Red Letters 229

 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

Saturday!



The fifth annual Red Letter LIVE! reading

has arrived!

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



Hosted by

Steven Ratiner and Jean Flanagan



Red Letter Poem #229



Cupid Peruses The Times


A curly-headed cupid, reading

on my balcony, rain-drenched

and naked, hand on chubby chin,

thinking, no doubt, about what

certain words mean—delirious:

the way his perfumed head feels?

Or rapacious: his appetite for gold-

tipped anything and honey skin?

And resuscitate, to raise up again

in Latin, the way Lazarus, risen

from his tomb in Bethany,

ate supper with his sister Martha.

As in: restored to daily walks

and the scent of lemon trees.

My cupid reads ventilator, thinks

Ventus, the night wind his mother—

wild black hair rising—

calls the breath of the gods.


––Teresa Cader





Thank goodness for that angelic presence! Not the cherubic sculpture that Teresa Cader has perched on her balcony (though I’m sure her familiar companion provides both comfort and inspiration at times while this poet sits quietly sipping morning coffee.) No, I mean this elemental, all-pervasive aspect of our lives: language. Or, more specifically, the sylph-like way words––unexpected meanings, captivating images, musically-charged syllables––circle about us, infusing nearly every waking moment. They’re like a kind of intermediary between the inner landscape of consciousness and the outer material world––so familiar (from Latin familiāris–– “of the household,”) we often take them for granted. Language––especially those forms to which we’ve given our deepest, our most artful attention––reflects a certain light on the substance of our days until we find ourselves experiencing a heightened emotional impact, its elusive beauty. It almost seems as if words––even those that sometimes come to us unexpectedly, in an intuitive leap––cannot help but prompt small or great awakenings (such as my casual phrase we find ourselves for example which, I am reminded now, is at the heart of our attraction to those gifts poets and prose writers lavish upon us.)

Teresa is one of those fine craftswomen and determined explorers I return to often in order to jumpstart my own sluggish consciousness. It’s why I took pleasure in seeing the first copies of AT RISK, Teresa’s fourth collection of poetry, finally arriving this month on bookshelves. Published by Ashland Poetry Press, the book was awarded the 2023 Richard Snyder Memorial Award, judged by Mark Doty. Reviewers are already heaping praise on this work which furthers an already-distinguished career. Right from her first collection, Guests––honored by The Journal/Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize and the Norma Farber First Book Award–– the clarity and fierce honesty of her voice was evident. Many honors soon followed including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe. I think it’s admirable, as well, that she’s spent many years working to inspire younger writers to develop their own poetic voices, teaching in programs at MIT, UMass-Boston, the Emerson College Graduate Writing Program and, for a decade, the low-residency MFA Program at Lesley University.



Meditating on this wingéd presence, Teresa finds herself unpacking the rich baggage words bring with them. After all, meanings accumulate, evolve over time––and thus language bears the impression of those who came earlier (sometimes centuries before our arrival,) and whose utterance takes on a new life within our own. If we make ourselves open to it, we may intuit those distant lives in the very derivation––the family lineage, so to speak––evident on the page or echoing on the tongue. Think, for a moment, of the range of connotations contained in that delirium Teresa imagines her cupid feeling; did you imagine the doorways to the heart swinging open or the gates of Bedlam? Because of the present context of our fraught election season, rapacious couldn’t help but bring to mind any number of recent headlines. And I hope that we have not grown so inured to Covid that the word ventilator doesn’t conjure flashes from those desperate early days of the pandemic when hospitals were hard-pressed to keep patients alive (even as, today, I try to force my mind imagine the breath of the gods conveying some sort of protection upon us all.) This poem seems to bring a quiet dissonance between its playful approach and its more ominous overtones. As I am finishing my revision of this Letter, the Presidential election is underway, and our nation’s voice will become manifest. I am hopeful but anxious (another two-faced Janus of a word that carries a range of meanings.) By the time this Red Letter reaches you, perhaps you’ll be perusing your own copy of The Times, and a new path for our country will have made itself clear. I pray the better angels of our nature (to borrow a phrase heavy-laden with history) will have prevailed.

 

 

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

 

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.