Red Letter Poem #302

 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 #302


Profit and Loss Statement For Mr. B.



“The Post needs to be a profitable enterprise that stands on its own two feet. Let me tell you why. Because it’s a measure of its relevance. If people won’t pay for our product, it’s not a good enough product. It would be like poetry without rhyming, it’s too easy.”



––Jeff Bezos



(interview on CNBC, 5/20/26)


Too easy without rhyme? Mr. B., I have news for you:

you’ve no understanding of the time that goes into

educating the tongue, cultivating the heart, so that words

might fly true to their destination, bearing the hard



truth of what’s required to be an actual human being in

our rancid/gilded age––where suffering’s a commodity

on the Stock Exchange, and all it takes is a few billion

in reserve to live gloriously without a thimbleful of pity



or the tonnage of regret. News flash: your yacht’s run aground

on Circe’s island, as you quaff down cup after cup of kykeon

laced with nightshade, turning into swine along with your crew.

Ithaka can burn for all you care. There’s no damned hope for you.



For what (another old poem) profit a man who gains the world but

loses his soul? Such unspeakable waste. What rhymes with that?





––Steven Ratiner
















This is a small essay in praise of accuracy, integrity. One might think that such qualities need no special celebration (and certainly not from this humble scribe); mustn’t they be, a priori, what every speaker, writer, leader aspires to? But such is the age in which you and I find ourselves that our minds bathe daily in language and imagery so wildly inaccurate––and often willfully, even maliciously deceptive––we’ve almost come to accept this as the normal cultural environment. Almost. I think we still take notice (and hopefully, take offense) when someone––especially those whose very profession is the communication of ideas––attempts to beguile us with blather and obfuscation. I think their hope is that we can no longer tell the difference between the gold bullion of veracity and the glinting pyrite of bullshit. Sometimes, in the mouths of world leaders, deceptive language comes stained with blood and human suffering. (Are the many casualties in our current Middle Eastern war less pained if we call it “a military operation” or “an excursion?” Are the deceased less absent?) But the example that arrested my attention this week––and demanded a poetic response––was an interview given by Jeff Bezos: billionaire entrepreneur, and the owner of Amazon, the Washington Post, and a multitude of other properties. There would seem to be far less at stake here––no battalions are being mobilized, no battleships being deployed, at the behest of the Post’s publisher. He just wants to casually distort our notion of reality. And to be honest, it was the offhand swipe he took at contemporary poets that finally tipped me over the edge. But his larger conception of ‘profit and relevance’ is the more troubling concern––that, and the fact that what is actually under threat is our constitutional guarantee of free expression and independent journalism.



The question here: do we really believe corporate declarations that the curtailed newsrooms at places like the Post or CBS (and there are many more examples) are simply ‘business decisions’ and not an attempt to trade away our delineated freedoms for political gain (adieu, Mr. Colbert!) Each day, my BS alarm is triggered by yet another development where power and profit seem to trump the well-being of the people. And so I became angry––and Mr. Bezos’ cursory remarks demanded that I put pen to paper. As the words raced, what began taking shape on the page was a (somewhat) formal poem––a sonnet, no less––replete with classical references. But that seemed fitting to me––and I hoped that, if the poem ever managed to appear on Mr. B’s screen, at least he’d be assured that (unlike those ‘lazy versifiers’) I was at least, you know, trying. In truth, Bezos is an educated man and knows full well that you cannot equate profit with relevance, no more than you can argue that rhyme determines beauty. And, what’s more, he’s aware that, throughout history, certain powerful entities––like monarchs and oligarchs, national governments and religious institutions––frequently committed their tremendous resources so that the people of the world might experience something far beyond the scope of business. The Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo’s David. . .the Lincoln Memorial, Interstate Highway System. . .not to mention the project that placed human beings on the Moon, conveying back to us the first astonishing images of our own fragile planet floating in the vast darkness. There was something beyond the profit motive underlying these achievements. And are we not grateful for the multitude of individual creators whose work has enriched our lives immeasurably, even to the detriment of their own? Du Fu, Dante, Phillis Wheatley; Mozart, van Gogh, Billie Holliday––though each hoped their creative gifts would keep their lives afloat, they never hesitated in their efforts when circumstance proved otherwise.



Dear Mr. Bezos: your fellow citizens rejoiced when, years back, you rescued the Washington Post in the name of preserving a journalistic institution (and knowing full well that newspapers might never again garner great profits). And that’s why we are horrified now to watch you (and others––you are hardly alone) trading away aspects of the public good in order to ingratiate yourself with dark and anti-democratic forces. I’m not suggesting that you forgo mansions and mega-yachts––you’ve earned your luxurious life. Still, it’s not lost on us that the money you could save from one less celebrity rocket launch, one less vanity movie project, would be enough to create a foundation to subsidize the Washington Post for decades to come. Your legacy would be the support of honest journalism as a basic pillar of American society. We would celebrate your generosity and the choice of ideals over profit margins. But if that’s not going to be your choice, I’ve a more modest request: at least tell us the truth about your motivation; even that would earn you a certain respect. This morning, I was thinking of an old collection of essays by the poet Wendell Berry. The title is taken from the Chinese character xin––which is, in turn, formed by joining two other characters: person standing beside word. In Mandarin, the word means ‘fidelity,’ ‘integrity,’ and ‘trust.’ This Kentucky poet-farmer called his book Standing by Words, a representation of language that is trued by a clear eye, an honest heart, and a judicious mind. I think we can––no, need––to expect at least that much from each other. I can assure you, the scores of poets that I know use xin as their lodestar, whether or not the music of their verse is shaped by measured rhythms or end rhymes. Please: stand by your words. Let your journalists stand by theirs. I promise to do the best I can to stand by my own.








*This poem appeared this past Sunday on TheNewVerse.News substack, one of a very few sites that focus on poets-as-journalists. More than permission, I was encouraged by their publisher to share the poem in the Letters, writing an essay that provides a fuller context for the poem. I am grateful.












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/

Unbecoming By Suzette Bishop

 

Unbecoming By Suzette Bishop Published by Ethel, 2026

Reviewed by Sarah Stern

In Suzette Bishop’s Unbecoming, the reader is reminded of this: “how thin the border is between health/ and illness.” In her profoundly moving and deeply felt chapbook, Bishop makes art from her life with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS).

By braiding her own experiences of the disease, the often-negligent medical research and treatment options, and the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty, Bishop gives us poems that ponder the body and what it can and can’t do in the midst of what she calls “slowsand.” There is rage here, but hope to. “Sleeping Beauty dreams of swinging in a hammock.”

The placement of text and sharp line breaks heighten the limitations imposed by ME/CFS, activities that so many take for granted. As in the section titled Phase 2.

No baking No driving on highways, No pacing while lecturing, No walking at the park, No cleaning No cooking, No one over,

Physical

Disruptions

Bleed.

If only you could see energy flowing down the couch where I’m stuck or bent at the kitchen counter, leaning against the wall. If I drew, I’d draw that invisible energy

waterfalling out of ME. Identities are called into question, chronic sorrow, more loss of material possessions:

I can’t ride a bike, so it’s gone,

my horseback-riding gear hung by the door, unused but still smells of horse,

clothes that are too small, too young, too constricting, donated or sold,

books I’ll never get to that stay on the shelves; I can’t part with them.

The physical space on the page between the last four lines of the quoted text mirrors the losses of the poet. As readers, that white space allows us to feel it too.

Unbecoming should be required reading for not only the poetry community but for those in the medical industrial complex. Here is a testament to what it is to suffer, to be misunderstood, to be questioned even by those who are near and dear and can’t understand what is happening.

“the evil fairy appeared in the door,/ disappeared through the door./ The End: life as they knew it (or imagined it).”

This is a brave collection and a necessary one. Read it.

###

Sarah Stern is the author of Dear Letters in the Red Box, We Have Been Lucky in the Midst of Misfortune, But Today Is Different, and Another Word for Love. More at www.sarahstern.me.

Red Letter Poem #301

 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 #301

 

 

 

 

Borscht

 

 

The beet’s heartless

heart stains my fingers, crosshatched palm

Quartered throbbing beast

 

The boiling water’s pink vapors

settle down

 

Peeled skin splatters the unforgiving

formica counter

 

On the cutting board, shreds of muscle

Slips of lung, slivers of bone

Needle worms of marrow

 

Indelible

Not baking soda, vinegar, Ajax

or Mr. Clean

Not salt, spit, bleach

 

 

                       ––Denise Bergman

 

                       

 

 

 

 

 

Thinking back now, this is the essential fact: how little I understood.  My mother’s parents emigrated from a small town near Odesa in what was then Czarist Russia––land we know today as Ukraine.  After my grandfather died, Grandma Frieda came to live with us and it was, sad to say, an uneasy relationship.  She was distinctively ‘old world,’ and her more traditional ways were, at times, uncomfortable to my young sister and me––much as our boisterous sense of independence, fostered in the 1960’s, must have seemed incomprehensible to her.  I remember some afternoons, while my mother was at work, watching Frieda cooking alone in the kitchen––peasant fare like gribenes and borscht (dishes she alone enjoyed).  We were finicky eaters, and these foods seemed unappealing, alien.  Yet watching her at the counter––deftly peeling the beets, or stirring the onions in the skillet––I was never sure if I was witnessing deep joy or abject loneliness.  Preparing these familiar dishes, was this an effort at reclaiming history?  Of mourning a lost way of life?  Both?  And why wasn’t I brave enough to accept a proffered spoonful?  So as I observed the protagonist in Denise Bergman’s new poem, I was filled with a range of conflicting emotions.  This speaker, too, seems to be experiencing a mixture of sensual passion and subconscious terror as she prepares the beet soup.  And as the imagery builds, I got to experience what I feel is one of the essential pleasures in reading poetry: being led by a confident authorial voice, but traveling blind; the mind sparks, anticipating what will be unveiled in the next line, and the next.

 

From the outset, I was a little stunned by “The beet’s heartless/heart” staining the cook’s fingers and palms––the scene feeling closer to abattoir than dinner prep.  To think of that humble root vegetable as a “Quartered throbbing beast” is to inject a certain unexpected violence into the family kitchen.  A Julia Child cooking demonstration this is most certainly not.  Still, the poem remains, ostensibly, about cooking––isn’t it?  “Peeled skin splatters the unforgiving/ formica counter”––and the word ‘unforgiving’ takes us across an imaginative Rubicon into dangerous territory.  There is unspoken grievance involved here, violations that may never be assuaged.  But with the next stanza––“Slips of lung, slivers of bone”––we must accept that these are the ingredients of terror.  A far cry from the culinary, it appears that nightmare is included in this recipe––and pain must be swallowed.  I remembered when, as a child, I first overheard the word pogrom in the grown-ups’ conversation.  I learned that, like the red beets, language leaves its mark.  This cook’s experience may be more contemporary––but, after all, just a quick glance at the daily headlines brings enough grief into the home to upset even the most stolid of sensibilities.  There is some trauma being exposed on the cutting board, but we each are left to personalize the details.  All we know is this: there aren’t enough disinfectants in this household (in the world?) to obliterate the stain.  “Not salt, spit, bleach”––and perhaps not even the scouring cleanser that is poetry.

 

Denise is the author of five books of verse which, among other things, illuminate the role of women in the vast American experiment. The Shape of the Keyhole, for example, takes place during one week in 1650 as a falsely accused woman awaits her hanging.  A Woman in Pieces Crossed a Sea explores the ways that the Statue of Liberty has come to embody our democratic ideals.  This poet’s work has long been centered on the power of language to foster community.  She conceived of and edited City River of Voices, an anthology of urban poetry; and the first lines of her poem “Red,” about a neighborhood near a slaughterhouse, are permanently installed in a public park in Cambridge, MA.  Her writing, for me, often becomes a conduit into a deeper examination of otherness and emotional commonality.  Reading “Borscht”, I was reminded of how little I understood then––or now––about the inner lives of even those closest to me.  But that only underscores the essential value of poetry.  Literature as a whole can be seen as a kind of cumulative crowd-sourced investigation of life on this planet and its connections with human consciousness.  Every poem allows me to experience language and imagination from perspectives beyond my own, even transcending cultures and historical eras.  As I write this, I feel myself engulfed by the smell of cooked beets––rising from memory, from Denise’s carved stanzas.  Painful as it may be, a poem like this nourishes, sustains. 

 

 

 

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/