Beatrice Emerges. Editor s Note: My profound gratitude goes out to each of the remarkable women whose work is included in this small volume.

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2 Beatrice Emerges Kathi Stafford, Editor. A virtual chapbook published in August Editor s Note: My profound gratitude goes out to each of the remarkable women whose work is included in this small volume. Photographs and artwork accompanying each poem were completed by the poem s author except as otherwise described. Cover design by Daniel Martin. Drawing on last page (copy of a master drawing) by Kathi Stafford. Copyright Millicent Borges Accardi, Susan Rogers, Jennifer Smith, Maja Trochimczyk, Kathi Stafford. All Rights Reserved. Note on Maja Trochimczyk s work: The digital art collage includes Maja Trochimczyk s photographs and Beatrix from Giovanni di Paolo s illustrations for Il Paradiso. These images are a part of the British Library s Yates Thompson 36 Codex made in Sienna in the 15 th century. Rosetti s drawing of the Rose Garden is in the collection of the Museum of the Fine Arts in Boston and his painting of Love s Greeting is in the Isabella Stewart Garner Museum in Boston. The reference to the Virgin Mother, figlia der tuo figlio (daughter of your son), is from Dante, Il Paradiso, Canto XXXIII: 1. The epigraph is cited from the Princeton Dante Project ( Sempre l amor che queta questo cilo/accoglie in se con si fatta salute / per far disposto a sua fiamma il candela, Il Paradiso, Canto III:

3 Instructions for Assembly: 1. This document is a PDF. 2. From the PDF print menu choose the Page Scaling pop-up. 3. Choose Multiple Pages Per Sheet. 4. From the Multiple Pages Per Sheet menu, select the value Print out each double page of the pdf file. 6. Cut the pages apart with scissors or a paper-cutter. 7. Assemble the pages in the order of this document. 8. Roll the assembled pages into a scroll with the front cover on the outside. 9. Take a long thread or cord and tie the scroll as you would a gift with a bow. Scrolls are the ancestors of the book---thus, the work creates a link back in time.

4 Deformation Statement: Beatrice Emerges I ll never forget how dismayed I was to learn as a teenager that Shakespeare did not originate the romance between Romeo and Juliet. He d actually picked up the story, fairly full-blown, from an Italian story-teller. In fact, Dante mentions the Capulets and the Montagues in the Divine Comedy, interestingly enough. Not only that the origins stretch back to Ovid s Metamorphosis, where several similar tenets show up to thwart true love, including parents who hate each other, a faked death, and generational angst. For this particular chapbook, Beatrice Emerges, the focus began with several phrases and words from the Divine Comedy, by Dante Alghieri, and similar texts: color as of fire; the ladies seven; a dark shadow s edge; green leaves and branches black; lavender veils; shimmering gold; beatific portrait; and dowry cost. Dante saw Beatrice at a young age and fell under a sort of indescribable spell. It was called courtly love at the time now, we might call it love from afar, or an unrequited passion. Beatrice (perhaps never knowing of Dante s feelings for her) married another man, then died young, whereas Dante married another woman to whom he had been betrothed for years. None of these intervening facts stopped him from claiming Beatrice as his one great muse. She is

5 a key figure in the Divine Comedy the only person pure enough to escort Dante through Heaven after he has traipsed about through both Hell and Purgatory. Instead of resenting Shakespeare s deformations of Ovid and Dante, I ve now learned to appreciate how plots and characters are recycled by writers and artists across centuries. In the spirit of deformation, the contributors to Beatrice Emerges utilize a few constant starting points for pulling together words and images from earlier artists into a compost pile of ideas, stirred up, pressed down, and mined for new twists on the idea of this particular woman. Deformation of images and symbols allowed for a reclaiming of the mysterious and inspiring Beatrice. The second focus built on Beatrice s role as muse, a role that women have filled historically. What would she have thought about Dante s use of her being as the inspiration of some of the greatest poetry ever to be written in the Italian language? What, in fact, is the true role and perception of the muse herself in this process? Beatrice became ultimately unobtainable to the artist, but he still claimed her deeply and passionately. Art builds upon earlier art in myriad and unexpected forms, as shown in the Galerie de Difformité. A cut-up poem from the project becomes a bracelet on an arm, or sprigs of grass spring up in a tender field. The mash-up between visual drawings and paintings, performance art, written words, and collage has grown exponentially during the course of this undertaking. Beatrice comes into focus as the muse who reflects the kaleidoscope of perfect beauty and virtue that is deformed and reformed in a new century. Beatrice comes into focus as the muse who reflects the kaleidoscope of perfect beauty and virtue that is deforming and reforming in a new century--never attainable, changing over time

6 in the eye of each beholder. Centuries after Dante followed Beatrice, we follow her, still. Table of Contents Where You and I Meet Susan Rogers To Sign a Parting of Ways Collage by Jennifer Smith Upward Gazed Beatrice, and I at Her Millicent Borges Accardi Ask the Sky... Susan Rogers What Returns Susan Rogers Rosa Mystica....Maja Trochimczyk Bea in a Mood; Sketch Kathi Stafford

7 Overlapping Moments Where You and I Meet by Susan Rogers I fold around you into prayer. My silence, the silken underside

8 of rose petals, pale and perfect. Around which you, your words my shadow, the leaves I left in the waters of this pond kiss the edges of things the way the reflection of the tree kisses the water. The way the mirror of the flower and the leaf from underneath the surface of the pond kisses the sky. It is at that point where the back and front of all places touch where air meets water, and where leaf meets leaf. Where you and I meet and become layers and layers of colored light swimming in overlapping moments in the pond. It is at the point where everything sinks sighing into presence. And the red hibiscus fills itself from within, drawing new life from the pregnant waters, rising into the heart of a

9 new season, where you and I, the flower, the leaf, the tree we share, the lavender veil, and everything we know leaps into bloom.

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11 To Sign a Parting of Ways by Jennifer Smith Storyteller: Puts the brush to his lips, licks, an orange tree. A dictionary like paint, his goodbye. Washes the paper first with whiskey, apricot brandy, plum wine. Inhales. Breathes fire. Hoary dragon, ancient guardian of gold, her treasures. He forces her jade leaves open through an unspoken blue sky. The nine oranges taste like death so late in the summer.

12 A symphony of dirt bloods her, cruel peridot endless torture in her leaves, a highway from onyx earth to red stars. He clubs through her light, on hunt with his dogs. She tries to remember these are her skies. Still her black roots scrape the earth as she holds out her hands to sign a parting of ways: Boy you are beneath. Stay.

13 Upward Gazed Beatrice, and I at Her by Millicent Borges Accardi With what softness at first She looked upon me. Her glance of lavender Sunlight touched the face Of my soul in an openwardly Naked way as secret As a book left unlocked With open pages For the world to see. Then the veils of Another animal s voice Broke through the heart And into the noisiness Of morning. Ah, the shimmering Gold of what was not To be, too lustrous To gaze upon. Our wishes Returning to the ordinariness Of daily lives Filled with purpose,

14 And choices of life And directions to remain As you were.

15 Ask the Sky by Susan Rogers What does the sky know? If you ask her she will defer to the sun. Her colors are spun from light: cerulean, dove blue, indigo. She holds the secret of the wind but speaks a forgotten tongue mirroring the expanse of waters, blurs her ribbons with the ruby light of fire orange rind, passion fruit, tangerine, quells my longing with bells of wind song, wind chime, mountain flute echoing in the abbey.

16 If you follow her high enough into her deepest heart she becomes space. But even then she answers to the mouth of fire, dreams love inside the giant ball, pulses shimmering gold into silent corners of the galaxy, where she waits, breathless, outside of time to receive flame.

17 . What Returns by Susan Rogers after Rike s What Survives I say nothing vanishes or is entirely beyond reach even the flight of a phoenix or the sound of petals in a garden where all petals

18 have gone. You carry the glint of gold even after I have lost trace of it. I remember fire after you.

19 Rosa Mystica by Maja Trochimczyk I knew it all along (at least, suspected) Beatrice s swimming cap betrays Heaven as nothing but an oversized The love that calms this heaven always offers welcome with such greetings to make the candle ready for its flame ~ Dante, Il Paradiso, Canto XXX: 52-54

20 pool where saints swim like fish in the river of light and God-Mother rests on white lounge petals of a Mystic Rose Giovanni di Paolo s illumined pages of Il Paradiso unveil creature comforts beyond the sapphire glow of Dante s Empyrean Angels curl in their pods like babies asleep on metallic wings with round pillow halos of shimmering gold Multi-hued gowns of cobalt, salmon, palm green, and sienna reveal the childish joy of heavenly hosts adoring the Trinity Cherubs play hopscotch dance the Sarabande twirl like a swarm of bees among light-bursts that do not sear their eyes with pain

21 Rushing waterfalls of laughter sparkle with diamond waves in the robes of our Mother Daughter of her Son figlia del tuo figlio She gave Him a kiss on the way to the Rose Garden serene Love s Greeting beneath seraphic wings rainbows that cut our darkness

22 Bea in a Mood by Kathi Stafford Beatrice trails after me, room to room. Generally annoyed that she has been brought up Yet again, back from eternal rewards and all that. Dante is in trouble with her these days. Deconstruction, she snorts. Just an excuse for voyeurs to ask more annoying questions. I want to know if she was infatuated with the man. Her blankness in its reflective surface, all Glittery submission and somber talk. How could this woman live As obsession? She pulls a veil across her face again, shrugs thin shoulders, Traces the curve of Florentine silk along her ankle s bend.

23 CONTRIBUTORS MILLICENT BORGES ACCARDI, a Portuguese-American poet, is the author of three books: Injuring Eternity (World Nouveau), Woman on a Shaky Bridge (Finishing Line Press chapbook), and Only More So (forthcoming Salmon Press, Ireland 2012). Her writing awards include grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council, as well as residencies at Yaddo, Jentel and Vermont Studio. SUSAN ROGERS considers poetry a vehicle for light and a tool for exchanging positive energy. She is a practitioner of Sukyo Mahikari a spiritual practice that promotes positive thoughts, words and action. Susan is also an artist, and licensed attorney. JENNIFER SMITH has a Master's Degree in English from Chapman University. She teaches English part time at Los Angeles Valley College where she forces her students to read poetry, particularly Rilke, her favorite. KATHI STAFFORD has served as poetry editor and senior editor for Southern California Review. Additionally, she was a Pushcart Prize nominee for Her poetry, book reviews, and interviews have appeared in various literary journals and anthologies. She is a corporate attorney. MAJA TROCHIMCZYK is a poet, music historian, photographer and translator born in Poland, educated in Warsaw and at McGill University in Canada. She has published numerous books of poetry and music studies. She served as editor-in-chief for Polish Music Journal and founded Moonrise Press.

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