Press: "God in Her Ruffled Dress"

Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein), GOD IN HER RUFFLED DRESS

from Bethany Reid's blog

September 28, 2024

Just a little shout-out this afternoon for singer / poet Lisa B, whose book, God in Her Ruffled Dress, I reviewed for Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature for Women….

It’s a romp of a book, much worth reading and recommending. Lisa B, also a singer and songwriter, plays with sound, and weaves together color and image in ways that continually surprise and please me.

Here’s one poem wedding past with future, history with fantasy, Emily both at her writing desk, sewing together the fascicles of her poems, and working as a computer programmer. Surprise, surprise!

EMILY DICKINSON AT WORK

she pulls

the thread

through the linen

on the embroidery frame

and at her writing table

through the white packet

of paper poems

the next morning tapping

the keyboard

piecing together

the html

<br> <br/>

marking and closing

the breaks

a figure in a white dress

silent under

fluorescent lights

at her place at the long table

beside the other programmers

listening to the enclosing

emptiness a white

pillow invisibly

holding the lines of code

on her screen

where she glimpses

her own

reflected smile

“I can make the zigzag stitches

Straight—when I am strong—

Till then—dreaming I am sewing”

the shape of God walking

through it like bird’s feet

tracks in the snow

“I’ll begin to Sew

When the Birds begin to whistle—”

a song hummed

under her breath

a bare small wind

she painstakingly places

the letters and brackets

she for whom

“Success in Circuit lies”

here and now are not

where everything

that ticked has stopped

no part of her shaven

instead tick by tick

her mind the mind

forming the frame

___________________

by Bethany Reid

Toward the beginning of God in Her Ruffled Dress, the poet is commanded, Write me, write me, write me, and Lisa B writes—lines clenched between her teeth like a bridle’s bit or the pit of a sour cherry. From its provocative title to the last sentence, this strange, heretical book surprises, devastates, and delights.

God is one central theme of the book, but not so much the One Dad God as the body created in God’s image. Even in the first poem, a prayer, God is the bodies of all the men I’ve loved, but also breasts, and unpronounceable / …carved in stone / particles of sand and granite adhering into a tablet / a forgotten language (“God No. 2”). Bodies are fallible and magical at once. If God is found in human bodies, then also in the bodies in mass graves.

Subsequent poems take up the question of what it means to live in a body. A Jewish body with its genetic storehouse / in the back of her neck (“The Contract”); a body with Type 1 Diabetes with its white hem of cells. The context expands and contracts, keeping us off balance. In “Watching the Sea,” testing one’s blood sugar is like looking into the ocean:

I’m doing what a patch of cells
forgot to do.
A still underpart of a cave in my body
forgot to be part of the sea.
For an instant I am inside that sea.
A face above peers through the water,
its huge eyes green,
alert and round,
the face vague and then clear
through the waves, the stillness, the waves.

….

Lisa B is also an accomplished jazz and groove musician with seven albums, and she is a trained psychic. No wonder then that we encounter musicians here, with their melodious bodies; no wonder that the poems dive so deeply into one consciousness after another. In “Trane’s Ride (Naima),” jazz great John Coltrane gets mixed up with the metaphor of a horse’s body:

I wanted to talk from God.
The hooves beat in my throat
plowing up notes
and from the dust cloud
poured a train of horses.

The same poem ends with color:

It was blue behind my eyes, indigo
soft and unspoken. I felt the pain
ease, a forgetfulness
like a horse I finally let go.

And consider color. In “Some Things to Do with Pain,”…

Watch each rung of vertebra
light up
with a tone,
brown, ochre,
green, climbing the scale,
rolling through kidney and lung and heart,
the top of your head trembling,
neck tendons long
thick strings to lean into too,
the white blue
blue gold high notes
shaking the arch of your cathedral head

Divided into four sections (“Return to the Body,” “Drum the Beginning of the World,” “Sever the Head,” and “Propagate”), God in Her Ruffled Dress insists that we, too—despite (and because of) our sexy, smoky, moldering, disruptive bodies—are part of the body of God, and that God is not who we think she is.

Bethany Reid‘s stories, essays, and poems have recently been published in Poetry East, Quartet, Passengers, Adelaide, Kithe, Descant, Peregrine, and Catamaran.
Her fourth full-length collection of poems, The Pear Tree: elegy for a farm, won the 2023 Sally Albiso Award from MoonPath Press. She blogs about writing and life at www.bethanyareid.com.

WITH BOLD DELICACY: “GOD IN HER RUFFLED DRESS,” by LISA B (LISA BERNSTEIN)

by Michael Steinman

I had a certain skepticism about “jazz poetry,” or “poetry about jazz,” based on a good deal of familiarity with the genre, or should I say, product. It relies on an implied connection — experience and emotion — between poet and reader....

But truly resonant poetry is more than a dropping of famous names, or playing readers as if they were keyboards. Bernstein has understood this, and she avoids familiar tropes, easy associations. To write about Billie Holiday is treacherous because the formulaic is frozen through decades of repetition, but when Bernstein, in “Billie Goes Home,” imagines her saying or thinking, “Growl to me, Mister, / please,” I am charmed and touched by what she has envisioned...“Uptempo with Ella,” simultaneously whimsical and serious — is it dream, short story, or vision, or all three? — takes us into an elevator with Ella for a ride where Ella is “gleaming a blessing.”

But the poems are not all about jazz... And what a breadth of experiences! There is the bright detritus of present and past; Richard III, Whole Foods, apricots, time spent at the computer or in front of "Law and Order," elliptical conversations between lovers... And there is the Body — always the subject too rich to be exhausted by inquiries and exultations: erotic pleasure, menstruation, birth, illness, pain...

Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein) is also a well-established jazz singer, more than a handful of compact discs to her credit. So it makes perfect sense that GOD IN HER RUFFLED DRESS is also available as an audiobook...

Soquel High graduate to return to Santa Cruz for poetry reading at Satori Arts

Story by Nick Sestanovich, Santa Cruz Sentinel, Calif.

Aug. 2—SANTA CRUZ — Although she lives in Oakland now, poet Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein) has made many trips back to Santa Cruz where she graduated from Soquel High School and UC Santa Cruz and where her mother still resides.

One thing Bernstein has not done while visiting is read her poetry in front of an audience, something she used to do frequently in her college days. That will change Tuesday when she reads from her new book "God in Her Ruffled Dress" at Satori Arts as the featured poet for Inter|Act's spoken word open mic night.

"It's really fun for me to come back and read in Santa Cruz, which is where I started doing poetry," she said.

Bernstein's mother, Evelyn, served on the Santa Cruz Arts Commission and not only wrote poetry but also had a lot of poetry books that Bernstein read fervently as a kid.

"It was viewed as something good and normal," she said. "I probably had some inborn talent that I was encouraged to nurture. It's good when you're a sensitive person to have something to do with it."

Bernstein was particularly inspired by poets like Allen Ginsberg, Adrienne Rich and Emily Dickinson and also studied the Metaphysical poets of the 17th century like George Herbert and John Donne. Bernstein likes that poetry is just as musical as it is verbal. Unsurprisingly, after she did her initial poetry readings in Santa Cruz, she became a singer and put out seven albums…so she has been at the intersection of both.

"It's so simple to just do a poetry reading," she said. "The world of poetry is, for better or for worse, more in the realm of art than commerce, so you're not dealing as much with bookers who are worried about butts in seats and how much beer you are gonna sell. The scene of poetry is much more pure."

Bernstein released her first poetry book "The Transparent Body" in 1989, and even as she began focusing more on her music career, she still wrote poems that were published in literary magazines. She even had a manuscript, revised many times over the years, for what would eventually become "God in Her Ruffled Dress." She got traction after learning about an independent publishing company out of Los Angeles called What Books Press….

"God in Her Ruffled Dress" was published in October and was recently released in audiobook form by Findaway Voices, where Bernstein got to not only read her poems but also compose music for them. The audiobook has been released to platforms such as Spotify, Google Play, Barnes and Noble and even platforms out of Italy and Sweden.

"It's exciting," she said. "I just released it as an audiobook to have another format for people to access it."

Poems in "God Ruffled Her Dress" include "Apricots" about [a period of time when her family lived near]…apricot orchards in the Santa Clara Valley, "Lisa's Lord's Prayer" — revisions of The Lord's Prayer done in meter and rhyme, poems about famous jazz musicians such as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, and "the interesting thing about diabetes" inspired by Bernstein's own experiences with type 1 diabetes.

… "I'm always monitoring my blood sugar, so sometimes I really feel in the body and sometimes out of the body. I'm really managing my body as a being…. It was very concrete, like 'Wow, this is a piece of equipment I have to manage as a spirit' and it creates a lot of physical experiences and spiritual experiences."

Bernstein used to read at the Santa Cruz Poetry Festival when she was in college but has not performed in the city since. She will be reading poems in a way that feels like 1:1 communication with the audience, followed by a cappella singing… an interview and open mic session.

"It's always good to go back to go back to where you started," she said. "…Santa Cruz keeps its really special vibe, no matter who comes to live there. It's kind of uncanny, unlike a lot of places, so I love the Santa Cruz vibe."

The free event is 7-9 p.m. Tuesday at Satori Arts, 815 Almar Ave. No. 9. It is free, but people are encouraged to reserve their spots at EventBrite.com. For more information on Bernstein, go to LisaBMusic.com.

Originally Published: August 2, 2024

Featured in Rob McLennan's Blog

So pleased that writer, reviewer, editor, publisher, and all-around literary maven Rob McLennan invited me to participate in his "12 or 20" interview series! Check it out and the adjacent literary riches.

"God as the One I know"

Reverence for the strange and magical possibilities of existence weaves through each section of this volume

Lisa B’s powerful opening poem, “God No. 2” in her new collection, God in Her Ruffled Dress, sets the stage for what’s to come: a God as expansive as the imagination, a God that comes through our energy and emotions and insights, and a God based on earthly sensuality and experiences. A playful God.

What also emerges from these poems is a God whose only limits might be the metaphors we can create. She is aware that presenting this God is also a challenge to that limited, dusty, male God whose authority weighed over Adam and Eve (and generations of humans, even now). In “Genesis,” she writes:

The beings who sang at the true creation of the world
stand witness again,
their faces recalling the face of the God

who hovered over the waters.
I come into my hand
and breathe out a mist

which rests on my face,
my own face,
like God's, the one I know.

This God is not prescriptive, not found stuck in a book but comes through direct experience. Here, “Genesis” is an invitation to experience God as “the one I know.”

The physical body is embraced as a place of knowing and mystery, illness, sex, and healing. Lisa B uses her experience of living with type 1 diabetes to convey the intimate edge between life and death. As someone who also lives with type 1, I’ve never [before] encountered poetry that captures the way it feels to experience daily blood sugar highs and lows that put us in mortal danger. In “the interesting thing about diabetes,” she writes:

is that you are often dying
but not really, knowing you can stop death this time
with three tabs of glucose
like Christ administering a sacrament

This almost dying becomes a kind of spiritual practice, a preparation for death:

as the sugar dissolves down your throat
and the blood pulses in your cells like fingers clicking on
a distant keyboard, as you become aware of your solid bones

Reverence for the strange and magical possibilities of existence weaves through each section of this volume. We also encounter the poetry of Lisa B’s jazz music (she is also a singer), of her pandemic response to the former President and the fears and ills of that time, and a section about the female body’s worth for more than procreation.

God In Her Ruffled Dress closes with “Lisa’s Lord’s Prayers,” a triumphant call to bless each other (including her cats) and recognize the sacredness inherent in life:

Thy time has come,
thy will be done
in action as in dreaming.

Read this volume of poems as a reminder of what you know: that in our existence there is not only meaning but the right for our bodies and souls to experience joy and pleasure, to release old ghosts both in our epigenetics and in our stories; that we can imagine and name the mysterious and sometimes intimate life force that some call God.

- Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer

New Poetry I Love: "God in Her Ruffled Dress"

Look no further for a deeply spiritual, feminist celebration in verse

Singer-poet Lisa B rewrites the old prayers in her new collection, weaving feminism with Jewish mysticism in strange, musical, funny, sexy poems. "I'm...tired of the One Dad God," she writes, exploring shifting definitions of the divine while staying grounded in the body, its strengths and illness and need, its miraculous desires. Look no further for a deeply spiritual, feminist celebration in verse.

- Diana Whitney in Girl Trouble

Savoring George Herbert's "The Flower"

Spirituality/sensuality in this brilliant poem and its inspiration for Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein)

The Talking Poem Podcast run by Charlie Green was Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein's) first podcast appearance, and a juicy one!

A professor of English literature and creative writing at Cornell University, Charlie lends his fierce enthusiasm for pop and music culture and a sensibility both erudite and goofy to his joy at discussing the favorite poems of various poets.

Lisa was the lucky such guest on March 17, 2024, digging in to one of the most delightful, emotional, and memorable poems she has encountered, "The Flower" by 17th century metaphysical poet George Herbert.

Spirituality and sensuality, or one might say religion and sex, and the wrenching, impassioned relationship of the poet with God are expressed in vivid and often colloquial language about nature in this Flower.

She also discussed Herbert's influence on her poetry and read the first poem in her new book God in Her Ruffled Dress, "God No. 2," charting Herbert's inspirational impact throughout it.

Charlie topped off the chat with a little test: Guess the Exact Lyrics, often spoken, in songs by selected, white rock/rap musicians. It was quite a shift, but fun.

Your favorite podcast links to the episode here:

Deezer (search for Lisa B Lisa Bernstein "The Flower")

Charlie features a distinguished array of contemporary poets (David Baker, Kevin Young, Jorie Graham, Franny Choi, Patricia Spears Jones, Lorenzo Thomas, William Matthews, Natalie Diaz, Russell Edson, Louise Gluck, Carl Phillips, Kim Addonizio, A.R. Ammons, Ocean Vuong) and those coming before (Robert Hayden, Emily Dickinson, Thomas Hardy, Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Walter Raleigh, Edna St. Vincent Millay), to name just some of the poets you'll find on The Talking Poem Podcast.

"God in Her Ruffled Dress" is a playful, soulful, feminist imagining of how we experience the sacred

Highly recommended!

Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein)'s new book arrived at all online retail sites in December 2023, just in time for this end-of-year accolade from Philly's Broad Street Review.

Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein) answers 7 questions

An interview with Grammy- and Emmy-winning artist/producer, bestselling author, Navy vet, and finance maven Kabir Sehgal

1. Why are you an author?

As a sensitive person since childhood, I acutely felt my own emotions and dramas as well as those of my family and friends, and even strangers, plus the sensory stimulation of being alive. Growing up in a book-and music-filled household nurtured my own verbal and musical abilities. Plus, as my mother called me just the other day, I was always a “truth meter.” Becoming a poet was inevitable, both a survival strategy and a source of joy.

2. Who inspired your literary inspirations?

Metaphysical poet George Herbert, Emily Dickinson, Adrienne Rich, Charles Simic, W.S. Merwin, Allen Ginsberg

3. What is your writing routine?

I write poetry when I’m inspired: by another writer, by an image, phrase, or sound, and fundamentally, by a charged slice of my experience that is tugging on me unconsciously to be explored, expressed, and transformed.

4. Why did you write this book?

God in Her Ruffled Dress took shape over three decades, a way to explore the interface between body and spirit, human and divine, illness and wellness. Insistent sources of inspiration were my own type 1 diabetes, my work as a jazz singer, my work as a professional psychic (poetry-writing led me to further training in this arena, which in turn fed my poems), and my life as a woman in this era.

5. What were the biggest obstacles in writing this book?

There were no obstacles to writing it, though I’m a believer in trustworthy feedback and then revision. The only obstacles involved finding a publisher!

6. What are the key points of this book?

Well, the titles of the book’s three main sections give clues: “Return to the Body,” “Drum the Beginning of the World,” “Sever the Head,” and “Propagate.” The final poem, “Lisa’s Lord’s Prayers,” also includes imperatives; for instance, from one verse: “Letters of God/in every cell/golden be each stroke./Your power come,/meaning be done/electrically in nerve and spirit./Give us today our act of truth/and forgive our indecision/as we forgive the strong-voiced who stay mute…”

7. Where may we find you online?

Press: "The Transparent Body" & "Anorexia"

THE TRANSPARENT BODY (Wesleyan University Press)

Frances Mayes, San Jose Mercury:

“Whatever she knows or sings comes, in Whitman’s term, from the body electric.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Daniel Halpern:

“There’s hardly a missed opportunity to approach the objects of her world with open hands, to employ details of sensuality to invoke what surrounds her…here’s a book that wants to touch you.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Booklist:

“It is her gift that she manages, through the extreme clarity of her images, always to engage us… A good selection for women’s literature collections.”

_________________________________________

ANOREXIA (Five Fingers Poetry)

Frances Jaffer:

“Brilliantly imagined, painful, intense, often strangely beautiful."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stan Rice:

“Its themes of domination, withdrawal… and the various forms of craving that constitute life make this… each person’s story. One day is fine; the next we find ourselves in a state without longing.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kevin Killian , Poetry Flash:

“Anorexia is the most hypersexual book you’ll read for many years to come… a witty, charged experiment both in evading and incorporating current strictures on language… But I shouldn’t lose sight of the narrative here… its most fascinating component… Bernstein’s heroine finally breaks the shackles of the taboos that surround her to reinvent herself in a new form.”