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    No Regrets: Poems
    No Regrets: Poems
    No Regrets: Poems
    Ebook363 pages1 hour

    No Regrets: Poems

    By J.A. Carter-Winward

    5/5

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    About this ebook

    No Regrets bends genre, combining elements of poetry, memoir, and fiction to create insight into the most fundamental aspects of life: sex, grief, love, joy, and pain.  Readily accessible and compelling, you will have no regrets for taking this journey.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBinary Press Publications, LLC
    Release dateSep 1, 2016
    ISBN9781611710335
    No Regrets: Poems
    Author

    J.A. Carter-Winward

    J.A. Carter-Winward is author of Grind, The Rub, TDTM, and Falling Back to Earth, and the award-winning "No" Poetry Trilogy. She's also the author of two short-story collections, Shorts: A Collection, The Bus Stops Here and Other Stories, and a successful, locally produced stage play, The Waiters, nominated "Best Local Event" in 2014. Her work appears in anthologies by Vita Brevis Press, Write Bloody Publishing, HSTQ, and several paper and online poetry publications. In 2014, Carter-Winward was voted "Best Local Artist" for her literary and visual art. J.A.'s upcoming releases in 2021 include: If It Stings... That Means It's Working (a poetry story), Work in Progress: Dialogues & Poems, and Killing Scott Lark: A Novel. Official website for Ms. Carter-Winward: www.jacarterwinward.com

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    • 5/5
      this reviewhas turned into a much longer piece than i intended, but who fucking cares,right?i write,because i have to,just like j.a,who’s just savedmefrom getting too angryand bored with modern poetry.So, I want to start this review by saying a little about poetry’s form and style before I move on to content.I’ve only been using the internet for about three years (for anything other than emails and the odd purchase), so it’s only been in the last few years that I’ve started reading independent contemporary poets through Goodreads and webzines, and I have found many great poets along the way. In fact, I probably very much enjoy eighty percent of the poetry I read – there are some very talented writers out there - so I hope I’m not misunderstood when I simultaneously state that I’ve become quickly bored with the unoriginality of much of it; and when I talk of unoriginality, I’m chiefly talking about the form and style of the poetry, not the actual content.what i mean isi don’t getwhy every fucking poet i readseemsto write like this,with lowercaseand simple language.it seemsto methat everymodern poettriesto writelike bukowskiand since such thingsas tumblr poetryit seemseveryone wants to writethis way,and I don’t know why.There are many poets who write in this type of modern style – including some of my absolute favourites like Andy Carrington and Raegan Butcher, who I can’t recommend enough, but simultaneously, I’ve begun to generally get really bored of just reading the same style again and again and again.Where are the poets pushing the boundaries of the written word? Did poetry die with Ginsberg?Would The Beatles be the greatest band in the world if they’d stuck to just playing rock ‘n’ roll covers?Whatever the art form may be, for me, if it’s to be truly great, it needs to have a dose of originality to it.So, although J. A. Carter-Winward has been top of my list for greatest contemporary poets I’ve read for some time now (having read her previous two books in this trilogy, and other poems of hers as well), I put off reading ‘no regrets’ for a little while, because I had become somewhat disillusioned with reading this post-Bukowski style.Then I finally picked up ‘no regrets’ to read, and I can’t have been more than ten pages in before I paused and thought, ‘Fuck man! This poetry is soooo damn good! It’s head and shoulders above all the rest!’ And it made me realise that form has nothing to do with it, it’s just about how well one uses their chosen form.I’ve read a few poems by J. A. Carter-Winward that don’t conform to this modern style, where she has paid more attention to the sounds of words and even employed rhyme at times, so I know she can write stuff in various styles, but for the poems contained in these poetry books of hers, she has plumped for the exact right style to get her intentions across. When she is speaking so openly, so honestly, and is making valid and original observations, there’s no point in dressing the words up. She’s purposely stripped bare the language and descriptive prose, just like she’s stripped bare herself, where she serves up every intimate detail about her life and her opinions. The style and the content go hand in hand, and it’s honestly the most engaging contemporary poetry I’ve read.Whether you’re a poet or a novelist or whatever, there should never be any subject you can’t write about. The only criteria should be: can you write about the chosen subject well?So, I find plenty of poets writing about, say, the boringness of their daily lives, or being glued to a barstool, or the instant gratification of sex – whatever – but it doesn’t mean they’re always writing about it well. After all, anyone can write, say (off the top of my head):“my dick got hardand I came too soonagain”- and call it poetry. And don’t get me wrong, anything can be poetry, just like anything can be art, so I don’t mean to diminish its artistic merit. All I mean is, it’s not necessarily any good.Whereas Carter-Winward’s poetry is the exact opposite. She has a punchline to her poems, she has a philosophical point to make, she has an original thought… And it’s this that (partially) makes her poetry so damn good. Poems like:“it seems there is a delugeof queer poetry out therebut not a whole lot of poetryfrom bisexuals.probably because we’retoo busyhaving sexwith everybody.”And:“when a man saysi could sleep with her,it’s a very different ballgame fromi want to sleep with her.the first is like a rugby match:he could give it a try.the second, like a soccer match:he’s made it a goal.”Carter-Winward has lived a life that’s worth writing about. Sex is always the main running theme, but the more I read her work, the more I understand that she’s not really writing about sex at all – and it is that (for one thing) which makes her poetry stand head and shoulders above others (who are just writing about sexual experiences). Carter-Winward is writing about the human condition. She’s contrasting her life to others. She writes about growing up as a Mormon and turning her back on religion, she writes about family, and loss and injustice and stupidity. She’s knowingly allowing the reader to be a voyeur into every facet of her world: hence the titles of this trilogy of books: ‘no apologies’, ‘no secrets’ and ‘no regrets’.As she says in her poem ‘definition’:“i can’t definewhat I do.this isn’t poetry,this isn’t a memoir,this isn’t fiction,this isn’t biography.it is all four combined,and it is none.it is my art.”But most of all, like all great poets, Carter-Winward is writing because she has to write, and by doing so, it’s much more about her journey of self-reflection to try and make sense of who she is, more than anything else.so, just asi wasbeginningto get a little boredof poetry like thisj.a.carter-winward savedme and showed me the way.she’s the best contemporary poet I know of,end of.

    Book preview

    No Regrets - J.A. Carter-Winward

    memento

    my mother had a chance to go on tour with my dad

    when she was younger.

    he was in the mormon tabernacle choir

    and they were heading

    to europe.

    she finally got to live out her dream and visit paris.

    i remember when i was young looking in our linen closet

    and seeing a smoky-green glass soap dish.

    i asked her about it finally,

    thinking it too pretty to hide away.

    she told me

    she'd swiped it from a parisian hotel and

    that she could never display it

    because she was so ashamed of the theft.

    i looked at that soap dish often,

    this dish we never used,

    and i thought of her as the young mother

    who couldn't afford a souvenir

    on her dream trip

    to paris.

    i looked at it

    and felt like

    the hotel

    would have understood

    if they knew my mother at all.

    bella

    the brothel's madam is bella.

    bella knows more about the human

    condition than any therapist,

    poet or philosopher i've ever encountered.

    i asked her why she did what she did,

    and this is what she said:

    it's too amazing being human—

    even when it looks like it's

    going all wrong,

    that has to happen for us to

    understand what's right.

    i looked into her eyes then

    and saw such beautiful humanity—

    i wanted to laugh,

    scream

    or burst into tears.

    parts

    i am made up of parts

    that don't match,

    yet

    these parts make up a cohesive self—

    my brain is made up

    of a mormon woman scorned

    by her male-centric church,

    crossed with charles bukowski,

    carol brady, and cat woman.

    the other part of my brain is

    a metrosexual caveman

    who plays rugby,

    classical piano, and who jerks off

    to porn on sunday afternoons.

    my arms are soft,

    yet cut like a body-builder's

    when i flex.

    my torso is an hourglass

    half full of creamy stout,

    broken glass and bruises.

    my ass is brazilian.

    my tits are scottish.

    my legs are short,

    muscular tree stumps

    that hide in skirts,

    never wear shorts,

    and can lift two-hundred pounds

    on the seated press.

    my lungs are from the netherlands

    my heart is french

    my soul is bohemian

    my cunt is a hungry whore

    who hails from spain.

    my feet are chinese

    my hands are miniature

    tea-cup poodles.

    my eyes are darts

    seeking a board to impale.

    my mouth is a cupid's bow

    linked to my quivering spanish cunt.

    my guts

    are warlords from mongolia crossed

    with visigoths.

    my words are sirens

    hailing the coming

    of a shit storm.

    hard-wired

    every straight attached male

    has two circuit boards:

    one that's wired to his wife

    or partner,

    the other that's wired

    to every other vagina in the world.

    wunderkind

    when i was single

    i was friends with a guy who was a model.

    he was really down to earth,

    from wyoming—a sweetheart.

    he had stunning blue eyes

    and long, curly black hair

    that went to the middle of his back.

    we finally fucked

    after a drunken date at a club

    but nothing came of it

    because i didn’t want anything to come of it,

    other than we kept in touch through the years

    and he'd occasionally stop by…

    he gave me one of his modeling head shots,

    a black and white picture

    with him staring aggressively at the camera.

    i kept it with my photos

    as a memento.

    when my oldest daughter grew into a teenager

    she found the picture and

    developed quite a crush on him.

    i didn't have the heart to tell her

    sorry, baby, he's off limits;

    he fucked your mommy

    on the kitchen floor

    while you were at school.

    barkeep

    talking to the bartender

    at the brothel

    she said

    i'm an old drunk.

    i looked at her and she continued—

    last time i talked to god

    was in 1997.

    i don’t talk to him no more, she said.

    why not? i asked

    'cause when you talk to god and ask

    for stuff, you gotta be specific.

    i asked him for food, clothing and shelter.

    when i got to jail, i realized

    god gave me everything i asked for.

    the sonuvabitch.

    expression

    someone posted on social media

    that we should ban fireworks

    on account of the veterans and their ptsd.

    my first thought was

    ah, another liberal giving the rest of us

    a bad rap by being

    too sensitive.

    ww2 vets never complained.

    my second thought was this:

    ww2 vets were not allowed to complain—

    it wasn't sanctioned to express

    their trauma out loud.

    they lived it in a private hell shared only with

    perhaps a very few close people,

    or most often,

    no one at all.

    maybe it's time we look at that—

    maybe the time for fireworks has passed—

    why does this country need to glorify

    the hideous sounds of war

    when we could have a day of blissful,

    silent,

    peace?

    bargains

    when your partner tells you

    i think we should start seeing other people,

    that translates into

    the wardrobe equivalent of:

    i like this shirt okay,

    but i want to go shopping.

    foresight

    he told her he had a mistress.

    she had men of her own

    on the side

    so she felt better about that—

    like the playing field

    of their marriage

    was finally equal.

    she didn't see him falling

    for the other woman—

    she didn't see the other woman

    falling for him.

    she just didn’t see that coming.

    hymnals

    every once in a while,

    family obligations require me to

    go to church.

    i secretly like going for three reasons:

    i get to sing

    three

    hymns.

    i like to sing,

    i was raised singing.

    i sing the alto part,

    and i can always hear someone in the congregation

    singing soprano,

    and then i get to dream, for just a moment

    that my mother sits next to me

    harmonizing with me

    in perfect accord.

    revelations

    i was waiting for my cue.

    i was on for a poetry reading

    at a local art gallery

    when a guy came in with a service dog

    that looked more like a mutt

    with a jacket on.

    the guy was carrying two of my books.

    he wanted them signed.

    i thought a lot, then,

    about my revelations—

    the things i choose to make public with my words.

    i choose to open myself up

    in the most intimate detail

    and allow the world to see inside me.

    i checked that feeling

    against this man i didn't know,

    standing around, waiting for me.

    how did i really feel about him knowing me

    so intimately?

    but then i remembered

    that when i write every word,

    my audience is in my mind at all times.

    i know some,

    i don't know many,

    but they're there,

    like a back-lit peanut gallery

    waiting to drink in

    everything i have to give.

    and i wasn't embarrassed or afraid.

    i didn't even feel exposed.

    i remember what i felt distinctly:

    i felt powerful.

    heel

    i was twenty-six

    and she was forty-three.

    i thought i was in love.

    i was willing to trade in my heels

    for comfortable shoes

    and ready to move in

    with my two daughters and all.

    i could be with her forever.

    she was still married

    but that was on the rocks.

    after she kicked him out

    i thought we could get together,

    merge our lives.

    she had taught me about what it was like

    to be comfortable

    in my own skin;

    i wanted to drink her

    and all of her powerful female-knowledge

    inside of me

    because i was so thirsty for comfort.

    one night at a party

    i tried to kiss her.

    she told me,

    no.

    my kids are here.

    it was then i knew

    i'd be keeping my heels,

    and she'd be moving on

    without me.

    blind

    they say love is blind.

    they also say jesus is love—

    so why is it that his followers

    pretend to look

    into everyone else's heart

    and hate

    what they see?

    the bar

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