Red Letter Poem #305

 

 

 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 #305

 

 

 

 

Charm for the Last Afternoon

 

 

Let it be summer,

afternoon light



slant across the room

where you lie



on fresh linen, cool

water with lemon



at hand. Let the good

mists of morphine



carry you, the clattering

voices fade. And



because you believe

in him, let Azrael,



the angel of death,

be merciful and lift



you from your tired body

into memory, so that



once again you’re

young, legs like a colt’s



running clean city

streets, in your face



the good sting of salt

wind off the Atlantic.



Return to those places

you loved best and were



loved in. Let it be summer,

afternoon, your little



sister practicing her violin

in the room below yours,



each halting note

and hesitant arpeggio



laddering the breeze

to your open window.

 

 

            ––Susan Aizenberg

 

 

                       

 

 

 

 

No matter the age at which they occur, the first experiences of deep loss feel like a rupture in the space-time continuum.  This is not surprising when you consider the basic fabric of human understanding.  As newborns, we’re such utterly helpless creatures; and those benevolent faces gazing down on us––who kept us warm, soothed our hunger, eased our bewilderment––how could they not be viewed as anything less than divine beings?  After all, our very universe revolved around their presence.  The possibility, then, of them somehow transforming into absence feels cataclysmic.  And later, as we mature, we find ourselves falling in love within this life, again and again (if we’re lucky), each instance reviving a vulnerability rooted in that earliest knowledge.  When any beloved is somehow erased from existence, not only is our very cosmos fissured, but we experience a dire sense of our own mortal fragility.  It's simply unthinkable: that we, too, might be subject to that oblivion (and I say might because the mind resists actually believing in that circumstance).  At moments of impending loss, we often feel powerless to intercede.  We can offer little more to comfort that individual in crisis than our attention and––assuming that some form of faith is part of the way we interact with the world––prayer.  In her book, Waiting for God, Simone Weil wrote that: “The capacity to give one's attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle." 

 

In my mind, these three practices bear a striking kinship: attention, poetry, and prayer.  Susan Aizenberg––a poet I very much admire for the clarity of her language and the vulnerability of her heart––seems to be engaged simultaneously in all three as she prepares for a devastating loss.  There is so much I love about this orison in verse, starting with how modest are the speaker’s requests.  She does not ask for a miracle cure or immunity from suffering.  “Let it be summer,/ afternoon light// slant across the room/ where you lie// on fresh linen, cool/ water with lemon// at hand.”  A simple balm.  And isn’t the quiet musicality of these couplets perfectly suited for what the speaker is attempting to do: a supplication to a universe that may or may not be aware of those despairing creatures who reside within its domain?  There is almost a subdued moaning sound in the oo digraphs in noon, room, cool and good in the first seven lines.  This is in contrast to the string of little plosive t-sounds that quickly follow: lift. . .tired. . .colt. . .city. . .streets. . .sting. . .salt. . .Atlantic––a clattering that the speaker prays “the good mists of morphine” might erase.  The speaker’s own sense of faith, though, is never made clear.  Instead, she offers an entreaty to the spiritual realm, “because you believe.”  The hope is simply that, in the process of yielding to the inevitable, this dear one will be enveloped in cherished memories––“those places/ you loved best and were// loved in.”  Perhaps memory is a kind of paradise we each carry with us and need only call upon for refuge.  Susan then closes the poem with an image as complex as it is innocent, one that simply takes our breath away: “Let it be summer,/ afternoon, your little// sister practicing her violin//in the room below yours,// each halting note/ and hesitant arpeggio// laddering the breeze/ to your open window.”  Utter simplicity.  I can’t explain why we are so moved, yet we are.  And with just the use of that unanticipated verb, “laddering,” the poet hints at the Biblical figure of Jacob and a vision where the distance between heaven and earth is not insurmountable. 

 

Susan is the author of three poetry collections––the first of which, Muse, was awarded Virginia Commonwealth University’s Larry Levis Prize, and the Nebraska Book Award for Poetry.  She and Erin Belieu co-edited The Extraordinary Tide: New Poetry by American Women (Columbia University Press.)   Her most recent book, A Walk with Frank O’Hara and Other Poems (University of New Mexico Press) demonstrates how this poet continues to deepen her creative resources––and what poet, as the years mount, would not want to be blessed with that?  More recently, poems have been featured on American Public Media’s The Slowdown, and in journals like Plume, North American Review, Nine Mile, and elsewhere.  I was not surprised by how intense my emotional reaction to this poem.  My father died when I was eight years old.  I was not mature enough to even comprehend what was happening to our family, let alone do anything meaningful to alleviate the shared suffering.  I wish, at that moment, I could have conjured a prayer like Susan’s, or any words to let my father know how deep was our caring.  I’ve spent a good deal of my life afterward in just such a belated attempt.  Soren Kierkegaard wrote that “Prayer does not change God, but it changes the people who pray.”  I agree with that assessment, and would offer only a small emendation: poetry, too.

 

 

 

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/

The Play Oedipus El Rey Makes Mythological Magic at the Huntington’s Calderwood Pavilion

 

The Play Oedipus El Rey Makes Mythological Magic at the Huntington’s Calderwood Pavilion
A well known story with inner city energy


by Jacques Fleury



Javier David in foreground, with L to R: Jaime José Hernández, Juan Arturo, Gabe Martínez in Oedipus El Rey; directed by Loretta Greco; photo by Marc J. Franklin


Oedipus El Rey, which translates to Oedipus The King from playwright Luis Alfaro and directed by Huntington Artistic Director Loretta Greco, is a re-imagining of the ubiquitous Greek mythology Oedipus into an urbanized modern-day tale of fate and tragedy and what it means to start over. A newborn fated to kill his father and marry his mother is the story in a nutshell but upon closer inspection, it speaks to modern day scenarios about fate and destiny and whether or not one can alter that course or simply succumb to it over the course of our lifetime.

“We can make connections between the classic text and our own extraordinary histories,” says playwright Luis Alfaro. He goes on to explain what he loves about Greek mythology. He said, “The Greeks…don’t give you answers. They ask questions.” And that is exactly what the play does, it juxtaposes Greek fantasy with modern day reality by depicting people of color, also known as ‘the other’ in experiencing hard knock gang life on the streets resulting in the boomerang of the prison pipeline “where the line to get in…is longer than the life to get out” as said by one of the characters.

According to another actor, who explained how fathers often willingly commit crimes to get themselves into prison just to be able to raise their sons. With a close range and sparse set, it felt like the performance was taking place in my own living room. The production made effective use of, at times, ethereal lighting, props dropping from the ceiling, mythological costuming and sound effects, infusions of erotic sensuality, surprising festive audience participation and effective use of Spanglish, which is a combination of English and Spanish, that brought a level of cultural spice.

One audience member in particular, who laughed out loud several times, said she “enjoyed the cultural aspects of the play ” upon my inquiry. Although I did familiarize myself with the myth of Oedipus prior to seeing the play, it is not imperative in order to follow the plot and understand thematic elements. Conversely, the audience member I spoke to was unfamiliar with the story and purposefully did not read about the original mythology so that she can view the play with “fresh eyes” and she found the play to be an “escape” from what is currently going on in America and the world. I find Oedipus El Rey to be a brilliant and valiant stroke of engineered creativity using European mythology that depict the unequivocally caustic reality of ‘the other’ in American society. It begs the question: can we alter our destiny in spite of the foreboding societal schema that preceded our very own existence?

Being a member of “the other” myself as a “black” American man of Caribbean descent, I can certainly identify with challenging the notion of fate and destiny; which I used as an opportunity to thrive rather than surrender to the negative expectations and stereotypes laid out for me and my kind. The play ended how it began, in classic cyclical fashion, which I thought framed the story quite fittingly in the context of proffering the characters an opportunity to “start over.” This aspect of the play is reminiscent of what American-born British Poet and pioneer of literary modernism T.S. Eliot wrote about beginnings and endings in his masterwork Little Gidding: “We shall not cease from exploration/And the end of all our exploring/Will be to arrive where we started/And know the place for the first time.”

Giving this philosophical urbanized mythological ethereal laugh out loud and culturally explosive raucous a five out of five stars is no myth.

For more information visit here.



Jacques Fleury is a Boston Globe featured and internationally published Haitian American poet, theater reviewer, educator, author of numerous books of essays, reviews, fiction, poetry and literary arts student through Harvard University. He was chosen among over 4, 000 competitors from 83 countries as the Recipient of the International Naji Naaman Literary Prize for Creativity (2026) and a Certificate of Participation for his "...esteemed contribution of poetry to the anthology Water: The Source of Life (Volume IV) presented by La Fenetre De Paris. It’s Always Sunrise Somewhere and Other Stories among other titles are available at all Massachusetts public libraries, the University of Massachusetts Healey Library, Wyoming University, Askews and Holts Library Services, the leading library supply specialist in the United Kingdom, The MIT Press Bookstore, The Harvard Bookstore and the oldest poetry bookstore in America: The Grolier Poetry Book Shop (est. 1927) has hosted great American poets E. E. Cummings and Alen Ginsberg and online bookstores worldwide such as Bookshop dot com, amazon etc…

Poet Lisa J. Sullivan has a "Theory of Impact"

I caught up with New England Poetry Club poet Lisa J. Sullivan about her debut collection of poetry--  "Theory of Impact."

Lisa J. Sullivan is a New England native who holds an MFA in Poetry from the Solstice MFA in Creative Writing Program, where she was a Kurt Brown Memorial Fellow. Her poems and book reviews have appeared in The Comstock Review, Burningword Literary Journal, The Arts Fuse, Evening Street Review, Third Wednesday, and elsewhere. She was the United States winner of The Poetry Project–Ireland in collaboration with the Academy of American Poets and was an Adrian Tinsley Program Creative Grant recipient. Lisa is the Art Editor for Lily Poetry Review and a Poetry Editor for Pink Panther Magazine. Her debut poetry collection, Theory of Impact, was published in 2026 by Lily Poetry Review Books.


 It seems that so many of the poets I read are from broken homes. Your book deals with yours. They say great pain can bring great art–do you agree?


A: I do agree that pain can bring great art, although I will leave it up to the reader to decide whether that is true for Theory of Impact. I’m sure great joy, in its own way, also can bring great art, but perhaps joy and pain tap into different parts of the creative brain. I personally feel the poems that affect me most–poems that I remember long after reading them, often deal with some sort of traumatic event. Theory of Impact was indeed born from the trauma of a broken home and its impact on the trajectory of the speaker’s adult life.

 

 You told me that your poem “My father drew maps” was a signature poem. Your father was disabled–this was an escape for him. Could this be the theme of the whole book?


“Escape” is definitely a recurrent theme, and not just as it relates to my father, but I wouldn’t say it is the theme of the entire book. Love, loss, death, pain, grief, hope, and forgiveness all make appearances. One could argue the writing of the book was an attempt at an “escape” of sorts. But I will say, my father’s military disability (and its devastating effects on our family) was the impetus for Theory of Impact. I tried to present the poems in a non-judgmental way, sometimes through the eyes of a child confused by her father’s alternating violent and tender behavior. One of my goals was to bear witness to the complex suffering of a disabled veteran, while also acknowledging those who suffered because of his actions (e.g. the poem “Late Rose”). It was a difficult balancing act, as I wanted to maintain the dignity of all parties involved.


 I quote Stanley Kunitz, “In a murderous time the heart breaks and breaks and lives by breaking.” What is your take on this, in relation to your collection...your life?


 My take is that Kunitz was a wise poet. Sometimes heartbreak begets heartbreak until it is all that one knows. That is sort of what I was getting at in my poem “-ectomy”: after the surgery, I grieved – / grieved for the lost part of me, / until it became, / again, part of me.” While Theory of Impact does contain some profoundly heartbreaking experiences, it is also a story of survival and forgiveness, or at the very least, acceptance and understanding. I think the serious subject matter is tempered by some gorgeous nature imagery and settings. Perhaps nature is my coping mechanism–I didn’t fully notice its prominence in the poems until they were compiled.


 Was writing this collection cathartic for you? Writing is used as an expressive therapy—was it in anyway therapeutic?


 I have to be honest–at least in the beginning, writing Theory of Impact was, for lack of a better word, traumatizing. I know that sounds dramatic, but earlier versions of the manuscript were grittier and more detailed. It took years to distill the poems down to a level that felt emotionally safer, and several more years to gather up the courage to put them out there. It helped to have the encouragement of a supportive and empathetic editor–the brilliant Eileen Cleary of Lily Poetry Review Books. However, now that the book is done, I do feel a measure of relief.


 Why should we read this book?


 As you stated in your first question, “...so many of the poets I read are from broken homes.” Broken homes are not an uncommon thing; neither are the other subjects in Theory of Impact: disability, abuse, divorce, new love, childlessness, forgiveness, etc. Because of that, I believe my book will resonate with a wide audience and is worth reading, as it offers insight into those experiences with an undertone of resilience.

Excerpt from “Parts of a Letter”


Twenty-seven years after his death, I receive my father’s letters--

home from the Marine Corps (1961-63).

 Envelopes:

 Decomposed elastic still clings

           to the stacks, 

           more than sixty years old – 

                   

  some bordered in slashes of red,

                              

  white, and       blue,

                still strong

                         against aging cream – 

  others, watermarked ashen-slate with that famous photo – 

           U.S. Marines raising our Flag

           atop Iwo Jima in World War II.

                                So this is what time smells like:  Musk and ivory.

 Dad inked his parents’ address in blue.

            We print the same Rs – the same Ws and Ts.

            Red and white stamps on the upper right – 

                       U.S. Air Mail – seven cents,

                                  

  postmarked:

                                             Pray for Peace.

Meg Pallis: A Communicator for a Vibrant Somerville

 

Meg Pallis works in communications/community outreach for the city of Somerville. She also freelance writes and has been published in local publications from The Boston Compass (interviews/community creative nonfiction) as well as for a local publication called the Quinobequin Review. She has two creative works that will be published in their May 2026 edition about being from Massachusetts and the other about a portal inside the Market Basket parking lot.

How has living in Somerville been for you as a writer?

Living in Somerville has been a vibrant and exciting experience for me as a creative! This city is a labyrinth of diverse art scenes, and the longer I live here, the more corners I find tucked away. Somerville is brimming with creative energy, serving as a melting pot of cultures, art forms, and brilliant minds. It offers a tapestry of stories and voices to explore. Engaging with local artists and participating in community projects has not only enriched my writing but  has also allowed me to spotlight the diverse narratives that shape our creative community. Somerville's blend of culture and collaboration stimulates my mind and satisfies my creative itch, keeping me refreshed and engaged.

 

Tell me about your role in communications/community outreach for the city of Somerville.

I have a background in digital marketing and education, and I enjoy applying my skill set to enhance community engagement and communication around local programs and initiatives. I find it immensely rewarding to work alongside an intelligent group of like-minded individuals who genuinely care about our community. I have tremendous respect for my colleagues and the work they do, and I know we share a commitment to effective communication, responsible media engagement, and keeping our constituents informed and connected.

You write for a number of publications. Did you study journalism?

No, I did not study journalism, but I did earn a degree in graphic design and marketing from the University of Massachusetts Lowell. My studies there helped shape my understanding of effective communication and storytelling. I also grew up in a household that deeply valued reading and the written word—my mother was a librarian, and my father owns a printing press. As a result, the power of printed materials played a significant role in my upbringing.

You are a prolific interviewer. What do you think is the 'art' of the interview?

Thank you! I think I’m naturally curious and a little chatty, which often leads me to ask questions that genuinely resonate with me. I also place a high value on authenticity, and I believe that helps me connect with people and create a comfortable environment where they feel encouraged to share their stories openly. Over the years, I’ve conducted a handful of written interviews, as well as many live recorded interviews through a YouTube channel for a community project I worked on called Night Cap Radio. That project was particularly interesting because it was my first experience interviewing people in a livestream format. Being recorded in real time required me to be present, adaptable, and focused on creating an authentic conversation rather than a scripted exchange.

You are a poet, as well. And you wrote a poem about about a portal inside the parking lot of the Market Basket supermarket.  Do you think Market Basket is a good place for the creative juices to flow?

 I guess maybe the parking lot but really anywhere here with a nice slice of sky.

 

How important do you think community journalism is—as many newspapers fold?

It is so important, especially now, in an age of doomscrolling and being bombarded with untrustworthy news—to stay tapped into the conversations happening within your local community. Doing so not only supports independent local publications but also helps you develop a deeper understanding of your neighbors and maintain a stronger pulse on your city.