Cant Republic by Chad Parenteau

Review by Lo Galluccio

Just a few days before this very contentious Presidential election, I sat down with Chad Parenteau’s latest offering: a chapbook called, Cant Republic, whose cover features a photo of Donald Trump in a face mask with the word, “Placebo” scrawled on it. My first question was is “cant” a real word and it is. The definition is “hypocritical and sanctimonious talk, typically of a moral, religious or political nature.” Of course, there is also the play on the word “can’t” as if this republic, resting on Trump’s words alone, is an impossible one to sustain. And cant rhymes nicely with rant. But “cant” is the perfect word choice for this author’s take on the former President’s way of expressing himself as a so-called leader.



This is a book of erasure and blackout poems, where the author has taken out words, and repeated words and phrases, to show us the sort of underlying spell Trump is casting. My favorite erasure work is one by Phoebe Reeves of the Malleus Maleficarum, or The Hammer of Witches, which was released in 1486, a treatise on witchcraft by a German Catholic clergyman.

It was employed to persecute mainly if not exclusively women, of the sorcery of witchcraft. Its language is quite elevated and sometimes brutal in its call for the torture and extinction of witches. It was considered the standard handbook on witches until well into the 18th century.

One technique Reeves uses is to change the word “heresy” to “her “in her redaction in order to uncover the woman these poems speak about. I haven’t read the entirely of The Flame of her Will but admire the brilliant and beautiful way Reeves has altered this text into something like its opposite. For example:



“God, groping blindly, does not always give the world life. God is subject to a woman.”



Parenteau’s project is slightly different. It’s a timely exercise in stripping down Trump’s speeches into the marrow of their meaning, and as the back cover testifies to “a gutting of Democracy and civil rights, a boosting of ego and bravado, a moral and ethical decay that takes us all down with it.” Mark Lipman



Indeed, many Americans are aware of the pseudo-fascist nature of Trump’s charisma. There are still his robust followers who believe him to be a good leader and even great speaker. Perhaps never in the history of the U.S. has there been such a polarizing Presidential figure, a man who was impeached in office, but who unlike Richard Nixon, declined to resign; who has been convicted of 34 felony counts and who also refused to concede the 2020 election, even when there was ample evidence to prove it was free and fair.



In his introduction, Parenteau explains:



“The poems based on transcripts were less erasure or blackout poems and more highlight poems. As the pandemic went on, I spent my days going through pages and pages of his words with a

highlighter (orange of course) capturing what I judged to be his rampant ID and rotted ego (which has become one single monstrous voice…)



Clearly, despite his brazen lies and ridiculous non-sequiturs, Trump has managed to create a devoted following and one has to wonder what Americans really pay attention to, if not the words themselves? Some argue that Trump is loved for being an outsider, an anomaly and that his dumbed down rhetoric appeals to those turned off by the liberal Democratic Party elites. Be that as it may, Parenteau has chosen to wield a poet’s tool against the “brazen nonsense” that Trump imparts.



In the first piece, “Cant Republic,” he captures these words:



“It was

victory

we’re now

Trump territory

voters

overturned.”

P 8



and



“fraud

American public

this

country

this election

win this

win

to ensure

the

nation

this

‘ very big

nation

we want the law

to stop

in the morning…”

p 10



In the longest piece “Rough Beast Born,” a title taken from the Yeats’ poem, we see the colliding opposites in Trump’s speech, the endless repeating of words and phrases like “thank you” and “quarantine” and “ we’re setting records” and “terrible (people)” and “to beat” and “incredible.” He is a master of repeating simple phrases made to ingratiate himself, to subdue, to dramatize

during a public health crisis where millions of lives were at stake and when the US lost more lives than any industrialized nation with Trump at the helm.



“for decades

African Americans

children

African Americans

we are reversing

your

countries

ended

I am

the globe

I am

American.”

P 28



and



“a thing called murder

we won

did you see that

we won

p 30



And on the subject of healthcare Chad has uncoded these riffs:



“we killed

we’re trying to kill

you’ll have

preexisting conditions

preexisting conditions

doubled

think of that.”

P 33



and



“…you’re terminally ill

go home and

die

terminally ill

go to Asia

go to Europe

sign paper

get results

unbelievable

unbelievable”

p 33



It is perhaps the most powerful section in this book: the clear bullshit that Trump as President spewed about public health and the epidemic, how unwilling he was to engage in facts, to empathize or truly boost morale through positive action without his political ego being at stake. That familiar refrain, “unbelievable, unbelievable” that he ends so many of his crazy assertions with.



“we are

epidemic

deaths

disease

big deal

disease

people die

so much work

die from overwork

for a long time

The word

they have to do

so much easier

such an honor

great thing

great thing”

p 34





Parenteau has in some cases, bolded words to underscore their significance:



“til the end

I don’t get enough

I need

more….”

P 36



The Don uses words like “swamp, “invokes the expression “dirty people,” and “incredible stories,” always to somehow both denigrate and glorify the people who he’s trying to win over. In this poem, Parenteau highlights his subconscious fears and desires. Trumps tries to honor Americans who work but comes back to his administration’s greatness. How many times have we heard him say, “It’s gonna be great?” So vague, casual and pompous all at once.



The chapbook concludes with four shorter poems that encapsulate an episode of the Trump Presidency. In “At Home” the author transcribes:



“I know

pain

I know

hurt

we had

us

a landslide

everyone knows…

law and order

we

hurt

very tough…

This was

play

people

you’re

what happens

you

are

so bad

so evil

I know

You feel

peace

p 47



Again, Trump’s catch phrases of winning by a landslide, of law and order, of it being “very tough” for him, always to win sympathy and then the extreme demonizing “so bad/so evil” and the placating of “I know/you feel/peace.” This is the dance Trump does over and over -- the lying bravado and the simple attempt to identify with his people, draw them in with a statement as simple as “it’s tough” and then the reassuring statement at the end. In this version we see that Trump could as easily be calling his own followers, “so bad, so evil,” when of course he was alluding to his detractors in real time.



This poem was taken from a transcript of Trump’s January 6th words to Capitol rioters telling them to go home. And this was the event that for many Americans, marked the lowest point of his Presidency, an insurrection on the Capitol, an attempt to block, through violence, the certification of the people’s vote.



This is an ingenious collection that serves as a kind of testimonial to Trump’s deceptive and deceiving rhetoric, especially evident during the Pandemic.

Red Letter Poem #228

 Red Letter Poem #228

 

 

 

Door

The house wants to go home.

Boards sail to the forest, singly

and then in small flocks of rafters

and beams. Abandoned, the windows



tremble mid-air. You mingle

with them, murmuring, calming.

It was an old house.



Here's a door. You open it to trees

you've always seen from one angle.

Another step makes them new.



A line of footprints leads deeper,

under the tracks the boards left in air.

Time for you to follow.


––Pamela Alexander


I suspect you’ll agree: this has been one of the most unsettling autumns in memory. Not because of the petit terrors gusting in with All Hallows––those housebroken frights we indulge in so that we might consider the darker territories beyond our daily purview. No, I’m thinking of the genuinely horrifying headlines rising like flames from our political turmoil, making us all fearful about the future of our Republic. So it feels almost like a relief to set aside the latter for a moment and immerse ourselves in the disquieting vision offered in this new poem by Pamela Alexander. In this murky season, with winter fast approaching, our attention naturally turns to thoughts of de- and evolution, the dark processes by which the earth moves toward renewal. Of course, within the limitations of our thinking, we can’t fully grasp how, as another year draws to a close, all this effects our precious self-contained existences. And thus the experience of trepidation and gloom that November often comes clothed in. Still, doesn’t it seem that, at the same time, our minds cannot help but embrace the immensity of the transformation? It is aweful, in the original sense of the word. Likely, it’s the reason some seek out––in movies, stories and poems––these small-scale and manageable trepidations; they prepare us to confront the more encompassing dread beyond our control. Right from line one, and without even a second to prepare ourselves, Pamela’s house begins deconstructing itself––relocating, perhaps, from our material existence and reestablishing its presence in a new and undefined landscape which may or may not be welcoming to its former inhabitants.



Pamela is the author of four previous collections of poetry: the first, Navigable Waterways, was selected by James Merrill for the Yale Younger Poets Prize; and the most recent, Slow Fire (from Ausable/Copper Canyon Press) contains visions both bracing and beautiful. A forthcoming chapbook, Left, will be published by the Beloit Poetry Journal. Pamela has somehow managed to travel both the customary path of a poet and the road less traveled by. After teaching creative writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for many years, she joined the faculty of Oberlin College, where she was an associate editor of FIELD magazine. After retiring, her permanent address for four years was her 26-foot RV, crisscrossing America and Canada, accompanied by her obstreperous cat named Metta. She’s now settled in Maine where she continues to write poetry and nonfiction as well as mystery novels under the pen name Pam Fox.



Today’s poem is a bare-bones affair that quietly captivates us because we believe (or want to believe) we understand what we’ll find when that door opens before us. We enter because there is no other option–– Time for you to follow––and must decide whether to hold tight to the vision to which we’ve grown accustomed, or to open ourselves to a mystery beyond our comprehension. It reminded me of how, many decades back, I’d read poems like “Autumn Day” by Rainer Maria Rilke, and relish the heightened sense of desolation carried by this season: “Whoever has no house now will not build one anymore.” Perhaps. But these days, when I am much closer to winter’s enveloping dark (and not just the conceptual version which that young poet was investigating), I am surprised by the paths into hopefulness which seem to be opening. When so much in our current circumstance feels as if hurricane-force gales, without a moment’s notice, can tear our lives from their foundations, perhaps the deepening imagination constructs its own sort of shelter. Pamela’s vision, though quietly ominous, ends up erecting the sort of abode designed by our in-residence dream-architect, and which the author then constructs with inky two-by-fours, and a roof shingled with the music poems are made of.

 

 

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 Twitter           

@StevenRatiner

 

Endicott College Professor Richard Oxenberg Wrestles with God in a new book "God a Dialogue"

 

I met Richard Oxenberg at Endicott College where I have taught for 15 years. Oxenberg, a professor of philosophy at Endicott has a new book out " Two Philosophers Wrestle with GOD: A Dialogue." The book concerns a series of conversations that he had with another distinguished philosopher Jerry Martin. Martin has claimed he had an actual conversation conversation with God. Oxenberg and I have talked about his book on a number of occasions; so I decided to interview him.

...Interview with Doug Holder





Could you say a little bit about how this book came about?

Yes. I first met Jerry Martin at an American Academy of Religion conference in Atlanta in 2010. He was facilitating a group discussion called 'Theology Without Walls,' which I attended. The participants were considering the question of whether and how it might be possible to do theology outside of traditional confessional boundaries; in other words, to develop a theology that would draw from multiple religious traditions rather than be confined to one. I was intrigued by the idea and later googled Jerry Martin's name to learn a little more about him. I discovered a website in which Jerry told a strange story of having engaged in a series of conversations with God. I read it with some fascination and, of course, not a little skepticism. Part of what lent it credence, though, was that Jerry Martin had some very impressive credentials. He had spent years as the chairman of the philosophy department at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and had served as head of the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington.


Some time later I ran into Jerry again at another American Academy of Religion conference, this time in Boston. We ended up talking with one another for quite some time about our views of religion and about some of Jerry's experiences. He was very friendly and affable and we remained in contact. Eventually, he published a book of his conversations with God, called "God: An Autobiography as Told to a Philosopher." After reading it, I again had many questions. At some point we decided to sit down together and record our conversations about his experiences. This book is the result.


In your book God: A Dialogue you discuss a conversation you had with a noted philosopher Jerry Martin, who claimed to have had a conversation with this almighty deity. Did you ever feel that Dr. Martin was pompous or unstable?

So, no, my strong impression of Jerry is that he is an earnest, highly intelligent, rational person who has had an extraordinary experience and is doing his best to report it as he experienced it. What actually accounts for these experiences is another question. In Jerry's book, he writes as if he and God are just two people having a simple conversation with one another, and I'm sure that's how Jerry experienced it. My own suspicion, though, is that what is actually going on is something more psychologically and spiritually complex. We explore some of these questions in the second dialogue in the book.


Have you ever heard voices which might have been from another dimension or realm?

No, I've sometimes had what I've come to think of as 'epiphanies' - moments of insight when I feel I've come to understand something at a profound level. But I've never heard otherworldly voices.





Dr. Martin claims that we are 'instruments of God." If we are instruments of God, does that imply we have no free will? An instrument to me seems like a puppet.


I don't recall Jerry ever speaking of us as 'instruments of God.' Actually, he speaks of us as partners with God. The way it is presented in Jerry's book, God depends upon us for God's own development and even self-awareness. At one point, God says to Jerry, "I live through each individual life - inspiring, guiding, being blocked, whispering, coaching, feeling joy, and suffering." Jerry then says, "So one dimension of your story is the personal copartnering." And God responds, "Not just one dimension - the crucial dimension."


At another point, Jerry says to God, "I want a strong sense of Divine Providence," and God responds, "No, you have to give that up. I do not write the script. We are all players trying to discover our lines. I have a very special role and it involves guiding the human players toward the right action."


So, as envisioned in Jerry's book, we are not at all like puppets. God is working with us and through us and, in some sense, even in dependency on us, to achieve a good result. We definitely have free will, and the way we exercise it determines how successful the world will be.


God, according to Martin, talked about the arrogance of "human reason." Does this imply that reason is a hindrance to a strong connection to God?


It is not reason that is a hindrance, but arrogance. The phrase "the arrogance of human reason" refers to the presumptuous notion that only what human reason has thus far come to understand can possibly be true. Authentic reason is not arrogant but humble and aware of its limitations. Until Einstein, Newton's theory of gravity was the best understanding of gravity that human reason had thus far arrived at. Then Einstein came along and developed another and superior understanding. And it seems to me entirely likely that at some point Einstein's theory will itself be replaced by something even better.


So, it is foolish to think that what we now know is all there is to know. Indeed, there are many mysteries that modern science has yet to resolve. Perhaps the most significant of these is the relationship between mind and matter, sometimes called the 'mind-body' problem. Modern science has given us a highly materialistic view of reality that takes no account of features of mind that we know through introspection, such as thought, feeling, desire, and volition. An 'arrogant' rationalism, rooted in modern science, might be inclined to dismiss the subjective dimension of reality, given that scientific reasoning has thus far been unable to find a place for it. And indeed, we have philosophers who refer to the mind as an 'epiphenomenon' of the brain, in other words, just a strange side-effect of neurological processes without substantial reality. In this way, they basically dismiss all that is meaningful in life.


So, it is not reason that needs to be overcome but arrogance. The model for this in philosophy is Socrates. Socrates was certainly a great devotee of reason, but at the same time he was famous for saying, "I know that I don't know." In fact, it is reason itself, properly applied, that should prevent us from becoming arrogant. Authentic reason is aware of its own limitations.


It seems that God agrees with scientists that the Universe was created through the "Big Bang" And in fact he created the Universe because of the loneliness of the void.


Yes, one of the basic themes of Jerry's revelations has to do with what philosophers sometimes call 'the paradox of the One and the Many.' At the very foundation of reality is a primordial Unity that expresses itself in almost infinite diversity. As Jerry's book presents it, what scientists know of as 'the Big Bang' is the emergence of our diverse universe out of this more primordial divine Unity.


A distinction is made in Jerry's book between the God of this world, who is the one who primarily speaks to Jerry, and what comes to be called the 'God Beyond God,' which is the primordial Unity itself. The God of this world is an instantiation of the God Beyond God, but unlike the latter, which is eternal and quiescent, the God of this world is temporal and engaged in a project.


As Jerry's book presents it, among the first experiences of the God of this world upon emerging from the God beyond God is an experience of loneliness. When I first read this, it seemed very strange, especially in light of our common conception of God as fully self-sufficient. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense to me. After all, loneliness is an experience we all have. If everything arises from God, then loneliness itself must have its roots in something about God. As I came to think of it, loneliness might be recognized as resulting from the fragmentation of the divine Unity that occurs when the One gives rise to the Many. Each separated individual feels itself bereft of the eternal Unity it enjoyed prior to individuation. That sense of separation is experienced as loneliness, and this loneliness gives rise to the desire for love, through which we seek to overcome the division between self and other and return to an experience of unity. So, the God of this world emerges with a project, which is to create a loving world.


God remarks that there is a " God Beyond God"—so behind God is a sort of mentor— So, is God, the creator -- an apprentice?

This is related to my answer to the last question. I'm not sure the word 'apprentice' is quite right, but the God of this world emerges with a project arising from the God Beyond God. In Jerry's book, God says at one point, "This is the ultimate story, the ultimate meaning of it all . . . I have a project to complete . . . It is in the nature of reality that the world, the totality of worlds plus Me, is here for a purpose. There is a goal . . . The goal is completeness, connectedness, to create the many and pull them back into the one."


So, this is God's job, so to speak, God's essential project. As presented in Jerry's book, it is necessary for the primal Unity - the "God Beyond God" - to create the many, for it is only through creating the many that it is able to fully actualize and express itself. But the creation of the many presents a problem, as it leads to discord, alienation, conflict, loneliness, and all forms of suffering. This problem can only be resolved through the establishment of a loving world, a world that functions in harmony with itself. This is the ultimate goal.


As Jerry and I discuss in our dialogue, when God says that the goal is to "create the many and pull them back into the one," God does not mean to bring them back into the original primal Unity, but rather to establish a harmonious, loving, concord among the many, as opposed to a conflictual discord. And this is an ongoing project. It is not a project that is going to come to an end at some point in time, but a project to be pursued at every moment of time. Every moment presents us with opportunities for furthering concord or discord and we fulfill ourselves (and God fulfills Godself) as we promote concord.


What are God's greatest wishes for humanity?

Well, it may sound a little trite, but the ultimate wish of God is for a loving world. In Jerry's book, God says to Jerry, "Love is what fully actualizes a thing. A person comes into full personhood only in a loving relationship, in loving and being loved. That is true of the whole world, and of Me as well." In another place, God says, "Love is the basic force of the universe. I enter the world out of love. The world yearns for Me, and turns to Me, out of love. Love forms the bond between man and woman, one neighbor and another, and the orders of nature. It is love that pulls all of nature upward, and heals the soul and repairs the breaches in the world. Even on the level of physics, it is love that holds the world together and provides its energy."


So, God's wish is for a world fully integrated in love. According to the God who speaks in Jerry's book, this is what all the different religions are pointing to in their various and imperfect ways. One of the great theological challenges of our time is to recognize this about the different religions and have them move from a posture of hostility toward one another to a posture of mutual respect for one another, and, beyond this, to a recognition of their commonality. And this brings us back to my answer to the first question. As I said, when I first met Jerry he was facilitating a group discussion about a project he was calling, "Theology Without Walls." According to Jerry, it was God who asked him to initiate this project. Its purpose is to have the diverse religions come to recognize their common ground and common purpose. Ultimately, that purpose is to foster a loving world.


Why should we read your book?


This book is really a companion piece to Jerry's original book: God: An Autobiography as Told to a Philosopher. That book is fascinating because of the picture of God it presents. I've tried to give an idea of that picture in my previous answers. As Jerry's book presents it, there is a single divine reality underlying all the world's religions. This God has a project, which is ultimately to foster a loving world, although that may express it too simplistically. Part of this project, and consistent with it, is the fostering of justice, beauty, artistic creativity, education, intellectual advance. The ultimate project is to fully actualize the potentialities latent in reality itself, potentialities that are only fully actualized through harmony and love. So, this is a basic theme of Jerry's book.


One drawback of Jerry's book is that its ideas are not presented systematically. Jerry was intent on recording his conversations with God just as he experienced them, and as a result - though Jerry's book is very readable - the overall message of the book may seem a little obscure. What I tried to do in my dialogues with Jerry was to ask questions and make proposals that would help us bring out the underlying message of Jerry's book in a more systematic way. I think this is one of the values of my book with Jerry.


I think anyone interested in thinking deeply about religion and spirituality would find both Jerry's original book and my book of dialogues with Jerry worthile. As one commentator wrote about my book with Jerry, "This collection of both candid and profound conversations will delight any reader with an interest in spiritual matters and the big questions of life's meaning and purpose."


I think that about says it. Thanks for your questions, Doug!

Red Letter Poem #227

 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



SAVE THE DATE!



The fifth annual Red Letter LIVE! reading

will be held on Saturday, November 9th 2024

Robbins Library, Community Room, 700 Mass Ave, Arlington

1-3pm, with a reception to follow

Free, and all are welcome!



Featuring poets:



Danielle Legros Georges

Indran Amirthanayagam

Heather Treseler &

Steven Ratiner



with a musical performance by clarinetist

Todd Brunel



***If you’re in the Boston area, we’d love to see you there

A flyer is attached with artist biographies



Hosted by

Steven Ratiner and Jean Flanagan





Red Letter Poem #227


Foretold

July 4, 2024


The white sheet I dreamed

floating over us: for sleep

or was it shroud



cloud of un-



We should have known

when they called him Our

David (adultery/murder), Our

Cyrus (not one of us but)



We should

have heard King



Two more tanks!

he said in the dream

as if he were ordering coffee



Retribution



They gave him the right

to remain



––Martha Collins







Sometimes we’ll wake in a lather from a disturbing dream, and quickly dismiss its threat: just the unconscious having a Chicken Little-panic attack––and the sky is certainly not falling. But other times, opening our eyes, we’ll find the residue of the dream still vivid and terrifying, leaving us to grasp the full measure of what seems to be our prophetic imagination. On July 1st this past summer, in the matter of Trump v.United States, our nation’s highest court ruled that the President of this Republic has a near-blanket immunity from criminal prosecution for “official” acts. For the first time in our 250-year history, this seems to put our chief executive beyond the rule of law. With a Constitutional interpretation like this, a would-be tyrant could nullify an election, foment an armed insurrection, and simply refuse the peaceful transfer of power that has been the very hallmark of our democracy––all by framing his actions as part of his ‘official responsibilities.’ Quite a nightmare scenario. So it is no surprise that, just a few days later (and on the anniversary of this nation’s birth), Martha Collins found herself grappling with the latter. Martha––a poet whose artistic antenna is remarkably sensitive, attuned to both the outer machinations of our society as well the inner voice of conscience––took a bit of her nighttime terror and turned it into this brief but chilling poem.



It almost seems unnecessary to reintroduce Martha Collins in these electronic pages. Poet, translator, educator, cultural advocate, Martha is simply one of the most honored American literary talents writing today. She published her eleventh volume of poetry, Casualty Reports, with the Pitt Poetry Series in October 2022. The collection just prior to that, Because What Else Could I Do, is a wrenching response to the death of her husband; it won the Poetry Society of America’s William Carlos Williams Award. Her trilogy about race and racism in America remains a monumental examination of our society’s most bitter fault lines and the source of our national grief. Other honors include fellowships from the NEA, the Bunting Institute, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the Witter Bynner Foundation, as well as prizes too numerous to detail in this small space.



As her readers have come to expect, her poems exploring societal turmoil involve neither political rant nor emotional histrionics. They are carefully-wrought, musically-restrained verse––and thus their power is derived from the small modulations of tone and attention, drawing us into her unfolding vision. Here, she opens with an unimposing image––a white sheet floating above us––but we are unsure of whether this is simply part of the bedclothes or something from the tomb. The aural quality of the poem is, by turns, comforting (those chiming words like shroud and cloud, dreamand remain) and unsettling (oh, that burgeoning phrase cloud of un-, lopped off at the prefix!). And when supporters of the former President attempt to cloak him with the dignity of Biblical allusion (David. . .Cyrus. . .,) the poet punctures the pretense by calling out what they really seem to be proposing: a King, governing by fiat, and no longer subject to the will of the people. At the most crucial moment, the poem seizes us with one simple and simply devastating image: Two more tanks!/ he said in the dream/ as if he were ordering coffee. Indeed, we need not strain at deducing this individual’s political intent––the candidate has laid it all out in televised speeches. Machines of war. . .directed against one’s political enemies or legal protests of the citizenry––painful to even contemplate. But it is the casualness with which he makes these suggestions that ought to make us tremble. We’ve seen such scenes played out in banana republics and thought ourselves immune. Will Martha’s dream prove to be exaggerated fear or prophetic warning? Her quiet jeremiad takes this candidate at his word and prompts us to reexamine our own responsibilities. We must imagine what such an America would be like––not simply for ourselves but the generations that come after us. Unless, that is, we preempt that nightmare and use our electoral voices to insist on another narrative. Will our beloved country wake up in time? The answer will be arriving shortly.

 

 

 

 

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 Twitter           

@StevenRatiner

 

"Lunch in Chinatown" by Mary Bonina

REVIEW BY LEE VARON

Mary Bonina’s latest chapbook “Lunch in Chinatown” (Cervena Barva Press,2024), is a window into the lives of immigrants who come to this country seeking a new beginning. In her work as an ESL teacher Bonina taught English to adult students from all over the world .

I wish everyone in our country could read “Lunch in Chinatown” and have a glimpse at how hard those coming to the U. S. struggle to learn the language and culture and forge a fresh start— many fleeing unspeakable atrocities in their native lands. In “the makeshift classroom” at the edge of Chinatown in downtown Boston, Bonina met with her students.

As you can imagine, with students from all over the world , all trying to learn English, lessons often go off-topic and into interesting new areas . Or as Bonina writes “Someone always gets a discussion moving/ on a different track, a related subject,/ one that comes with its own set of problems.”

And sometimes Bonina, as teacher, becomes enthralled with the stories her students bring to class, as when Andre , one of the Haitian men in class, tells the story of when he met his wife in the streets of Port au Prince. You can almost feel the electrifying moment as : “He puts me on that bright street brimming with activity in Port / au Prince. I can see Giselle a young girl with her friends all standing / around her. They don’t giggle . They feign aloofness/ And Andre approaches the group, as he approaches his English class:/ shyly and respectfully. “

Or in the powerful poem , “Teaching the Past Tense” when all of her students chime in with the names of the countries where they came from: “Haiti. Guatemala. Ethiopia. China.”
A benign run of the mill lesson ends with the devastating stanza: “Hagos, the Ethiopian says — not somberly,/ just matter-of-factly—‘My country./ Lots of people dead.’”

Bonina has a wonderful ability to mix short lyrical lines with longer prose-like lines. This reminded me of the way so many of her lessons must have gone— some short and to the point and others discursive and taking many twists and turns .

One of the most moving poems was the title poem “Lunch in Chinatown.” In this poem one of Bonina’s students— Wei Wei— takes her arm as they walk , the day after Christmas, along the sidewalks “slippery with snow and ice.” Teacher and student are going to a restaurant to order Dim Sum—“The air was bitter cold ,/ smoky and scented with ginger and sesame,”.

Looking down, Bonina notices that her student “wore bright yellow summer shoes,/ like ballet shoes, but with hard soles.” Wei Wei, she learns, had “worked as a doctor / in China’s largest hospital.”
It seems that her fear of falling on the slippery sidewalks and holding onto Bonina is a metaphor for how these new immigrants hold onto these English language classes, and their teacher, to help negotiate living in their sometimes precarious and often confusing new world .

This is a richly imagistic and meaningful book of poems that speaks to our shared humanity beyond cultural and linguistic differences. Though only twenty- six pages, it is packed full of memorable vignettes that resonate long after we close its pages.

Lee Varon is the author of “My Brother is Not a Monster: A Story of Addiction and Recovery,” and “A Kid’s Book About Overdose.”
She is co-editor of “Spare Change News Poems: An Anthology by Homeless People and those Touched by Homelessness.”

Red Letter Poem #226

  

Red Letter Poem #226

 

 

 

 

 

Tango


My wristband tight as a tourniquet,

my reptile skin windswept, dry as dust.

My glasses fogged by someone else’s breath.



My passport in a pocket where my hand

should go but won’t for fear of change.



The song a tango from below the border

that divides us, keeps us at arm’s length,

line drawn in sand that blows in our eyes.







––Wyn Cooper





Mary Oliver was once asked by a reader what a certain poem ‘was about’––and her answer came quickly: “commas.” She explained to me sometime later that she was not being flippant––the poem in question became, during the long revision process, a marvelous experiment in the use of commas for spacing, bundling thought, regulating breath. This memory came to mind because, if someone asked me what Wyn Cooper’s new Red Letter poem “Tango” was about, I’d be tempted to respond: T’s. Just listen to the spree of those hard consonants––seven in the first two lines!––like the rhythmic clacking of the claves as a Latin band swings into gear. In a poem named after a South American dance, it should not be surprising that the poet would have an inner soundtrack propelling the language.



But widening my purview, I find myself fascinated by a quality in many of Wyn’s poems: they feel like mini-cinemas in which we readers have arrived in our seats sometime after the first reel. We are quickly trying to catch up, fill in the narrative, speculate about the protagonist and where the movie is leading us. In the case of “Tango”, the film feels a little noir-ish, what with that “reptile skin,” fogged-over glasses, and “someone else’s breath” so close and intimate we’re feeling both aroused and exposed. But when the speaker mentions “below the border/ that divides us,” a soupçon of political intrigue enters the picture. As we approach what is surely one of the most divisive elections in American history, the very word border is fraught; and who and what we permit to cross our boundaries––let alone into our hearts and minds––becomes a matter of greater consequence. When I was young, I always loved how characters like those Humphrey Bogart often played––rugged individualists who could somehow feel enamored by and completely at ease in many cultures and locales––made me imagine a world without all those “line(s) drawn in sand” intended to separate peoples––blown sand, Wyn points out, that ultimately serve only to blind us. In those films, the dignity and imaginative freedom every character craved pointed toward a commonality I’d not heard spoken of in my public education. The very notion of a world with flexible borders and intermingling ideas seems painfully naïve these days. But elusive things like music, poetry, dreams still somehow find a way to subvert governments, slip past checkpoints, and bring us their stories, their truths.



Wyn is the author of five collections of poetry––the most recent being Mars Poetica (White Pine Press)––and the novel Way Out West (Concord Free Press.) His poems, stories, essays, and reviews––in accordance with today’s poem––have had their passports stamped by scores of publications such as The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Poetry, AGNI, and more. He is also the co-creator of two fascinating recordings featuring the voice of the novelist Madison Smartt Bell. And speaking of crossing boundaries: his poem “Fun” was the basis for the Grammy-winning song “All I Wanna Do” by Sheryl Crow. It pleases me to think of contemporary poetry, in all its complexity, making its way into so many unsuspecting ears. When our dance partner is graceful, inventive, quietly assured, how can we help but be swept away?

 

 

 

 

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:

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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 Twitter           

@StevenRatiner