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 #313
Ode To Café Pamplona
Cambridge, MA 1959-2020
Gracias a ti, Josefina Yanguas Perez,
for your subterranean sanctuary
its white stucco walls and low ceilings
lit warmly yellow,
windowsills alive with geraniums,
laughter, pontifications,
writings, readings, ideas,
where your diminutive Basque body
floats in each day, nodding kaixo or hola
to David, who writes a poem for you and Lorca;
to linguist, Lee, sipping espresso,
uttering Alhamdulillah in any language
as a loner listens and a woman
in a black beret writes at a far table;
and always professors and students wrangling
over politics, music, philosophy,
where language reigns over the coffee grinder’s growl,
chairs scrape the checkered floor by patrons
coming and going for communitas and caffeine,
bowls of Iruña gazpacho, flat pork sandwiches, pastries—
orders awaiting young male waiters, lean
as their thin black ties.
––Kathleen Granchelli
Submitting her poems to the Red Letters, Kathleen Granchelli could never have predicted the nature nor intensity of my response––especially toward one piece in particular. But just the mention of that name––Café Pamplona––triggered a cascade of vivid memories: it’s 1975, and I have moved (inexplicably) from sunny California back to the frigid Northeast. The bookstore job I managed to snag nets me the princely sum of $80 per week––and thus any entertainments in my free time needed to be just that: free, or very inexpensive. I discovered that Harvard’s excellent Fogg Art Museum offered complimentary admission; I relished my idylls in their galleries. Then I’d enjoy an hour in the poetry section of one of the numerous used bookshops that existed at the time around Harvard Square––browsing is another marvelous low-cost delight. Inspired, and seeking sustenance, I’d repair to Café Pamplona––a small below-ground coffeehouse with true Old World charm. That’s because the owner, Josefina Yanguas, modeled the place on the café life in the city of her beloved Spanish home. Two bucks bought me a modest lunch and two hours sheltered from the cold. (I see you looking doubtful; a cappuccino for sixty cents! A buck-and-a-quarter added a media noche sandwich to the order––with the remaining coins left on the saucer as a gratuity!) I could read and write undisturbed because, if ever a courtly waiter approached a lingering customer, it was only to ask if he might bring another glass of water. One word instantly comes to mind when I think of the Pamplona and, unsurprisingly, there it is right there at the outset of Kathleen’s poem: sanctuary.
But even if you’d never been a patron during the café’s 60-year lifespan, this poet’s wealth of carefully-observed detail makes you feel you’re seated at a table beside the whitewashed walls, idling perhaps on your own day off. This is a people-watching paradise so perhaps you, too, would soon be sketching thumbnail portraits of Cambridge luminaries and the dashing demimonde––inspired by the sepia fresco by Conger Metcalf adorning the corner wall. The rat-a-tat cadences in Kathleen’s poem perfectly reflect the companionable chatter of “professors and students wrangling/ over politics, music, philosophy,/ where language reigns over the coffee grinder’s growl…”. At a time when I could not afford a writing studio, Pamplona was not only my atelier but the shared incubator for a profusion of ideas and visions, forming quite a fine brother/sisterhood. Among others, there’s a mention of the café in Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake. And yes, that’s Amanda Palmer, of the Dresden Dolls, singing this lyric within “Truce,”: "You can have Africa, Asia, Australia, as long as you keep your hands off Café Pamplona." How many artworks, movies, memoirs––not to mention love affairs––first took root in Josefina’s version of a public salon?
And now add Kathleen to that list of bards celebrating this dearly-missed meeting place. Perhaps that’s her, seated (virtually) by one of the few windows that allow a bit of sunlight into this espresso-scented cavern. Shall I make an introduction? For most of her career, Kathleen led the communications and community relations office for a not-for-profit R&D organization, following four years teaching students at the high school and college levels. But upon retirement, her passion for poetry was reignited; her work has since appeared in such magazines as Mediterranean Poetry, Persimmon Tree, Seven Bridges Digital Magazine, and The Orchards Poetry Journal––many of her pieces reflecting her experience living in Australia and Greece. Her chapbook, For the World, She Said, is slated to be published by Kelsay Books later this year or early in 2027. All this reminds me of the almost infinite variety of reasons we are drawn to the work of certain poets: because of kindred memories; unimagined but enticing landscapes; or stylistic flourishes that strike some hidden emotional chord. On first reading Kathleen’s poems, I was struck by this revelation: how much we have in common, often unaware. How frequently we discover that some stranger’s vivid life-experience, their simmering dreams, their distant yet persistent music, creates a sympathetic vibration with our own minds. How many passing close by us this very day once shared the same park or crowded café, the inexorable pull of a first line of poetry in their ear like some siren song? A poem, too, is a gathering place for strangers to commune. Thank you, Josefina! Thank you, Kathleen! The next round’s on me!
The Red Letters
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