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Ventnor poet Karen Zaborowski Duffy will give a reading and sign copies of her recently published chapbook, “Giving in to the Smoke,” Sunday, May 11 at the Noyes Museum of Art.

Author hits a homer with poems about baseball, family

By LORENDA KNISEL
Staff Writer

VENTNOR – A sports fan who is also a poet may seem like an oxymoron to many. However, the spunky and athletic Karen Zaborowski Duffy, 54, defies all stereotypes of the flighty, ethereal poet.

Hailing from Ventnor and raised in the Philadelphia area, Zaborowski Duffy is a diehard Phillies fanatic, and this zeal is reflected in her poems about baseball.

One, “World Series, Game 5,” is about the time she took her daughter to Veterans Stadium to watch the Phillies play the World Series in 1993. The poem captured the attention of Jim Lehrer of PBS’s “The NewsHour,” and he featured the poet on the program’s Poetry Series in October. She was filmed reading the poem at Bernie Robbins Stadium in Atlantic City.

“Of all the baseball poems out there, they picked mine,” Zaborowski Duffy said. “Maybe (Lehrer) liked it because it was a mother-daughter piece, but I was flabbergasted. I was excited. … I felt very important.”

“Someone called it heartwarming,” the down-to-earth poet said. “How dreadful? I’ve never thought of myself as heartwarming. My friends laughed.”

As a mother of five children and grandmother of two, family figures prominently in her life and in her work.

“Jim Lehrer called me a ‘family poet,’” she said.

Zaborowski Duffy, who has taught English at Atlantic City High School for almost 30 years, has had her work published in numerous journals, including “Orison,” “Calyx,” “Birmingham Poetry Review” and “Journal of New Jersey Poets.” She is also the recipient of two poetry writing fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and is a poetry consultant for the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.

Zaborowski Duffy said she started seriously writing poetry in 1990 after her children had grown. Three years later her first poem was published.

“I’ve always wanted to be a novelist,” she said, “but my poetry is very narrative.”

In the fall, she had her first poetry chapbook published, “Giving in to the Smoke,” which expounds on the fire that burned her Ventnor home in 1997. She received the Starting Gate Award for the book by her publisher, Finishing Line Press, and it was chosen book of the month for November 2007.

She will sign copies of the chapbook and read poems at the Noyes Museum of Art Sunday, May 11.

Zaborowski Duffy said she gets her inspiration from “appreciating life, looking at people, paying attention to the news and appreciating small moments … and seeing how many different perspectives there are in any given moment.”

The poet said she is also interested in writing prose pieces.

“I’d like to be a little bit of a switch hitter,” the poet said. “Just now I’m thinking about something longer. I’ve had some colorful events happen in my life.”

She said she particularly wants to go more in-depth about the fire.

“The fire was officially ruled arson – yellow tape and all. It is an unsolved case.”

“The whole island was wonderful to us – Margate, Longport, Atlantic City, but particularly Ventnor,” she added. “People get you through things. … It’s true in a schlocky way that things come back to you.”

Zaborowsky Duffy said she would also like to write about race.

“I remember the Civil Rights Movement. There are things that stick to you and you have to write them down or they’re gone.”

She said there is a paucity of writing about race from the white perspective.

“I'm interested in things people won't say or won't talk about,” she added.

She also uses humor in her poems.

“I have a silly side. I think you have to laugh or you have to kill yourself. And that’s also how you have to teach high school. It’s a stand-up routine.”

She said she uses props during class, like feather boas.

“Just to see if they’re paying attention, I put something on,” she said. “I have a clapping hand thing I use when students get a right answer. When we perform Shakespeare, I have crowns, tiaras and sound effects.”

She said the students come from difficult backgrounds, and she has to get their attention.

“I’m competing with hundreds of TV channels. Before a test I say, ‘Alright, put away all of your toasters, blenders and satellite dishes.’

“Anything you do for 30 years, you’d better like it.”

Zaborowski Duffy said she would like to write about her experiences at the high school.

“It’s really amusing working there. You never know what’s going to happen. You see some crazy things.”

Zaborowski Duffy’s poetry reading and book signing is scheduled for 1:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, May 11. Also reading will be Sicklerville poet Barbara Daniels.

The Noyes Museum is on Lily Lake Road in the Oceanville section of Galloway Township. The reading is included in the regular admission price of $4 for adults and $3 for seniors and students. Reservations are required. For information call (609) 652-8848 or visit www.noyesmuseum.org.

“Giving in to the Smoke” can be purchased online at Amazon.com and finishinglinepress.com. To contact the author, email karenzduffy@gmail.com.

To view video footage of the poet on “The NewsHour,” log on to www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec07/poetry_10-25.html.

To comment on this story
email Lorenda.Knisel@
catamaranmedia.com.






 




Poems by Karen Zaborowski Duffy:

“World Series, Game 5”
Originally published in “Footwork: The Paterson Literary Review”

Even God, I think, is here,
so high up in the stands
with my ten-year old daughter and me
we can almost touch the X
from Schmidty's old home run,
probably the two worst seats at the Vet
but right where the whole world
wants to be.
I let her drink real Coke,
eat Milky Ways and dance with strangers
at 11:30 on a school night and still
ninety minutes from home.
I took her sticky hand.
The Phillies and we are in control.
For now, the world has stopped worrying
about players who might be traded,
moods that might swing and miss.
There are no thoughts about new uniforms
and the boys who will wear them.
Tonight she is here and finds it easy
to love me for this end-of-season
home game.
We are those jumping red dots
in the center of the universe, my daughter
and me and a baseball game
that is perfect and no more meaningless
than anything else.

“Running Mother”
Originally published in “Without Halos”

Approaching the field after running,
I see my children playing,
parents cheering the last quarter.
My daughter has just scored a goal
while I have been pounding my sneakers,
putting miles between me and her team.
I hurry to her bench, anxious,
in-shape mother who stole time
and wants more left to spectate.
I am told how good she was.
A moment of silence and eyes drop
to my sweat-soaked clothes,
oddly out of place at a sports event.
I mumble I am sorry
I missed it as one parent remarks
she saw me again,
miles away from home,
running in the other direction.

“Stillborn”
Originally published in “Calyx”

Seventeen on a tree
five generations high,
babies edged perfect as carvings,
born still as wood.
Seems everybody had at least one,
even Uncle Will and his first wife
whose name no one remembers.
Question marks and the letters
“S.G.” for Stillborn Girl,
“S.B.” for Boy.
Back when babies died for no reason,
people accepted their stillness
and wandered out to a night sky
darker than space,
and wide.
A field of corn
grown so high
a person could disappear.

“Uncle Will’s Second Wife”
Originally published in “Birmingham Poetry Review”

She dreams about the dirt floor
and the skins that covered her at night
when winter turns even Texas cold.
Her naked feet know how lucky she is
to have married a man with smooth
wooden floors so all eleven children
would have something to dance on. 
She doesn’t care that her in-laws still
refuse to have an indian at their table
even though she taught them how
to make meal by soaking cobs in lye.
She forgets how they shook their heads
when she stood barefoot by their icebox
and drank ketchup from the bottle.
Hattie keeps washing diapers and
braiding her step-children’s blond hair,
same as when she first came to work
for the man whose wife was sick, the wife
who died anyway, even after months
of scrubbing and brushing. It was easy
to marry the house she already knew,
the baby who wouldn’t let go of her skirt.
She argues Apaches aren’t fighters, but
sees how much trouble her half-bred sons
kick up when they go to town. Later,
people will say they’re beautiful, not
too red, and the grandchildren will gaze
contentedly at the mirror. Hattie will stitch
cowhide shoes to keep them warm, take
away their feeling for the ground.

“Watching Them Ride the Rides”
Originally published in “US 1 Worksheets”

They spin and whirl
in giant teacups,
hair straight out,
foreheads pressed back,
teeth, gums shining.
I wave at every rotation
and know this is the moment
mothers need, the time
when children are happy.
No expressions to decipher,
no drama to diagnose,
no young pain,
only the joy of getting spun,
enthralled for a time,
and I exhale and believe
I am doing my job.
I am keeping the promise
I never knew I was making,
and here they come
spinning by again,
waving,
making sure I see.