The Flapper Press Poetry Café Talks with Marianne Brems About Her New Book of Poetry: "Within the Trifles"
- FLAPPER PRESS
- Sep 25
- 6 min read
By Elizabeth Gracen for the Flapper Press Café:
The Flapper Press Café supports the work of poets from around the globe, highlighting their work and giving them a platform to promote their beautiful poetry. Whether it's offering contests throughout the year or featuring a curated selection with in-depth interviews, the goal is to bring more poetry into the world. We always encourage poets who have already been published on the site to submit new work for consideration. So, please submit!
This week, we are happy to bring one of our favorite poets back into the Flapper Press Poetry Café to talk about her upcoming book and to give us a sneak peak at her new poems.
We welcome back Marianne Brems!
Marianne Brems is the author of poetry collections, including Stepping Stones (2024), In Its Own Time (2023), Unsung Offerings (2021), and Sliver of Change (2020). Her poems have also appeared in literary journals, including The Bluebird Word, Front Porch Review, Remington Review, and Green Ink Poetry. She lives, cycles, and swims in Northern California. You can read more about Marianne on her website: mariannebrems.com.
All three of the following poems published this week by Flapper Press will be included in Marianne's new collection, Within the Trifles, to be released by Kelsay Books in early 2026.
Elizabeth Gracen: Marianne, Flapper Press has had the honor to publish your poetry in the past, and we always appreciate when a poet submits their work again to the site. So, thank you! You've had such a rich, deep career with writing and poetry. As a young girl, did you always want to write? Did you keep a diary? What led you into the field of writing? Why is poetry important to you?
Marianne Brems: I’ve always had a fascination with words and finding ways to make them express exactly what I want to say. This goes way back. My mother once told me that I was speaking in complete sentences at eighteen months old. I think one of my earliest writing experiences was writing letters. When I was growing up, our family traveled a fair amount, and since my father was a professor, we would often spend the summer in another state while he was teaching summer school, and I would write to my friends back home. Writing poetry came much later. While I was teaching, I worked on a number of textbooks in my teaching field of English as a Second Language. The final one took five and a half years to complete, and it came out after I retired, so I was ready for something new as well as something that came in smaller chunks. That’s when I started seriously writing poetry.
EG: Your new collection, Within the Trifles, will be released by Kelsay Books in the coming year. Would you tell our readers about the theme of this new book and a little about the poems in general?
MB: Within the Trifles is a full-length poetry collection based on a quote from Charles Dickens: "Trifles make the sum of life." The poems revolve around the theme that it is the small, easily overlooked details of everyday life that reveal to us new meaning worth coming back to frequently. The sections in the book cover such topics as Order, Connection, Hope, Unexceptional Events, People, and Nature’s Ways.
EG: You have such a precise attention to emotional detail and to the intricacies of life. I'm curious about how you would describe yourself and how you approach your art. If you are comfortable with those questions, please share!
MB: An important strategy for me wherever I am is to pay attention. Interesting things happen all around, and people say things that make intriguing connections between seemingly unrelated ideas. I keep track of all this in a folder called "Glimmers." Then I come back later and take kernels from what I’ve written that frequently grow into poems. I also find that regularly reading the poems of favorite poets helps keep the creative juice flowing.
EG: The three poems that you've shared with us this time convey a poetic realism that shines on the process of aging. The work radiates with what I consider an almost a Zen-like observation on the blessings and challenges that come along with living a long life. What do you hope the reader comes away with after reading your lovely poetry?
MB: My poem "The Seventy Somethings" is quite personal and reflects on feelings I have on a regular basis during the aging process. It is somewhat tongue in cheek, but I think on another level, readers will be glad to know that others experience what they may already be feeling or what someone they know may be feeling. "Proud Monument" lends words to the sense of stability that comes with being in the presence of something that has lasted a long time. "I Like Your Hat" gives an account of loss that I believe many people can relate to.
EG: Thank you so much for your time and your poetry. Please tell our readers where they can find more of your work and when they can expect to read Within the Trifles.
MB: The release date for Within the Trifles from Kelsay Books is early 2026. My other collections include Stepping Stones (2024), In Its Own Time (2023), Unsung Offerings (2021), and Sliver of Change (2020). All of these titles are available at www.mariannebrems.com.
The Seventy Somethings
The frequency of malfunctions in the body
marks this decade.
They need not be large to nag and persist,
cataracts, arthritic knuckles, aching knees,
hearing loss, irritable bowels, shrinking height
though of course Medicare is a beautiful thing,
but it’s the interval of occurrence,
the piling up of small failures
that becomes the distraction I regret.
Gone is the surge of energy as muscles flex.
No snap back from a delivery of power,
only the sluggish recovery from the last good effort.
I dream of a time when muscles obeyed
and carried me forward without extra charge.
Never a second thought back then.
Now I breathe in so oxygen can sustain,
breathe out so there’s room to breathe in again.
Repeat, then repeat.
No lifeboat on the horizon, no way to turn back,
just a seat on a train that rumbles on and on
but stops more frequently in this place and that.
About the poem:
Being an athlete, I have always been acutely aware of my physical being. Its ups and down and ins and outs stare me in the face whether or not I want to see. With aging, many changes take place, much to my chagrin.
Proud Monument
A hundred-year-old Blue Oak
with cables holding up its aging limbs,
its roots sending cracks across the sidewalk
where I walk on my way to I don’t remember where.
I pass for a fleeting moment
beneath the ferocious weight
of this proud monument
that has outlasted everyone on this street.
These branches with so many years inside them remind me
that anything really worth remembering
never goes away.
I want the drivers I see
and the people crossing the street,
to be careful, to last a long time.
I want their kids to turn out all right.
All because I passed a Blue Oak
on my way somewhere.
About the poem:
Things that last a very long time are reassuring and comforting to me, as if they watch over and provide a backdrop for all of the temporary things that occupy us so fully as they come and go in our lives.
I Like Your Hat
We’re walking down the street
on the way to meet friends.
He stops a stranger and says,
I like your hat. I’ve never seen one like that,
and they run on for minutes.
I stare at him, point to my watch, roll my eyes.
We’re late again and I will have to apologize.
He asks for directions to a restaurant,
then begins with We’ve always wanted to go there
because I’ve heard…,
then he shares with someone I’ve never met
that my favorite food is shrimp.
Doesn’t he know I prefer salmon?
Again I roll my eyes.
There were so many times.
Only six weeks from diagnosis until he was gone.
It hasn’t been that long.
If only I could take back every one of those eye rolls.
About the poem:
This poem is based on the experience of a friend whose husband was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. He was a doctor and an athlete and was determined to beat the odds but died within a matter of weeks of his diagnosis. The whole experience was totally unexpected.
The Flapper Press Poetry Café
We welcome submissions from poets for the Flapper Press Poetry Café Poetry Spotlight series. We are always looking for compelling poetry and look forward to publishing and supporting your creative endeavors.
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