Red Letter Poem #209

  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

 

 

 

 

 

As most of you have heard, this Sunday will begin the culminating summer of the WE (too) THE PEOPLE poetry series, created by by the New England Poetry Club and the Longfellow Historical House.  If you want to learn more, here’s a link to the page highlighting that program:   https://nepoetryclub.org/we-too-the-people/

 

Wearing my other hat as NEPC president, I am working to iron out last-minute arrangements for the event and writing the introductions.  So let me offer a Flashback Friday Red Letter this week instead of a new installment.  WE (too)… kicked off last summer with a reading by a Former US Poet Laureate, Robert Pinsky––and we are fortunate enough to have another to start this year’s program, the wonderful Tracy K. Smith.  If you live in the Boston area, I hope to meet many of you there on Sunday (but, for those at a distance, videos of each WE (too)… event will be posted two days afterward).  Here’s one of my favorite Red Letters featuring a poem from Robert’s new collection––one that echoes the theme of the WE (too) events: affirming that a diversity of voices is essential to the vitality of our culture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flashback Friday:

Red Letter Poem #209

 

 

 

 

Branca  

 

 

Ralph Branca was the fifteenth of seventeen children.

This poem is not the poem of “the speaker.”

 

His father was an immigrant from Calabria.

These words are those of Robert Pinsky. Speaking.

 

Branca wore Dodger uniform number 13.

“Speaking” is the punch line of a Jewish joke.

 

Some Romans call Calabrians “Africani.”

Brooklyn had its own daily, the Brooklyn Eagle.

 

At eighty-five Branca learned about his mother.

He was twenty-one when Robinson joined the Dodgers.

 

At eleven I loved Robinson for his daring

Running the bases. Stealing home. His fire.

 

Branca was one of the few who befriended him.

I was too young to understand his mission

 

The fuel of that dancing to taunt the pitcher.

Robinson never forgot Branca’s kindness.

 

What the old man found out about his mother

Is she was born a Jew in Hungary. Kati.

 

After he gave up the most famous home run ever,

Back in the clubhouse Branca lay weeping face down.

 

Kati gave birth to seventeen Catholic children.

The Giants won the pennant. 1951.

 

Branca means “claw,” a fit name for a pitcher.

His teammates thought it best that he cry alone,

 

But “Only my dear friend Jackie, who knew me so well,

Came over and put his arm around my shoulder.”

 

The Nazis killed the aunts and uncles Branca

Didn’t know existed until he was old.

 

42 in itself a nothing of a number.

The Dodgers traded Branca to the Tigers.

 

Grief: with its countless different ways and strains.

Glory: a greater thing than success, but slower.

 

Some of the Tigers who had been Giants explained

To Branca how the Giants had stolen the signs

 

From opposition catchers.  The telescope

In center field. Wires, buzzers. Branca chose not

 

To talk about it.  It’s all in Prager’s book.

His research unearthed Kati, those aunts and uncles.

 

The Dodgers were taken from Brooklyn by their owner:

I, Robert Pinsky, choose not to say his name.

 

I didn’t live in Brooklyn but I knew the score.

I knew it was a kind of underdog place.

 

Nowadays once a year all Major Leaguers

Wear Jackie Robinson’s number 42.

 

In the joke, the person who answers the telephone

At Goldberg, Goldberg and Goldberg keeps replying

 

That Goldberg is out of the office. And so is Goldberg.

“Alright, then let me talk to Goldberg.” “Speaking.”

 

Robinson spoke to Branca: “Without you”

He said, “We never could have made it this far.”

 

 

                                      ––Robert Pinsky

 

 

 

“Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns.”  With this intriguing line, Homer introduces his famed protagonist, Odysseus; but, had the bard been born in a later time, he might have said much the same invoking Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher, Ralph Branca (especially if he’d ever attempted to hit his curve ball.)  Branca was a three-time All-Star whose dozen years in the Majors were completely overshadowed when he gave up a single fateful hit––baseball’s famous “Shot Heard ‘Round the World.”  Coming into the decisive game of the National League Pennant race––October 3^rd, 1951 at the New York Giant’s old Polo Grounds, ninth inning, with his team nursing a 4-2 lead––Branca gave up a three-run walk-off homer to Bobby Thomson, bringing his team’s glorious season to ruin and breaking hearts from Greenpoint to Sheepshead Bay. 

 

Aristocratic men in ancient Greece lived by the code of kleos, or “fame”, aiming to crown their names with the renown of a great warrior, while bringing honor to the tribe.  Again, not so very different from the situation of those baseball players back in the Forties and Fifties––way before today’s age of massive contracts for even mediocre talents.  To other New Yorkers, Brooklyn was seen as something of a tribal enclave who heartily embraced their ‘neighborhood team’––as I often heard from my father when I was small.  He’d tell me how he remembered sitting on his front stoop in Flatbush and seeing the owner of the Dodgers (I’ll respect the poet’s wishes and leave him nameless), strolling along giving out bleacher tickets to the local kids.  Life can often be unfair, and Branca’s name, if it’s remembered at all, is forever associated with defeat because of a single fastball.  Yet America’s bard, Robert Pinsky sings the praises of this good man whose faith and moral character were their own form of triumph.  One example: on opening day in 1947—which marked the major league debut of Jackie Robinson, baseball’s first player of Color—Branca lined up on the field beside Robinson, when all other players refused.  It took some courage to stand up for what was simply right, and a friendship quickly grew from it.  And so, in this poem from Robert’s eleventh collection, Proverbs of Limbo, (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), his couplets unscroll deliberately slow, offering us their refracted meditation on honor, identity, and the private and civic experiences to which poetry remains an essential response.  The piece is a sly intermixing of remembered events, curious bits of biography, and even a corny joke; and only as we readers immerse ourselves in the poem, do the elements coalesce into a more unified vision, mirroring perhaps how the multi-faceted mind pieces together its reality.  The poem provides us with some insight into where we are today in our American journey, and what’s enabled us (as the poet phrased it in that concluding line) to make it this far. 

 

Robert has earned his own version of kleos, working as a poet, essayist, educator, and three-term United States Poet Laureate.  And, for goodness sakes, how many poets have on their resumé an appearance in an episode of The Simpsons?!  Fame indeed!  That attests to his public profile which he’s used again and again to herald poetry’s essential role in our cultural wellbeing.  Forty-five years ago, Robert published his book-length poem An Explanation of America, crafted as an elaborate letter to his daughter concerning the world she was entering.  Near the conclusion he writes: “If I could sail forward to see the streets/ Of that strange country where you will live past me,/ Or further even by a hundred years;/ And walk those pavements with my phantom steps. . .my courage/ Would fail, I think: best not to mount the steps/ Where I could leave no footprint in the snow…”.  It is fortifying to both poet and reader that such imaginative courage carries him onward, and his explanations of the tortuous American mythology continue––speech directed toward that unimaginable future.  And those footprints in the snow––they’ll belong to newcomers who are still carrying poems like this one.

 

 

 

 

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

 

* The weekly installment is also available at

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

Poet Cindy Veach: A Poet adrift in the 'Monster Galaxy'

Interview by Off the Shelf Correspondent John Wisniewski

From her website:
Cindy Veach is the author of three full-length poetry collections: Monster Galaxy (MoonPath Press), a finalist for the Sally Albiso Award; Her Kind, (CavanKerry Press), a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal; and Gloved Against Blood (CavanKerry Press), a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and a Massachusetts Center for the Book "Must Read." She is also the author of the chapbook, Innocents (Nixes Mate Press).

Her poems have appeared in The Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day Series, AGNI, Chicago Review, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Journal, Nimrod, North American Review and elsewhere. Her poem, "This Patch Where the Light Cannot Reach," was selected by Mary Ruefle for the Philip Booth Poetry Prize (Salt Hill Journal) and her sonnet crown, "Witch Kitsch," was selected by Marilyn Nelson for the Samuel Washington Allen Prize (New England Poetry Club).

Cindy received an MFA from the University of Oregon where she was a graduate teaching fellow and an assistant poetry editor for Northwest Review. She currently serves as the Poetry Editor for MER (Mom Egg Review).

When did you begin writing, Cindy?

The first poem I remember writing was titled “Red Bird” and was part of an eighth-grade class assignment. After that I started keeping a diary (it had a silky blue floral cover and a padlock) which I filled with terrible poems and a litany of teenage angst. My junior year of high school I enrolled in a creative writing class. There was virtually no instruction. It was basically a free write session (more poems about teenage angst were written). In college I took creative writing courses and began writing more seriously.

Are there any poets who inspire you?

There are many and they have shifted over the years. Early in my writing career I was inspired by James Wright especially his collection “Shall We Gather at the River.” Also, Emily Dickinson, Robert Bly, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sylvia Plath, Ann Sexton, Adrianne Rich, Jane Kenyon and Rilke. While those poets will always be important to me, poets that have been influential in more recent years include Marie Howe, Jennifer Chang, Terrance Hayes and Jericho Brown among others.

Do you find it difficult to provide the reader with glimpses into who you are?

I do find that challenging. My third collection “Monster Galaxy” is my most personal book as it looks at my girlhood and relationship with my father among other things. My first two books are themed around local history and share some slanted glimpses into who I am.

Could you tell us about your early life? Where did you grow up?

I grew up on the East Coast (New England) and the Mid West (Indiana, Iowa). My family moved every 2-3 years due to my father’s education and then, later, his academic career. When I was very young, he decided to go to college (the first in his family to do so) and then he continued for a master’s degree and PhD. Each degree meant a move. Each new academic position meant a move. Consequently, I don’t have a hometown, and I never felt like I belonged. I was always the new kid and that came with a heavy dose of insecurity. At the same time, it made me quite resilient and adaptable.

.Could you tell us about your poetry Collection "Monster Galaxy"? What do you remember most about your childhood?

In hindsight I’ve realized that writing “Monster Galaxy” was how I grieved my father. His passing in 2019 was my first experience with deep grief, and it triggered an examination of my girlhood, my upbringing and became a portal for self- discovery. I found myself looking through a new lens acknowledging my father’s flaws and my own internal monsters. Here is an excerpt from a review by Carla Panciera published in Sugar House Review (link to the full review is included below).

“Cindy Veach’s newest book, Monster Galaxy, is her most intimate collection to date. It reads like a memoir while making the personal archetypal. It allows for the intimate details of one life to reveal the universal and it reminds us that memories and experiences may individuate us, but they do not make us other.

Veach employs a personal speaker who not only assesses the present, but who also looks back on her past. In fact, the book is organized around the idea of before and after. Before and after the loss of loved ones, or becoming a mother, or historical events like the Challenger explosion or the Summer of Love, and absolutely before the fall of innocence and the startling realizations of adulthood.”

https://sugarhousereviews.blogspot.com/2025/12/monster-galaxy-by-cindy-veach-moonpath.html

https://www.moonpathpress.com/CindyVeach.htm

There are so many things I remember about my childhood so it’s very hard to answer this question. One of my favorite memories is when my father, who was the debate coach at Colgate, took my me and my older brother with him on debate trips to DC and Boston. With a large family (6 children) it was rare to get to spend this kind of time with my father and to experience him in unfamiliar settings. What I also remember about childhood are feelings of shame (although I couldn’t name it then) related to my years in Catholic school (my mother was Catholic).

Why did you want to write about the Salem Witch Trials?

In 2016, after living in the Salem area for twenty-five years, I stumbled on the Salem Witch Trials Memorial when I was cutting through a side street. Up to that point, I had succumbed to the witch kitsch narrative of modern-day Salem but for some reason on that day in that place I was changed—these were innocent human beings who were murdered. I decided to write a poem about each of the twenty victims, and this became the chapbook Innocents published by Nixes Mate.

While I was writing the victim poems, I was making the difficult decision to end a long marriage. As the person who ultimately filed for divorce, I felt judged and I also felt guilty. Most of the victims of the witch trials were women. Many were persecuted because they lived outside of Puritan norms. As I empowered myself to do what I needed to do I felt a sort of kinship with the witch trial victims and especially the female victims who are represented in Her Kind. A woman with agency, who dares puts herself first, dares to defy what is expected of her, is often a target. All this coincided with Donald Trump being elected. His narcissism and references to witch hunts and the witch trials to paint himself as a victim were triggering and so he also found his way into this book. It is both interesting and oppressing that even today a woman can feel guilty about choices she makes for herself. This is what captivated and connected me to the Salem Witch Trials. https://cavankerrypress.org/products/her-kind

Did you often feel like an outsider in life?

I’ve always felt like an outsider, and I think that stems from the fact that I moved so much growing up and never felt like I belonged. In a way, my family was my hometown, but I’ve never been able to shake the feeling of being an outsider.

What kind of a dialogue do you hope for between the reader and yourself?

Books have had such an impact on me, and I hope that one of my books or even a poem or two resonates with the reader. I can only write about what I know and feel so it’s always a gift when someone connects with my work. My hope is always that my books will inspire a dialogue that is meaningful to the reader.

Doug Holder interviews poet Kevin Carey and Stephenie Young about " Revere Beach Stories"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwCXBc-rHYs

Steve Ratiner: Mastermind of WE (too) THE PEOPLE series at the Longfellow House in Cambridge

Interview with Doug Holder



Steve Ratiner is the president of the New England Poetry Club. I talked with him about the WE (too) THE PEOPLE poetry series at the Longfellow House in Cambridge this summer. On July 12th, 2026 the club hosts Tracy K. Smith--the former U.S. Poet Laureate, and Pulitzer Prize winner. There will be readings throughout the summer.



What was the germ of the idea for the WE (too) THE PEOPLE series at the Longfellow House in Cambridge?



As you know, the New England Poetry Club is one of the oldest literary associations in the US, begun in 1915 by the signature New England poets Amy Lowell, Robert Frost, and Conrad Aiken. Among several reading series we hold in various venues, we have a long-standing partnership with the Longfellow Historical House in Cambridge, and the Friends of the Longfellow House (who help support its programming). Each summer, we put on a program of five poetry readings––usually modest affairs featuring interesting regional poets, with one very special event: The Golden Rose reading, to honor one acclaimed poet with the Club’s highest prize.



I was a newly appointed Club president in 2024 when I went with David Miller, my Director of Programs, to plan the following summer’s Longfellow events. But I’d been troubled––as have most of us––by the increasing discord in our country, and especially by an effort from certain circles to sanitize American history and to portray ours as a kind of monoculture. I share the belief that a diversity of voices and visions is essential to the vitality of our society––and waking that morning to some particularly upsetting headline, I felt we needed to offer a counterargument. The administration at the Longfellow House had expressed their desire to do something quite special to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary––and I realized this might offer an opportunity to do just that.



I thought of the sweetest poetic phrase in all of American democracy: “We the People.” History reminds us that, from the very beginning, the founders set the nation on a path of ongoing development, aiming toward “a more perfect union.” But I dubbed this series, WE (too)THE PEOPLE, reflecting on the legacy of America’s founding documents, but adding that parenthetical “too” in order to acknowledge those omitted from the framers’ original vision of liberty––who may be overlooked even today. The American story is composed by so many people from such a vast range of backgrounds, who have together profoundly shaped and enriched the democratic journey across generations. The people at Longfellow House shared that belief that today’s diverse and vibrant culture offers a lens through which to reflect on the nation’s progress toward that dream.



For the first time, we added a musical component to our summer offerings. If you look at the roster of stellar poets and musicians who performed in 2025, or are scheduled for this summer in 2026, I think you will find a portrait of our nation’s vibrant cultural community. We will present two former US Poet Laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, Massachusetts’ first state Poet Laureate, and a variety of dynamic voices representing who we are as a people.



Who are the headliners for the event?

We have a marvelous array of talents reading for this summer’s WE (too)… programs at Longfellow House:


July 12th–Tracy K. Smith

July 26th––Lloyd Schwartz and Regie Gibson

August 2nd––Major Jackson and Kirun Kapur

August 9th–– The season will conclude with the 2026 Golden Rose Award for Marie Howe. She will read from her Pulitzer Prize-winning New and Selected Poems.



All of these events are presented on the back lawn of the Longfellow House and are free and open to the public. As I mentioned, each program will begin with a 15-minute performance by a variety of marvelous musical talents, beginning at 2:45 p.m. At 3 p.m. we’ll begin the formal introductions, and then call back the musical guest for a brief spotlight performance focusing on some traditional or popular musical number, reinterpreted through a 21st century perspective. Last summer, the songs included “America, the Beautiful,” “God Bless the Child, ” “Summertime,” and “Ashokan Farewell.”


Some perceive the New England Poetry Club as an old school organization. How does this event change this perception?


I’m sure there have been times in NEPC’s long history when we seemed more of an inward-facing organization, focused on our poetry competitions and readings series––but I don’t think that’s been the case for quite a while now. I think I am following in the footsteps of a number of fine leaders who have expanded our membership, reinvigorated programming, offered new and innovative workshops, and expanded our geographical reach. I hope my work has added to that effort and begun an outreach to make sure that younger generations of poets feel they, too, have a place in this literary community. Beginning in the fall, we’ll start offering additional readings/craft talks––open to members and visitors––from acclaimed poets who will help enhance any poet’s writing practice. And we are planning a U35 series to highlight the work of poets at earlier stages in their careers, and to feature some of the new developments in the art form. I’d encourage anyone to visit our website https://nepoetryclub.org/ to learn more about our programming––and to https://nepoetryclub.org/we-too-the-people/ for additional details about the WE (too) events or to view videos from the 2025 performances. I feel certain they will find NEPC is still an important voice for the literary community at-large.