Tantra Bensko: Lucid Fiction
New genre of fiction: new genre of reality
Background in Education
After beginning my studies in English at The University of Alabama where I studied writing with Hank Lazer, I studied poetry writing with Bruce Weigl, at Old Dominion, Hunt Hawkins, at Florida State in the department headed by Van K. Brock, where I got my Masters in English, under the direction of Sheila Oritz-Taylor, and then with James Galvin, where I got my MFA in the Iowa Writer's Workshop. My poems have been appearing in magazines for 30 years. I used to publish under the name of Rosemary (Collins) Bensko.
I taught writing at Florida State, The University of Memphis, and The University of Iowa. I also taught in the Kaleidescope Program in a childrens' Hospital in Memphis, teaching patients to write poetry.
I taught writing at Florida State, The University of Memphis, and The University of Iowa. I also taught in the Kaleidescope Program in a childrens' Hospital in Memphis, teaching patients to write poetry.
Multimedia
http://www.unlikelystories.org/bensko0107.shtml
is the Cross Media issue of Unlikely Stories for my poem called Green, which you can hear me recite along with music, which goes along with my green landscape photo.
is the Cross Media issue of Unlikely Stories for my poem called Green, which you can hear me recite along with music, which goes along with my green landscape photo.
Anthology
Sweet that the Anhinga Press anthology, North of Wakulla, chose my poem to represent it online. Read the poem here.
Newer online poetry publications
While the majority of my poems have been published in print over all, I've been focusing more on online work these days.
http://othervoicespoetry.org/vol34/index.html I was invited to have poems in the Unesco Journal, by the United Nations.
http://www.evergreenreview.com/contents.htm my poems in the wonderful magazine I've idolized all my life, The Evergreen Review.
!Drum! in Unlikely Stories
New Lit Chaos poems
http://othervoicespoetry.org/vol34/index.html I was invited to have poems in the Unesco Journal, by the United Nations.
http://www.evergreenreview.com/contents.htm my poems in the wonderful magazine I've idolized all my life, The Evergreen Review.
!Drum! in Unlikely Stories
New Lit Chaos poems
Soma Literary Magazine: The Blind Voyeur
upcoming in print The Vial
and Rattlesnake Review in print
and Cosmopsis is now out in print, with The Weight of Flight.
Lit Chaos, a journal of experimental prose and poetry, has four of my poems in issue 20. interview as well.
Meditation on the Breath in Rose and Thorn My poem there was recently nominated for the Pushcart Prize!
Several poems in this issue, which includes two others which had been previously published by them, plus "poetess in paint," and one of my favorite poems, The Lateness of the Night Lies Dreaming. Manniquin Envy
and while you're at it, you can read another issue of Mannequin Envy magazine in which i was featured artist with a review of my art and writing and modelling work, and see a photo of me on the cross. My art feature with review.
A smattering of my poetry about this fictional world we call life.
Ungentle with a Gentle Boy --at Thundersandwich MagazineModelling for Beginning Drawing in E2K Magazine
Modelling for Advanced Drawing--in Mad Hatters Review
Abandoned House in the anthology, North of Wakulla (yes, my original name was Rosemary)
Egon Schiele--in Mannequin Envy
Licking Secrets Clean--in Mannequin Envy
see more of my poems which were published in print, at my minimal page at Spoiled Ink.
Alive with poetry
Most of my extensive poetry publications have been in print, predominantly under the name Rosemary Bensko. My poems have been in magazines such as:Carolina Quarterly, Hawaii Review, Mississippi Review, Sun Dog, Abraxis, California Review, Iowa Review of Literary Studies, and Southern Poetry Review. Memphis State Review, Logascene, Colorado Review, Chatahoochie Review, Pheonix, Babel,Cinncinati Poetry Review, Lucky Star,Appalachia Quarterly,Florida Review,Coloarado State Review,Piedmond Literary Review, Louisville Review.
I have won awards with my poetry, such as the Best of the Iowa magazine as well as the Academy of American Poet's Award, and have been nominated by Rose and Thorn for the Pushcart Prize.
Here are some of my poems previously published in print, for you to enjoy.
The Lateness of the Night Lies Dreaming
Are we one, then, dreaming we are two?
But in my dreams are colors moving,
Colors from your dreams
That should not move.
When from the darkness then my room
Is sudden light, the scarves
And pillows, drums and crotons
Quiver, vibrate back and forth
From you to me, shimmer
For awhile as they caress
Our thigh, your neck, my amethyst
And voice, and lift themselves
Into their place upon the walls,
Upon the floor, and then stroke gently
Your life distant
Once again, then shimmer back
Until they grow
So saturated
In their forms and shades
That they contain what you
There is in them and then
They leap inside me, scarves
Around me, drums beneath my hands,
Pillows sliding down me, crotons
Painting me until I know that I am colors
Speaking through me
Answers that I have to ask,
And colors have to move to speak
Through you. They sling out
Through your heart and circle round
Into your life, to someone whom you love
But may not know, and lean themselves
Inside you from below.
But left inside you they grow dark
And then your thighs don’t shimmer
When caressed. My hand now
Against the paper, and my fingers
Tangled in the pen, touch you
And will touch
You when no longer there, and so
Your finger quivers as it writes
Upon me words in water,
Words I cannot read nor drink
But feel them as you drink
Them with your tongue
Across my wrist, and down my back,
And swelling curve into my leg.
You grow thirsty as you drink,
The water being thin and light
Upon me. And you want
To wake and hear me say the words
And with that, lose your thirst
And your desire to speak because
I know your words.
We will speak in colors
And our dreams will breathe together.
We will breathe against our bodies
Words that heat then cool
The skin. Words of lettered lines
Of breath, but of no sound.
And we will listen to the body
With an ear against it. Then we will
Lick and eat the ear.
The words entrance us, and we stare
Into each others’ eyes and tunnel
Back into the pupils, finding
Something closer there than sight.
I kiss your eyes and eat
The distance found in sight.
Distance shimmering on the walls
Where you are, where I am.
published in Colorado Review
Are we one, then, dreaming we are two?
But in my dreams are colors moving,
Colors from your dreams
That should not move.
When from the darkness then my room
Is sudden light, the scarves
And pillows, drums and crotons
Quiver, vibrate back and forth
From you to me, shimmer
For awhile as they caress
Our thigh, your neck, my amethyst
And voice, and lift themselves
Into their place upon the walls,
Upon the floor, and then stroke gently
Your life distant
Once again, then shimmer back
Until they grow
So saturated
In their forms and shades
That they contain what you
There is in them and then
They leap inside me, scarves
Around me, drums beneath my hands,
Pillows sliding down me, crotons
Painting me until I know that I am colors
Speaking through me
Answers that I have to ask,
And colors have to move to speak
Through you. They sling out
Through your heart and circle round
Into your life, to someone whom you love
But may not know, and lean themselves
Inside you from below.
But left inside you they grow dark
And then your thighs don’t shimmer
When caressed. My hand now
Against the paper, and my fingers
Tangled in the pen, touch you
And will touch
You when no longer there, and so
Your finger quivers as it writes
Upon me words in water,
Words I cannot read nor drink
But feel them as you drink
Them with your tongue
Across my wrist, and down my back,
And swelling curve into my leg.
You grow thirsty as you drink,
The water being thin and light
Upon me. And you want
To wake and hear me say the words
And with that, lose your thirst
And your desire to speak because
I know your words.
We will speak in colors
And our dreams will breathe together.
We will breathe against our bodies
Words that heat then cool
The skin. Words of lettered lines
Of breath, but of no sound.
And we will listen to the body
With an ear against it. Then we will
Lick and eat the ear.
The words entrance us, and we stare
Into each others’ eyes and tunnel
Back into the pupils, finding
Something closer there than sight.
I kiss your eyes and eat
The distance found in sight.
Distance shimmering on the walls
Where you are, where I am.
published in Colorado Review
Elise Imagines Herself Behind Flowers: 1938
Elise, you prepare your grave face for the soldier
Who has come again to smell the air for turpentine
And feel the paint brushes for moisture.
You look in the Nazi’s pale blue eyes, pale lashes
Like brushes left too long in the sun.
He askes: Has your father been painting today?
You swallow.
In your mouth is the attic studio
Where your father’s brushes lie wet with water
Colors, stacked paintings
Of you surrounded by huge flowers.
If only the handsome sergeant could see you
In the middle of flowers that cut you off,
Make you move so lusciously on the paper.
From hidden hip to hidden shoulder, you move
Out of the picture.
But your father would be taken to the camp.
He asks: Elise, has your father painted today,
Tell me? You step forward with the desire
To be as important as your father.
Your Mama and your brother don’t know he still paints,
Against the orders of the regime..
Their serious faces are not as charming as yours.
He paints them from memory,
But always in one sitting.
If only you could tell them
That your father takes you up the ladder in your frilled dress.
If you could tell the soldier that your father
Loves you the best, your father would be clenched around
The narrow shoulders and swung down the stairs
The way you swing him down in your dreams.
You took off your shirt for your father last month,
Your undershirt this month. What will come next?
You looked up at him, sideways, and smiled
While he painted your body.
Your father would be pushed in the back, maybe bleed.
You would never have to take off anything more for him.
You want to tell the Nazi’s blue eyes the truth,
To show him tiny bare breasts
In the picture, to tell him:
That is more than anyone should see.
You would both take your father away
In his black shirt flecked with orange paint,
And roll him into the car and he would not look at you.
published in Sun Dog
Elise, you prepare your grave face for the soldier
Who has come again to smell the air for turpentine
And feel the paint brushes for moisture.
You look in the Nazi’s pale blue eyes, pale lashes
Like brushes left too long in the sun.
He askes: Has your father been painting today?
You swallow.
In your mouth is the attic studio
Where your father’s brushes lie wet with water
Colors, stacked paintings
Of you surrounded by huge flowers.
If only the handsome sergeant could see you
In the middle of flowers that cut you off,
Make you move so lusciously on the paper.
From hidden hip to hidden shoulder, you move
Out of the picture.
But your father would be taken to the camp.
He asks: Elise, has your father painted today,
Tell me? You step forward with the desire
To be as important as your father.
Your Mama and your brother don’t know he still paints,
Against the orders of the regime..
Their serious faces are not as charming as yours.
He paints them from memory,
But always in one sitting.
If only you could tell them
That your father takes you up the ladder in your frilled dress.
If you could tell the soldier that your father
Loves you the best, your father would be clenched around
The narrow shoulders and swung down the stairs
The way you swing him down in your dreams.
You took off your shirt for your father last month,
Your undershirt this month. What will come next?
You looked up at him, sideways, and smiled
While he painted your body.
Your father would be pushed in the back, maybe bleed.
You would never have to take off anything more for him.
You want to tell the Nazi’s blue eyes the truth,
To show him tiny bare breasts
In the picture, to tell him:
That is more than anyone should see.
You would both take your father away
In his black shirt flecked with orange paint,
And roll him into the car and he would not look at you.
published in Sun Dog
Braque’s Diary of the Atalier Cutouts
Sunday
I straighten sand, filings, coffee
Grounds into square containers,
Sponging the sides. The coffee blackens
The sponge in blotches I will remember
Tomorrow after I mix the grains and flakes
With paint; the next painting of my atalier
Needs a dark corner—a solidity
Overseeing the cutouts suspended
From the atalier ceiling.
Yesterday, my war wound answered
When Pablo, tapping his teeth, said
I should believe
More than my studio cutouts like streamers
For a child’s party. My scar
Reminds me nothing else has meaning.
The flat, aluminum cutouts of bottles, apples,
Bowls, turn on their quiet wires.
They move me; I wave breezes to make them
Live, die, and live
Into many torn views.
Today, the buxom neighbor carrying blintzes
Egged me not to care about
What’s not flat. She forgot
To bend, clanging together
Some fronts and sides.
I told her pianos
Sideways in the street were what
We hid behind. Bullets played
Clanging tunes like Shoenberg.
The dead oens grew grayer than
The piano shadows they lay inside.
Front views cast grey shadows on
The profile cutouts. The atalier easels
And chairs dapple their colors
Onto the slightly warped aluminum.
The smooth edges glint
When they take sides
With the window light.
Cutouts of still things move
Into all the sides of flatness.
We have to break into enough lies to see.
published in the Cinncincati Poetry Review
Sunday
I straighten sand, filings, coffee
Grounds into square containers,
Sponging the sides. The coffee blackens
The sponge in blotches I will remember
Tomorrow after I mix the grains and flakes
With paint; the next painting of my atalier
Needs a dark corner—a solidity
Overseeing the cutouts suspended
From the atalier ceiling.
Yesterday, my war wound answered
When Pablo, tapping his teeth, said
I should believe
More than my studio cutouts like streamers
For a child’s party. My scar
Reminds me nothing else has meaning.
The flat, aluminum cutouts of bottles, apples,
Bowls, turn on their quiet wires.
They move me; I wave breezes to make them
Live, die, and live
Into many torn views.
Today, the buxom neighbor carrying blintzes
Egged me not to care about
What’s not flat. She forgot
To bend, clanging together
Some fronts and sides.
I told her pianos
Sideways in the street were what
We hid behind. Bullets played
Clanging tunes like Shoenberg.
The dead oens grew grayer than
The piano shadows they lay inside.
Front views cast grey shadows on
The profile cutouts. The atalier easels
And chairs dapple their colors
Onto the slightly warped aluminum.
The smooth edges glint
When they take sides
With the window light.
Cutouts of still things move
Into all the sides of flatness.
We have to break into enough lies to see.
published in the Cinncincati Poetry Review
The Bird Aquarium
Pet shop light
Bubbling behind glass,
That’s what it is,
Where, in the clear water,
The unreal becomes
Two birds, fish, panes
Of impossible
Glass. Grey birds
Are looking through red fish
That surround their air.
Only still,
It seems water’s all
There is
And will drown them.
Trembling slightly,
They huddle
Back to front
And clasp their swing.
It must be an illusion
And really be two
Completely clear and
Perfectly lighted
Uncannily placed
Containers with one
Inside of one,
A secret depth that
Keeps alive,
In the purple light
Where shadows swimming
On grey birds tremble,
Doubleness and
Questions about
Used up air and life
Confused with red fish.
Through water, sound
Does not bring
Me the open-
And-closed-beak fear
Of the birds inside. Some
Delicately
Make pretty images
Live in cold blood.
And how little trust
I have that once I leave them
They will live.
Won the award in where it was published in the Iowa Journal of Literary Studies
Pet shop light
Bubbling behind glass,
That’s what it is,
Where, in the clear water,
The unreal becomes
Two birds, fish, panes
Of impossible
Glass. Grey birds
Are looking through red fish
That surround their air.
Only still,
It seems water’s all
There is
And will drown them.
Trembling slightly,
They huddle
Back to front
And clasp their swing.
It must be an illusion
And really be two
Completely clear and
Perfectly lighted
Uncannily placed
Containers with one
Inside of one,
A secret depth that
Keeps alive,
In the purple light
Where shadows swimming
On grey birds tremble,
Doubleness and
Questions about
Used up air and life
Confused with red fish.
Through water, sound
Does not bring
Me the open-
And-closed-beak fear
Of the birds inside. Some
Delicately
Make pretty images
Live in cold blood.
And how little trust
I have that once I leave them
They will live.
Won the award in where it was published in the Iowa Journal of Literary Studies