Red Letter Poem #311

  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 #311

 

 

 

My People


They were uncomfortable with expressions of feeling

and I suspect most of them died without ever hearing

a single “I love you.” Sentiment was tolerated in letters

where the distance between writer and recipient

kept any emotional excesses at arm’s length, literally,

and those slightly unsettling words were refolded

along the creases they came with, tucked back into

their envelopes, the flaps folded over and smoothed,

then rubber-banded and kept in a drawer in a sideboard

where they would be happened upon many years later,

and impolitely read by some stranger for whom they

were never intended, and then, with no hesitation,

torn in half, and in half again, and in half a third time,

and dropped into a wastebasket, to be consigned to

a rusty burn barrel at the back of the overgrown yard,

fed into the crackling flames, love after love after love.

––Ted Kooser

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t compliment Ted Kooser.  It discomforts him.  I think fanfares and effusive encomiums are simply not his cup of tea––even though he is an extremely popular writer with nearly fifty titles on his authorial resume, casting a wide net that includes poetry, non-fiction, memoir, and children’s stories.  I noticed over time that when, in any of my e-mails, I devoted a paragraph to praising his work, his seemingly-indomitable spirit, his characteristic generosity, my comments would pass unremarked.  But if I spoke about the weather blessing/afflicting my Massachusetts home, or enquired about the meteorological state of his beloved Garland, Nebraska, his responses were enthusiastic and carefully observed.  No, let me amend that––there were many topics that engendered bountiful responses: questions about his continued practice of waking in the early morning dark to write at his desk, to see what language has in store for him that day––that was worth a hefty paragraph.  Or work around his farm which the poet still attends to largely without help––despite being an 87-year-old, four-time cancer survivor––that merited a burst of spritely sentences.  And rural life; the compelling beauty of the natural world; his beloved wife, family, and friends––some of whom were struggling with the same mortal pitfalls we all must face––any of these topics would get the ink flowing.  Just not Ted himself, and why we––who have come to know and appreciate his unique perspective through his books and his work as a former United States Poet Laureate––like to imagine him as, if not a personal friend, then a cherished neighbor (no matter how many miles lay between our homes).  If that’s what is being offered: crickets.

 

I’ve felt very fortunate, not only to have published some of Ted’s recent poems in the Red Letters, but a whole chapbook of what he refers to as his “critter poems”––diminutive portraits of animal and insect life and the imaginative possibilities they provoke.  Fellow Creatures was not only one of a very few print publications issued from Red Letter Editions (StevenRatiner.com), Ted (and did I mention his generous spirit?) allowed the publication to serve as a benefit for this project so that poets and musicians performing in my annual Red Letter LIVE events might receive a small honorarium.  From time to time, he will send me one of his morning poems, and I was grateful for his blessing to include “My People” in the Letters.  I love this as a poem, but also for what it illuminated about the character of this remarkable poet (darn, there I go again!)   Composed in the straightforward language we might find in a family missive, he states plainly that his people “were uncomfortable with expressions of feeling.”  But he follows that with as devastating a declarative as I’ve run across in quite some time: “and I suspect most of them died without ever hearing/ a single ‘I love you.’”  It is a stereotype of Midwesterners, deserved or not––this flinty and stoical nature.  But to hear it put so plainly: I was shaken, imagining the children who might have hungered for those effusive embraces and expressions of deep affection.  I expect a certain self-reliance resulted from such an upbringing, but can’t help imagining a longing for more.  Was that what bolstered the poet’s predisposition toward literary pursuits where––as he says of family letters––“the distance between writer and recipient/ kept any emotional excesses at arm’s length, literally”? 

 

T. S. Eliot’s concept called the ‘objective correlative’ extends beyond simple metaphor; it is a literary moment, excised from lived experience, that embodies some deep emotional state and resonates with unspecified energies which cannot help but affect a reader, conjuring unexpected meaning.  The next few lines of Ted’s poem, describing the feeling sometimes expressed in family letters, are a textbook example: “those slightly unsettling words were refolded/ along the creases they came with, tucked back into/ their envelopes, the flaps folded over and smoothed,/ then rubber-banded and kept in a drawer…”.  Tell me you did not feel the pain of those “creases”, the dark tomb of that sideboard drawer!  And then, in a rush of stoic inevitability Zeno himself would have admired, the poet allows the years of a lifetime to flutter by like those brittle pages––falling now beneath some stranger’s gaze for whom those feelings, those human days, have no meaning.  Torn and discarded into the “rusty burn barrel at the back of the overgrown yard,” (now Eliot, too, must be smiling), they are “fed into the crackling flames, love after love after love.”  How much suppressed longing is embodied in that closing line and achieved with what admirable restraint?  So now I’ve changed my mind: shower Mr. Kooser with praise; embrace him through that quiet voice we relish in his poems; beam our love and admiration in the direction of Garland.  And if there is no outward response, please don’t think that means it wasn’t gratefully received.

 

 

 

 

 

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/

Cervena Barva Press Literary Award August 15

 

Red Letter Poem #310

  

 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 #310

 

 

 

 

Deer Skull (with Small, Deformed Antler)

 

 

“The skulls…were beautiful as anything I know…

strangely more living than the animals walking around…”

 

       —Georgia O’Keeffe, in a letter to Alfred Stieglitz

 

He must have staggered into the clearing

in the grove of Shumard oaks, and fallen

there, in sight of Stanley Draper Lake

just east of the Cross Timbers—which is where

I found him. Or rather, I found one antler

protruding from the red-brown bed of oak

leaves—four upright, branching tines, off-white

against the leaf litter: late fall in central Oklahoma.



The afternoon was clear and dry: good hunting

weather, but there were no hunters this late

in the season, who knows why. I lifted the antler

and the whole skull came up in my hands,

clean of flesh and skin—he must have been dead

for weeks—the skull surprisingly heavy, though

missing the lower jaw. Then I noticed the other

antler—downturned, two-tined, and half the length



of the first. What caused this strange asymmetry?

I glanced around: in the oak-leaf scrum

were scattered bones, equally clean of flesh

—the rest of him? There wasn’t time to linger,

the friend with whom I had hiked here

needed to get home, and I would be leaving the state

soon. I hefted the skull to the car, and

would carry it without breakage from one move



to the next. I didn’t yet know the term

“drop-tine buck”—the bigger the dropped tine

the more prized by hunters. Would anyone have wanted

this stunted antler for a trophy? But I was the one

who found him, claimed him; and the disease

or hunter whose gunshot may have killed him

might be out there still—a message I could carry

in my own thinning human bones.

 

 

                                                ––Carolyne Wright

 

 

 

 

 

“Imperfections are not inadequacies;”––writes Brené Brown, educator, researcher, best-selling author––“they are reminders that we're all in this together.” And together, in the thick of it––where most living creatures spend the bulk of their days––is precisely where Carolyne Wright’s poetry situates her readers. She has learned from her mentors––poets like Richard Hugo, Elizabeth Bishop, W.D. Snodgrass, and William Stafford––the entrancing power of specificity, the ‘telling’ details that substantiate a moment in a reader’s imagination. But she’s mastered as well the discipline required to trust the poetic impulse, to give it free rein once it’s begun breaking into consciousness. Easier said than done, I might add. It requires that the more familiar internal voice––the one that usually narrates our days––step back from that role, becoming almost an observer to what’s unfolding intuitively. While lines begin galloping across the page, the poet must be willing to follow wherever the pen leads, no matter how wild the ride or how unanticipated the destination. In today’s new piece––titled like a specimen placard in a natural history museum––Carolyne is remembering a find she made when hiking with a friend in Oklahoma. Far from her Pacific Northwest stomping grounds, she came across a deer skull “protruding from the red-brown bed of oak / leaves—four upright, branching tines, off-white/ against the leaf litter…”. How quickly we come to trust the observational skills and emotional intelligence of the speaker––and that’s important because, coupled with that credibility, comes an increased vulnerability on our part: go ahead, keep searching––our minds reply to such forceful language––we’ll follow.



But quickly the scene shifts, and the speaker has returned home, where the skull will become one of her prized possessions. That much of the narrative is quite factual––I’ve seen the photos showing the rather dramatic remains of this proud creature on display. But that is, to my mind, the most superficial part of this inky journey. All the subtle, oh-so-casually offered asides in this poem begin to lead us into a kind of shadow-world, the sort of esoteric terrain that was once the province of mystics and shamans. That O’Keeffe epigraph functions something like a spirit-guide––as if our imagined connection to the natural world exceeds even our glimpses of the actual. “(I)n the oak-leaf scrum/ were scattered bones, equally clean of flesh––/the rest of him?” Perhaps, reading those words, you too felt a sudden welling dread, an intimation of our mortal fragility? It’s devastating to imagine how quickly the full and vibrant experience of a life––human or otherwise––can be stripped of its identity, simply lost to time. And what would usher in such a transformation? Sometimes we fall prey to “hunters” (and you don’t need me to remind you of the varied nature of violence plaguing our days). But other times, it’s merely some biologic circumstance or viral misfortune that stops us in our tracks, far from what we imagined to be our final season. I felt myself mourning for this creature and, through him, for all whom I hold dear.



Carolyne’s resume displays the passionate engagement of this writer’s life: poet, translator, editor, educator, she’s published ten poetry collections as well as five volumes of translation from Chilean, Brazilian Portuguese, and West Bengali and Bangladeshi women poets. Her work has garnered awards from organizations like the Poetry Society of America, the Pushcart Prize, the New England Poetry Club, and the American Book Award––as well as fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the New York State Arts Council, and the Fulbright and Witter Bynner Foundations, among others. She’s taught in universities and writing programs across the United States and abroad, and currently is on the faculty for the Richard Hugo House in Seattle. There is an interesting push-pull dynamic at play in today’s feature: a poem about asymmetry, written in neat 8-line stanzas––the tension of form and content. And the ‘imperfection’ of the antlers at the center Carolyne’s meditation marked this deer as a unique individual. Sad to say, the fascination with––and often fear of––difference, that generated so powerful a response in primitive man, still plays a role in our oh-so-modern experience. Something “out there” may herald our own destruction if we cannot learn to cope with all the idiosyncrasies that make us both unique and simply another member of the herd. “My imperfections and failures,” wrote Mahatma Gandhi, “are as much a blessing from God as my successes and my talents, and I lay them both at His feet.” That’s part of the message this poet has extracted from this holy relic––a prayer we might inscribe on our “own thinning bones.”

 

 

 

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/