Glenis Redmond's poem "Footnotes" closes out the new issue of APPALACHIAN HERITAGE, and I will have to give five-star credit to editor George Brosi for that decision, because the poem is, in addition to being a stunner, a piece that lingers in your mind long after you've closed the magazine. Glenis, well-known as a performance poet, has been honing her poetic skills and expanding her poetic territory over the past few years. When I heard her read at the recent Wordfest celebration in Asheville, back in May, I said to my friend and sister-participant Fatemeh Keshavarz, "Yes, indeed!" (Lots of head-nodding going on!) To myself I said, um-humh, she's workin' it; yes ma'am, she is bringin' it! Her villanelle about forsythia is still singing inside my head. So is "Footnotes," where I can find a word like "tote" and remember my grandfather using it, so many years ago. Who uses that word anymore? Glenis brings it back from that "silent edge" over which so much might disappear if we did not have our poets to bring it back to us.
Glenis will have a new book, UNDER THE SUN, coming out from Main Street Rag in late August, so stay tuned to our ncarts.org site, where we will be featuring it. In the meantime, here is "Footnotes."
FOOTNOTES
Glenis Redmond
Where does history go
when it hasn’t been tended?
I say it grows wild amongst
the Periwinkle, the Turkey-foot fern
and my mind. There it is
right along side my heavy heart
like that mass of stones left on a hill
the only remnants left of the Kingdom
speaking of mountain royalty,
King Robert and Queen Louella
leased for ten cents a day
by a Civil War widow, named Serpta.
Their rule over 200 acres
of chopping, hauling and toting.
I understand this urgency
the need of self-appointment.
I hear it in the restless wind on the ridge
or are those ancestral voices crying out
about the uneasy quilt stitch heresay
of their lives being left to myth and lore?
Where does history go when it dies?
When corn cribs and makeshift houses
no longer riddle the mountain slopes
and forty years of hands culling
Comfrey into a healing balm
along with Gospel Songs cease.
This silent edge is where I live
filled with heartache remembering history
and where it goes without a foothold.
3 comments:
Beautiful poem! I love the question -'Where does history go when it hasn't been tended?'
Too much of history has been the exclusive province of dead white men -- thanks god for the poets and writers and artists of every ilk who are tending history now!
yay! Glenis is a member of our Artists-in-the-Schools roster here in Johnston County. So proud to say that we have artists like Glenis visiting our schools!
I try to tote things as often as possible. :)
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