Red Letter Poem #294

 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 #294

 

 

 

 

On Starting the Car to the Final Movement

of Bach’s First Keyboard Concerto After

Making it on EMPTY to Junior’s Automotive

 

 

This must be what Allegro’s for—

an avenue of relief and jubilance,

your life refilled, technicolored

with orange cones,

blinking traffic lights,

shoppers, hardhats, cyclists,

where everyone around you

seems to know—

as surely he did also,

that prolific maker

of children and chorales—

you’re on the road again.

And what is more, this road

can lead you anywhere.

 

 

                                   ––Susan Donnelly

                                   

 

 

 

 

 

Susan Donnelly is a master of restraint.  Her poems tend to arrive in the guise of the simplest of everyday events.  A second and third reading, though, slowly allows the pathos depicted in her miniature compositions to grip our attention, often turning us both outward and inward with a single gesture.  She deftly captures the vicissitudes of aging and loss in our surprisingly chaotic century––and the ways that this sharpened awareness actually makes us savor those rare moments of calm and beauty that somehow endure.  We see this approach at work in her four full-length collections and six chapbooks.  The long title sequence from The Maureen Papers and Other Poems (from Every Other Thursday Press) was the co-recipient of the Samuel Washington Allen Award from the New England Poetry Club.  The Winners: Poems for Tim, is a small elegiac collection she recently published, written about her brother who succumbed to cancer in 2023.  In it, these thirteen poems somehow managed to convey the intimate nature of grief, extraordinary and shockingly mundane.

 

Having said all this, I sometimes forget how funny Susan can be––a wry, often self-deprecating kind of humor that elicits knowing smiles (not to mention those little winces of self-recognition on our part).  At a time when we check the headlines each morning to find out what new outrage has become normalized, or which existential dread will be served up as a traumatic le petit-déjeuner at our table, sometimes a poem will provide that momentary stay against confusion we are hungering for.  She begins today’s piece with one of those elaborately long titles we probably associate with the 18^th-century Augustans, or even earlier verse from the classical Chinese.  Having pushed her modest chariot (not to mention her luck) to its very limit, somehow the speaker has made it safely to her local service station and refueled her tank for another three hundred-plus miles of urban freedom.  The title places us at the very moment when, key in the ignition, she knows she’s been saved.  And two ecstatic sounds envelop the speaker’s mind: the four cylinders of her car engine churning into life; and that 18^th-century psycho-spiritual fuel source that is the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.  Indeed, “This must be what Allegro’s for—/ an avenue of relief and jubilance. . .”––as the poet’s heart speeds with the music and she toes the accelerator.  Suddenly, the city seems a little phantasmagoria of bright colors, and we can blithely rush into our futures, intoxicated by the freedom this modern world offers us (or some of us, at least––but let’s not worry about that for the moment), bang a right, hit the open road!

 

Yet perhaps, as we drive––soothed by the thrum of the engine, the blur of passing scenery––other thoughts creep into mind.  Aren’t we, in our troubled age, in desperate need of the sort of imaginative genius and encompassing faith of a Bach?  Is our society even hospitable for such talent?  Thinking of “that prolific maker/ of children and chorales,” we can’t help wondering what we are leaving behind for future generations, as we speed toward life’s inevitable off-ramp, the sky above us orange with carbon emissions.  What is it in human nature that entices us to drive on empty in the first place, knowing full well what might result from our miscalculation?  I wasn’t quite sure at first how Susan did it––but now my mind, too, was racing along like all those exuberant measures of forte in the composer’s score, feeling freedom and dread intertwined.  Or have I missed the point: should I have stopped at “jubilance” and made this diminutive sonnet the occasion for a little joy?  Or was this always intended to instigate a more subtle journey?  Susan’s humor is not the in-your-face riffs of a Nikki Glaser; hers are the ingenious vignettes of a classic storyteller like Carol Burnett, rife with irony and rich with emotion––maybe spiced with a little of that inner ventriloquism that Maria Bamford does so well, sly narrators who guide us into the depths.  Susan offers us unusual takes on everyday scenes so we might laugh (under our breaths) at the absurdity of it all.  Balm?  Admonition?  A mélange of both?  Perhaps “this road can lead (us) anywhere.” 

 

 

 

 

The Red Letters

 

* 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

 

* The weekly installment is also available at

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 visit the Red Letter archives at: https://StevenRatiner.com/category/red-letters/

 

Poet Trapper Markelz sends his daughters 'off to war'

Interview with Doug Holder


I contacted poet Trapper Markelz about his new collection of poetry, " Off to War, Daughter."  Trapper is on the advisory board of the New England Poetry Club.

Trapper Markelz (he/him) writes from Arlington, Massachusetts. He is the author of the chapbooks Childproof Sky (Cherry Dress, 2023) and Off To War, Daughter (Rockwood Press, 2026). His work has appeared in the journals Baltimore Review, Passengers Journal, Pine Row Press, Wild Roof Journal, The Dewdrop, and Poetry Online, among others. Learn more at trappermarkelz.com

You are a high-tech person-- what led you to poetry?


It is true, I’ve been involved in technology since a very early age. You actually get a view of this in the last poem of my book titled Standing Ovation, where I describe some of my earliest interactions with my grandfather about programming games in BASIC on my Laser 128 Apple-compatible computer. From there, I went on to run dial-up bulletin board systems (BBSs) out of my basement in junior high and high school, and on to the internet and websites through the 90s into online community development, ad networks, video games, healthcare, and beyond.


Much of the work with software and technology is writing. The code is a language. The developer and customer documentation is language. The design and technical specifications are language. The documents for running a company, fundraising, pitching, business deals, and day-to-day operations–it's all language that has to communicate not just with machines, but lots of different kinds of people.


I got into poetry pretty late. I heard an NPR episode about Jim Harrison's life in 2018 and started exploring his work. From there, the floodgates opened, and I started reading voraciously. Works included Ted Kooser, Billy Collins, Tom Hennen, Jane Hirshfield, Louise Glück, and Jane Kenyon. I got a POETRY subscription, as well as Rattle, a half dozen others, and was just reading poetry at every moment.


Growing up, it was common in my family to try new things. We value hobbies and the process of becoming curious about something, learning it, and doing it. I was just standing in the shower one day, and I killed a little bug that was crawling on the windowsill… and a bunch of words just flashed into my mind. I jumped out of the shower and wrote them down. That was my first poem. I’ve been learning, writing, and submitting ever since.


What is different about this collection of poetry from others that you have written?


Well, it’s only my second collection [laughs], and it continues in a theme of family. My first book, Childproof Sky (Cherrydress Chapbooks, 2023), was about the loss of my daughter, June, to SIDS in 2009 and the grief and growth that came from that. I wanted this second book to be about living in the shadow of that loss, but also how you can step into new light. When you lose a child, you live with the new reality that it can happen again. Your perspective on everything shifts. Before losing a child, you feel a bit invincible, and then that armor is ripped away in one moment, and it’s easy to find yourself hesitating around every corner.


But I didn’t want to live that way. This new book, Off to War, Daughter (Rockwood Press 2026), is about how you can build a new kind of armor forged from moving forward–how you can get back in the arena, I guess, as Roosevelt wrote. My poem There is Fire, goes right at this feeling:
There is Fire


She watches orange paper lanterns

reach across the twilight pond–

one by one in a soft wind

extinguished


and submerged, except for one

single lantern

arcing away

in missing man formation


before a sudden sign of flame

pitches firefly embers

that fade in the cold,

young wishes

that slip to space.


I’m watching her grow up.

Right now. By this water,

releasing lanterns


like I release her


—into the water,


the wind,

the dark,

the flame.





In that poem, you have elements of fire, water, rain, etc., to describe your children's release into the world. It sounds like some Shakespearean maelstrom. Do you ever feel like King Lear at the edge — screaming against these very elements? The lurking storm ahead?


[laughs] I’m not really much of a screamer, to be honest. But I was a child once. I did grow up like the rest of us. I found myself dodging my way through the shooting gallery that is life. I look back at how I made it to this moment and, wow, if it isn’t a whole bunch of luck!


At the heart of that poem is an image of all these lanterns lifting off, sailing into the sky. Some were blown right back down into the water and extinguished before even starting. Others floated around and crashed into each other. Others never even lifted off. But this one lantern… it somehow beat the odds. It lifted up and sailed away from the others. We want our kids to be that lantern.


That is probably what scares me the most, how much random chance this all is. My wife and I could do everything right, and we could still see these beacons of hope and light extinguished. That’s just something I meditate on regularly. You have to get to a place where you acknowledge it. We can’t control whether the storms come and go. We just have to live through them, hope we make it to the next day, and be ok with that hope.


I never had children, and your poems about your four daughters seem to be a love song, laced with fear for their future. How hard is it to let go of children?


I’ve been so lucky, which, when you lose a child, is a real triumph to be able to say. It all starts with my amazing wife, Maureen, who is just one of the most resilient and stable people I’ve ever met in the world. You don’t need an amazing marriage to raise amazing kids, but it sure does help. Life is a team sport, and not having to do it alone is such a gift. Having a solid foundation like that makes it a lot easier to see your kids grow and move on.


I grew up the oldest of four, and in my family, it was pretty clear that the expectation was that we were to go out into the world and make our own space. I like to think I’ve passed that on to my kids, and they are excited to get out there and build a life. I wouldn’t say it’s hard to let go. I’m excited to see them thrive and build their own life. What can be hard is when you think back to what’s passed, about how challenging, but how fun those days were when they were younger and everything that has changed. But it’s a joy to have lived through that and be here now watching them grow, entering new life stages, and telling new stories.


I’ve also been lucky to have a son, Jack, as well, the two of us smiling as all these strong women orbit around us. I’m planning my next collection around him, my Dad, and some of the other friends in my life. It’s been great seeing him grow into a smart and kind young man who benefits from all these sisters! Although he might not see it that way! [laughs] But seriously, it’s a great household, and they are all a big part of my writing as I try to find a little meaning from the meaningless.


You have been influenced by the poet Jim Harrison, a poet and writer who was known for his intimacy with nature...it was his religion-- so to speak. Is this true for you? What do you take from this writer?


Harrison was the first poet I really connected with. I credit his work with opening the door for me to experience poetry. I was born in Alaska and grew up surrounded by nature. It’s something I took for granted when I was younger because it was just all around me. But as I've grown older, I’ve been drawn back to places and pastimes that put me outdoors. My kids have grown up camping in New Hampshire and hiking the White Mountains. I’ve discovered a love of cycling down winding roads, and fishing the quiet of a pond at sunrise or sunset.


Much of what Harrison writes about are these moments that connect our small human experience to time and nature, which is so large. I also strive in my own work to connect the everyday to big ideas. He has a poem in his book Songs of Unreason that I remember reading for the first time, and it just left me dumbstruck. It’s a short untitled piece that goes “I read so much that my single eye became hot / as if it had been staring into nebulae. / Of course it had. On some clear nights in the country / the stars can exhaust us. They only mean what they are.” I strive for that clarity and that perspective of the immense in my own work, and enjoy revisiting it in his.


Why should we read this book?
I typically read the books of people with whom I somehow develop a connection. Maybe it’s an interview or a poem that appears in some journal. You connect with that, and you think, “I felt something there… I’m interested in feeling more.” Maybe that happened here today!

Red Letter Poem #293

  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 #293

 

 

 

 

 

Making Love in a Cemetery

 

 

Here, the Tantrics and Sufis dance away fear

when the moon is full of herself, the sky a void.

Old four-armed Death can never lift her spear

when those monks chant and keep their circle squared.

Our bodies open now, atop the Mother,

we shudder in each other's arms.  A Druid

terror enters with love’s ebbing tide—

what moon-drowned promise are we drawn to here?

 

Can we, ringed by darkness and our waning need,

utter one word for burial, place of seed?

Will we break this spellbound circle, or ever know

what Spirit, what lightening sky we're praying to—

here, where love and fear draw the same breath,

fusing our lives in this first phase of our death?

 

 

                                   ––Carolyne Wright

                                   

 

 

 

 

 

When I was an erstwhile English major (several centuries ago, it seems––a feeling many of you may also be experiencing), the literary portrayal of April contained decidedly mixed messages.  There was: “Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,/ The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,”––Eng. 205, Intro to Chaucer.  The professor made us memorize the first fifty lines of the Canterbury Tale’s Prologue and recite them before the class.  I certainly understood the drought that epitomized my sophomore year––but as I spoke the verses, my attention kept drifting toward a certain young woman in the third row, and the sweet-smelling mist that seemed always to envelop her.  How I longed to bathe every veyne, every leaf and petal, in love’s swich licóur.  But, that same semester, I’d somehow talked my way into the advanced Modern Poetry seminar where I was offered austere Mr. Eliot’s pronouncement: “April is the cruellest month, breeding/ Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing/ Memory and desire, stirring/ Dull roots with spring rain.”  Instant buzz-kill, to be sure, and my visions of passionate embrace were swept away.  Right there, in the actual ‘spring of my life,’ the confluence of love and death made my head spin.  It would take some time before I’d learn how inextricably woven they were, each amplifying the meaning of the other, and teasing out unexpected possibilities.  Perhaps Carolyne Wright learned that lesson earlier than I, and used it to temper the steel and strengthen the silk of her poetry.  Writer, educator, editor, translator, Carolyne’s life is the full flowering of that traditional English curriculum.  Author of a dozen poetry collections––including, most recently, Masquerade, a memoir in poetry, and This Dream the World: New & Selected Poems (both published by Lost Horse Press)––her work has received numerous honors including a Pushcart Prize, a poem selected by by The Best American Poetry, three Fulbright grants and another from the National Endowment for the Arts.

 

I think today’s poem requires a few readings in order to feel how the formality of its diction and creative approach result in an array of push-pull forces, setting head and heart into motion.  Carolyne is presenting to us that most unbridled of passionate encounters: teenaged lust, played out in one of the few places young lovers can resort to for privacy––the graveyard.  But It all takes place within the staid elegance that is her loosely-rhymed Italian sonnet.  “(T)he moon is full of herself, the sky a void”––and the tension between presence and absence is already rising.  Quick bursts of mystic philosophy cloud our heads, but our senses are carrying us away.  “Our bodies open now, atop the Mother,/ we shudder in each other's arms.”  What a marvelous whiplash burst of electricity conjured by that one image: this couple writhing atop––either a gravestone marked Mother, or the primordial notion of the Great Mother whose planetary abundance is the source of all life.  No wonder “A Druid/ terror enters with love’s ebbing tide.”  Once we actually come to understand that death and loss are not simply childish nightmares––and that, impossible as it seems, we will not be exempt––every burst of pleasure, each act of love is a way to, if not forestall oblivion, then at least defy it.

 

The formal rhyme scheme of the poem is a stabilizing presence, even as we reflect on what such an act signifies.  “Will we break this spellbound circle,” or ever know what undiscovered emotional, societal and, dare I say, spiritual forces are driving our actions?  I remember when some prof at my university spoke of the 16^th century French concept of ‘little deaths’ (la petite mort), referring to those moments of profound transition embodied in sexual release.  What a haunting notion to plant inside the overactive mind of a nineteen-year-old!  To accept that, as Carolyne phrases it, “love and fear draw the same breath” is to settle into our mortal bodies––not necessarily more comfortably but more honestly.  Even thinking about this today, I recall the words of that other learned medievalist, David Bowie, who sang: “They pulled in just behind the bridge/ He lays her down, he frowns:/ Gee my life's a funny thing, am I still too young?”  Some days, I feel that may be the case.  Or should we white-haired teenagers turn to another lyric from almost the same year, this from Mr. Dylan: “May you stay forever young.”  Something we can hum under our breath as we prepare ourselves for our April pilgrimage.

 

 

 

 

The Red Letters

 

* 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

 

* The weekly installment is also available at

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 visit the Red Letter archives at: https://StevenRatiner.com/category/red-letters/