Janet Buck
Identity Theory's featured contributor for January 2001, Janet I. Buck is the author of Calamity's Quilt, Reefs We Live, Bookmarks in a Hurricane, Desideratum's Doggie Dish, and Before the Rose
Poetry
from Janet Buck:
"Terror's
Bruise"
"The
Tragic Anniversary"
"The
Zeinhom Morgue"
"The
Theory of Green"
"Cruel
Candles in the Dark"
"The
Lost & Found"
"Frozen
Sonnets"
"New
York, New York"
"Live
on CNN"
"America
Under Siege"
"Gutter
Balls"
"The
Paralyzed Apocalypse"
"Rushing
Toward Entelechy"
"The
Bag Lady"
"Caught
in Lesser Tragedies"
"The
Broken Promise"
"The
Gargoyle"
"The
Going"
"The
Orphan"
Janet's other Identity Theory work: A Literary Call to Arms
Two-time Pushcart nominee and winner of the H.G. Wells Award for Literary Excellence, Janet I. Buck has been featured in hundreds of print and internet journals world-wide. While a good deal of her work revolves around coping with a disability, she has also been recognized for her gun-blast of honesty regarding the roles of men and women, alcoholism, illness, family strife, and grief. As Janet says, "I was born into a heritage of silence in regard to my difference. All of my work, in some loose way, is tied to breaking that spell. I am a teacher (in a professional capacity), a student of crisis by virtue of fate, and a writer because words ring doorbells in my heart, and I must answer or die."
Her career has been marked by an unmistakable string of good fortune. The first poem she submitted four years ago, called "The Nursing Home," won a national poetry prize and her second and third attempts were accepted for an anthology published by Outrider Press. She has, she says, "the advantage of difference." Few writers have had the courage and werewithal to tackle such topics as addiction and physical deformity. Her reputation for taking the baser elements of human behavior and happenstance have made an indelible impression on editors around the globe. She has the audacity to call a stump the "purple eggplant of despair" or trace the creaks of "trouble's soggy carrot bones." Readers are jarred by examples of honesty.
Born with a plethora of congenital deformities which led to amputation of her right leg, suffering a host of joint replacements and countless surgeries, Buck calls herself a "small package of big grief that oddly enough seems relevant to a fairly wide audience." In April, 2000 her poem "Acrylic Thighs" was featured at the United Nations Exhibit Hall in New York City. The piece was paired with original artwork, translated into five languages, and is going on tour to France, Brazil, Australia, Vietnam, and Japan.
"Some people cope with prayer, some with booze, some with excuses, some with dismissal," says Buck. "A pen has been Godiva's horse, and the more I write, the more settled in my nakedness I become. writing may end in strength, but it rarely starts there. It is born in a nucleus of fear, an urge to prove oneself to one's self. I spent most of my life seeking approval in external ways: hiking mountains, playing on the tennis team, accumulating rather unnecessary degrees, and busying myself with concrete accomplishments. The tea, I suppose, was brewing for a deeper well, but until four years ago, I wasn't ready to drink or pour."
Buck has a B.A., M.A., and a Ph.D, but when someone addresses her as "Dr." she looks around the room for her father and laughs. "Good writing," she says, "has little to do with academics or credentials. I didn't learn to compose in a classroom. I had to leave that tiny space and face the cyclones of my ghosts. When I look back at my teaching career, I feel like a hoax. I was telling my students to do what I had not gathered the courage to do myself: write their way to a fundamental understanding of their lives."
If publication is a triumph, she has had her share. Her work has appeared in The Melic Review, The Pedestal Magazine, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Kimera, Pif Magazine, Cenotaph, The Horsethief's Journal, Born Magazine, Clean Sheets, Southern Ocean Review, Mind Fire, Art Villa, A Writer's Choice, Moxie Magazine, Feminista!, Thunder Sandwich, King Log, Maelstrom, Riding the Meridian, Bluff Magazine, Papyrus, Word Salad, EWG Presents, Gravity, The Morpo Review, Recursive Angel, Perehilion, Conspire, The Rose & Thorn, The Astrophysicist's Tango Partner Speaks, Samsara, Tapestry, Niederngasse, Stirring Magazine, Pith, Orpheus, Shades of December, New Thought Journal, In Motion, Big Bridge, salon D'Aarte, The Paumanok Review, Moondance, Poetry Magazine.com, Kookamonga Square, The Adirondack Review, and the list goes on.
"Exposure," Buck says, "is a fleeting thing. The joy of writing lies in the nature of striking a chord with the human race. I will never forget one of my first 'fan letters.' One woman, who was also an amputee, wrote this of my work: 'You have taken five years of my buried life and put it into one stanza. If you can walk through yours, I suppose I should stop running from mine. Thank you seems a weak retort.' From that moment on, my pen had a reason to move.
"Like most writers, I see the even asphalt of uttered words as an easy road and a safe vehicle from which to view to my flaws and inadequacies. Paper is a risky thing, but it is also ironically a kind of mask, one of both distance and avid cleansing rites. I grew up fast in a family of nine, propelled into adulthood by both physical challenge and espoused goals. I went to school for a pile of years, taught it for a heap of time, but found my voice in the struggle of coming to terms with emotional and carnal strife. Poetry, in its condensation and compression, strikes me as footprints, urgent ones. If we leave the sand unmarked and dry, few beyond our immediate reach will know we were there."
Not too long ago, Janet's young niece asked her, quite casually, why she bothers to write. She was uncharacteristically silent for a moment. Later that night, out came this:
Ah, Kids
Ah, kids and their true fresh squeeze
of blueberry juice on undershirts.
"Aunt Janet: Why do you write all that stuff
even though it doesn't pay
like teaching classes at a college did?"
I laugh and think and laugh again.
"I want to leave you more
than jewelry when I die.
Thoughtful hammers aimed
at glass. The strapless purse
of a book when your wallet
grows thin and meaningless.
A prison cell I've tampered with,
trying like Hell for grand escape.
A screwdriver that isn't
part orange juice and Absolut.
An art fart that clears a room,
but says I was there.
Poetic proof, unladylike.
A cuticle stick for pushing back
denial's flesh, shining a diamond
retrieved from a sewer.
My eye lashes rimming
the bathroom sink.
Bubble gum on keyboard tabs.
A database of muscles flexed
and reaching through a cloudy sky.
Portraits of a thick Godiva
riding naked through the streets.
A metered penis knowing
the flavor of sex and lies.
A string-less kite acquainted
with both wind and dirt."
An audio collection of Janet's poetry entitled Before the Rose was released by Art Villa Records in January 2001. It's a CD with 16 tracks of original poetry graced by the music of David Jackson, Chris Carmichael, and Andy Derryberry. To read more of Janet's work or schedule a reading, go to: http://www.janetbuck.com.
E-mail Janet Buck