Red Letter Poem #311

  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 #311

 

 

 

My People


They were uncomfortable with expressions of feeling

and I suspect most of them died without ever hearing

a single “I love you.” Sentiment was tolerated in letters

where the distance between writer and recipient

kept any emotional excesses at arm’s length, literally,

and those slightly unsettling words were refolded

along the creases they came with, tucked back into

their envelopes, the flaps folded over and smoothed,

then rubber-banded and kept in a drawer in a sideboard

where they would be happened upon many years later,

and impolitely read by some stranger for whom they

were never intended, and then, with no hesitation,

torn in half, and in half again, and in half a third time,

and dropped into a wastebasket, to be consigned to

a rusty burn barrel at the back of the overgrown yard,

fed into the crackling flames, love after love after love.

––Ted Kooser

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t compliment Ted Kooser.  It discomforts him.  I think fanfares and effusive encomiums are simply not his cup of tea––even though he is an extremely popular writer with nearly fifty titles on his authorial resume, casting a wide net that includes poetry, non-fiction, memoir, and children’s stories.  I noticed over time that when, in any of my e-mails, I devoted a paragraph to praising his work, his seemingly-indomitable spirit, his characteristic generosity, my comments would pass unremarked.  But if I spoke about the weather blessing/afflicting my Massachusetts home, or enquired about the meteorological state of his beloved Garland, Nebraska, his responses were enthusiastic and carefully observed.  No, let me amend that––there were many topics that engendered bountiful responses: questions about his continued practice of waking in the early morning dark to write at his desk, to see what language has in store for him that day––that was worth a hefty paragraph.  Or work around his farm which the poet still attends to largely without help––despite being an 87-year-old, four-time cancer survivor––that merited a burst of spritely sentences.  And rural life; the compelling beauty of the natural world; his beloved wife, family, and friends––some of whom were struggling with the same mortal pitfalls we all must face––any of these topics would get the ink flowing.  Just not Ted himself, and why we––who have come to know and appreciate his unique perspective through his books and his work as a former United States Poet Laureate––like to imagine him as, if not a personal friend, then a cherished neighbor (no matter how many miles lay between our homes).  If that’s what is being offered: crickets.

 

I’ve felt very fortunate, not only to have published some of Ted’s recent poems in the Red Letters, but a whole chapbook of what he refers to as his “critter poems”––diminutive portraits of animal and insect life and the imaginative possibilities they provoke.  Fellow Creatures was not only one of a very few print publications issued from Red Letter Editions (StevenRatiner.com), Ted (and did I mention his generous spirit?) allowed the publication to serve as a benefit for this project so that poets and musicians performing in my annual Red Letter LIVE events might receive a small honorarium.  From time to time, he will send me one of his morning poems, and I was grateful for his blessing to include “My People” in the Letters.  I love this as a poem, but also for what it illuminated about the character of this remarkable poet (darn, there I go again!)   Composed in the straightforward language we might find in a family missive, he states plainly that his people “were uncomfortable with expressions of feeling.”  But he follows that with as devastating a declarative as I’ve run across in quite some time: “and I suspect most of them died without ever hearing/ a single ‘I love you.’”  It is a stereotype of Midwesterners, deserved or not––this flinty and stoical nature.  But to hear it put so plainly: I was shaken, imagining the children who might have hungered for those effusive embraces and expressions of deep affection.  I expect a certain self-reliance resulted from such an upbringing, but can’t help imagining a longing for more.  Was that what bolstered the poet’s predisposition toward literary pursuits where––as he says of family letters––“the distance between writer and recipient/ kept any emotional excesses at arm’s length, literally”? 

 

T. S. Eliot’s concept called the ‘objective correlative’ extends beyond simple metaphor; it is a literary moment, excised from lived experience, that embodies some deep emotional state and resonates with unspecified energies which cannot help but affect a reader, conjuring unexpected meaning.  The next few lines of Ted’s poem, describing the feeling sometimes expressed in family letters, are a textbook example: “those slightly unsettling words were refolded/ along the creases they came with, tucked back into/ their envelopes, the flaps folded over and smoothed,/ then rubber-banded and kept in a drawer…”.  Tell me you did not feel the pain of those “creases”, the dark tomb of that sideboard drawer!  And then, in a rush of stoic inevitability Zeno himself would have admired, the poet allows the years of a lifetime to flutter by like those brittle pages––falling now beneath some stranger’s gaze for whom those feelings, those human days, have no meaning.  Torn and discarded into the “rusty burn barrel at the back of the overgrown yard,” (now Eliot, too, must be smiling), they are “fed into the crackling flames, love after love after love.”  How much suppressed longing is embodied in that closing line and achieved with what admirable restraint?  So now I’ve changed my mind: shower Mr. Kooser with praise; embrace him through that quiet voice we relish in his poems; beam our love and admiration in the direction of Garland.  And if there is no outward response, please don’t think that means it wasn’t gratefully received.

 

 

 

 

 

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:

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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

 

* The weekly installment is also available at

the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene

http://dougholder.blogspot.com

 

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And visit the Red Letter archives at: https://StevenRatiner.com/category/red-letters/