Amber Tamblyn - Dark Sparkler

for my father, the author Russ Tamblyn Warning: the book you are holding in your hands will break your heart. Not a word of Dark Sparkler is poetic in the foolish and flowery sense. None of it is symbolic. Amber Tamblyn is not playing with metaphor or some flight of fancy. She is gifting us with the tragedy, the power, and most of all the truth of these womens lives. Dark Sparkler is many things.

It is, first of all, wonderful poetry. It is also cartography in that it maps a previously unexplored piece of womens experiencea part of the map with which Ms. Tamblyn is personally familiar. It is also a memorial and a magical act. Because it is all these things, I thought to suggest a way in: First, read Dark Sparkler as you would any new poetry book that comes into your hands. Open it at random and read here and there (if thats your way), or begin at the beginning like Alice, go on till you reach the end, then stop.

Look at the pictures. Enjoy. At some point you will begin to get curious. Something will start to tug at the edge of your mind/heart. At that point, go to the library or search the Internet for information about any girl/woman you find yourself thinking about. Look up Peg Entwistle, Bridgette Andersen, Samantha Smith. Read their (often sadly short) stories.

Let your imagination fill in what book and computer dont say. If you get addicted to these poems, as I did, you may find that you begin to print out certain bios and/or picturesphotos, sketches, even daguerreotypes. You will have made your own companion volume, one you can turn to when you reread Dark Sparkler. Which you will probably do again and again. Diane di Prima

When you find a skull in the woods, do you leave it alone because it disturbs you or do you leave it alone because of whats still living inside? Submission calls for an actress mid-to-late 20s. All ethnicities acceptable.

Except Asian-American. Caucasian preferable. Must read teen on-screen. Thin but not gaunt. Lean. Quirky but not unattractive.

No brown eyes. Not taller than 55. Weight no more than 109. Actress should have great smile. Straight teeth a must. Must be flexible.

Small bust a plus. Can do own stunts. Will waive rights to image, likeness, publicity, and final cut. Role calls for nudity. Role calls for simulated sexual intercourse. Role calls for role play with lead male.

No stand-in avail. Role pays scale. Character is shy yet codependent, searching for love in all the wrong men. Character confides in others at her own risk. Character is fatigued and hollow, suffers from self-doubt, a sense of worthlessness. Character learns the hard way to believe in herself.

No brown eyes. Character finally finds happiness when she meets Brad, a successful older businessman, 55. Log line: A woman fights to save her soul. Think a young Carole Lombard meets a younger Anna Nicole. Requires an actress that will leave an audience speechless, whos found her creative voice.

This Svedka-sponsored T-Mobile party tucked into the tight shoulder blades of the Pacific Palisades is honoring the lifetime achievements of Christina Aguilera. This Svedka-sponsored T-Mobile party tucked into the tight shoulder blades of the Pacific Palisades is honoring the lifetime achievements of Christina Aguilera.

In the background Debbie Harry croons for a terrace of people titillated for the songs of incoming messages. Im in some charcoal hallway, cornered by an actress in a bandage dress, burned one too many times, whose cocktail is doing all the healing, sloshing on about the good ol days, back when we were all periodless and vivacious, our winning auditions clinging to our underwear. How wed piss victory, brush the rejection from our hair. She wants to know what I think of Annie how vulgar her success is, what a tragedy its all become, am I also allergic to her over-enunciations? She wants to know if Ive heard about the role opposite the handsome future failure, am I getting in line to lose weight for the seventh-chance director. Do I want advice, in general, but more specifically, on how to blow up my breasts into fame balloons, send them up to the helium angels on a string body? Your career has another five years, maybe, she says, if youre lucky.According to who? I ask. According to every actress whos come before you. So I turn my focus to every actress coming after me.

I wade through the crowd with a canister of judgment, tag the train of every dress, leave my mark on their scars. At the bar I run into Nancy, drinking away her forties, her eyes are flush broken compasses. Lost between age fifteen and fifty. Fermented blood. Deep-sea drinker. I do not look into her ocean.

The fish there float to the bottom. I fear Ill go down there too, identifying with the abyss. Washed up. Banging on the back door of a black hole. I plow through the womens room doors into cool tiled silence. Run warm water over my shaking hands.

Above the sink, above the mirror, a picture of the bars first owner stares down at me, that Dust Bowlera actress who killed herself in that Lincoln or fell asleep with the engine running. Maybe it was a Packard convertible. She wouldve had to make her comeback too. When the coroner cut her open, he found only peas and beans in her stomach. No blue moonstones beneath old-fashioned bandages. I look down at the sink, the water brimming over the tops of my wrists and onto the floor.

I do not tell my fingers what to do. My hands are not my hands. They are the water surrounded by swirling, singing, overflowing stars.

Im told Joni Mitchell took my newborn baby feet into her palms, called them sweet cashews and kissed their soles. I lay there in my fathers arms, a sedated frog, a fleshy spit of fresh molecule juice. Im told women have more nerve endings in their hands than men.

That this is a scientific fact. Im told Galileo wept at how big his hands looked, how small they felt, while pointing at the stars. A book written by every one of Gods representatives tells me Salvation is for everyone except God. Im told your poems are about me. All of them. Even when theyre about Jennifer.

Even when dedicated to mother. I was told we met in the nineties. You shook my hand and told me I would not remember you saying that I am the love of your life. Im told in thirty-eight years I will lose a child. The psychic on Astor Place charges me only ten dollars. Im told we should write more vague prayers for rock stars and send them up into the sky on helium balloon strings.

She was told you kept her letters like Bazooka gum wrappers. You broke her cigarette heart like an addict who wanted saving. But the only thing you know how to love, Im told, is the sound of cheap plastic high heels on pavement. The click-clack of flim-flam. Im told theres a balcony where my old dresses are hung to dry in Detroit.

Plucked: All the cats whiskers girls eyebrows eyelashes cactus thorn cored heart dialogue from the page cattle call fish from the feeding tube star sticker stuck on the star fucked over pool bottom baby tooth last exhale gasoline receipt under drivers seat bullet pulled from box springs mattress grows scorpion legs in aunts dreams scalp on the stucco story line arc conclusion glass animals from the cinder initials in sidewalk concrete the shadows of initials at dawn in the cemetery