DC Poetry Community Mourns the Loss of Nan Fry

written by Jean Nordhaus

Nan Fry, a much-loved Washington area poet and teacher, died suddenly on Friday evening, September 23rd. A longtime member of the academic faculty at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC, Nan also taught poetry workshops for many years at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. In addition to short stories appearing in various venues, Nan, who grew up in Connecticut and earned a PhD in Medieval Studies at Yale, published a collection of poetry, Relearning the Dark with Washington Writers Publishing House in 1981 and, in 1988 with Sibyl-Child Press, a delightful chapbook of riddle poems, Say What I Am Called: Selected Riddles from the Exeter Book,  translated from Anglo-Saxon. Her poem “Riddle” (see below) appeared as a transit system poster in Baltimore, Washington, and Ft. Collins as part of the Poetry Society of America’s “Poetry in Motion” program. A memorial for her will be planned for later in the year.

To read more about Nan’s career, publications, and teaching philosophy, please click on the links below:

https://wikis.library.gwu.edu/dcpoetry/index.php/Nan_Fry

http://thewriterscenter.blogspot.com/2011/09/freedom-and-form-in-poetry-by-nan-fry.html

Pear

by Nan Fry

Pear,

you hang from your tree

like a teardrop grown solid,

like snow with a freckled skin.

When the handless maiden

came to you in moonlight, hungry,

she stretched up and took you

into her mouth.

Her father had sold her

to the devil and lopped off her hands,

but you bent to her, Pear,

and offered yourself, breast

and milk both, the earth

grown pendulous and sweet.

Openings

by Nan Fry

After being so long without windows,

you find that everything opens.

The leaf opens to water,

making itself a room.

When a bird comes,

it carries the sun in its beak.

Over and over, sun is flowing

into the leaf, into the hills

of water. Below, roots tear

water from rock, hurl it upward.

Without wondering if it is right

the worm makes a path

through the leaf, the watery lace.

Under his silent teeth you hear the sea

tolling, and you know

it is not a bell but a doorway. 

                       

Riddle

by Nan Fry

We are animal cries,
groans the body makes,
the shrill keening of grief,
pain and rage howled out,
grunts of satisfaction,
someone crooning to her young.
We're animal cries becoming
human, five daughters
of your mother tongue.

[Answer: Vowels]

  

Washington Writers’ Publishing House: Tireless Members Who’ve Passed Away

by Patric Pepper

As I reflect on Washington Writers’ Publishing House (WWPH), the D.C. based cooperative press, which has published more than 100 books of poetry and fiction since 1975, it’s become clearer than ever to me that an organization is the people who breathe life into it with their time and energy. With that in mind, I would like to remember some of WWPH’s strong, working contributors who are eligible for a splendid wake, stalwart authors who contributed generously with their get-up-and-go to the inner workings of the press, and who have now passed away. 

I want to begin by mentioning Shirley Cochrane, who passed away on November 18, 2015. Shirley was living in Charlotte, North Carolina, under 24 hour care at the time of her death. She was the author of Burnsite, published in 1979. During the 80s and into the 90s, Shirley served as president, tirelessly checked the post office box, did order fulfillment, and attended press meetings until she moved away. Many thanks, Shirley; may you know our gratitude.

In 1979, WWPH published the anthology of D.C. Poets, The Poet Upstairs, edited by Octave Stevenson, longtime head of the Literature Division at the D.C. Public Library. In 1995, WWPH published another anthology titled Hungry As We Are, edited by Ann Darr, the author of Do You Take This Woman? I think it’s fair to say that anyone who volunteers to lead an effort to compile and edit an anthology, successfully seeing the project through to publication, has made a major contribution to Washington Writers’ Publishing House.

In the late 1980s into the 1990s, Barbara Lefcowitz, author of The Queen of Lost Baggage, coordinated manuscript reading for the poetry prize. Barbara, another member to recently pass away, having died on October 8, 2015, was very interested and energetic in her work for WWPH. 

Barbara was energetic in her work, as was Elaine Magarrell, author of On Hogback Mountain. During the 1990s Elaine helped with major press undertakings, as well as with WWPH minutiae, whenever needed by then president Jean Nordhaus. 

And here we ought to remember Ann Knox, author of Stonecrop, who managed production in the late 1980s on into the 1990s. Ann offered me sound advice on the subject when I came on board in 2004. 

On the subject of advice, Faith Reyher Jackson, author of the novel Meadow Fugue and Descant, published in 2002, remained active in the life of the press until the end of her life by speaking up at meetings. When she couldn’t make it to meetings anymore, Faith remained involved by offering feedback via e-mail. Other WWPH authors no longer with us include May Miller, Margaret Weaver, and Paul Estaver.

I hope I have not missed any steadfast WWPH author who has passed away. I will close by mentioning two more authors. First, I remember distinctly the book launch in 1992 for The Dark above Mad River, by Joe Thackery, who was in his late seventies at the time of publication. From the podium, Joe said of his book, “This just shows it’s never too late.” 

Lastly, I remember Robert Sargent, who early on served as president and for well over 10 years held the post of WWPH treasurer, thereby helping hold together a fledgling WWPH with his sage financial wisdom.

Remembering our friends from the past with all their contributions to our lives, I’d like to say how I take the title of Robert Sargent’s WWPH poetry book as another bit of his wisdom: Now Is Always the Miraculous Time. Many thanks to all of these folks (and those, too, still among us—working away) who helped get WWPH through all the years to this miraculous time.

Patric Pepper was President of WWPH from 2007 to 2013, and has continued volunteer service with the press. His poetry collection Temporary Apprehensions was a 2004 winner of the Washington Writers’ Publishing House Poetry Prize.

Washington Writers’ Publishing House

Washington Writers’ Publishing House was established in 1973, mainly by Grace Cavalieri, as a nonprofit cooperative poetry press, which incidentally helped to integrate what then was de facto a Southern town. The animating idea was that poets chosen for publication would become members of the cooperative and commit to assist in the work of the press including the selection and production of subsequent books. The new books were chosen yearly through a competition open to writers from the Washington area, and later, the Greater Washington-Baltimore area. Initially the poets themselves underwrote the costs; later grants from foundations and other sources, such as recently the Jean Feldman award, supplement income from book sales to cover expenses.

Among the earliest publications were chapbooks by Grace Cavalieri, Robert Sargent, and Deirdre Baldwin, and soon Terence Winch, Ethelbert Miller, May Miller (no relation), Shirley Cochrane and others, most of whom have gone on to further awards and books. Some of the winners, whose manuscripts are chosen anonymously, turn out to have good publishing credentials already, others are neophytes glad for the handholding as they are guided through the process of becoming first-time authors. [See full list of winning poet below.]

As of 2014, the press had published over 50 volumes of poetry and, since 2000, also some dozen fiction titles (and several of the fictioneers also have poetry credentials). For many years, the press published two or three full-length poetry collections annually, and in early years could only afford simple one-color covers. In 2000 the press also began publishing fiction. WWPH currently publishes one poetry title and one fiction title each year, all with striking covers. Seven of the fiction titles in print are now also e-books, and in the future, some poets may opt for the electronic route.

WWPH presidents have shouldered full loads, publishing subsequent generations of new poets and since 1999, fiction writers. While posting notices about submission deadlines, reading manuscripts (with the help of our fellows), choosing, editing, tweaking, working with super formatter Barbara Shaw of ShawType, obtaining printers’ quotes and copyrights, helping to set up readings, and promoting, with the help of the new winner, in the process we all learn something about publishing. And thus we can turn around and help the next winners.

Among winners who eventually served as president of WWPH are: Robert Sargent, Shirley Cochrane, Eric Nelson, Elisavietta Ritchie Jean Nordhaus, Hastings Wyman, Jr., Bernard Jankowski, Laura Brylawsky-Miller, Ann Brewer Knox, Martin Galvin, Moira Egan, Brandel France de Bravo and Patric Pepper.  Although theoretically winners need not participate in the working of the press for more than three years, Robert Sargent served as treasurer for many more, as currently has Elizabeth Bruce, and Elisavietta Ritchie went on from three years as president for poetry a decade later to serve as president for the fiction division for a further decade. A very few winners vanished soon after WWPH published their books.

Michelle Chan Brown won the 2014 Jean Feldman Award for her collection Motherland With Wolves, inprint in 2015.

List of winning authors:

Christopher Ankney, Hearsay
Barri Armitage, Double Helix
Ned Balbo, Galileo’s Banquet
Deirdra Baldwin, Gathering Time
David Bristol, Paradise & Cash
Laura Brylawski-Miller, The Snow on Lake Como
Nancy Naomi Carlson, Kings Highway
Ramola D., Invisible Season
Grace Cavalieri, Why I Cannot Take A Lover
Maxine Clair, Coping with Gravity
Patrick L. Clary, Notes For A Loveletter
Katharine Edgar Coby, Thrift
Shirley Cochrane, Burnsite
Ann Darr, Do You Take This Woman … and

Hungry As We Are, An Anthology of Washington Area Poets (Editor)
Jehanne Dubrow, From the Fever-World
Moira Egan, Cleave
Paul Estaver, Salisbury Beach-1954
Harrison Fisher, The Gravity
Brandel France de Bravo, Provenance
Nan Fry, Relearning the Dark
Martin Galvin, Wild Card
Patricia Garfinkel, From the Red Eye of Jupiter
Piotr Gwiazda, Gagarin Street
Sid Gold, Working Vocabulary
Beate Goldman, Letters to a Stranger
Dan Gutstein, Bloodcoal & Honey
Paul R. Haenel, Farewell, Goodbye, Wave Goodbye 
Greg Hannan, Instincts for the Jugular
Catherine Harnett Shaw, Evidence, Still Life
Judith Harris, Poppies
Kathleen Hellen, Umberto’s Night
Gray Jacobik, Sandpainting
Robert Herschbach, Loose Weather
Bernard Jankowski, The Bullfrog Does Not Imagine New Towns
Dan Johnson, Come Looking
Beth Joselow, Gypsies
Holly Karapetkova, Words We Might One Day Say
Ann Knox, Stonecrop
Kwelismith, Browngirl in the Ring (audiotape)
Mary Ann Larkin, The Coil of the Skin
Barbara F. Lefcowitz, The Queen of Lost Baggage
Bruce MacKinnon, Mystery Schools
Elaine Magarrell, On Hogback Mountain
David McAleavey, Holding Obsidian
John McNally, Northern Lights
E. Ethelbert Miller, Migrant Worker
May Miller, Halfway to the Sun
Elisabeth Murawski, Moon and Mercury
Sharon Negri, The Other Side of Now
Eric Nelson, The Light Bringers
Jean Nordhaus, A Bracelet of Lies
Catherine O’Neill, The Daffodil Farmer
Patric Pepper, Temporary Apprehensions
Elisavietta Ritchie,  Raking the Snow
Kim Roberts, The Wishbone Galaxy
Ron Rodriguez, The Captains That Dogs Aren’t
Carly Sachs, the steam sequence
Robert Sargent, Now Is Always The Miraculous Time
Jane Satterfield, Shepherdess with an Automatic
Jane Schapiro, Tapping This Stone
Anne Sheldon, Hero-Surfing
Myra Sklarew, Altamira
Katherine Smith, Argument by Design
Dean Smith, American Boy
Octave Stevenson, The Poet Upstairs, An Anthology Of Washington Area Poets (Editor)
Joseph C. Thackery, The Dark Above Mad River
Naomi Thiers, Only The Raw Hands Are Heaven
Maria Upton, Children of Apartness
Margaret Weaver, Escaping Words
Terence Winch, Luncheonette Jealousy
Hastings Wyman, Jr., Certain Patterns

Small Presses I Have Known and Loved (a personal account) The Bunny and the Crocodile Press & The Washington Writers’ Publishing House

by Grace Cavalieri

The Bunny and the Crocodile Press was started in 1976, by Grace Cavalieri and daughter Cindy Flynn; and then that same year I joined our friend John McNally in establishing the Washington Writers’ Publishing House.

The name
"Bunny & Crocodile" came from a New Yorker cartoon David Bristol sent me with a huge crocodile mouth and two bunnies inside the open jaws, hugging, unaware of any danger. This surely was poetry in the world. People always attributed the Press’s name to Ken and me but truly it was just an imprint we thought perfect.

The small press movement is time-honored in America. In the 1960’s and 70’s, the movement gained momentum, taking on the mission of publishing good poets who the big houses ignored. Big publishers were owned by ATT and Westinghouse, corporate American. But small presses did not have a bottom line, or even a line, and all kinds of books were produced – sometimes even mimeographs were published in poets’ basement.  

The Bunny/Crocodile depended on an established poet finding his/her own grant to sustain publication. Most of our poets were in academia and at that time, their colleges supported and subsidized publications.  Of course my household had to provide more funding than anticipated because of incidentals that we—an illusioned entity— could not foresee. When it came to finances, “The Bunny” was always outside chewing grass and “The Crocodile” sleeping in the sun.  Also we did not have the strength to do bookkeeping so the authors received 100% of their books and sales money. What did we have? We had the great good pleasure of making a book, making something that did not exist before— call it collaboration with God, but there was something wonderful about packaging a poet’s words and sending them out into the world like a letter of love.

The reason our press was not a vanity press (i.e. writers pay to be printed) is because of one word:  selection. We received many manuscripts, and we chose carefully among those poets who were excellent, who had tried traditional houses first, were deserving in the community and— and, well, sometimes were our friends.

My daughter Cindy was with me from the beginning of production with “The Bunny.” She was in college (studying with Michael Glaser) when we began, and Cindy was an accomplished artist who designed the books and created the covers. We found a printer in southern Maryland who made books that were reasonably priced with good textbook paper. The largest portion of our publishing lives was helped along by George Klear’s Printing Press, Leonardtown Maryland. After he died, his son Kerry worked for us. George was an angel in the rough, and was amazed at the idea that anyone would print poetry instead of VFW news or fishing calendars. He always gave a great price and once, when covers for the WPFW anthology were injured, George reprinted 500 books free – without us even asking (“that’s what giving is,“ my husband always said).

From 1976 to 2014 we did books sporadically, one or two a year. We had other interests, and publishing was on the margin of our lives. During the last 10 active years of publishing we accepted novels and finally we decided to close the press in 2013. Thirty six years of work with no revenue was a drain. The energy we received from shining light on other writers called for more batteries than we had left.

The most sweeping success of any of our books was The WPFW Anthology where the Bunny and Crocodile published the first 300 poets to appear on my radio series “The Poet and the Poem from WPFW-FM.” Some poets had never been in print. Others were Poets Laureate, some had never been on radio before, and everyone gave us the beauty of a poem. We were able - I cannot believe the 100s of grants I’d written - we were able to distribute the anthology to every library and every public school in the District of Columbia.

These were the books George Klear replaced because someone in his shop moved the covers before he varnish was dry. So I still have a box of extras in my closet, and I am saving them for the most special of all occasions, although I cannot imagine what day that will be. I hope I am in it, at any rate.

In 1986, Robert Sargent, my constant friend and companion and Bunny Board member had just retired his career from the Pentagon, and he put his clerical skills to work by helping me file for an IRS tax free status, incorporated in the District of Columbia. Now we could do more work. An entity can be incorporated in every state so when I moved to West Virginia in 1988, I added Forest Woods Media as a moniker as we were doing more poetry distribution in media than in print.

At the time of the Bunny’s inception, I met John McNally. He was a wonderful energetic person, who worked with my husband in the Bureau of Naval Personnel in DC. Ken was his “superior officer,” Commander, and John was a Lieutenant so when Ken brought him home, John was naturally called Ken’s inferior officer. He’d seen horrible action in Vet Nam in a river boat with dead bodies falling on him. But he never spoke of it. He was sweet and handsome and on his way to Law School and he loved poetry and was an excellent poet.

It was John’s idea to start a publishing House that was not quite as jejune as The Bunny and Crocodile and he had a grand vision. This was the time of cooperatives and collectives.  John thought we should start a collective because he knew a great graphics artist in DC who would design elegant small chapbooks. The idea was to start with three poets, then those published poets would become workers for the press, selecting three more, then we’d have six and it was an inverted pyramid which would become a small press empire.

The first three books were slender, about 26 pages: Deirdra Baldwin, (I think Terence Winch) and my own. Nice satiny covers and good paper. Not like paper in other books at the time. E Ethelbert Miller was among our next three, and John McNally’s idea flourished.

The Washington Writers’ Publishing House is still thriving today with hundreds of titles to its credit. John moved on to study law, I was President of the Washington Writers Publishing House the first two years, Robert Sargent for several years (poor Robert, I left cardboard boxes filled with unfiled papers for him to sort). Jean Nordhaus shouldered the press for many years after that. She’d been Poetry Coordinator for the Folger Shakespeare Library. We were poets publishing poets. Elisavietta Ritchie is the responsible one now in 2014 and there are bounties of books on shelves with the WWPH imprimatur.

Robert Sargent, my buddy, helped me with poetry distribution for The Bunny books and WWPH books. I was somewhat of a poetry guerrilla in those days employing underground tactics to get poetry out into the world. I would run into a bookstore and place books on the shelves and dash out. Robert would be double parked and we would speed away like Bonnie and Clyde. We got no money from those sales but poetry books were sold and our distribution system worked just fine. Give everything and ask for nothing and you’ll have success. Those are the economics of the arts

An aside about Robert Sargent:

Robert drove me everywhere to do Bunny business and later WPFW business. Also, he took me to my poetry gigs during the day at various colleges. He died at age 94 and was my best friend for 40 years. The Bunny published five of his collections.  When I had 9am-5pm jobs in DC, at PBS and NEH, we met every single Wednesday for lunch. I would come outside my building to find him sitting on a bench in the sun reading a book. He always carried a yellow memo pad, from Pentagon Days, with an agenda of what we’d talk about. As we gossiped or shared poetry acceptances and rejections, telling our secrets, he would cross off the topic with pencil.

Born in Mississippi, Robert was courtly, a southern gentleman and had a deep drawl but he was a devil. He kept a fake journal for Chris his wife to read, and although he adored her, he wanted his other women kept to himself. He sometimes wrote innocent dalliances in his fake journal so she’d believe them true.  

Robert and I had our arguments and they were fierce. He is the only person who could rouse my fury. Politically, we were opposite, and this was a point of contention. But he was my poetry valet. And a loyal partner in poetry crime.

The Bunny and the Crocodile Press Booklist 

(aka Forest Woods Media) 1976- to 2013

Blue denotes poets who are no longer with us

British GI Warbrides  Among The Alien Corn by Joyce Varney Thompson

Do Unto Others by Robert.C.Varney

Looking For Don by Dai Sil Kim Gibson

Schaeffer Brown’s Detective Observations by Candace Katz

My Emerald Green Dress by Alistaire Ramirez-Marquez   (in English and Spanish)

Dandelion Greens by Jane Flanders (Post Humous) edited by Steven Flanders

Dream Catcher by Lynn Kernan 

Schaeffer Brown’s Detective Fundamentals by Candace Katz

Manifesto d’Amore’: Uncollected Poems (1940-2001)  by Jane Flanders (posthumous pub)

Orpheus in the Park by Rose Solari

Being A Father by Michael Glaser

Beached in the Hourglass by Ethan Fischer

Sudden Plenty by Jane Flanders (posthumous pub)      

99 Past 80 by Robert Sargent

The Tao of Mrs. Wei  by Hilary Tham

Epitaph  by Yoko Danna

Break by Ilona Popper

Toad and Other Poems by David Bristol

Fiddledeedee by Shelby Stephenson

Altered in the Telling by Robert Sargent

Rap Goes Deutsch, the Poet and the Poem Special, CD (Goethe International)

Weavings 2000, A Maryland Anthology for Young People edited by Michael Glaser

The Maryland Millennium Anthology edited by Michael Glaser

Baiting the Hook by Sonja James

Looking for Divine Transportation by Karren Alenier

Pinecrest Rest Haven book-on-tape by Grace Cavalieri

Gift of Jade by  Margaret Ward Morland

The Stealthy Days by Robert Sargent

WPFW 89.3 Anthology edited by Grace Cavalieri

The Other Side of the Hill, Capitol Hill Writers Group Anthology edited by Jean Nordhaus

Cycles of the Moonvine by Jean Emerson

House of Change by Stacy Tuthill

Voice As A Bridge, edited by William Gilcher

Tales Too, an Anthology edited by Jeanne Mozier

The Corner Ain’t No Place For Hiding by Jonettta rose Barras

The Transmutation Notebooks by Anne Becker

So What! by Kenneth Carroll

The Cartographer by Robert Sargent

Flying the Zuni Mountains by Ann Darr

Tales from the Springs, an Anthology edited by Jeanne Mozier

Remember Me by Avideh Shashaani

Confessions of a Skewed Romantic by Ann Darr

Fish Galore by Robert Sargent

A Lover’s Eye by Michael Glaser

Paradise and Cash by David Bristol

The Thoughts of Giants by Shirley Scott

The Monk That Made His Momma Happy by David Bristol

Solid Gold by Devy Bendit

Selling Parsley by Devy Bendit 

Body Fluids by Grace Cavalieri  (1976)