a few minutes strung together. She uses her own observations and experiences from the “heartland” as well as stories she gathers from her husband and friends to fuel her writing. Her chapbook, School of Sky, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She prefers to write near a window so she can look outside and see what the weather is doing.
Modest Aspirations can be purchased from Lummox Press or by going to Amazon.com .
Here are a few poems and an excerpt from the book...
The Versatility of Claude Monet
1.
You think of the Garden of Giverny,
But not of a Poppy Field near it.
You think of "Hollows" as Appalachian.
You think of artists painting peaks and plains
And seas and skies.
But maybe not of gullies we pass by and over.
And yet I've seen,
Through my wife's photographic eye,
The miniature beauties of an Alpine valley,
High in the Rockies or Yosemite,
Inhaling the rarified oxygen
Of Tuolumne or Independence Pass.
2.
The thirty paintings of Rouen Cathedral
At different hours of the light
Remind us why we must yet return
To buildings built as Prayers
Where all that remains of God
Is our nostalgia and His silence.
3.
A tour de force: La Japonais, 1876.
They say there is no competition in the arts,
But the Master of Landscapes here tosses off
This random masterpiece
Of textures, folds, and hues,
Coy commentary on itself,
As if to say, "If I so chose,
I could beat every trend at its own game:
In fact, I've just crafted a parody of
An entire cultural obsession
On this single canvas,
And, while I was at it,
Exceeded the skills
Of those that I was poking fun at."
Modest Aspirations
A mistake I've made
At all stages of my life
Is going for the pretty girl
Instead of the Drop-Dead Gorgeous One.
Even when both seem to be
Expressing an interest,
I seem to assume the merely comely one
Will need me more,
Appreciate me more.
Of course this results in the beautiful ones
Being so shocked and downright offended
That they not only write me off forever
But hate my guts eternally as well.
And the merely attractive ones,
Lacking the self-assurance of the beautiful,
Turn out to be insecure, neurotic, jealous,
In need of constant reassurance: what we currently
Refer to as "High Maintenance."
And since, like most writers,
I am, to put it mildly, Insecure, neurotic, jealous,
In need of constant reassurance,
And High Maintenance myself,
I either lose these pretty girls
Or end up sorry that
I didn't.
From EAST OF ENID by Beth Wilson
WHEN MICHAEL TURNED SIXTEEN, his dad let him pick his
first car from the collection of junkers in the backyard. He chose a rusty,
forest green Jeep Willys with wood-grained side panels and no seats in the back.
It took a lot of work to keep it running, but it was great for getting around
Enid. Enid was the biggest town in North Central Oklahoma, but it still wasn’t a
very big town.
He needed a car for transportation to and from his job at TG&Y in the
electronics department. It paid $3.35 an hour, which was minimum wage that year,
but the discounts he gave himself and his friends on merchandise made it well
worth his time.
He also needed a car because his girlfriend of eighteen months, Tina, felt that
it was time to consummate their relationship. Tina ’s parents never left them
alone for a second at their house. Michael ’s parents didn’t care what he did as
long as he didn ’t bother them, but there were too damn many people in his
house. And so,
the Jeep became both vehicle and location in the fulfillment of that goal,
specially over the summer months.
Transportation was freedom to work and to pursue his relationship, but it was
also freedom from his family. Michael was the youngest, and nobody ’s favorite.
He was just an accident they couldn’t really afford, and he knew that because
his mom had told him so plenty of times.
One evening – it was several months later, during Christmas break – when Tina
was supposed to be in bed already, her dad caught her sneaking out the window
and saw Michael ’s Jeep at the curb. There wasn’t another rusty, forest green
Jeep Willys with wood-grained side panels in Enid, so it was no good pretending
it
was someone else. He ’d never felt like Michael was good enough for Tina, but
this gave him a reason to actively dislike him. Tina was forbidden to go out
with Michael again.
Naturally, this didn’t stop them from being together at school, and any time
outside of school that Tina could come up with an alibi. That wasn’t enough for
Michael and Tina, though, and it only took about a month of sneaking around
before she came up with a solution...