What better way to follow a child into womanhood than through the shifting, magical landscape of portents and signs? In Bright Turquoise Umbrella, Hermine Meinhard shakes up the physical world, leaving us mesmerized. Leaving us changed. She possesses the secret of dreams, and like a Sherpa for the soul, helps us climb to a place that is lyrical and enchanting, lighter than air, even when revealing something utterly shocking. Fish make prophecies, beheaded women sing, and time turns boundless. This is poetry that rewires our experiences—what we most treasure and what we most fear—in a way that reaches us organically, that sets us buzzing.
In these utterly intriguing poems, vivid, disquieting, even violent images collude with a gentle lyrical voice to produce an unusually affecting poetry. These poems transfix us as Hermine Meinhard takes our hand — for she is nothing if not gentle—and leads us deep into the unconscious—hers, and ours.
Format: paperback
ISBN: 978-1-932195-10-1
Hermine Meinhard’s poems have appeared in Barrow Street, Luna, How2, La Petite Zine, Kalliope, The Prose Poem and other publications. The winner of the Sue Saniel Elkind Poetry Award, she teaches at New York University and the New York Writers Workshop at the Jewish Community Center Manhattan. She is poetry editor of the literary journal 3rd bed.
“Meinhard’s receptive devotion to dreams and folktales of earth, sky, animals and insects, places her among the most gifted portraitists of our time. In four distinct chapters, Oscar Wilde’s ‘life is too important to be taken seriously,’ whispers through a lullaby that falls, singing reversals and contradictions, ‘from the Tree of Heaven.’”—Andrew Levy
On the Porch
Grandfather was in heaven
feeding the ducks
and I was in your lap with peaches.
I can’t say exactly when this happened.
Grandfather was in heaven and you were somewhere
and I was eating strawberries.
Later I ate something in a room with enormous
ceilings. The sun was shining. This was after
I was sitting in your lap and eating pears
and talking about something. I was small and old.
Or else I was not that old
and Grandfather was asleep on the porch.
You’d gone away
or I’d left you.
I was either in heaven or alone.
I was eating apples.
Grandfather was feeding the ducks.
Bright Turquoise Umbrella
I asked the octopus a personal question
about his arms.
I bent back my thumb, separated my fingers
like scissors. He quietly moved away.
The sea was filled with red weed which wrapped
itself around my legs. When I emerged,
nothing was familiar: my knee, with the brown mark
like a chicken eye — my toes, little boxes, the pinky
straying like a wild hair.
On the beach was a red blanket, a beach ball, a bright
turquoise umbrella, and a man.
He was making lunch, slicing fish onto bread,
cutting up a peach.
There was orange juice and milk on the blanket,
and music from a radio — and the man’s feet,
which stuck out over the edge of the blanket,
moved to the music.
He looked up and gave a little wave. My hair was still wet.
Finalist, Poetry Society of America, 2005 Norma Farber First Book Award
Finalist, Poetry Society of America, 2004 Robert H. Winner Memorial Award
Grand Prize Winner, 1993 Sue Saniel Elkind Poetry Award
Nominee, Pushcart Prize
Fellowships at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Ragdale Foundation, and the Blue Mountain Center.
