Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene: Red Letter Poem #269

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 #269

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 #269

My Bad Day

What I took to be true love turned out to be a tattered paper doily.

Where I expected my reflection, I found yours.

What I thought just an hour turned out to be a day. Then another and another.

A morning protest turned into a slow murder

and the rubber boot lying on the floor stood up like an urn,

the ashes of a lost year waiting to be scattered.

I thought I was running late but I was standing still in the rain.

What I took to be a mirage turned out to be the world on fire.

What I thought was St. Francis was actually a birdbath.

What I took to be a fire hydrant was something not even a dog would pee on

and that ghost dog haunted me. The spare rib I pulled from

the pot soaking turned out to be a drowned mouse.

What I took to be a long wait on a long line turned out to be my life.

What I took to be Whitman’s handkerchief of the Lord turned out to be Astroturf,

and I what I took to be the end of the road was, in fact, the end of the road.

––Kathleen Aguero

It’s not a case of ‘misery loves company,’ but more like that strange situation where someone else’s distress sometimes lessens our own or, at least, places it in a new perspective. And though certainly no one would wish for any affliction, physical or emotional, we’ve all learned this difficult lesson over time: pain often becomes one of our most profound teachers. It has a way of reminding us of some essential truths concerning the very nature of human consciousness and mortal fragility. These bodies we travel around inside bring us both suffering as well as joy, and we must either learn to navigate the shifts in that emotional weather or be washed away by every storm. And so I took it, not as criticism but as a kindness, when my post-college roommate Carolee bought me a copy of Judith Viorst’s children’s classic Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (though some might say it was a book intended for ‘children’ who already have decades under their belt). If somehow you’ve missed this delightful tale, a summary is simple: everything that could go wrong for young Alexander does (in spades) during one unfortunate 24-hour period. Of course, his child-sized troubles (gum in his hair, sibling rivalry, classroom disappointment) are meant to seem small when compared to our own––but the book makes us remember how monumental those griefs seemed at the time. Perhaps we’re even prompted to wonder whether our ‘grown-up’ troubles might also shrink in hindsight. Unlike Alexander, who is constantly threatening to move to Australia, we understand that misery is portable and adheres to us no matter where we go.

Which brings me to Kathleen Aguero’s own terrible, horrible litany and her very different way of responding. Her suffering may be triggered by an affair of the heart, broader societal angst, or old-fashioned existential dread––it’s never made clear in the poem and, because of that, we are free to pour our own ample supply of woe into her protracted lines. But we realize slowly what she is doing: she is dreaming-while-awake (though nightmaring might be closer to the truth.) She is allowing language to tease out internal states of being by reflecting them in the material. “What I took to be true love turned out to be a tattered paper doily.” The painful connotations abound, especially if you recall those arts and crafts projects from elementary school, pasting our red paper hearts onto the lacy backing, hoping our secret Valentine might reciprocate. But the poet pairs this with: “Where I expected my reflection, I found yours.”––and suddenly love’s disillusionment becomes more dire. And what she thought might be an hour’s dilemma “turned out to be a day. Then another and another.” It seems the mesmerizing sounds of her lines are conjuring the content––“A morning protest turned into a slow murder.” How we grieve for that solitary boot filled with the ashes of the speaker’s expectations. Like any dream, the poem possesses its own internal logic which we are only too happy to accept, carried along by the musicality of the verse and the surprising shifts in context.

Winner of the Firman Houghton Award from the New England Poetry Club as well as grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Elgin-Cox Foundation, Kathleen Aguero is the author of a half-dozen poetry collections, the most recent being World Happiness Index from Tiger Bark Books. She is Faculty-at-Large in the Solstice low-residency M.F.A. program at Lasell University––and also teaches in ‘Changing Lives through Literature,’ an alternative sentencing program in our judicial system which (and I don’t mean to be flip) is designed to use the written word as a potent vehicle for changing some really terrible, horrible days into an improved tomorrow. Kathleen’s poem feels so utterly empowered, it can take the balm of St. Francis and morph it into a bird bath, fire hydrant, and a ghost-dog’s disdain. My favorite of all the couplets: “What I took to be a long wait on a long line turned out to be my life./ What I took to be Whitman’s handkerchief of the Lord turned out to be Astroturf,” (biting our lips with those f-endings)––and, for a moment, it seems not even poetry can rescue this poor speaker from her shattered illusions. At last, the poem ends with a final ‘couplet’ that cannot even secure a partner. But while the poet pens “the end of the road,” the momentum of the poem has been transferred to our own minds, and we can’t help imagining the next day’s possibilities, or the day after that. Pieces like this remind me that poetry is, as some have called it, serious play––the kind of cerebral experimentation that engenders possibilities. And keep in mind: putting pen to paper is a good deal cheaper than moving to Australia.

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

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 BlueSky

@stevenratiner.bsky.social

and on Twitter

@StevenRatiner

And coming soon:

a new website to house all the Red Letter archives at StevenRatiner.com

Which brings me to Kathleen Aguero’s own terrible, horrible litany and her very different way of responding. Her suffering may be triggered by an affair of the heart, broader societal angst, or old-fashioned existential dread––it’s never made clear in the poem and, because of that, we are free to pour our own ample supply of woe into her protracted lines. But we realize slowly what she is doing: she is dreaming-while-awake (though nightmaring might be closer to the truth.) She is allowing language to tease out internal states of being by reflecting them in the material. “What I took to be true love turned out to be a tattered paper doily.” The painful connotations abound, especially if you recall those arts and crafts projects from elementary school, pasting our red paper hearts onto the lacy backing, hoping our secret Valentine might reciprocate. But the poet pairs this with: “Where I expected my reflection, I found yours.”––and suddenly love’s disillusionment becomes more dire. And what she thought might be an hour’s dilemma “turned out to be a day. Then another and another.” It seems the mesmerizing sounds of her lines are conjuring the content––“A morning protest turned into a slow murder.” How we grieve for that solitary boot filled with the ashes of the speaker’s expectations. Like any dream, the poem possesses its own internal logic which we are only too happy to accept, carried along by the musicality of the verse and the surprising shifts in context.

Winner of the Firman Houghton Award from the New England Poetry Club as well as grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Elgin-Cox Foundation, Kathleen Aguero is the author of a half-dozen poetry collections, the most recent being World Happiness Index from Tiger Bark Books. She is Faculty-at-Large in the Solstice low-residency M.F.A. program at Lasell University––and also teaches in ‘Changing Lives through Literature,’ an alternative sentencing program in our judicial system which (and I don’t mean to be flip) is designed to use the written word as a potent vehicle for changing some really terrible, horrible days into an improved tomorrow. Kathleen’s poem feels so utterly empowered, it can take the balm of St. Francis and morph it into a bird bath, fire hydrant, and a ghost-dog’s disdain. My favorite of all the couplets: “What I took to be a long wait on a long line turned out to be my life./ What I took to be Whitman’s handkerchief of the Lord turned out to be Astroturf,” (biting our lips with those f-endings)––and, for a moment, it seems not even poetry can rescue this poor speaker from her shattered illusions. At last, the poem ends with a final ‘couplet’ that cannot even secure a partner. But while the poet pens “the end of the road,” the momentum of the poem has been transferred to our own minds, and we can’t help imagining the next day’s possibilities, or the day after that. Pieces like this remind me that poetry is, as some have called it, serious play––the kind of cerebral experimentation that engenders possibilities. And keep in mind: putting pen to paper is a good deal cheaper than moving to Australia.