Jackie Langetieg

Welcome to Jackie Langetieg's Web Page

BIO: Jackie Langetieg, retired 35-year veteran of Wisconsin state government in the Department of Health and Family Services, is a 36-year recovering alcoholic, and since giving up the drink has mined all those years as fodder for writing. Memory is still serving her, so you may see a sensual poem or two in her books. She has been involved in literary activities in the Madison area since 1988, was president and treasurer of “The Writers’ Place” board of directors, and involved in the city’s first book fair. Her first writing accomplishment was at the age of eight when she wrote a “newsletter” using a push-letter child’s typewriter. She writes poetry and prose and has been published in many journals and anthologies. She has three books, as well as numerous chapbooks. She has been married twice and given birth to two boys, one of whom is deceased. She lives in Verona, Wisconsin with her son and two black cats.

PUBLICATIONS:
NEW: Confetti in a Silent City, a collection of poems, 66 pages. Ghost Horse Press, 2008. $12.00.

And Just What in Hell is a Stage of Grief? A chapbook of 41 pages. Poems relating to the process of grieving the death of the author’s 32-year-old son. Includes photos. Ghost Horse Press, 2008. $12.00.

White Shoulders, a chapbook of prose poem conversations between the author and her deceased mother. Includes photos. Cross+Roads Press, 2000. OUT OF PRINT

All checks should be made out to Jackie Langetieg and sent to 945 Harper Drive, Verona, WI 53593. Include $2.00 per book for shipping.

Jackie Langetieg
945 Harper Drive,
Verona, WI 53593

jacklang60@yahoo.com

POEMS:

Tai-Chi In Four Movements

I. The Beginning

The teacher wears black and white,
light in opposition to dark—the symbol
for yin and yang. Unknowingly
over half the group does, too.
I don’t feel as fat as I dreaded.

The warm-up is just camouflaged exercise,
but the sparkling day bribes me to enjoy it.
My hibernated muscles stretch stubbornly
I’m awkward—an elephant trying to be a jaguar.

II. The Practice

My body tries to forget itself
return to the rhythm of nature.
I walk heavy, filled with bear power.

My chest is a box, my spine a string of pearls
connected to the universe. I shift my weight
to the left foot, my right arm lifts on the kiss
of a breeze—weight
an anachronism of no weight.

Practice anything, she says in today’s farewell—
even if it’s wrong. Next time you’ll have something
to correct.

She didn’t check my form, touch my leg.
Am I already perfect?
Or has she deferred to the old bear instead—
left it to its lost causes.

III. The Form

I am in the barefoot dark—I step out cautiously
turning my right foot, stepping strongly on my left heel
settling into my balance.
I loosen my belly’s tension, turn my head,
pulling it past stiff neck muscles
rigid prisoners of my clenched jaw.

Just when foot is firm and body balanced—
the lean into the wind thrilling as an untried lover—
a new direction is demanded.
Practice. I don’t know where my balance
will meet my movement. Practice.
Start again in the familiar footfall,
turning
leaning out
feeling the sweet soul-kiss of new space made mine.

IV. Animal Frolics

Resting deer, walking deer
press
fall back
turn
swing arm—not able to think like a deer
because I’m watching the teacher.

I close my eyes and become the deer,
drift through dark
rest
            pull back
                        listen for danger
                                    press forward.
The pond wears its cool scent—
I walk on small-boned hooves toward marsh grass,
ears up, tongue on the roof of my mouth,
jaw relaxed.

Each cool Tai-Chi morning
of these storm-surrounded days remains perfect.
My garlic and brewers yeast discourage lazy mosquitoes.
Perhaps another night I’ll become a mosquito,
bite the deer, take her heart into my own,
and fly through the woods bending and pawing the earth.

(appeared in the Wisconsin Academy Review)

Girl on the Jetty

Provincetown, 1977
Joel Meyerowitz
Chromogenic color print
printed 1981

The scene is sky and sea
a troubled blue-black with a faded finger of rock
pointing toward infinity. But wait.

Someone stands watching, as still as the sand;
an innocent on the brink. Her first sin curls around her
like an invisible aura.

The sea invites, the jetty is patient
The tides may leave treasures
but she’s unfamiliar with promises.

She appears to be going toward something
but is really coming from a past
unknowable to us—perhaps she has been chosen

to throw herself into the sea to save us
like the virgins who leaped into the mouth
of Pélé’s volcano to satisfy her unquenchable rage.

(from Confetti in a Silent City, Ghost Horse Press 2008)