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/3054-redletter-092421), 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 #80
As I was thinking about Yim Tan Wong’s poem, “Angelfish”, I found myself bumping into odd bits of reality that seemed to coalesce in my mind. One was a quote from the eminent physicist Stephen Hawking from The Grand Design: “A few years ago, the city council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved bowls... saying that it is cruel… because, gazing out, the fish would have a distorted view of reality. But how do we know we have the true, undistorted picture of reality?” Indeed – especially when we seemingly spend much of our own existence in self-constructed fish bowls designed to keep us feeling safe within our own private distortions. Meanwhile, in Congress, a furious debate was taking place about the power of Facebook and other social media companies to shape our understanding of the world. Following the testimony of a whistleblower, we were all getting a peek behind the curtain into how their algorithms were engineered to monopolize our attention – no matter how destructive the effects on our political and social relationships, and even our most intimate self-awareness – all in order to maximize profits. If we never hear anything that provides us with a new perspective – or challenges the unexamined truths of our own – we might find ourselves living and dying without ever fully grasping what our lives were about. So then I took Mary Oliver’s New and Selected Poems off the shelf and turned to the wonderful poem “When Death Comes”: “When it's over, I want to say all my life/ I was a bride married to amazement./ I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.” The poem concludes with what I’ve always considered a dire warning: “I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.”
Yim Tan’s sly imagination coaxes us, not only to shift our point of view, but to consider the very medium of consciousness in which we swim. There is both a childlike joy and quiet menace mixing just below the surface; it made me feel that thin layer of glass between me and, well, everything – and I wondered whether it might possibly give way. Born in Kowloon, Hong Kong, Yim Tan spent her formative years in Fall River, MA – and so her mind had no choice but to learn to negotiate the crosscurrents of her circumstance. That she attained an MFA from Hollins University, became a Kundiman Emerging Asian American Poets Fellow, and began placing poems in numerous literary journals attests to her mastery of those challenges. Her first poetry collection has been a finalist for poetry prizes from both Four Way Books and Alice James Press – and it’s only a matter of time before we all will get to enjoy more of her work.
On the radio now, I’m hearing Phoebe Bridgers’ plaintive voice singing: “When I grow up, I’m gonna look up from my phone and see my life.” Our fishbowls can only contain us for so long – if we truly desire more. Yim Tan’s poem makes me want to leap free, no matter what I find on the outside.
Angelfish
Do they believe the world
undulates beyond artificial
vegetation, fins, and algae?
Do they trust bite-sized food
drifts from a Greater Above?
Ahoy from Upper Here,
I say, and tap the glass.
Fogging their view,
I introduce myself, as
God, water, weather.
Then, they surge and heave
their bodies over the wall
to feel my palms ignite their skin,
each scale a small factory
manufacturing mirrors and prayer.
–– Yim Tan Wong
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