Sandhill: Exit, Laughing

Sandhill: Exit, Laughing

A Poem Poster for 4th of July, 2011

I stood a long time in front of this poem at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco.  It's one we all need to recite to ourselves today.

I

ROSES AT MISSION SANTA CLARA: Marie Ponsot

For days I carried around Marie Ponsot's new book of poetry, Easy, another of my purchases at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. It rested in my handbag as we rode the Cal-Train to San Jose to see our friend Mary Warner, who teaches at San Jose State. She took us to see the beautiful Santa Clara Mission, where outside the roses were in full display. Raised Presbyterian, with the fierce anti-Catholic attitude that sometimes comes along with that upbringing, I have always loved the interiors of Catholic missions.

I remembered a Ponsot poem that had captivated me the night before, a short piece entitled Transport.

The rose, for all its behavior,

is smaller than the lifelove it stands for,

only briefly brightening

and even its odor

only a metaphor.

Or so we suppose

just as we suppose the savior

we employ or see next door

is only some hired man

gardening.

The eight white crosses on the front lawn memorialize the 1989 martyrdom of the six University of Central America Jesuit priests and their co-workers during the Salvadoran Civil War. The Santa Clara Mission brought back into focus for me the real meaning of Christ's message, a message too often ignored and abused in these days of fundamentalist dogma that has made me want to keep my distance from any church interior. Strangely enough, I stood inside Mission Santa Clara and felt an unusual sense of peace and history, even knowing that history was filled with blood and suffering. And outside, the roses, the roses.....

A Chorus of Clouds: Nelly Sachs

We are full of sighs, full of glances,

We are full of laughter,

and sometimes we wear your faces.

We are not far from you.

Who knows how much of your blood rose

And stained us?

We play at dying,

accustom you gently to death.

You, the inexperienced, who learn nothing from the nights.

Many angels are given you

But you do not see them.

Excerpt from Chorus of Clouds, by Nelly Sachs,

translated by Ruth & Matthew Mead

DEEP WATER: Interview excerpts

Prior to my arriving at Lincoln Memorial University for the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival this weekend, Sara West, a student and promising young poet, asked me a series of questions for an interview to be published in LMU's The Emancipator. Here are some excerpts.

1. Where does the inspiration for your poetry come from?

What we call inspiration can come from just about anywhere; the important thing for a writer, or anybody, for that matter, is to try to stay attentive to what is happening both outside and within. Having said that, however, I can't deny that certain images, memories, lines from books I've read, slants of light, call to me in ways I can't ignore. I grew up surrounded by a legion of live oaks, hogs, cows, and cornfields, not to mention many cousins and other members of a large extended family. The landscape of that farm is probably the bedrock of my imagination, or certainly a huge part of it. The smells of it, the sounds, the stories rising up out of it, not to mention the growing sense as I grew older that it all was vanishing, that I would never be able to go back to the way it--and I--had been. At the same time I was in love with the mountains that we visited in the summer, the N.Ga. Blue Ridge where my father's family lived.

My grandmother had wanted to return to her home place before she died but never did. I knew I wanted to live in the mountains after graduate school, which I guess is a good example of that inner tug at one's attention I mentioned above. I've lived here in WNC since '68, and this Appalachian landscape has become as important to my imagination as that long ago S. Georgia one. The two seem to be partners in my imagination.

2. What part of the writing process do you most enjoy and why? (i.e., first drafting, revision, editing, poetry readings?)

How can one resist that first excitement of a rough draft, the fire of that first appearance of words that seem to be moving ahead of you, drawing you toward ....what? And who cares? The important thing is to follow as long as the verbal energy keeps uncoiling. I must say, though, that I enjoy the fruitful revision that comes later as a poem becomes more and more apparent in its shape and cadence. I do not enjoy staring at a poem in despair and calling that revision. Then it's time to get up and get out of the house, take a walk, listen to loud music, or do something with the hands, maybe knead bread, dig in the garden. Anything to let the poem lie in the darkness and do what it will with your imagination. Good revision brings the initial excitement of the draft back each time one returns to work on the poem. I don't enjoy editing. Write with fire, edit with ice, as a friend once said. One must be cold-hearted in the editing process, and frankly I don't like putting on ice-glasses to read my own work. It scares me. What if what I thought was brilliant turns out to be full of holes? Poetry readings can produce a real high, if they go well, if I feel a connection with the audience. And it's my job as a reader to make that connection, to sense where the audience is and bring my work to that place. I enjoy reading poetry aloud, whether mine or someone else's. Actually, I prefer reading someone else's. Readings, if done well, do so much to re-vitalize that connection with language, and I've had people come up after a reading to say, "I didn't think I liked poetry but I really could see what was happening in..." and what follows is some connection made with that listener's own experience.

3. When and how did you realize you wanted to delve into poetry?

I began with writing fiction, no doubt because the women models before me were women--Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, for example. Of course there was Emily Dickinson but I just couldn't feel much connection with her, being a New Englander, so terse, so, well, tight-lipped. I didn't know of any Southern women poets as I headed out. My first stories were derivative and to be honest, I really didn't enjoy writing them. I just thought I was supposed to be writing them. Fortunately I had a professor my senior year in college who introduced me to some poets who made me want to write poetry, including some John Crowe Ransom and Robert Penn Warren; he urged me to begin to draw on my own experience, my own landscape and memories, and that opened the way into poetry for me.

4. Do you use poetry more as a medium for personal expression or a way to address deeper issues? Poems begin for most of us as personal expression, because one must begin where one is, after all, but from that beginning the poem moves by the sheer nature of poetry itself into the deeper issues. The currents beneath the shimmering "personal" surface lead the imagination downward to the riverbed where the treasures lie--the music and imagery of our inner lives that never stops unfolding, no matter what is going on above the surface. I have difficulty splitting hairs here, because the personal leads to those deeper currents, if we are attentive and heed what is going on around us. There's no way I can avoid the depths if I let the flow of the poem carry me, no matter what triggered it.

SAN FRANCISCO: Where to Begin?

Well, how about breakfast on our first morning in the city? We strolled a few steps down Sutter Ave. to Lori's Diner, which looked like a frantic place. Long line. Busy waitresses. Energetic hostess! "The countah?", she asked us. No. "Ok, no countah, follow me." And we did, to a table for two near the back, where a 50's Edsel was parked, lights on, with patrons around it taking photos. (I refused to join the crowd, sorry. No photo of the famous Edsel. Wait, you can see its headlights in the photo below.)

To the left a pinball machine featuring "Creature from the Black Lagoon", one of my faves when I was in the 6th grade!
Many framed photos of Marilyn.

There at our table was a juke box file (what did we call those things back then?) that, alas, was out of order. I was already reaching for my quarters, but I bet these days it would take more than that to play some songs. Somebody kept the music coming: The Supremes, Otis Redding, Beatles, Stones---I was ready to rock! I think my husband was embarrassed. The energetic hostess (see below) must have felt the same way, with a quick jive now and then as she balanced her stack of menus.

To our right was the gorgeous juke box, center of Lori's universe. The Fabulous Fifties, bring 'em on! You can see the fender of the Edsel in the corner of this photo.

The menu was not in the least esoteric, as you might have guessed. Just good American fare, lots of coffee, and memorable hash browns, of which I'm not usually a devotee. Like a good girl, I consumed only the crispy crust atop them. But I did go all out with carb-noshing when it came to the 9-grain toast. So, we gobbled our bacon, eggs, and toast and left ready to take on San Francisco. We returned to Lori's several times during our stay, and each morning I was fascinated by the hostess, Mary Donna, who moved sometimes like a soccer player and at others like chanteuse. She was amazing. I made a quick photo of her on our last breakfast, not a good shot. How could it be? I couldn't get her to slow down long enough.

I told her we'd see her in November when we return for a long weekend of more opera. A birthday present from my husband. Play on, sweet fifties/sixties juke box. We'll be back.

Brown Heart Beating

Several years ago I had a dream in which our garden was alive, a huge heart beating, the presence underneath it brown and, yes, masculine. I know the earth is supposed to be Mother, but this presence was more like Father. Whatever it was, it was ready to come forth and begin another season. Our small garden is a living presence, and this spring it has gone wild with greens.

Cabbages look like big birds about to fly off!

If I were getting married right now, I'd have a lettuce bouquet!

Bulls blood beets are coming along.

The Green Man oversees it all. Was he the presence I dreamed about, his heart beating underneath the soil, ready for spring?

Whoever he was, I lift a glass of Shiraz to him and to the garden. Salud!