You can find the book here at Overdrive: https://www.overdrive.com/publishers/flight-delay-books
Or here at Barnes and Noble UK: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/elsewhere-a-while-john-michael-flynn/1145067122?ean=2940179599128
Conceived as a companion to my last collection, It Must Be, the poems in Elsewhere A While look outward toward whatever I may have learned from places where I may have been a long time ago.
Each was written spontaneously, scribbled down, polished later on. I have taken them from many old notebooks accumulated over the decades.
They reflect immediate impressions, and address questions of motion and travel, who I and others with me may have been at a particular time.
The cover is from a photograph I shot in the city of Trabzon on the Black Sea in Turkey. It's from one wall of the Hagia Sophia there (not the one in Istanbul).
Hagia Sophia, in English, means Holy Wisdom. This ancient structure was built as a Greek Orthodox church.
In 1461,when Mehmed II conquered Trabzon, it was converted into a mosque .
Here is a link to some history of the Hagia Sophia in Trabzon. https://www.historyhit.com/locations/hagia-sophia-trabzon/
There are no poems in this collection about Turkey, per se. The geographic areas are Europe and North America, with one numbered translation of a Ghazal from the Farsi of the great Persian poet, Hafez.
Table Of Contents
I.
Waputaki Cinnabar
With Teresa In Santa Fe
The Mission Bells Are Softly Ringing
Border Problem
The 10, The 5, The 405
Two For David Strohm
Interlude, Manzanar
Soaking Up Marconi Beach
Once Late Fall At Plum Island
First Baptist Church Of North Oxford Annual Rummage Sale
In Grafton Village
Six East Coast Rivers
The Dead Find Us In Mississippi
A Champagne Socialist, 2008
Detroit Vermont Cucamonga
II.
Ghazal 374
Dreamers Get Off At Dusseldorf
Alexanderplatz Chrysalis
Amsterdam Tailored
Mascara And Puritan
Toward Gravesend
Colors On The Fringe Of Galway Bay
Ambidextrous Asthmatic Cowboy
Driver, Passenger, Pedestrian
Time Is Both Burden And Salvation
Stars Speak In Quasi Haikus
Dishwasher Days
Animal, Vegetable, Irrational
Rumors Of Plummeting Space Junk
Here is a sample. This is Ghazal 374 by Hafez, a translation that without the generous scholarship and assistance of Baha Sadr would not have been possible.
Ghazal 374
translated from the Ghazaliyat of Hafez
by Baha Sadr and John Michael Flynn
Pull from the earth the petals of a flower
and pour out a glass full of dark red wine
Horizon wide open we will rent you asunder
and create in your stead a new master plan
If the armies of despair begin to riot
and slay each lover through the heart
then with all the lovers I will certainly join
and by every root take those armies down
One man among us sings vainly of his wisdom
another spins yarns about beauty and charm
but for truth in these tales and bold suppositions
let’s before them place a judge’s decision
Come with us, come to the wine cellar
if Paradise be the medicine you require
From the bottom of your dipper full of wine
spills each eternal drop of Paradise divine
Proper speech and the music of the cosmos
are what no one wants here in the city of Shiraz
Let us seek the wines of another land
where we can rise with the sun, enlightened
where we can rise with the sun, enlightened
There was a brief period when Baha Sadr and I travelled about giving readings together. I wrote short poems that I sometimes attempted to sing as a way to accompany his playing of the Persian setar, and various percussion instruments, including a rain stick.
We enjoyed our experiment in the cross-pollination of cultures and, as I recall, those in attendance appeared to enjoy what we had to offer above is a photo of Baha shot around 1988
Below are links to more informaiton
This is about the great Persian poet Hafez: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/hafez
This is about the ghazal as both a cultural staple and a form of poetry: https://www.ipassio.com/blog/ghazal
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