Red Letter Poem #242

  The Red Letters

 

 

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 #242

 

 

 

 

 



The Winners


Remember the game

Tim one day proposed:

we each think of a word,

and keep it a secret forever,

all our lives, and whoever

guessed was the winner?

Another silliness of his,

like his wildly unhelpful hints

for Twenty Questions:



“OK, here’s the middle vowel

in the last name.”



And we’d laugh. But now,

after the end of his life,

surely everyone in this hall

must be thinking a word—

one that fills each heart,

a word we needn’t say aloud.





––Susan Donnelly







In our society, grief is often treated like a private thing––too personal to be shared beyond one’s immediate circle of family and friends. But because of that attitude, people at their most vulnerable moments may even feel something akin to shame if their emotions spill out into public view. And this is a bitter irony because it’s one of the experiences that transcends every

family background, religious tradition, affinity group, and nationality: if you are human, you will experience loss. Every face I pass on the street shares this sad potentiality. Awareness of this, you might say, is part of the essential nature that defines our species. And this corollary follows: the more you allow yourself to love, the more you’ve placed your heart at risk. Poets, over the centuries, have often defied that enforced silence, and instead have shared the depths of such suffering in carefully-honed language. Two examples from New England come quickly to mind––Donald Hall writing about the death of his wife, and Martha Collins about the loss of her husband––but there are many more. And to that group, I’ll now add Susan Donnelly’s heartbreaking little chapbook The Winners: Poems for Tim, a collection written in the time leading up to her brother’s death and its aftermath. Like Hall’s and Collins’s, these poems were not necessarily written for public consumption; they were, in part, simply an essential way of keeping faith with her sibling as Tim slowly succumbed to illness––and, perhaps, to keep her own mind from closing off to those overwhelming emotions. Perhaps there was a thought that they might eventually be shared with family members (though even that was not certain from the outset.) She began bringing them to a poetry circle of which I am a member, and was gratified to see how strongly we responded. It’s a truism I learned from my years of teaching young people and adults: a side of us firmly believes that our experience is so individual, “no one else can possibly understand.” But if we feel brave enough to share the poems, they always result in the happy astonishment that our personal suffering not only makes sense to others, it somehow grants them permission to feel their own lives more deeply.



This encouragement finally prompted Susan to print a small chapbook for family and friends––but, I am pleased to report, she plans on adding a section of these poems to a new manuscript-in-progress, so they will eventually be able to gain entrance into many other kitchens, family rooms and, yes, hospice wards. What I find so compelling about the poems in The Winners is their matter-of-factness; they are never overly poetic, sticking instead to the careful observation of everyday scenes. It’s what she refers to in another of the poems as “Our/ family-style repartee/ of humor and heartache.” Yet there is an unassuming elegance to her reporting, and a tone of voice that makes us feel as if we, too, were family and could share in the pain of this relinquishment. This is a quality exhibited in all six of her prior poetry chapbooks and four full-length collections. The newest of those is The Maureen Papers and Other Poems (from Every Other Thursday Press) whose title sequence shared New England Poetry Club’s Samuel Washington Allen Award.



In today’s poem, Susan recalls the playfulness, the light touch her brother possessed, even in the face of an illness he knew would claim his life. What a strange and marvelous game to propose: that we acknowledge a secret each family member would carry, and of which we might only guess. Instead of ‘Twenty,’ perhaps it should be called ‘Ten-thousand Questions.’ And what might such a secret spark in our attention? It brings to mind the Hindu greeting Namaste––‘the God in me greets the God in you.’ Pausing, even for a second, to consider that inner secret might alter what our eyes see next. Right now, are you picturing the face of some beloved family member or friend, perhaps a person at an unimaginable distance? And is there some word that comes to mind which you hold as a link between your lives, that summons memory, secures their place in your heart? If so: ring the bell––we have another winner!

 

 

 

Red Letters 3.0

 

 

 

* 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

 

 

* To learn more about the origins of the Red Letter Project, check out an essay I wrote for Arrowsmith Magazine:

https://www.arrowsmithpress.com/community-of-voices

 

and the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene

http://dougholder.blogspot.com

 

* For updates and announcements about Red Letter projects and poetry readings, please follow me on BlueSky

@stevenratiner.bsky.social

and on Twitter          

@StevenRatiner

 

And coming soon:

a new website to house all the Red Letter archives!