The Red Letter Poem Project The Red Letters 3.0: A New Beginning (Perhaps)

 The Red Letter Poem Project

 

The Red Letters 3.0: A New Beginning (Perhaps)   

At the outset of the Covid pandemic, when fear was at its highest, the Red Letter Project was intended to remind us of community: that, even isolated in our separate homes, we could still face this challenge together. As Arlington’s Poet Laureate, I began sending out a poem of comfort each Friday, featuring the fine talents from our town and its neighbors. Because I enlisted the partnership of seven local arts and community organizations, distribution of the poems spread quickly – and, with subscribers sharing and re-posting the installments, soon we had readers, not only throughout the Commonwealth, but across the country. And I delighted in the weekly e-mails I’d receive with praise for the poets; as one reader recently commented: “You give me the gift of a quiet, contemplative break—with something to take away and reflect on.”



Then our circumstance changed dramatically again: following the murder of George Floyd, the massive social and political unrest, and the national economic catastrophe, the distress of the pandemic was magnified. Red Letter 2.0 announced that I would seek out as diverse a set of voices as I could find – from Massachusetts and beyond – so that their poems might inspire, challenge, deepen the conversation we were, by necessity, engaged in.

 

Now, with widespread vaccination, an economic rebound, and a shift in the political landscape, I intend to help this forum continue to evolve – Red Letter 3.0. For the last 15 months, I’ve heard one question again and again: when will we get back our old lives? It may pain us to admit it, but that is little more than a fantasy. Our lives have been altered irrevocably – not only our understanding of how thoroughly interdependent we are, both locally and globally, but how fragile and utterly precious is all that we love. Weren’t you bowled over recently by how good it felt just to hug a friend or family member? Or to walk unmasked through a grocery, noticing all the faces? So I think the question we must wrestle with is this: knowing what we know, how will we begin shaping our new life? Will we quickly forget how grateful we felt that strangers put themselves at risk, every day, so that we might purchase milk and bread, ride the bus to work, or be cared for by a doctor or nurse? Will we slip back into our old drowse and look away from the pain so many are forced to endure – in this, the wealthiest nation on the planet? Will we stop noticing those simple beauties all around us? The poet Mary Oliver said it plainly: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” I will continue to offer RLP readers the work of poets who are engaged in these questions, hoping their voices will fortify all of ours.

 

Two of our partner sites will continue re-posting each Red Letter weekly: the YourArlington News Blog (https://www.yourarlington.com/easyblog/entry/28-poetry/3015-redletter-061121), and the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene (http://dougholder.blogspot.com). If you would like to receive these poems every Friday in your own in-box – or would like to write in with comments or submissions – send correspondence to: steven.arlingtonlaureate@gmail.com.



In ancient Rome, feast days were indicated on the calendar by red letters. To my mind, all poetry and art serves as a reminder that every day we wake together beneath the sun is a red-letter day.



– Steven Ratiner

 

    

 

Red Letter Poem #64

 

 

Context is everything.



When I first read Jeffrey Harrison’s poem “Temporary Blindness” from his collection Into Daylight (Tupelo Press), I marveled at the physicality of his experience of grief. The poem was written after the death of his brother, an event that shook him to the core. Usually, a poem such as this offers readers a vicariousness through which we can explore – until we turn the page and return to the safety of our own lives. But read these same opening lines today – “It lasted a year and a half/ as if grief had closed an inner lid/ between my eyes and brain” – and tell me you’re not shaking your head right now, thinking the poet is describing what we’ve all gone through ever since we were first introduced to those two quietly-sinister words: novel coronavirus.



Certainly we’ve experienced a tremendous loss of life – the U. S. total topped 600,000 this week, and the worldwide deaths are approaching four million – but there may be fifty times that number of people whose lives were turned inside out by the illness. And even for families spared such acute pain, haven’t we all been traumatized by this pandemic, our very sense of normalcy (admittedly, a concept built on shaky foundations) forced to undergo a permanent transformation? And what of the last fifteen months that seemed to vanish like mist? Bereft of the solace of family and friends? And the pleasures of communal spaces and shared enjoyments – things that underscore a sense of we in a world increasingly atomized and estranged? And then there are the young children for whom this crisis overshadows most of what they know of life on this planet – masked, distanced, tinged with anxiety – how do we assess this grief? So even as our American cities are reopening for business, it’s not surprising how adrift many of us are feeling today.



And so I wonder: might we be heartened by Jeffrey’s poem, the reminder that healing does occur, though perhaps at a glacial pace? Even more, there’s the suggestion that a certain element of choice may be involved in this process: our determination to sharpen attention – and appreciation – of the simple beauties close at hand. How can we not savor what so many millions have had to relinquish? This thought brought one of Kenneth Patchen’s poem-paintings to mind; he depicts two confetti-colored beings standing beside this epigrammatic line, written in a childlike scrawl: “The One who comes to question himself. . .has cared for mankind.” In our changed existence, what questions are we now willing to entertain?

 

Temporary Blindness

 

 

It lasted a year and a half,

as if grief had closed an inner lid

between my eyes and brain

or slipped a caul over my head.

 

I spent my days in the black space

inside me, orbiting a dead star.

Now I want to return to earth.

I want to come back from the dead,

 

to remove the sack from my head

and breathe again,

and let the world in—

 

here, now, right in front of me—

to be awakened by a lake

glittering through trees.

 

 

                           —Jeffrey Harrison

Who Do You Think You Are? Reflections of a Writer’s Life by Joe Torra

 

Who Do You Think You Are? Reflections of a Writer’s Life

Article by Doug Holder

As I sat on my porch with my cat Ketz, and a strong cup of coffee—I thought about Somerville writer Joseph Torra’s new memoir, “Who Do You Think You Are? Reflections of a Writer’s Life…”

One of the many things that struck me about this evocative memoir is the writer’s relationship with his wife Molly. I know it is a cliché about the love of a good woman, but often clichés are based somewhat on truth. As I struggle with my own wife’s battle with cancer, I can certainly relate to what Torra brings out here. Without Molly, Torra might not have had the strength to carry on; he would not would be exposed to the breadth of the arts; he might have remained stuck in the provincial milieu of Italian working-class Medford. He may never of realized his dream of being a poet, writer, educator, publisher and editor.

Yet Torra is all these things and more. He is the author of such novels as “Call Me Waiter,” “Gas Station,” to name just a couple. He founded the well-regarded literary journal Lift Magazine, and he teaches Creative Writing at U/Mass Boston.

Torra, although he is an adjunct professor of creative writing (where he got his advanced degree from) is not enamored with the academy. He realizes its worth, but on the other hand sees its major flaws. Torra, read the literary cannon –but realized that the universities are not as open to the non-mainstream voices that he was so influenced by. He has dealt with the tenure-track professorial pomposity, and the narrow strictures of a curriculum that stifled him as a youth. William Carlos Williams, a poet who had a great deal of influence on him, searched for the “American Voice,” not the ‘English” one. And Torra’s voice is truly authentic-- an amalgam of the poets, artists, writers, Medford characters, old Italian men gesturing at each other in a corner coffee-shop, not to mention all the stumble-bums, we all encounter in this life. He sees life straight, with no chaser.

Influenced by Kerouac and Beat generation writers, Torra has always experimented with form. His sentences can be like a short jazz riff, or long and breathless without punctuation. His fiction writing can be likened to an abstract painting—breaking out of the confines of traditional representational imagery. There is an immediacy to his prose and poetry.

Torra is unafraid to bleed in this memoir—he tells us of his struggle with his manic depression, the vagaries of addiction, and the nagging haunt of self doubt. But Torra is a survivor and he got by with the help of his community and the centering of his family. If did not have domesticity in his life, and was the stereotypical footloose artist —well... he might not be here to have written this book.

Like any writer worth his salt, he has read voraciously and gained solace and insight from Taoist philosophers and poets, Mark Twain, Gary Snyder and a host of others. He counts as his longtime mentors like Gloucester poets Gerrit Lansing, Vincent Ferrini, as well as Boston literary maestro Bill Corbett. He took what he could from these men, and recognized that some of them were deeply flawed, but brilliant in their own ways. He could separate the artist from the man or woman.

Torra is not one dimensional. He is primarily a writer, but he has engaged in cross-fertilization in the arts from painting, being part of Boston’s vibrant punk rock scene, to the art of mushroom hunting.. All of these things inform his body of work.

At 65, the writer looks back, meditating on his porch, at the struggle, joys, and the beauty of his life. He tells friends that “he is ready to die.” Which I can only interpret as man who is finally comfortable in his own skin, and can truly say, “it is, what it is.”

Poem: From the Hospital Window by Doug Holder

 ****Beth Israel Hospital,  Boston, MA.

My wife

rests in

her cancer

bed,

as some

nefarious,

chaotic weed

blooms and feeds

in her body.

I look out the window

to the towers

of Boston University

they pierce

the gray day

and I can not

forget them.

I see

West Campus

the high-rise dorms

where I lived

psychotic

from bad weed

I picked up

from a joker 

on the Common,

throwing bags of urine

out the window

afraid to be

exposed in the

men's room.

Downed by a Green Line trolley

on Commonwealth Ave

woke up faceup...

shocked 

on the track.

A man in the Rat

in Kenmore Square

guarding his beer

saw me in

my army jacket

and long hair

(if that was possible)

I was

a rebel from the

broad lawns and

narrow minds

of the Long Island suburbs,

He cocked his

hat and head,

" Hey, asshole

I want to suck

your ass bone dry."

I felt all this

hate....

Nixon

and Watergate,

nude streakers

on Nickerson Fields

rush the goals

breasts and penises

flap in the wind

in protest.

A remnant of the SDS rises

in my philosophy class

with no due respect

and challenges

the tenured pomposity

of the professor.

Frisbees fly 

through the air

in disparate directions

like the mayhem

in my head.

I greedily

munch cashews

in the 

TV room

(like they were

some elixir)

in the Sherman Union

wondering why the White Album

only speaks to me

and are 'they'

outside the door?

The Red Letters 3.0: A New Beginning (Perhaps)

 

The Red Letter Poem Project

 

The Red Letters 3.0: A New Beginning (Perhaps)   

At the outset of the Covid pandemic, when fear was at its highest, the Red Letter Project was intended to remind us of community: that, even isolated in our separate homes, we could still face this challenge together.  As Arlington’s Poet Laureate, I began sending out a poem of comfort each Friday, featuring the fine talents from our town and its neighbors.  Because I enlisted the partnership of seven local arts and community organizations, distribution of the poems spread quickly – and, with subscribers sharing and re-posting the installments, soon we had readers, not only throughout the Commonwealth, but across the country.  And I delighted in the weekly e-mails I’d receive with praise for the poets; as one reader recently commented: “You give me the gift of a quiet, contemplative break—with something to take away and reflect on.” 

 



Then our circumstance changed dramatically again: following the murder of George Floyd, the massive social and political unrest, and the national economic catastrophe, the distress of the pandemic was magnified.  Red Letter 2.0 announced that I would seek out as diverse a set of voices as I could find – from Massachusetts and beyond – so that their poems might inspire, challenge, deepen the conversation we were, by necessity, engaged in.

Now, with widespread vaccination, an economic rebound, and a shift in the political landscape, I intend to help this forum continue to evolve – Red Letter 3.0.  For the last 15 months, I’ve heard one question again and again: when will we get back our old lives?  It may pain us to admit it, but that is little more than a fantasy.  Our lives have been altered irrevocably – not only our understanding of how thoroughly interdependent we are, both locally and globally, but how fragile and utterly precious is all that we love.  Weren’t you bowled over recently by how good it felt just to hug a friend or family member?  Or to walk unmasked through a grocery, noticing all the faces?  So I think the question we must wrestle with is this: knowing what we know, how will we begin shaping our new life?  Will we quickly forget how grateful we felt that strangers put themselves at risk, every day, so that we might purchase milk and bread, ride the bus to work, or be cared for by a doctor or nurse?  Will we slip back into our old drowse and look away from the pain so many are forced to endure – in this, the wealthiest nation on the planet?  Will we stop noticing those simple beauties all around us?  The poet Mary Oliver said it plainly: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”  I will continue to offer RLP readers the work of poets who are engaged in these questions, hoping their voices will fortify all of ours.

 

Two of our partner sites will continue re-posting each Red Letter weekly: the YourArlington News Blog (https://www.yourarlington.com/easyblog/entry/28-poetry/3001-redletter-042321.html), and the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene (http://dougholder.blogspot.com).  If you would like to receive these poems every Friday in your own in-box – or would like to write in with comments or submissions – send correspondence to: steven.arlingtonlaureate@gmail.com.

 

In ancient Rome, feast days were indicated on the calendar by red letters. To my mind, all poetry and art serves as a reminder that every day we wake together beneath the sun is a red-letter day.

 

                                                                                                    – Steven Ratiner

 

          

Red Letter Poem #63

 

 

 

To walk the talk.  In the world of business, this phrase of admiration refers to an individual who not only expresses some essential philosophical stance, but turns those concepts into concrete action.  In the world of poetry, I know of few who walk the talk more determinedly, with more grace and sheer delight, than Jane Hirshfield.  Her literary accomplishments include: nine volumes of poetry; three books of literary essays; a foundational anthology presenting four millennia of global women’s poetry; a much-prized co-translation from the Japanese; and frequent engagements as speaker and educator that carry her around the world.  Over her four-decade-long career, Jane has proven to be a trustworthy reporter on the human condition, reflecting both the beauty and pain inherent in that experience.  I’m delighted to see that her path in Alaya, published in 1982, is recognizably the same one traveled today in Ledger, her latest collection. 

 

Of course, there’s been evolution over time: the lush music of her early lyrics has grown more crystalline, restrained.  Her uncanny ability – capturing images that reveal the way the societal, material and spiritual experience of being human is, at every moment, interconnected – has become more subtle and refined.  In her recent work, we still find the wise regard and depth of feeling we’ve come to expect from Hirshfield poems, but it’s joined with a new fierceness, even anger, at the continuing brutality we inflict on each other and on the planet itself.  Her poem "Let Them Not Say", for example, has become something of an anthem in the movement combating climate change.  Many poets write today as if the self was the only object worthy of inquiry.  But art, music, science and history are braided into Jane’s curiosity and thought.  Her exploration encompasses human nature, the natural world, and their interwoven fates.  She’s developed a large and devoted readership, among whom I happily count myself.

 

The footer of Jane’s e-mails holds a quotation from another well-loved poet, Gwendolyn Brooks: “We are each other’s/ business;/ we are each other’s/ harvest;/ we are each other’s/ magnitude and bond.”  The business Jane is engaged in is the very one we each should attend to if we are to live without shackling ourselves to blindness and regret: how to love the days we are given, even as they escape us; how to embrace the simple beauties we encounter, though they are fragile and fleeting; and how to honor those same desires in every living being.  If we, at times, decline to pursue this enterprise – and in our busy lives, that’s easy to do – rest assured, some 48-point headline will soon come along to trumpet the latest calamity and wake us from our drowse. 

 

Coming upon the shell of a dead cicada, the great Japanese poet Basho wrote: “he sung himself utterly away.”  If Jane Hirshfield had to write a job description for the project of her poetry, I think that might come close: to continue singing until there is no more left of the instrument she was given – both voice and heart.  Those who love her poetry are grateful she’s employed her talents in that pursuit.

 

 

 

Practice

 

 

I touch my toes.

 

When I was a child,

this was difficult.

Now I touch my toes daily.

 

In 2012, in Sanford, Florida,

someone nearby was touching her toes before bed.

 

Three weeks ago,

in the Philippines or Myanmar, someone was stretching.

 

Tomorrow, someone elsewhere will bend

first to one side, then the other.

 

I also do ten push-ups, morning and evening.

 

Women's push-ups,

from the knees.

They resemble certain forms of religious bowing.

 

In place of one, two, four, seven,

I count the names of incomprehension: Sanford, Ferguson,

Charleston.

Aleppo, Sarajevo, Nagasaki.

 

I never reach: Troy, Ur.

 

I have done this for years now.

Bystander, listener. One of the lucky.

I do not seem to grow stronger.

 

                 

                                           –– Jane Hirshfield

 

                                                (from: Ledger; Alfred A. Knopf)