No Regrets: Poems

By J.A. Carter-Winward

No Regrets bends genre, combining elements of poetry, memoir, and fiction to create insight into the most fundamental aspects of life: sex, grief, love, joy, and pain.  Readily accessible and compelling, you will have no regrets for taking this journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Binary Press Publications, LLC
• Release date: Sep 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781611710335

J.A. Carter-Winward

J.A. Carter-Winward is author of Grind, The Rub, TDTM, and Falling Back to Earth, and the award-winning "No" Poetry Trilogy. She's also the author of two short-story collections, Shorts: A Collection, The Bus Stops Here and Other Stories, and a successful, locally produced stage play, The Waiters, nominated "Best Local Event" in 2014. Her work appears in anthologies by Vita Brevis Press, Write Bloody Publishing, HSTQ, and several paper and online poetry publications. In 2014, Carter-Winward was voted "Best Local Artist" for her literary and visual art. J.A.'s upcoming releases in 2021 include: If It Stings... That Means It's Working (a poetry story), Work in Progress: Dialogues & Poems, and Killing Scott Lark: A Novel. Official website for Ms. Carter-Winward: www.jacarterwinward.com

Book preview

memento

my mother had a chance to go on tour with my dad

when she was younger.

he was in the mormon tabernacle choir

and they were heading

to europe.

she finally got to live out her dream and visit paris.

i remember when i was young looking in our linen closet

and seeing a smoky-green glass soap dish.

i asked her about it finally,

thinking it too pretty to hide away.

she told me

she'd swiped it from a parisian hotel and

that she could never display it

because she was so ashamed of the theft.

i looked at that soap dish often,

this dish we never used,

and i thought of her as the young mother

who couldn't afford a souvenir

on her dream trip

to paris.

i looked at it

and felt like

the hotel

would have understood

if they knew my mother at all.

bella

the brothel's madam is bella.

bella knows more about the human

condition than any therapist,

poet or philosopher i've ever encountered.

i asked her why she did what she did,

and this is what she said:

it's too amazing being human—

even when it looks like it's

going all wrong,

that has to happen for us to

understand what's right.

i looked into her eyes then

and saw such beautiful humanity—

i wanted to laugh,

scream

or burst into tears.

parts

i am made up of parts

that don't match,

yet

these parts make up a cohesive self—

my brain is made up

of a mormon woman scorned

by her male-centric church,

crossed with charles bukowski,

carol brady, and cat woman.

the other part of my brain is

a metrosexual caveman

who plays rugby,

classical piano, and who jerks off

to porn on sunday afternoons.

my arms are soft,

yet cut like a body-builder's

when i flex.

my torso is an hourglass

half full of creamy stout,

broken glass and bruises.

my ass is brazilian.

my tits are scottish.

my legs are short,

muscular tree stumps

that hide in skirts,

never wear shorts,

and can lift two-hundred pounds

on the seated press.

my lungs are from the netherlands

my heart is french

my soul is bohemian

my cunt is a hungry whore

who hails from spain.

my feet are chinese

my hands are miniature

tea-cup poodles.

my eyes are darts

seeking a board to impale.

my mouth is a cupid's bow

linked to my quivering spanish cunt.

my guts

are warlords from mongolia crossed

with visigoths.

my words are sirens

hailing the coming

of a shit storm.

hard-wired

every straight attached male

has two circuit boards:

one that's wired to his wife

or partner,

the other that's wired

to every other vagina in the world.

wunderkind

when i was single

i was friends with a guy who was a model.

he was really down to earth,

from wyoming—a sweetheart.

he had stunning blue eyes

and long, curly black hair

that went to the middle of his back.

we finally fucked

after a drunken date at a club

but nothing came of it

because i didn’t want anything to come of it,

other than we kept in touch through the years

and he'd occasionally stop by…

he gave me one of his modeling head shots,

a black and white picture

with him staring aggressively at the camera.

i kept it with my photos

as a memento.

when my oldest daughter grew into a teenager

she found the picture and

developed quite a crush on him.

i didn't have the heart to tell her

sorry, baby, he's off limits;

he fucked your mommy

on the kitchen floor

while you were at school.

barkeep

talking to the bartender

at the brothel

she said

i'm an old drunk.

i looked at her and she continued—

last time i talked to god

was in 1997.

i don’t talk to him no more, she said.

why not? i asked

'cause when you talk to god and ask

for stuff, you gotta be specific.

i asked him for food, clothing and shelter.

when i got to jail, i realized

god gave me everything i asked for.

the sonuvabitch.

expression

someone posted on social media

that we should ban fireworks

on account of the veterans and their ptsd.

my first thought was

ah, another liberal giving the rest of us

a bad rap by being

too sensitive.

ww2 vets never complained.

my second thought was this:

ww2 vets were not allowed to complain—

it wasn't sanctioned to express

their trauma out loud.

they lived it in a private hell shared only with

perhaps a very few close people,

or most often,

no one at all.

maybe it's time we look at that—

maybe the time for fireworks has passed—

why does this country need to glorify

the hideous sounds of war

when we could have a day of blissful,

silent,

peace?

bargains

when your partner tells you

i think we should start seeing other people,

that translates into

the wardrobe equivalent of:

i like this shirt okay,

but i want to go shopping.

foresight

he told her he had a mistress.

she had men of her own

on the side

so she felt better about that—

like the playing field

of their marriage

was finally equal.

she didn't see him falling

for the other woman—

she didn't see the other woman

falling for him.

she just didn’t see that coming.

hymnals

every once in a while,

family obligations require me to

go to church.

i secretly like going for three reasons:

i get to sing

three

hymns.

i like to sing,

i was raised singing.

i sing the alto part,

and i can always hear someone in the congregation

singing soprano,

and then i get to dream, for just a moment

that my mother sits next to me

harmonizing with me

in perfect accord.

revelations

i was waiting for my cue.

i was on for a poetry reading

at a local art gallery

when a guy came in with a service dog

that looked more like a mutt

with a jacket on.

the guy was carrying two of my books.

he wanted them signed.

i thought a lot, then,

about my revelations—

the things i choose to make public with my words.

i choose to open myself up

in the most intimate detail

and allow the world to see inside me.

i checked that feeling

against this man i didn't know,

standing around, waiting for me.

how did i really feel about him knowing me

so intimately?

but then i remembered

that when i write every word,

my audience is in my mind at all times.

i know some,

i don't know many,

but they're there,

like a back-lit peanut gallery

waiting to drink in

everything i have to give.

and i wasn't embarrassed or afraid.

i didn't even feel exposed.

i remember what i felt distinctly:

i felt powerful.

heel

i was twenty-six

and she was forty-three.

i thought i was in love.

i was willing to trade in my heels

for comfortable shoes

and ready to move in

with my two daughters and all.

i could be with her forever.

she was still married

but that was on the rocks.

after she kicked him out

i thought we could get together,

merge our lives.

she had taught me about what it was like

to be comfortable

in my own skin;

i wanted to drink her

and all of her powerful female-knowledge

inside of me

because i was so thirsty for comfort.

one night at a party

i tried to kiss her.

she told me,

no.

my kids are here.

it was then i knew

i'd be keeping my heels,

and she'd be moving on

without me.

blind

they say love is blind.

they also say jesus is love—

so why is it that his followers

pretend to look

into everyone else's heart

and hate

what they see?

the bar

Reviews for No Regrets

[harrywhitewolf · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

this reviewhas turned into a much longer piece than i intended, but who fucking cares,right?i write,because i have to,just like j.a,who’s just savedmefrom getting too angryand bored with modern poetry.So, I want to start this review by saying a little about poetry’s form and style before I move on to content.I’ve only been using the internet for about three years (for anything other than emails and the odd purchase), so it’s only been in the last few years that I’ve started reading independent contemporary poets through Goodreads and webzines, and I have found many great poets along the way. In fact, I probably very much enjoy eighty percent of the poetry I read – there are some very talented writers out there - so I hope I’m not misunderstood when I simultaneously state that I’ve become quickly bored with the unoriginality of much of it; and when I talk of unoriginality, I’m chiefly talking about the form and style of the poetry, not the actual content.what i mean isi don’t getwhy every fucking poet i readseemsto write like this,with lowercaseand simple language.it seemsto methat everymodern poettriesto writelike bukowskiand since such thingsas tumblr poetryit seemseveryone wants to writethis way,and I don’t know why.There are many poets who write in this type of modern style – including some of my absolute favourites like Andy Carrington and Raegan Butcher, who I can’t recommend enough, but simultaneously, I’ve begun to generally get really bored of just reading the same style again and again and again.Where are the poets pushing the boundaries of the written word? Did poetry die with Ginsberg?Would The Beatles be the greatest band in the world if they’d stuck to just playing rock ‘n’ roll covers?Whatever the art form may be, for me, if it’s to be truly great, it needs to have a dose of originality to it.So, although J. A. Carter-Winward has been top of my list for greatest contemporary poets I’ve read for some time now (having read her previous two books in this trilogy, and other poems of hers as well), I put off reading ‘no regrets’ for a little while, because I had become somewhat disillusioned with reading this post-Bukowski style.Then I finally picked up ‘no regrets’ to read, and I can’t have been more than ten pages in before I paused and thought, ‘Fuck man! This poetry is soooo damn good! It’s head and shoulders above all the rest!’ And it made me realise that form has nothing to do with it, it’s just about how well one uses their chosen form.I’ve read a few poems by J. A. Carter-Winward that don’t conform to this modern style, where she has paid more attention to the sounds of words and even employed rhyme at times, so I know she can write stuff in various styles, but for the poems contained in these poetry books of hers, she has plumped for the exact right style to get her intentions across. When she is speaking so openly, so honestly, and is making valid and original observations, there’s no point in dressing the words up. She’s purposely stripped bare the language and descriptive prose, just like she’s stripped bare herself, where she serves up every intimate detail about her life and her opinions. The style and the content go hand in hand, and it’s honestly the most engaging contemporary poetry I’ve read.Whether you’re a poet or a novelist or whatever, there should never be any subject you can’t write about. The only criteria should be: can you write about the chosen subject well?So, I find plenty of poets writing about, say, the boringness of their daily lives, or being glued to a barstool, or the instant gratification of sex – whatever – but it doesn’t mean they’re always writing about it well. After all, anyone can write, say (off the top of my head):“my dick got hardand I came too soonagain”- and call it poetry. And don’t get me wrong, anything can be poetry, just like anything can be art, so I don’t mean to diminish its artistic merit. All I mean is, it’s not necessarily any good.Whereas Carter-Winward’s poetry is the exact opposite. She has a punchline to her poems, she has a philosophical point to make, she has an original thought… And it’s this that (partially) makes her poetry so damn good. Poems like:“it seems there is a delugeof queer poetry out therebut not a whole lot of poetryfrom bisexuals.probably because we’retoo busyhaving sexwith everybody.”And:“when a man saysi could sleep with her,it’s a very different ballgame fromi want to sleep with her.the first is like a rugby match:he could give it a try.the second, like a soccer match:he’s made it a goal.”Carter-Winward has lived a life that’s worth writing about. Sex is always the main running theme, but the more I read her work, the more I understand that she’s not really writing about sex at all – and it is that (for one thing) which makes her poetry stand head and shoulders above others (who are just writing about sexual experiences). Carter-Winward is writing about the human condition. She’s contrasting her life to others. She writes about growing up as a Mormon and turning her back on religion, she writes about family, and loss and injustice and stupidity. She’s knowingly allowing the reader to be a voyeur into every facet of her world: hence the titles of this trilogy of books: ‘no apologies’, ‘no secrets’ and ‘no regrets’.As she says in her poem ‘definition’:“i can’t definewhat I do.this isn’t poetry,this isn’t a memoir,this isn’t fiction,this isn’t biography.it is all four combined,and it is none.it is my art.”But most of all, like all great poets, Carter-Winward is writing because she has to write, and by doing so, it’s much more about her journey of self-reflection to try and make sense of who she is, more than anything else.so, just asi wasbeginningto get a little boredof poetry like thisj.a.carter-winward savedme and showed me the way.she’s the best contemporary poet I know of,end of.