Red Letter Poem #265

 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 #265

 

 

 

The Wicked Witch of the West

Goes to Seattle



I wasn’t always like this. As a girl, I loved

The shower, my wet hair heavy on my shoulders,

The warm soapy water on my back and legs.

It wasn’t like now, with fear and bitterness.

When I got my power, no one told me

I would have to sacrifice something,

And not of my choosing, which is why

When I received my talent during a thunderstorm—

You know the rest. My skin turned green from lament,

And I have come here to risk oblivion,

To sink into what I loved for so long, the one

Element that could return my heart to me.

I stare out the window at the rain pouring down

But have not yet decided how I will do it.

Will I run to the coffee shop next door, acting

Like I forgot my umbrella? Then take my

Hat off and stand under the edge

Of the awning and let the water drip

On my bare head? To feel my body

Run down itself until I am nothing

But what I have missed for so long.

To flow in a direction I don’t yet know,

But which no one can change,

Or ever take away.


––Jack Stewart



I know what you’re thinking: a little late, isn’t it? Why didn’t Steven run this poem back in March, when the Academy Awards were all abuzz with Jon Chu’s movie and, at the drop of a pointy hat, audiences couldn’t help but belt out: “I think I'll try/Defying gravity!” It’s true, I do on occasion tie Red Letter poems to seasons and cultural events, making real life the backdrop for a literary experience. And I’ll admit it: that was my plan all along when I first received Jack Stewart’s surprising poem about the possibility of washing a life free of its history, and transforming it into something new. But then I feared that it would be subsumed in the overarching drama of Broadway and Hollywood––the rather grand spectacle that Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel has unleashed on popular culture. Maguire’s brilliant idea was to shift our perspective on L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, and consider what made the Wicked Witch wicked in the first place. Such a dramatic lineage resulted: from Baum’s turn-of-the-century classic to numerous plays, other books, movies, musicals, and even now to this poem. It’s more than a little thrilling to witness one artistic vision demonstrating the generative power of cultural crosspollination. So I decided to wait, wanting readers to have a clean slate (or as much as that’s ever possible) when Jack’s more modest vision––stripped of stage lights and orchestration––first stepped out onto their inner stage.



From the very first, I loved the poet’s recasting of this little mythology, setting it into a contemporary American landscape which we all inhabit. I remember, when I was twenty, California was brimming with its ‘Summer of Love’ (younger readers: Google it), and I hitchhiked cross-country to experience my generation's version of Oz. For young people in recent decades, Seattle and the Pacific Northwest seem to have been cast with that same aura of possibility. So who exactly is this woman Jack’s introducing us to––perhaps leaving behind a hot and arid place (like, say, Jack’s South Florida) and lighting out for the West (a decidedly greener and rainier terrain)? And what’s caused her aversion to the cleansing/comforting power of a warm shower? Did you find yourself considering all the ways this once-happy girl might have come to feel her life sullied? Or was that “power” she’s attained simply the change from innocence to womanhood, with all the apprehensions brought on by her life in a society where a woman’s autonomy can be challenged by the male powers-that-be? And so she’s journeyed to a locale where precipitation is a common occurrence––“come here to risk oblivion,/ To sink into what I loved for so long…”. Reading (no, thinking her thoughts) through this persona poem, I began feeling the many ways my own life has calcified, grown comfortable in its old ways––even while knowing how certain elements were never ‘in the plan’ and may not be conducive to furthering my dreams. This woman is willing to risk a kind of dissolution––“until I am nothing/ But what I have missed for so long”––and I’m left wondering what I’d be willing to risk in order “To flow in a direction I don’t yet know,/ But which no one can change…”. Our protagonist’s skin turned green from lament; mine might be more out of envy.



Jack has become a frequent contributor to the Red Letters. Formerly a Brittain Fellow at The Georgia Institute of Technology, he now teaches writing in Fort Lauderdale at the Pine Crest School. His first collection, No Reason, was published in the Poeima Poetry Series in 2020. New work has appeared in numerous literary journals like Poetry, the New York Quarterly, and the Iowa Review, garnering nine nominations for the Pushcart Prize. I love how, in his poetry, Jack twists situations, charges syntax, and continually defies expectations––anything to keep the reading experience fresh. I can easily imagine his protagonist, beneath the cataract descending that shop awning, feeling herself reborn into a wholly new circumstance. Is she singing to herself: “Something has changed within me/ Something is not the same…”? Or maybe she’s more old school and––watching gulls and osprey angling through the downpour, heading back toward the sea––she’s awaiting the rainbow which must surely come. Is she entertaining the possibility of wings to carry her beyond all expectation, maybe thinking: “Why, oh why can't I?

 

 

 

 

The Red Letters

 

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* 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

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And coming soon:

a new website to house all the Red Letter archives at StevenRatiner.com