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 #199
This Red Letter installment launches us into our fifth year of publication––cause, I believe, for some modest celebration and (especially for readers new to these electronic pages) a bit of explanation. Every superhero franchise needs an origin story––so here’s ours.
On March 15th, 2020, the first Covid quarantine went into effect in Massachusetts, joining others around the country. Likely you’ll remember how the fear in those days was palpable––especially since we did not get a sense that our national leaders were acting in a clear-eyed fashion, confronting this devastating challenge. Still, we hoped the first mandated three-week isolation would allow the disease to ‘burn itself out.’ Three weeks! Thinking back on those days, how naïve we seemed. At the time, I was in the midst of my first term as Poet Laureate for Arlington, MA; I’d been busy concocting strategies for inserting poetry into civic life in playful ways and unexpected places. The Red Letters was going to be a one-off mailing of poems in red envelopes to a thousand randomly-chosen residents, and I’d managed to recruit a dozen volunteers to help. Who wouldn’t read a hand-addressed poem if it arrived in your mailbox amid the bills and adverts? The lockdown quickly put an end to all that. Yet It only took a week of isolation to convince me that poetry might be more necessary than ever: a reminder that we were not alone in all this, that human kind had faced such overwhelming problems before. So I gathered, from local authors, poems that might offer comfort and inspiration, and began an electronic mailing every Friday. Its popularity was immediate and word-of-mouth swelled the subscriber’s list.
Two month’s later, George Floyd was murdered. Suddenly, our country was being dragged into a reckoning about its history and its future. And I knew immediately that this poetry forum needed to expand––both geographically and in terms of its subject matter. Over time, as additional crises mounted and it seemed the very nature of reality was being reshaped (often by insidious forces), I began seeking out poets from across the United States and beyond; I wanted to publish work that might contribute to this vital conversation––poems to inspire, surprise, challenge, and delight. I’ve come to view the Red Letters as a poetry anthology evolving in real-time, reflecting the personal, societal, and imaginative territory we are all compelled to explore in order to take our bearings and choose a path forward.
Once a year, I’ll add a piece of my own verse to the mix (how can I not want to be included in this marvelous chorus of poetic voices!) And so, to kick off our fifth year, here is a poem inspired by one of my favorite poets (who, I’m pleased to say, is also a Red Letter contributor): Jane Hirshfield. I’m always impressed by how Jane’s work seems both tangible and ethereal––devastatingly honest about the condition of this battered planet, yet still able to focus on experiences worthy of praise. I find my sense of hope bolstered by the work of poets like Jane. On a visit to the small island of St. John in the US Virgin Islands––one of my wife’s and my favorite places on earth––this small poem erupted one morning, a cascade of run-on sentences tumbling down (as all water does) toward its source. I hope its lyric momentum carries readers along, buoys the spirit. Oh, and that superhero I mentioned at the start? In case it was unclear: that’s you, this vital community of readers and writers who––despite the trauma of conflict and the dispiriting behavior some of our institutions exhibit in response––continue to affirm that we are each cultural vessels bearing the millennial history of human development. Words matter to you; you’re aware that thoughts can be both weapon and shield; and poems reaffirm our desire to continue expanding our vision. Though some days seem bleak, you and I still find ways to cherish those things that truly matter to us: faces, voices, ideas, landscapes, experiences of loss and replenishment. Believing in the ultimate value of life, we try to make each new awakening a red-letter day. (May there be endless sequels.)
A Soul
(for Jane Hirshfield)
They call it a soul, it’s not a soul, it’s
the feeling in the hand, just so much
cardamom, so much thyme, how
the tongue knows to strike one syllable,
bend another, song and instrument one
and the same, how the current surges when
she, almost casually, makes music of my name,
makes urgency of the ordinary, her lips touching
here, or mine caressing there, the tide turning
rocks below us in the cove, turning the craggy
heart smooth as a stone the soul lifts in its hand,
had a soul a hand, and tosses far out into
the raveling, unraveling blue, they call it
a sea, it’s not a sea, it’s a soul.
––Steven Ratiner
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
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