Storyteller of the Week

 Gary Grossman

 

 

 Gary Grossman is Professor Emeritus of Animal Ecology at University of Georgia, and an author of 150 scientific articles that have been cited 9300+ times. He is an elected Fellow of the American Fisheries Society, and a retired Fellow of the Linnean Society of London. From 2005-2009 Gary held the rank of Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Georgia. Gary has won a number of scientific awards including the Sullivan Award for Excellence in Fish Conservation from the American Fisheries Society, and the Meritorious Teaching Award in Ichthyology from the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists. He has been an Evans Fellow at the University of Otago in New Zealand, and a Schusterman Fellow at Brandeis University. He is married to his lifelong partner Barbara and they have two grown daughters.  

Gary’s poetry has been published in 40 reviews including: Verse-Virtual, Sheila-Na-Gig, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Salvation South, Rust and Moth, Your Daily Poem, and Delta Poetry Review. Short fiction in MacQueen’s and creative non-fiction in Tamarind Literary Magazine. Gary’s flash fiction piece “Mindfulness” was just nominated by MacQueen’s Quinterly for inclusion in The Best Small Fictions 2023 Anthology. For 10 years he wrote the “Ask Dr. Trout” column for American Angler.

Gary is the author of two poetry collections, “Lrical Years (Kelsay Press)” and “What I Meant to Say Was… (Imspired,)”  his graphic novel, “My Life in Fish: One Scientist’s Journey (Today’s Ecological Solutions) and, a cookbook, “A Bone to Pick: Everyone’s Guide to Venison Cookery (Elliott and Fitzpatrick Press.)”

To learn more about Gary and to purchase his books go to: https://www.garygrossman.net/

 

 Comments by Editor Sharon Waller Knutson

 I became a fan of Gary Grossman when he had me laughing out loud at this poem on Verse-Virtual in 2021. 

The Dishwasher

 

 I

 

Rearranging the dish-
Washer is my “thing”.
 
A family joke run amok,
I peer over shoulders, 

“Dad aren’t you glad we’re
Even putting plates in?”

But I move two blue-striped
Bowls from bottom to top 

And the small plates to the
Center, where they evade 

 

The rotating sprayer.
Wife and daughters laughing,

 

“Does it really matter?”
And of course it doesn’t.
 
Like so many things done,
And said every day. Force 

 

Of habit or the mirage of
Control of our environment

 

As in this is “my” house. 

 

 II

 

It is my one attempt at
Engineering, or is it Geometry? 

 

Filling a finite space to 

The maximum. Efficiency 

 

Squared. Or you might just
Think me lazy. While I 

 

Ensure the lowest number
Of dishes that I myself must 

 

Wash. Or perhaps a mild
Neurosis, my inability to just

 

Let things slide, like lights
On throughout the night 

 

Accepting what I cannot change.

 

III

 

When they were younger
And had friends sleep
 
Over, after lights out, when
They were nestled in bed
 
Small bird voices would
Fly out from their
 
Slightly opened doors
“What’s that noise?”
 
“Oh don’t worry, it’s
Just my Dad rearranging
 
The dishwasher”.

 

 

Since then he and I have been supporting each other’s poetry.

 

But what is amazing about Gary’s writing is he can flip a switch from comedic family man to serious observation mode. His imagery is exquisite, his metaphors unique and his insight is spot on. I am proud to publish these unpublished powerful descriptive poems. 

 

 

Plus Ca Change, Plus C’est la Meme Chose

It’s day nine of gray skies, clouds stacked
in layers like a torte made with
fourteenth century flour from some
terra-cotta urn, then layered
with whipped cream past its sell-by.

For the first few days, December clouds
bring a smile, just a slight upturn of
mouth edges. Fall has departed,  
and the hues and jogs of air  
are a painting by Whistler, white on
silver, silver on ash, ash on cream.

Sometimes the ground hugs itself so hard
it spews fog—cloudiness resurrected.

By day five I’m trying to peel this ashy
veil off my skin, this epidermal
ply of depression that returns like
an unmerry-go-round, with day five
of skies so demanding they peel
every red and yellow off my jacket.

Then a small gap of blue appears,
like a book whose place I’ve lost, but
somehow reopens to exactly the
right page, and small thanks travel
from eyes to heart.

 

The Weight of the World

This poem is not about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
This poem is not about starving children in Congo.
This poem is not about global warming.
This poem is not about immigrant children in jail.
This poem is not about shortages of potable water.
This poem is not about clearcutting the Amazon rainforest.
This poem is not about racism.

This poem is about peeling back the borders of my heart—of grasping, that doing something, anything—often is just enough.
It’s about eating both peanut butter cups in the package of life,
because two is a prime number and therefore perfect.
In 2 CE Talmudic scholars wrote: "Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly now. Love mercy now. Walk humbly now. It is not your duty to complete the task, nor are you free to abandon it"
Every day I recite those words—reminding myself that both Renoir and Cezanne painted by  stitching together small squares of colored light.

These Days

 

“Of blessed memory” is a phrase
I’m using way too much—as too many,
of too many generations are
passing. Millennia of Jewish life
task us with this phrase, when the dark
horseman chases down one more friend,
one more relative, one more former
lover, or friend’s former lover.

As a young man, this seemed trite as
velour track suits and leg warmers—
a silhouette of a rite, sans content,
like the hollow chrysalis from
a monarch butterfly I found
October fifteenth.

But now it’s pandemic-life, not a
trio of days go by that I don’t
grace someone with this blessing, now
a great comfort—though I’m not sure why?

Loss always is present, like the scab
that takes so long to heal, because
picking at it is a cheap ecstasy.  

But “of blessed memory” is a circular
shape linking dead and alive. It is warm
milk at 2 AM—a solace that
tall or short, quiet or loud, kind or
selfish, we remain engraved on both
heart and stone.
 

 

 

The Next Cast

 

It’s seventy-eight, warm for the Appalachians even in July, as twirling wraiths emerge 

from the river's surface—no that’s steam from the rain marbles that stopped pelting me 

twenty minutes ago—but the river hints it wants to clear—trying to match the 

dissipating white of the last few rhododendrons. Rivers in these parts were born in 

the Paleozoic andthough birthday parties are my jam, who can find a cake for half a 

billion candles, even if we ignore the family tragedy of this feckless offspring switching 

mothers from Gulf to Atlantic sometime recently. 

 

My glasses fog in air that clings like wet cardboard, and a belted kingfisher flaps 

downstream—rattling like a tin can full of buckshot, as I carefully do the slick-cobble

rhumba—basically slide steps and the occasional arm-flailing overbalance—finally 

reaching the center of the stream. My new wading shoes are stiff but stable—shining 

a bit—they’re slightly more honest than mostadvertising, but the current is a bully—

punching calves and ankles—until I find a stable spot and quickly settle in like a 

handful of flung sand—then it’s cast, mend, let the Adams dry fly drift, strip in, take a 

step upstream, cast, mend, drift, strip in, take a step upstream, cast, mend, drift. 

 

Each cast, a cleansing mantra—an exit channel for tens of fermenting, buried wounds, 

and although I should watch the fly for a trout’s inhalation, I’m focused on the 

Louisiana Waterthrush whose bobbing tail-section I've lured into view via simulated 

wren scolds—tzzt, tzzt, tzzt—which I’m proud to say, still push the needle on the bird 

curiosity meter—a seven-inch wild rainbow trout comes to the net, but I tender no 

invite for supper—work the fly loose from her bottom jaw—and off she scoots, 

leaving a faint silver contrail. This is the balm of forest and flowing water—

direct and consistent—stripping stress like opaque varnish from a 19th century antique 

chest, and revealing the bird’s-eye maple beneath—the scent of forgiveness, texture of 

acceptance, and sight of all colors melding to a universal truth.