Storyteller of the Week

 Paul Hostovsky

 

 

 Paul Hostovsky with his wife Marlene

 Paul Hostovsky’s newest book of poems is Pitching for the Apostates ( Kelsay Books 2023). Other books include Bending the Notes (2008), Dear Truth (2009), A Little in Love a Lot (2011), Hurt Into Beauty (2012), Naming Names (2014), Selected Poems (2014), The Bad Guys (2015), Is That What That Is (2017), Deaf & Blind (2020), and Mostly (2021). His poems have won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net Awards, the FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize, the Muriel Craft Bailey Award from The Comstock Review, and five poetry chapbook contests. He has also been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, The Writer’s Almanac, Your Daily Poem, and the Best American Poetry blog.

 Paul makes his living in Boston as a sign language interpreter. Once upon a time he went to a college for bards (Bard College). But no one was hiring bards when he graduated, so he ended up working in a delicatessen, and looking for love in all the wrong places, and writing lots of dark poems about sex and trees and death. Then, on a lark, he took that first sign language class, and everything changed. He fell in love with sign language, and he fell in love with the people who call sign language home. And he stopped writing those dark poems and started writing poems that make people laugh and say “ooh” and “aah” and sometimes even “wow.”

 He lives with his wife Marlene in a suburb of Boston.

 

Comments by Editor Sharon Waller Knutson

 Because he has the ability to make me laugh or cry and sometimes in the same sentence, Paul Hostovsky is one of my favorite poets. His writing reminds me of another one of my favorite poets George Bilgere. I was hooked on Paul’s poetry the minute I read this poem on Your Daily Poem:

 

 Late for the Gratitude Meeting

 The guy in front of me in traffic
is letting everyone in,
waving at the cars like a policeman
or a pope--
and I really have no patience for all
the indulgence
and magnanimity at my expense

because I’m late for the gratitude meeting,
which is only an hour long.
And if I miss the first ten minutes
of silent meditation I’m going to scream,
because it’s my favorite part and because
it helps me remember to breathe.
And I’m going to throttle this guy

if he doesn’t stop deferring
to all of the trundling humanity
turning left onto Main
at this intersection where I’m fuming,
not feeling the love,
not feeling the gratitude,
feeling only resentment and disdain

because I have the right of way.
Would you rather be right
or have peace? Let go, I can hear them say
at the gratitude meeting three blocks away,
striking the rim of the Tibetan singing bowl,
which begins vibrating,
and keeps on vibrating,
like this steering wheel I can’t stop clenching.

 

I am proud to publish his heartbreaking, heartwarming poems.

 

Dream

You’re alive and riding your bicycle
to school and I am worried about you
riding your bicycle all the way to school
so I get in my car and drive like a maniac
through the dream over curbs and lawns
sideswiping statuary and birdbaths along
the way frantically seeking you everywhere
the rear wheel of your bicycle disappearing
around the next corner and the next and then
I am riding a bicycle too and sounding
the alarm which sounds like a bicycle bell
so no one believes it’s an alarm and I pedal
faster and faster my knees bumping up against
the handlebars which by now have sprouted
ribbons with pompoms and a basket attached
with your lunch inside and I’m pedaling to save
my life and your life and finally when I find you
in the dream you aren’t dead yet you’re alive
and a little angry and embarrassed to see me
all out of breath on a girl’s bicycle holding
your lunch out in my hand trembling with joy

From Bending the Notes (Main Street Rag, 2008), 
and winner of a Pushcart Prize in 2009.

Going Back

It’s not that I want to be young again--
God no. I wouldn’t wish that on my worsted-
sweatered-old-man-in-sensible-shoes
self. I mean, we barely made it out alive
the first time around. But I’d like to talk to him--
that lonely, bored, back-row kid
I was back then. Because I think he would have
liked me. I mean, I think he would have liked
the way he turned out. And I know he would have liked
to ask me a million questions. Many of which
I know the answers to. I picture us sitting
on a bench in Taylor Park, one of his PF Fliers
jackhammering nervously next to my sensible shoes.
He looks away. Doesn’t speak. I ask him if
there’s anything he’d like to know. He looks up at me--
from this angle he can see all my ugly nose hairs,
thick as grave-grass. I no longer even bother
to trim them. “How old are you?” he asks me
and I tell him: 62. “Do you have any kids?” Yes. Two.
“Where are they now?” One is in New York City
and one is in Hawaii. “Do you miss them?”
Yes. Very much. But I miss you even more,
if that’s possible. “Am I going to beat Marc Peo
in the wrestling tournament?” Now it’s my turn
to look away. “That’s OK,” he says, “you don’t
have to say it. I understand.” And he puts his little hand
on my shoulder. “What about Cheryl Lubecki?”
What about her? “Well, do you think she likes me?”
I think your strategy of pretending not to be interested in her
isn’t working. “OK, thanks for telling me.” And he looks
away again. A long silence. The trees in the park,
which are much older than both of us, seem to chortle
in the breeze. Is there anything else you’d like to know?
He takes a minute to think. Then asks, “Are you happy?”
Oh yes, in fact (and I start to choke up a little) being here now
with you, I am happier than I have ever been in my life.

from Mostly (2021, FutureCycle Press)   

Homegoing

And what if dying is like
that time I got out of school early
because I had an appointment
and I pushed open the heavy doors
and walked out into the day
and it was a beautiful spring day
or a late winter day that smelled like spring
and if it was fall it was early fall
when it’s all but technically summer
and there was a whole world going on out there
and it had been going on out there the whole time
that I was stuck inside with time
and teachers and rules and equations and parsed sentences
but now here I was among the tribe
of the free and I could go this way or I could go that way
or I could just sit down right here on this bench
and look around at all the freedom
that was mine and also the work crew’s
breaking for lunch beneath their ladders and also the woman’s
pushing her stroller along the sidewalk and also the man’s
walking his small dog and smoking a cigarette
and it belonged to the cars whooshing by with a sound like
the wind in the trees and the wind in my hair
and the wind all around me and inside me
and also above me chasing the clouds running free
and suddenly there was my mother
looking somehow a little different
in all her freedom and all my freedom
until she rolled down her window and waved
to come--now--hurry
because I had an appointment
which felt like a real buzzkill
and I briefly considered turning around
and walking away from her
and going off on my own somewhere
to be alone and free for a little longer
or maybe for forever
but then I realized there was nowhere for me to go                    
except home

from Pitching for the Apostates (2023, Kelsay Books)

o  Coconut

Bear with me I
want to tell you
something about
happiness
it’s hard to get at
but the thing is
I wasn’t looking
I was looking
somewhere else
when my son found it
in the fruit section
and came running
holding it out
in his small hands
asking me what
it was and could we
keep it it only
cost 99 cents
hairy and brown
hard as a rock
and something swishing
around inside
and what on earth
and where on earth
and this was happiness
this little ball
of interest beating
inside his chest
this interestedness
beaming out
from his face pleading
happiness
and because I wasn’t
happy I said
to put it back
because I didn’t want it
because we didn’t need it
and because he was happy
he started to cry
right there in aisle
five so when we
got it home we
put it in the middle 
of the kitchen table
and sat on either
side of it and began
to consider how
to get inside of it

From Bending the Notes (Main Street Rag, 2008).