Red Letter Poem #142

 

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 #142

 

 

 

 

“Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.”  These words come from no less an authority than Leonardo da Vinci.  So here, on the verge of another new year, I offer a few words in praise of making – that most human of activities – where attentive minds and skilled hands echo what was once thought of as ‘the divine work of Creation.’  Starting out with the clutter of raw of materials, vision must first arise, then skill take hold, as clarity slowly emerges – all before some product can be manufactured.  Perhaps we’ve forgotten that the very word is anchored to that Latin root: manū, by hand.  Sad to say, the work of capable hands has been, to a large extent, devalued in our economy, supplanted by the mechanization of production and, more recently, the Amazonification of desire.  But the term should remind us that we were once surrounded by goods made by hand, produced with a craftsman’s pride, and exemplifying the dignity of such labor.

 

Moira Linehan centers her fourth collection of poems, & Company (Dos Madres Press), on the figure of her maternal grandmother – a talented dress designer and seamstress who left France in 1905 to start a new life on these American shores.  The poems – like today’s “Ars Poetica” – celebrate women making a variety of works by hand.  The writing is rich with detail and the specialized vocabulary of sewing, painting, home-making – all in order to conjure the spirits of these artists and artisans, to make their achievement visible to a contemporary audience.  What we frequently fail to consider is the effect those handmade beauties might have on those who experience them – in their homes, communities, or even museums.   The Arts and Crafts movement, that flourished in Britain and Europe in the 19th and early 20th century, was centered around the need for such work.  They made these their watchwords:  Head Hand and Heart.  It spoke to their belief that such a holistic sense of creativity could revolutionize society and heal its ills.  One of their leading proponents, William Morris, declared: “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."  My impression is that Moira’s grandmother would be nodding her approval.  Of course, you’ll have noticed that Moira has titled her piece of handiwork “Ars Poetica”, a term for a poem that attempts to give definition to the art form.  And I believe she is attempting, in this carefully-constructed unrhymed sonnet, to make us feel the “weight, texture, give, nap” of language, almost as if we could touch its materials with our very hands – yet another homage to her forebear.

 

I hope you’ll permit me yet one more quotation on the subject, again from another craftsman so much more accomplished than I am – this from the great German poet Rainer Maria Rilke.  Approaching one new year at the dawn of the 20^th century, he wrote this in a letter to a friend: “And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done. . .”.  I could not think of a better wish for you, gentle reader, or for myself.  Though we tend to live our lives as if the year – or the great cycles of years – is given to us outright, somewhere in our minds we know that nothing is promised.  To more thoroughly savor this very day, why not notice one well-made thing close at hand that brings us pleasure.  Or better yet, why not make a new one ourselves – whether it be a hand-knitted scarf, a crusty loaf of sourdough, a well-framed photograph, or a vessel for memory in the form of a well-wrought verse.  Our heads, hands, and hearts cannot help but feel grateful for the effort.

 

 

Ars Poetica

 

 

Nine-tenths preparation, this artist’s work.

First, fabric between thumb and forefinger,

feeling weight, texture, give, nap. The planning

beforehand. Washing washable textiles

 

to shrink them before they’re sewn. Laying out

the pattern so the design flows, the plaid lines

match, the dress drapes. Shears sharp so the seams

won’t pucker, twist, ravel. A seamstress’s stress.

 

Then the fitting, the pinning and re-pinning

those seams. Right shade of thread?  The sewing,

seemingly magic, not one stitch visible.

Each seam, steam-pressed flat till at last the sewn

 

carries material and a dressmaker’s vision

out into the world, all in one piece, seamlessly.

 

 

––Moira Linehan

                

 

 

The 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

Ellen Cassedy and the 9 to 5 Feminist Labor Movement

 

Ellen Cassedy, the author of  "Working 9 to 5: A Women's Movement, A Labor Union, and the Iconic Movie," and one of the founders of the 9 to 5 feminist labor movement told me she lived in Davis Square, Somerville, Massachusetts from 1973 to 1979. When, according to her to her," You could get a good part for your washing machine, but that's about it." Now when she visits Somerville she is surprised about how it changed.  The gentrified Somerville impresses her--the new gleaming environs and all the trendy eateries. She reflected, "Imagine you can have a kale bowl in Somerville, now!"

Cassedy was a office worker at Harvard University in 1972, living in an old Victorian with other young women. She recalls, " One day we sat in a circle, and talked about what women needed in the workplace. We pooled our pennies and they sent me to the Midwest Academy of Organizers, and I learned all kinds of things about organizing people." It was until 1998 that the clerical workers at Harvard University won a contract, and then they tried to set standards for female employees.

Cassedy has an abundance of anecdotes about the conditions women faced during this era. She told me one acquaintance of hers went into her boss' office and requested a raise in salary. He told her, " You should see a psychiatrist." Women commonly trained men to be in management positions--that they would be just as competent in. Another comment that male superiors passed around was, "We gave the position to Joe--he bought a new house and has a family to support."  This- in spite of the fact  many of these female clerical workers needed to support a family, through the better income that a better job could provide. Many of these clerical workers had college degrees, and did not think they would spend years in the typing pool.

The Boston Clerical workforce in the 1970s was predominately white. Boston was a white city. This band of organizers insisted that people of color should be treated fairly. When they expanded their outreach to more diverse cities like Baltimore and Atlanta , they were able to reach out to minority workers.

Later in 1980 or so Jane Fonda and her staff approached Cassedy and other organizers, and told these women they wanted to produce a film about their experience. The movie "9 to 5" was a hit, and had a great title song by Dolly Parton. Before they produced the movie Fonda's people asked if any of the women fantasized about killing their bosses. According to Cassedy, seventy per cent did.

The movement was ambitious and created a " Bill of Rights for Women." They came up with 13 rights. They included the right for a job description, the right to say 'no' to anything outside the description, as well as others..Cassedy said they printed a large number of these documents, on old -looking parchment- like paper, and sent it around far and wide.

Cassedy told me she was part of the 'second' wave of feminism This wave , unlike the first wave,  which was strongly connected to Suffrage movement --sprung from the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s. During the early days, according to Cassedy, women did not want to be identified as feminist, but they certainly were for equal pay for equal work. Cassedy and her band of organizers had to couch their language, as not to alienate these women.

Cassedy told me how pleased she is with the reaction of younger women to her book and the movement.

After I had left Cassedy told me a young high school student approached her. She overheard our conversations, and told Cassedy that were putting a " 9 to 5" play at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. I could imagine a wide smile on Cassedy's face, as the torch passes on to younger generations.

Somerville artist Jocelyn Shu: Networks of Wire and Text that Open Us to Possibilities...

When I visited the Vernon Street Studios in Somerville for an open house--I came across the artwork of Jocelyn Shu. Shu is an eclectic woman, and in addition to creating art, she is a post -doc researcher at Harvard University. She says her art does not explain, but offers the viewer a chance for discovery.  Shu exudes a lot of energy, and we had a chance to chat about her confluence of art and science.

First off—how has it been for you at the Vernon Street Studios?


I love having a studio here! I’ve been in the building for three years (I found a space here shortly after moving to Cambridge in the fall of 2019 to start a postdoc position at Harvard), and in this time, being a part of Vernon Street Studios has given me the opportunity to be part of a vibrant, creative community. It has been wonderful to have studio visits and develop friendships with fellow artists here, and to meet the surrounding community of artists and art enthusiasts (such as yourself) through the well-attended open studios at this building.


You have a PhD from Columbia University, as well as a BFA in painting and drawing. How does your studies in psychology inform your art?


Since I was a child, I wanted to be an artist and in college, I primarily studied painting and drawing through a joint program with the University of San Francisco and California College of the Arts. I found that art school fostered a great deal of intellectual curiosity — it was also academically formative for me to be at two different kinds of educational environments — and I came out of undergrad wanting to engage in a deeper level of academic discourse to understand the human mind. I eventually moved to New York City, began studying psychology and working in research labs, then completed a PhD in psychology at Columbia where I conducted basic research on emotions and emotion regulation. Currently, I think psychology informs my art at a more unconscious level. I can see in both my work in science and art, an interest in language and how we cope with uncertainty and change. People often find my sculptural pieces to resemble neurons — that is not something I intended in my art, but I think it is also not a pure coincidence.


I asked you at your studio, " What is the theory of your work?" You seemed to find that an interesting question—so what is the 'theory?'


I thought it was an interesting question as it melds language and thinking from science and art. From the scientific side, a theory is an explanation of how something in the world works. At this time, I don’t think I can translate that directly into my art practice — my art doesn’t seek to explain. Instead, like a lot of art, it seeks to open viewers’ minds to different ideas, possibilities, and emotional experiences. That said, there are broad themes that I’m drawn to in my art practice — the disassembling of language and thought, line, change, beauty.


I have interviewed a number of art therapists over the year. Do you use art in your own practice?


I’m trained as a basic researcher and don’t have experience as a clinician or therapist. However, I have been interested in studying how art can help us manage our emotions, a topic that could inform understanding of why art therapy is effective. As a postdoctoral researcher, I’ve started to conduct some studies that are addressing these questions.


One piece I saw of yours seemed to be a mesh of thin threads—attached to neuron-like images. It seemed to be a network. Can you explain what you were trying to get across?


I think you might be referring to one of my sculptural pieces made of wire, as some of this work takes neuron-like forms. If so, the piece would have been part of a series I’ve been working on for over ten years in which I’ve been cutting text from translated chapters of the Dao De Jing ( Chinese philosophical text)  and attaching the text to wire to form sculptural pieces that hang from the ceiling and walls, and sit on the ground. In this work, I consider the acts of crossing cultures, and of translating and taking apart language. More recently, these pieces have become more autobiographical as I incorporate found materials from my environment into them.


Any upcoming projects, showings?


I’m just about to move to Taipei, Taiwan, where my parents are from and where I plan to spend most of the upcoming year. This is the first time I’ll be living there for an extended period of time and while I’ll continue to work on ongoing research in psychology, I intend to focus on my art practice now. I’m curious how this experience might lead to new bodies of work as I learn the language and navigate cultural differences. I will keep my studio space at Vernon Street Studios and plan to be back for a solo show at the Launchpad space at Boston Sculptors Gallery in October 2023.

Red Letter Poem #141

 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 #141

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll tell you mine if you’ll tell me yours.  It’s the unspoken covenant within all literature, extending way back to the time when our thoughts had not yet been turned into written signs.  It’s a belief that the telling of stories cannot help but incite in those that hear them a desire to respond, to identify their own narrative threads and follow where they lead.  This is true even if the listener – at least for now – keeps their own tales private.  There is a faith that the telling is a communal impulse, and we are somehow bound together by what we share.  I can’t help but imagine a time when humans huddled together around a fire in the darkest of nights needing to calm the heart before sleep, needing to remind themselves (as we do now) that the darkness would eventually yield (hadn’t it always before?), and the sun would carry us back to morning.  In last week’s Red Letter, Jack Stewart’s poem had us gazing into the winter sky and wondering what moved beyond that starlight – or, more to the point, how the stories we tell ourselves shape what we perceive in this present moment.  Prompted by his little narrative, I’ll tell you mine.

 

I found myself thinking back to the last years of my mother’s life when, every few months, I’d fly down to South Florida to spend a several days with her.  The visits were largely uneventful: we’d make simple meals together or, for a treat, buy hot pastrami sandwiches and matzoh ball soup from the local deli, so we could hunker down at her kitchen table playing round after round of gin rummy.  But the food, the games were largely an excuse for us to sit close and talk: telling stories that dredged up old memories; recalling faces that were distant or had been lost to us; letting laughter heal the ache, confusion, and regret.  Though only rarely did we speak of it directly, this was our way of conducting a long goodbye, of making sure we’d settled our hearts while we were together, preparing for the days apart.  On one occasion, and to break up the regularity, I suggested I drive her to Coconut Creek to visit Butterfly World, the largest butterfly park on the planet.  Though not the sort of thing she might normally have sought out, she agreed – and ended up loving the afternoon, sharing an experience that led to a much-loved photograph, a skein of memories we’d rehash over the card games, and eventually today’s poem.

 

Here, at the time of mid-winter celebrations – where almost every religious tradition has its own story to tell – we can share this starlit moment together (even if virtually), and wonder about all that lies beyond our comprehension.  The story you and your family tell may be about unassailable hope embodied in the birth of a child; or about the endurance of light beyond all rational expectation; about the planet itself sheathed in the cold and dark that, nonetheless, contains new seeds waiting to erupt.  Or it may be about an old woman in a butterfly garden, lifted momentarily by the unimaginable beauty of those tiny creatures whose survival depends upon a transformation that can only be called miraculous.  Every narrative we share illuminates a small space between the listeners as – eyes finding other eyes – we recognize once again with whom we are sharing this hour.

 

So: I’ve told you my story, now you tell me yours.  Or, better yet, put down the phone or switch off the screen, and tell that person across the dining room table or seated beside you on the couch: about that time you actually. . .how then, out of the blue. . .and you won’t believe what happened next. . ..  I can’t tell you how often those gin rummy games come to mind; or how many questions I’d now like to ask, had I the chance; or which family stories, dulled (or so I thought) by the re-telling, I’d give anything to hear her voice share one more time.  The constellation of all those red-letter days and evenings – familial or cosmic, simple or profound – by which we steer our lives: savor them now, and then pass them on.  

 

 

 

My Mother, in the Butterfly Garden

 

 

The white morphos roiling about her head

were not halos.  The nervous flurry

of fritillaries, lacewings – not seraphim, not stars.

Even if Divinity had not been, all her life,

a wordless thing, she would never have taken this

for scripture scribbled across the humid air.  

Still, mother ooh!-ed and ah!-ed as each one

caught her eye, giddy as the schoolchildren

walking past us – but then suddenly solemn

as one black-and-scarlet beauty lighted

on her withered arm.  And later when she

pried herself from her wheelchair and stood

wavering in the afternoon sun so she could

bring her face close to the passion vines (this one,

a spray of spiky blue novas – and this,

a chorus of yellow mouths rising on the trellis),

she smiled and spoke a single word: Wonderful! 

It was not meant as benediction but

became that just the same, the syllables

blossoming in the air between us.  Tired again,

she had me wheel her to the shade. 

For nearly an hour we sat together in this

glassed-in world and let beauty do its work.

So, there it is – the little that’s left to us:

flower, wing, garden, mother, son – 

a brief outing at the close of summer.

If not God, then at least the will to desire Him.

If not eternity, then this bloom-scented

breathing in, and breathing out.

All we possess –                                                                 

all that’s been taken from us –

all that, in the end, we willingly

let slip from our grasp:  Wonderful! 

 

 

––Steven Ratiner

 

                       

 

 

The 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