Diane Frank's magical Blue Light Press shines on poets near and far

Three Blue Light Press poets will read September 10, 2010, at 7 pm at the Last Word Poetry Reading series held at the Nefeli Café in Berkeley: Diane Frank, with cellist accompaniment by Erik Ievins; Stewart Florsheim; and, Andrena Zawinski. Nefeli is located at 1854 Euclid Avenue, Berkeley, in the block north of the UC campus. Café phone is (510) 841-6374. Admission is free and an open-mic follows the featured readers.

In the esoteric traditions of western spirituality, a blue ray of light is a manifestation of the Shekheina--the ancient Hebrew concept of the divine feminine. Associated with this azure radiance are qualities brought into the world through love and unlimited acceptance, nurturance, and a sensuality that is both comforting and erotic.

Diane Frank didn’t tell me all this when I asked about the name of Blue Light Press. She explained how she took the appellation directly from her poem "Afterimages":

How do I know
if you see green
the way I do?

You talked last night
about ripples
on the cornea--

afterimages,
shadows
around the object.

A musicologist told me
that so-many cycles per second
equals E-flat.

But how does that sound
inside your ear?

And when I touch you
do you see
the blue light
around my heart?
   (“Afterimages” by Diane Frank, copyright held by poet)

This svelte and serene San Franciscan--the main shaker-and-mover behind Blue Light--juggles many balls: the publishing venture, a teaching and writing schedule, a long-term relationship and maintenance of a household, and a variety of interests that include playing the cello, contra-dancing, and practicing a spiritual discipline that includes meditation and going on retreats.

Although Frank is the first to give credit where credit is due, pointing out that Blue Light functions through the participation of a group of dedicated poets, we all know what happens to a wheel without a hub, and for Blue Light Press, Frank is that hub--a role she finesses with generosity and--quite necessarily--some unseen fount of divine energy.

Originally from the New York-side of New Jersey, Frank attended Syracuse University where she drew the attention of poet Stephen Dunn. She counts herself lucky that Dunn saw something in her work to send it to publishers. After a reasonable break from college (as she puts it, all poets need to take some time away from academe to live in the real world), she attended San Francisco State University to pursue a Master’s Degree with an emphasis in Creative Writing. At SF State, she was mostly taught by language poets--not her own approach or sensibility as far as poetry is concerned--yet, she feels she benefited from her instructors’ encouragement to experiment and play with language.

Blue Light Press is something of a resurrected project; originally the creation of a photographer who published Frank’s Rhododendron Shedding Its Skin (1988), Frank took over as publisher in 1990. She had long desired to be a publisher as well as a poet. Blue Light functioned, at first, “something like a garage band,” involving several poets who contributed the time and energy it takes to solicit, select, produce and publish fine books. It is obviously well organized now, with a regular publication schedule, two contests, and all the demands of publicizing and distributing its titles. For the most part, Blue Light publishes imaginative and visionary poetry that “pushes the edge of the language and carries each poem’s vision deep into the light.” As chief editor, Frank is on the lookout for poems that “knock my socks off in line after line.” When she finds them, she immediately wants to bring a book into the world and share it with others. Call it publishing midwifery!

Blue Light’s collective includes Stewart Florsheim of Oakland, Alice Rogoff (San Francisco), Kirston Koths (El Cerrito), Scott Caputo (San Jose), and Lynne Barnes (San Francisco), as well as Frank. Each writer is involved in the decision-making of what books will be published. Melanie Gendrun of Santa Cruz has designed most of the elegantly produced books. To date, Blue Light has brought our over 40 titles.

Early in Blue Light’s existence, Frank sent some books to the poetry editor at Writer’s Digest who quoted from a few of the poems but asked--one can picture his arched brow--‘Who could possibly understand what these poems are about?’ It wasn’t the reception she was looking for, but the editor’s attentions “did an amazing thing for us,” and Blue Light received numerous inquiries and submissions as a result.

They launched two contests as a way to finance publications: one in the spring for chapbooks; the other in the fall for full-length manuscripts. Aside from the financial impetus, however, the contests allowed the collective to discover new poets and manuscripts.

Compared to many more curmudgeonly editors, Frank is optimistic about the state of poetry publishing: “There is always gold in those piles,” she says describing a slush pond of 200 or so manuscripts. “We usually find three to five good books.” It then becomes a more difficult matter to determine which manuscripts they will work with and print.

This spring, there were several that they wanted to publish so Blue Light Press awarded three prizes, offering publication to Sarah McKinstry-Brown (Omaha, Nebraska); Mary Ellen Brannon (Texas); and Joyce Uhlir (Minnesota and Florida). Because the press is a collective with limited marketing funds, poets must “do shameless promotion on their own books,” including arranging for readings and book-signing opportunities.

Although this year’s prize-winners turned out to come from farther away, Frank points out that Blue Light especially welcomes Bay Area poets. Florsheim, an Oaklander, won the Blue Light manuscript prize in 2005 for A Short Fall from Grace. Frank also points out that if a poet doesn’t win in the first year but has a promising manuscript, she often works with the writer to encourage them to revise and re-submit the book. That is what happened with Brannon, who submitted twice before and finally won publication this year.

As many poets do, Frank teaches to earn a living. Clearly, she has paid her dues and trained for this position, holding a credential as well as her higher-level degree. She has a sense of mission when she describes her pedagogy. No easy task, she sets out to help new writers “find the language to express what is in their souls.” Her teaching philosophy is built around life-affirming principles aimed at encouraging studentsand gently guiding them to write more expressively. To help them evoke important memories and move from abstraction toward specific images, she provides “juicy and provocative seed ideas.” She currently teaches at San Francisco State in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, at Dominican University in San Rafael, and in the Blue Light Press On-Line Poetry Workshops, classes that draw national and international students. In the summer, she coordinates a week-long writing retreat that coincides with the San Francisco Symphony’s concert in Dolores Park. She combines performance, poetics, and poetry workshops with cultural events in San Francisco and hiking in Muir Woods. While many of her students are over 50 years old, she also teaches 2nd through 6th graders as a poet-in-the-school at Brandeis Hillel in San Francisco. From 1986-2002, she taught at a small liberal arts college in Iowa and formed many lasting friendships and artistic alliances with mid-westerners.

Frank has just put the finishing touches on her second novel. After it goes to press in the fall, details will be available on her website at www.dianefrank.net. She has published five books of poems, including Isis, inspired by workshops held by Robert Bly. Her first novel, Blackberries in the Dream House (2003) received a Chelson Award for Fiction and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Frank lives in the Outer Sunset district of San Francisco with her partner Erik Ievins, a musician she describes as “a multi-talented genius with perfect pitch.” They met at a dance camp in a redwood forest in the Santa Cruz mountains when she recognized his cello; both artists play with the San Francisco Sinfonietta.

Dancing at Old Threshers’

by Diane Frank

Tangerine sunset floats low on the horizon.
The moon is orbiting around your hat.

I dance with you between rows
of early September corn,
Your Amish beard a field of uncut hay.

I haven’t memorized the map
of the constellations, but your eyes
are burning. The landscape of your muscles
ripples under your white muslin shirt.

You turn me two hands round
as the Great Bear rises in the sky
above your left shoulder.

There’s a secret beneath my gingham apron,
a shower of falling stars
as we dance around the fire
kicking up the ground made hard
by late summer rain.

We orbit around the shapes
of our forefathers’ stories--
a galaxy of seasons changing,
the stars a blur,
woodsmoke and wisdom whirling.

As we circle around each other,
the bear wakes up from his dreaming,
hears the tinny music
of hammered dulcimer floating south.

He pulls corn out of the husks
and you open your mouth.

The moon cracks like a pumpkin.

The sparks brush your skin
like a woman with turquoise beads,
tan muscular arms
and the secrets of your shoulders.

I am the goose shadow dreaming
of the day the universe began,
singing the music of the next creation.

Diane Frank, copyright 1999, from The Winter Life of Shooting Stars

***
ABOUT THE OTHER POETS AT THE 9/10 READING

Stewart Florsheim’s book A Short Fall from Grace won the 2005 Blue Light Press Book Award. He edited Ghosts of the Holocaust, an anthology of poetry by children of Holocaust survivors. He is active in social issues, most especially stopping the violence in Darfur and with Compassion and Choices, an organization helping the terminally ill make end-of-life decisions.

Andrena Zawinski, originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, teaches creative writing at Laney College in Oakland and his published five collections of her verse, including Something About and Taking the Road Where it Leads. She also runs a Women’s Literary Salon and is Features Editor at poetrymagazine.com.