Madeline Artenberg
Naming a Hurricane contains thirty years of my poetry. This once silent, bullied, friendless girl thanks you for going on this journey with me! I grew my voice through experience, friendship, and poems, one by one. As a kid, my saviors were Howdy Doody, Mr. Rogers, Lucy, Nancy Drew, the bookmobile, Dick Clark, Soul Train, Perry Mason, Elizabeth Taylor, James Bond, and my grandparents. I didn’t realize it, but my earliest writing was nightly prayers of just desserts for my abusers. Every time I took two steps forward and then fell back, I gave up, but the open road was as enticing as a novel. I would never look at the last page of a story first, so I ventured I had to keep going on the road and learn to trust it. The biggest proof was that I transformed “why me?” into comedy skits, plays, and poetry. I grew up hiding everything. The sweetest irony is that, as a new poet, I was immediately appreciated for my family and sexually-themed poems. The floodgates of honesty were wide open! One of the joys in recent years is that “me, only” turned into “me, too!”
In public school, I couldn’t speak in class, except to raise my hand first with the answer. I won the medal for best overall student in the public school 6th-grade graduating class. Only three people clapped in Assembly. Finally, I made my first friend at eleven and a half years old. I thought I was so smart. I didn’t know a damn thing until I threw myself into the world after college graduation: I was wife, failed Spanish teacher, disco queen, cocktail waitress, world traveler, wife again, actress, licensed hypnotist, Media Buyer and Planner, peace activist, and photojournalist. The photo agency told me I should crawl on my belly or shimmy up a pole to get better shots. The minute my first poem shot out, I sold my cameras. I immediately understood that only I could birth my poems.
When I was a kid and the doorbell rang, my mother would push me under the kitchen table, clasp her hand over my mouth as I yelled, “We’re here! Don’t go!” Well, readers, I’m here now, so here we go!
Since 1992, my work has appeared in numerous print and online publications, such as Rattle and MacQueen’s Quinterly. I am also a well-known performance poet in NYC.
Accolades include Mudfish poetry prize: Finalist (2020); Best of the Net contest: poem nominated by Poets Wear Prada (2020); Highland Park Poetry Challenge: Honorable Mention (2017); Margie, The American Journal of Poetry contest: Semi-Finalist (2005); Poetry Forum contest: 1st prize (2003), 3rd prize (2013); Lyric Recovery Poetry contest: First prize (1999), Second prize (2000), Semi-Finalist (2000).
Please contact me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/madeline.artenberg and on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/madelineartenberg/
