Self Help: A Guide for the Retiring

by Elizabeth Poreba

Overview

For the retired and/or retiring, a personal exploration claiming to be a self-help manual, a poet's musings on the experience of no longer having much to do and being disinclined by shyness to join a book club. Life could become a summer afternoon, a slow swim in a warm lake. I could become another backyard roustabout, part of the greedy gang eying the vegetable garden. The larcenous woodchuck returns. We exchange a long gaze but he gives no clue of what to do next. The poems ponder various ways to adapt to unaccustomed leisure--napping, complaining, gardening, volunteering, and so on. Observing time's curious way of intermittently sprinting then lollygagging, and understanding more clearly every day that time doesn't exist anyway, the poet relishes moments, which are … liable to be caught like a leaf in the eddy of a brook, lodged only long enough to look, and which become her subjects.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498246309
Publisher:	Resource Publications
Publication date:	12/13/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	70
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Elizabeth Poreba taught English in New York City high schools for thirty-five years and now volunteers as a docent at the Old Merchant’s House in Manhattan, a tutor of conversational English at New York University, and a writer of letters to the editor for a couple of environmental organizations. She has published a chapbook, The Family Calling (2011) and a collection of poetry, Vexed (Wipf and Stock, 2015) Her poems have appeared in Ducts.org, First Literary Review-East, and Commonweal, among other print and online publications.

Elizabeth Poreba taught English in New York City high schools for thirty-five years and now volunteers as a docent at the Old Merchant's House in Manhattan, a tutor of conversational English at New York University, and a foot soldier for the Sierra Club. She has published a chapbook, The Family Calling (2011). Her poems have appeared in Ducts.org, First Literary Review East and Commonweal, among other print and online publications.

Table of Contents

I

Fissures 2

Leaving Thessaloniki 3

Sister Ghost 4

Feast of St. Philip 6

Aubade 7

The Boxer at the Met 8

Retiring the Red Pen 9

On Being Asked, "How are you?" 10

My Condition, I, II, III 11

Break 14

The More We Are Ourselves, the Less Self in Us 15

Gems 16

Passed On 17

Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61 18

Retiring is Not Retreating 19

II

Letter to a Distant Daughter 22

Moisés and Nicolas 23

The Parable of the Vineyard 24

A Good Rain 25

Stern 26

Style 27

Perspective 28

Afternoon Nap 29

The Land of Shades Gives Birth 30

California Light 31

Where Were the Dogs in Eden? 32

February Thaw 33

A Walk in the Back Lot 34

How Does the Rushing Brook Sound? 35

Yellow-Crowned Night Heron 36

Split 37

Cozumel 38

Ornamental 39

III

Self Help 42

Détente 43

Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels 44

Butterfly Effect 45

My Approach 46

Rest Room 48

Seaside 49

Carlos 50

Dance 51

Anniversary #44 52

Sparrow 53

Not Everything Known is Learned 54

Tourists 55

Verde Que Te Quiero Verde 56

Root Room 57

A Miracle 58

Forecast 59

Tompkins Square Park 60

Notes 61

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“With wry self-deprecating humor, Elizabeth Poreba shares a clear-eyed view of the latter part of life. She pursues a quest for understanding as she intertwines urban existence, religion, and the natural world in unexpected ways, for example, inserting a dog—a labrador—as the means of preventing the loss of Eden and describing a grandchild as ‘my DNA cunningly packaged, his little cap covering potential crackpot notions.’”

—Katrinka Moore, Author of Numa and Thief



“The speaker of these poems may be ‘retired’ from official service, but she is anything but retiring—the liveliness, the wry wit, the energy of these poems belie any protestations to the contrary. Whether focusing on the natural world, family, or our shared social environs, Poreba brings her crafty skills and sharp eye together with a consciousness of the spiritual element inherent in all experience. A delightful collection that bears re-reading to discover the depths beneath the poems’ crystal-clear surfaces.”

—Amy Lemmon, Author of Saint Nobody



“The ‘self’ who helps us in Elizabeth Poreba’s new book of poems is a being that, like Ariel, leads us from form to form, from air to earth to water and back again, sifting into scenes of the city and elements of nature with elegant and affecting energy. These poems offer us the precarious power of the liminal spirit in action, questioning and probing, giving us ‘what is left/after the eye parses’ while ‘weaving/from water/my kind of coherence/gliding like/a key in the right lock.’ The most sustaining sort of self-help guide, Elizabeth Poreba’s poems open us to our vital hearts.”

—David Groff, Author of Clay

Editorial Reviews

With wry self-deprecating humor, Elizabeth Poreba shares a clear-eyed view of the latter part of life. She pursues a quest for understanding as she intertwines urban existence, religion, and the natural world in unexpected ways, for example, inserting a dog—a labrador—as the means of preventing the loss of Eden and describing a grandchild as ‘my DNA cunningly packaged, his little cap covering potential crackpot notions.’”

—Katrinka Moore, Author of Numa and Thief



“The speaker of these poems may be ‘retired’ from official service, but she is anything but retiring—the liveliness, the wry wit, the energy of these poems belie any protestations to the contrary. Whether focusing on the natural world, family, or our shared social environs, Poreba brings her crafty skills and sharp eye together with a consciousness of the spiritual element inherent in all experience. A delightful collection that bears re-reading to discover the depths beneath the poems’ crystal-clear surfaces.”

—Amy Lemmon, Author of Saint Nobody



“The ‘self’ who helps us in Elizabeth Poreba’s new book of poems is a being that, like Ariel, leads us from form to form, from air to earth to water and back again, sifting into scenes of the city and elements of nature with elegant and affecting energy. These poems offer us the precarious power of the liminal spirit in action, questioning and probing, giving us ‘what is left/after the eye parses’ while ‘weaving/from water/my kind of coherence/gliding like/a key in the right lock.’ The most sustaining sort of self-help guide, Elizabeth Poreba’s poems open us to our vital hearts.”

—David Groff, Author of Clay

From the Publisher