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 #277
(Bad) Scheherazade: the Library
Tattoo’d & ruby-lipped, she shows
Up, her squeaky grocery cart over-
Flowing with books. Past the metal
Detector shrieking at her gown, sewn
With slivers of mirror, tilting sparkle wig.
Thumbs up to that homeless guy calling
Let her in! because she’s here to read
Stories in a prime voice to kids gathering
Where she sits next to a sign she carefully inked:
Read books! And listen to them read by––
Shhh she whispers, though she’s not here
To stay quiet. Unlike the unread threat:
Sultan of Silence, the one who burns books––
That blaze spreading if we stop paying
Attention to page after page that he
Crumples and tosses into flames, because:
It was the best of times and the worst
The Reader repeats out loud
Or in your head: Goodnight Moon!
Or On the Road. Or “I’m nobody”––
“Will you take me home?” Boo asks
Scout & Jem in his dream-like odd politeness.
Souls in a library light up, listening.
You can Call me Ishmael. Call me Sula.
Here’s a cartful of books. Somebody loves you.
––Carol Muske-Dukes
There’s only so much I can tell you. I know that the next collection from the acclaimed poet, Carol Muske-Dukes, will be entitled (Bad) Scheherazade, and the title character––the star of today’s Red Letter as well––will make at least a few appearances across the texts. Beyond that, I am left to imagine––but the two poems from the manuscript that will appear in these electronic pages already assure me any speculation will be rewarded with delight. Let me start with the book’s title: we’ve all heard of Scheherazade, the protagonist of the famed collection of Arabic folktales, One Thousand and One Nights. These stories were compiled during a period known as the Islamic Golden Age––a time of flourishing science and culture between the 8th and 13th centuries. The name is derived from Middle Persian, a conjoining of the words čīhr ('lineage') and āzād ('noble, exalted'). And so, what to make of Carol’s modifier (Bad) attached to the appellation? Is she implying that this incarnation will turn out to be a less enthralling storyteller? Or that her nobility may be disguised beneath the trappings of poverty or her status as an outcast? Might the poet even be playing off the urban parlance where bad refers to the ultimate cool? But when our Scheherazade finally barges into the inky spotlight––“Tattoo’d & ruby-lipped. . .her squeaky grocery cart over-/ Flowing with books”––this larger-than-life figure comes into focus: it’s Drag Queen Story Hour, the popular library offering that delights young children and drives Right-wing zealots out of their fevered minds. Her nemesis is the euphemistically-named “Sultan of Silence” who’d rather burn books than trust readers to decide on their own preferences. (One might call such a villain ‘a bad actor,’ but here the word would simply mean ‘reprehensible’).
I love that this modern-day Scheherazade finds some way to slip past the censorious gatekeepers (not to mention metal detectors), to bring a shopping cart’s worth of literary delight to whomever might have ears to receive them. Sparks fly up from the likes of Charles Dickens, Herman Melville, and Emily Dickinson; Harper Lee, Jack Kerouac, Toni Morrison, and even Margaret Wise Brown’s children’s classic. Perhaps you, too, found yourself wishing you could be seated cross-legged on the library carpet, being mesmerized by these tales. Our poet––in the jagged, boisterous rhythms of this verse––is stirring up the same commotion as our mirror-bejeweled luminary. Silence in the face of oppression has too often been the source of tragedy, and this flamboyant storyteller will not be easily silenced––nor should the one performing inside the library of our minds.
A former California Poet Laureate, Carol is the author of sixteen books, ranging from poetry and fiction to essays and anthologies––for which she has been richly honored with awards and fellowships. For many years, I’ve sought out her muscular poetry, intrigued by a kind of torsion within it: the fragile heart trying to embrace a linguistic whirlwind. She is a retired professor from the University of Southern California, but also taught in MFA programs across the nation. When you think of it, we should not be surprised that she’s embraced the Scheherazade persona; to a certain degree, I think every poet feels they are in the position of unscrolling an endless stream of language in order to preserve their own sanity, if not their very existence. And we each experience many versions of the fable’s King Shahryar in our lives––cruel monarchs who would behead us (metaphorically, if not actually) for what they would deem an inherent disloyalty. Some innocent intuition assures us that if our poems and stories are compelling enough, we will survive for another day. Maybe even death itself will forget about us or determine that we’re too entertaining to sacrifice. If nothing else, each new poem reminds us that our passionate minds and entrancing imaginations are what make for another red-letter day––and what could be more necessary in these troubled times? This is true from Damascus and al-Andalus to Washington and the sun-blessed California coast.
The Red Letters
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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 BlueSky
@stevenratiner.bsky.social
and on Twitter
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