The Origami Swan: New and selected poems

by Dyane Fancey, Reed Hessler (Editor)

Overview

I knew Dyane for years, and always admired her poetry. But re-reading it since her death has brought me a whole new appreciation of her achievement. There is great art in concealing the art. Dyane knew this; it was the light by which she wrote. Her plain-spoken elegance inspires admiration, and-darel set this down? - envy. There are only two kinds of poems: the ones you wish you'd written, and the ones you are grateful that you did not. There are no small number of Dyane's poems I wish I could lay claim to. What finer, truer thing can one poet say of another?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781938144813
Publisher:	BrickHouse Books Inc.
Publication date:	05/17/2021
Pages:	116
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Originally from Washington, DC, back when, in Dyane's words, it was still a sleepy Southern town, Dyane lived most of her life in Baltimore, MD, after a brief sojourn in San Francisco. She was a gifted student at the famed Maryland Institute College of Art and graduated with honors from Towson University, where she majored in English. She was loved and greatly admired by literally all the poets in the lively, often fractious Baltimore poetry scene, and equally loved by her fans and customers at a restaurant in Baltimore's Mount Vernon area, called the Great American Melting Pot, Gampy's for short. Perhaps some of the latter did not know she was a great poet, but all knew and knew well that she was a great wait-person! Thanks to her wide range of acquaintances, Dyane made a huge success of a poetry reading series that ran at the Angel Tavern in Fells Point every Sunday evening for three full years and ended only when the Angel Tavern was sold. Her marriage to classical radio personality and film scholar, Reed Hessler, was long and loving and hot, and it brought great joy to them both.. He has preserved her memory and her poetry magnificently and has celebrated Dyane's life by bringing to light many previously unpublished poems. Dyane never stopped writing.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1967, The Phillips Collection 12

I Hand Mirror

Postcard with Fog: Lewisburg, West "Virginia 14

The Dark Glass of Memory 15

Valentine 16

In Blue 18

Angels 19

Yoshino at Suppertime 20

Poem to be Used with a Match 22

Lazarus 23

A Song for Purim 24

Kansas: Dorothy Gale Speaks 26

Thaw in March 27

4 AM in Mount Vernon, Remembered Twelve Hours Later 28

II The Muse

After Seeing All The Mornings of the World 30

Air in Winter for Francois Villon 31

Some Theories of Romance 32

The Muse 33

Why the Sea is More Salt 35

Practicing Yiddish Without a License 36

Dream in Which the Secret of Life is Revealed 37

At the First Exit Past the Delaware Memorial Bridge 38

Lying at the Foot of Jacob's Ladder Clutching a Bottle of Nytol or The Demon Lover 40

Questions for a Fellow Taurus 42

The Other Women 43

Finding the Ghost 45

The Last Zulu 47

The Resurrectionist 49

Tilt a Whirl 50

WARMING: This is Hot an Elegy 51

Boogie with the Muse 54

A Refusal to Mourn…Anyone I Know 55

III Reading from the Missal of Love and Sex

Untitled (What I Want To Find Between Us, possibly incomplete) 57

Mount Royal Tavern, July 10, 1981 58

The Interpretation of Dreams 59

Soul Market 60

Ars Armory 61

A Gilded Marriage Triptych 62

Reading from the Missal of Love and Sex 65

The Getaway 67

Day Light Owl 70

Clock as Death's Travel Agent 71

Widow 72

Halloween 74

Reasons Not to Have a Parrot 75

The AAA Guide to the Subconscious and Its Points of Interest 76

Midlife Evacuation Plan 78

Ode to the Fireman 80

Aubade After Twenty-Four Years 81

IV The Origami Swan

Weeds 83

Point of Balance 84

New Year's Greetings 85

For Ruth Osato 86

Pink Granite: The Japanese Internment Memorial 88

Aida 90

Pruning 91

Kalima 93

Juden: A Train Runs Through It 94

For My Doctor, Betsy Anne Fay, MD 96

Barbershop 97

Herding Cats 98

Riding a Motorcycle Over the Rainbow Bridge 99

The Latch 100

Bibliofiend 101

Princess Dresses 102

Fit 103

Yard Goods 105

Ygraine 107

Multitasking 108

Game 109

Biology and King Kong 111

After Seeing Renoir 112

The Obligatory, Long Postponed Elegy for My Mother 113

Acknowledgments 114