Poet of the Day: Nancy Coats Posey

Nancy Posey is a firecracker of a woman. I met her through the NC English Teachers Association a few years back and admired her style. (I think she was wearing snazzy boots!) Former a high school English teacher, she now teaches at Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute, where she has organized a poetry symposium featuring Cathy Smith Bowers, Joseph Bathanti, and other excellent NC poets. She's an organizer, an energizer, and, yes, a POET. Her chapbook won the online contest sponsored by Robert Brewer's and this year was published. She is the kind of teacher our public schools can ill afford to lose. I wish we had more Nancy Posey's in classrooms across the state.

Nancy's first book, Let the Lady Speak was recently published. To order, please go to www.highlandcreekbooks.com/lettheladyspeak/index.html.

From the Introduction: As the eldest of five daughters, the third in five generations of first-born daughters, I was never discouraged from finding my voice or speaking my mind. This particular group of poems came together as I imagined not only what my grandmothers and great grandmothers might have to say, but other women in history and literature as well. I am most fortunate, too, that I do not have to imagine my own mother’s soft-spoken voice. I just have to stop and listen. A voracious reader, I worked my way through the biographies during some of my years in elementary, while I have found many of my fictional characters just as real. Always interested in considering the other point of view, therefore, I was just as curious about what Lady Macbeth or Scarlet O’Hara might have to say as Amelia Earhart or Anne Frank. I have a button pinned on the board beside my computer desk that reads “I’m a Good Listener!” Some days, if I listen closely, I hear some of those voices — the fictional, the historical — mingled with the voices from my own family. I pay homage by paying attention. — Nancy Posey

Here are some poems that I know you will enjoy.

Or Maybe the Day After That

I’m tired of thinking about Tara,
trying to save her for God knows what.
I’m tired of plenty
after all those months
of making do.
Sometimes I miss boiled turnips
and dirt under my nails.
I’m tired of dresses
made to order, petticoats
and ball gowns,
so tired I could rip these curtains
from the windows too.
I’m too tired to bear anyone’s grief
but my own,
tired of apologizing
for misplaced jealousy.
I don’t care if I have to loosen
my corsets after a hearty meal,
one I cooked myself.
Right now I have no plans
to make plans. Instead,
I’m going to sit right here
at the foot of the stairs
and have a good cry,
and I don’t care if anyone
gives a damn or not.
Maybe tomorrow, my thoughts
will come clearer—or
maybe the day after that.

Getting Away

Roots and wings, her mama always said,

Roots and wings, parroting something clever

she had heard from other wiser mothers,

but with her timing off, or just her common

sense. She never knew just which to bestow

when. As they started school, crying,

clinging to her skirts, she offered wings,

shooing them into strange new classrooms

sniffling, but when they wished to date,

to drive, she held tight, packing the soil tight

against their roots, shaping their branches

with twine. When they needed her

for goodnight prayers and nursery rhymes,

she insisted that they learn to entertain

themselves; when they begged to spend

the night with friends, she wept and claimed

they did not love her, leaving her alone

like that. No wonder then, that when they

met a friend, a man, anyone who showed

them kindness, they clung, believing every

word. No wonder still they left that house

the first chance they found, like desparate

passengers, rowing the lifeboat away

from the foundering ship, sawing at knots

that bound them with their teeth if necessary.

Feet

“I grant I never saw a goddess go;

my mistress when she walks treads on the ground.”

--William Shakespeare

Heavy footed, even back when I didn’t

weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet,

I could never slip up on anyone. I clomped

when barefoot, and in high heels, I clicked.

No one could accuse me of not trying,

though. Aware of more graceful girls,

I aspired—to no avail—to steal, unnoticed,

into their ranks but lived and breathed—

and walked—the personification of

two left feet. Dances were no different:

I trampled on the toes of luckless boys,

even tripping over my own two feet.

What vast relief, when I discovered poetry,

to find there feet content to trip along

as I directed; dactyls, iambs, trochees

all do my bidding, with unmatched grace.