Waking Up New

I just realized today that one of the things
I tend to do with this blog is pick a poet
and post as many of his or her poems as I
can find on line, interspersing them with
my own poetry, and some of the contributing
poets I have permission from, like C.L.
Bledsoe, Bobby Byrd, Joy Harjo, Doug Palmer,
Alex Shapiro, Marian Haddad, Janet Leigh,
Rick Mobbs, Larry Thomas, Jerome Rothenberg,
Lynne Rees, and the indomitable Jannie Funster--
and now the latest sensation, Yi-Ching Lin.

I further realized that when one of these
poets gets published in an on line Chapbook
or publication, it is the most common way
to find and promulgate their art. I feel that
by sharing our poetry amongst ourselves, our
art becomes collaborative, and more eyes fall
upon it, and more hearts and minds are
touched by it.

So just for fun, I went back to my archives
to look at the last 30 days of my postings,
and I found where I first encountered poetry
by Yi-Ching Lin, on the Applehouse Poetry
Workshop, put on by Lynne Rees. After emailing
Yi-Ching, and getting her permission to start
posting her work, I went into her archives
over on her site

Yi-Ching Lin Photography .

I realized that I have already treated the
readers of my site to over 100 of her
fabulous poems. So in case it is important
to any of you, and just for grins, I
present the new Chapbook, POETSPEAK,
dedicating the whole issue to poet
Yi-Ching Lin. The title of her book
will be WAKING UP NEW:

Table of Contents:

1. in the hour before becoming
[Painting by Walfredo Garcia]
2. even from this far
[B&W image from the 1950's]
3. some tie strings
[elaborate embroidery of tea pot]
4. monday through friday
[B&W art photograph]
5. blood donor
[Drawing by Jana Botkin]
6. there are habits that grow
[Image by Yi-Ching Lin]
7. hir tsa jin shin haw
[Image by Yi-Ching Lin]
8. no one came to collect
[Painting by Chuck Rose]
9. there are days
[Image by Tom Uhlman]
10. i hold
[Watercolor by Karen Winters]
11. the day stretches
[Painting by Vicky Brago-Mitchell]
12. carrying weight
[B&W image from the 1940's]
13. i cannot
[Image by Yi-Ching Lin]
14. twenty-eight, i
[Image of State Highway 28 sign]
15. what remains of your death
[Painting by Evelyne Boren]
16. the day oxidizes
[deviant art by anonymous]
17. if you take everything
[Color image of carnival mask]
18. yesterday's fragment
[Painting by Rebecca Cooper]
19. we have heard what drowning
[deviant art by rainesz]
20. sunday morning
[Color image of sunrise on NYC]
21. thirty four monks were
[Color image of a dozen Buddhists monks]
22. it is mostly self
[deviant art by anonymous]
23. after all that
[Color image of Zen tantra]
24. they put you through
[Color image of Zen pendant]
25. it is almost unbearable
[Painting by Clayton Kashuba]
26. the days used to pass
[Color image of Zen tantra]
27. these memories rub
[Drawing by Tina Antoniadas]
28. how can we bear it
[Mandala by Andy Weber]
29. it looks like your toes
[Historical Chinese painting of Chang-e & Hou Yi]
30. i am just about
[Painting by Dana Levin]
31. these days, i hold
[Painting by Hiroko Sakai]
32. on the twenty-eighth
[Painting by Susan Morrison Sims]
33. it takes two or not
[Color image of oriental tea service]
34. on average, the human
[Abstract painting of the heart]
35. he comes in as
[Color image of two shot glasses]
36. i am not
[Color image of climber's hip harness]
37. death
[Painting by Rick Berry]
38. no matter which way
[Painting by Michelle Calkins]
39. in the shower this morning, i
[Sketch by Rube Goldberg]
40. on day fifteen, i know
[Color image of woman weeping]
41. don't call
[Color image of 1950's dial phone]
42. the cereal was
[Color image of dry cereal in bowl]
43. the standard orchids
[Painting by Pamela Casper]
44. death is a double
[Color image of medieval key]
45. i have been asked
[Image by Yi-Ching Lin]
46. these are these unmeasured
[Painting by Bruce Combs]
47. let the illiterate hold
[Painting by Chidi Okoye]
48. since your departure
[Painting by Willem de Kooning]
49. when i start using
[Painting by Willem de Kooning]
50. there is
[Color image of snow in Central Park, NYC]
51. from the yawning sea
[deviant art by lonely pierot]
52. these first steps are the
[Painting by David Patterson]
53. i am a secret
[B&W image of woman in shadow]
54. the day he left, i can still
[Mask work by Judith Costello]
55. so this is how it feels
[Image by Anna Danilochkina]
56. in the end, when it is
[Cover on "Steve Roach Live" album]
57. i tried
[Painting by Kaori Takamura]
58. i cannot seem to write
[Diagram of musical instrument case]
59. chew up some of that
[Sculpture by George Segal]
60. you know what i am
[deviant art by leonidafremov]
61. when your heart breaks
[Painting by Alfred Gockel]
62. the night before the night
[Painting by Sean Exline]
63. when Kanji Watanabe
[Movie one-sheet from Kurosawa's IKIRU]
64. after forty-five
[Color image of yellow tulip amongst bluebonnets]
65. someone is
[Image by Yi-Ching Lin]
66. the lily magnolias
[Image by Yi-Ching Lin]
67. i told them all
[Color image of abstract numbers]
68. i lost a button
[Color image of father/daughter]
69. got the call at 10:20, and i want to fold
[B&W image of woman holding paper airplane]
70. between the first
[Painting by Veronica Jacks]
71. the things you say
[Neo-Classic painting by Anonymous]
72. in a couple weeks
[deviant art by anonymous]
73. just now, a spider
[Painting by Paul Mudersbach]
74. seventh
[Color image of woman eating chocolate]
75. some things make more
[Painting of easter bunny by Anonymous]
76. you say yes like a
[Chinese woodcut of tidal wave]
77. you are inconsolable
[Richard D. James cover]
78. the clinicians like to line up
[Image by Yi-Ching Lin]
79. the oatmeal arrived
[Color image of bowl of oatmeal]
80. we are bracing ourselves
[Color image of snow in NYC]
81. my mother is stacking
[Color image of persimmons]
82. i passed Pamplona the other
[Painting by David Diaz]
83. the sky, about to
[Color image of winter sky]
84. these things appear
[Color image of stack of ribboned letters]
85. your head is resting
[Color image of NYC subway street entrance]
86. rescue mission
[Color image of oriental prostitute]
87. even without doing
[deviant art by gataescondida]
88. let's untangle
[Painting portrait of Krzystof Penderecki]
89. three a.m., and blame
[Painting of one night stand]
90. you can hate the idea
[deviant art by retrodiva]
91. let us bind these last
[Jazz Cover: David Westerly: 49.0]
92. it was like love
[deviant art by esempio costiga]
93. girl's night out
[Image by Moosiatko]
94. the morning after we said it
[deviant art by michael92]
95. when you take my why
[Color image of a couple holding hands]
96. you threw me
[deviant art by dougall]
97. an ultimatum is
[Painting by D. Lane Taylor]
98. you say that from your arms
[Color image of photo booth]
99. it's always a Chinese finger trap too
[Color detail of finger trap between index
fingers of Michangelo's God & Adam touching]
100. you must know
[Color image of lonely girl]
101. he will find the one he needs
[Color image of divided couple]
102. why do i feel so distant
[Color image of man alone at table]
103. i hang laundry with
[Color image of hanging laundry]
104. you are leaning over, a silver
[Image by Yi-Ching Lin]
105. a wounded thing
[Image by Yi-Ching Lin]
106. you said sometimes
[deviant art by intano]
107. pissing in the shower, again
[Color image of tomatoes in a bath tub]
108. you come back
[Color image of grandfather and grandson]
109. for the sake of
[Color image of Met Life building in NYC]
110. i am unfolding
[Painting by Terry Wiley]

Man, that makes a hell of classy Chapbook, enit?
So, though it does not exist in the real world,
WAKING UP NEW does exist here on FFTR. And
I will continue to post the poetry of
Yi-Ching Lin, as she writes more it so
prolifically, and/or I continue to dig into
her archives and I find the good stuff.

Glenn Buttkus