Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene: Doug Holder. Steve Ratiner

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 #177

Aubade Now of Earth

Sun on it again, at first tender.The color of apricots ripening into.

At first there was more to eat, then suddenly less.

For one night only, naked in my arms,wrote Beatriz of Dia, in twelfth-century Occitan,to her longed-for lover.

Aubade now of earth. Of water. Of herons and fishes.

Dawn after dawn one night only, we woke in your arms.

––Jane Hirshfield

It’s what we do, isn’t it–– we endlessly examine ourselves, compare our life to others, pass judgements. And two of the most daunting questions we ask: what are we hoping to make from this life? Then, at certain crucial junctures, we look back and wonder: what have we actually made (as if this will somehow reassure us of how well we’ve lived)? Of course, this doesn’t just apply to poets and artists, but every conscious being––though it seems to me that the critical impulse runs especially strong in those individuals seeking entrance into the ancient guild of bards and dreamers. I certainly remember, as a young poet, being awestruck by what ‘the greats’ had constructed, visiting the cathedrals that are Whitman’s and Dickinson’s collected works; Pound and Eliot; Frost, Bishop, and Stevens. I imagined that each set out to construct just such an encompassing edifice––and it made me wonder if I’d ever build anything of real beauty (even if on a much more modest scale.) Of course, it takes the accrual of years and reams of scribbled pages before any writer comes to even a moderate understanding of what they are, in fact, fashioning from the ephemeral materials of our craft––voice, image, music, longing, and the landscape of our inky imaginations

It would be understandable if Jane Hirshfield––poet, essayist, translator, educator, activist–– is experiencing one of those moments of reevaluation. That’s because, last week, The Asking: New and Selected Poems 1971–2023 (Knopf), her tenth collection of poetry, appeared in bookstores. It contains work from more than fifty years of her life; how could a poet not pause to consider what, precisely, she’s made from those lived decades? As luck would have it, I was in California last week, and so I attended the launch reading for The Asking. It was wonderful to experience, in one sitting, Jane’s ripening mind, her evolving voice, reflected in the broad selection she assembled for her listeners. And, as with many of her earlier readings I’ve attended, hers was an audience who embraced these poems is if they were missives from an intimate.

Afterward, in the Q&A session, a gentleman in the back asked Jane about what he perceived as the arduous work to attain those luminous visions, to remain open to moments of anguish or tenuous delight––and I could see how pleased the poet was by the question. That’s because many readers seem to imagine that Jane’s poems––depicting the power of wonder and the glory of the commonplace––are a constant feature of her daily experience. Likely, it’s our romanticized conception about the life of an acclaimed poet and practicing Buddhist. So Jane seemed to relish the opportunity to speak about her continual struggles to be attentive to the weathers of the heart, to confront the harsh questions required by mortal experience. This is the task before artists in all mediums: to embody their own individual responses to a host of mounting concerns: threats to the biosphere, to the cultural landscape, to the survival of all we love. For Jane, it is only through daily practice, a stubborn and lifelong commitment, that she makes her way (occasionally, she reminds us) toward a restorative clarity and the sheltered harbor of the notebook. And yet many of her poems have been so widely embraced, they’ve inspired conversations that cross borders and challenge authority. Her poem “Let Them Not Say” became something of an international rallying cry for environmentalists. And another, "On the Fifth Day", published soon after, not only went viral, it led also to the founding of a traveling, interactive installation, Poets for Science, championing the need for scientific study and imaginative daring––both of which are under attack in our polarized society

Later, in an e-exchange, I asked Jane whether she’d aspired all along for grand structures in her writing. “I never had any ambition as a young poet for making a ‘body of work.’ All my life, all I've ever done was write the next poem.” If there are themes and stylistic characteristics woven throughout these 300-plus pages, “they are the coherences of a life, not of prior decision. Questions that interested me when I was ten still interest me. Problems that felt important when I was twenty still do. This moment's poem answers this moment's need.” This is what I have long been attracted to in Jane’s work: not cathedrals, but the temple of a single breath, a simple shelter in which to appreciate the music of this present moment. It seems to me she composes love poems to existence, mindful of how fragile is every embrace. And then (if we’re lucky) the next breath, the next temple––the outstretched hands welcoming, even as they are letting go.

The Red Letters 3.0

* 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

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 Twitter

@StevenRatiner

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 #142

“Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.” These words come from no less an authority than Leonardo da Vinci. So here, on the verge of another new year, I offer a few words in praise of making – that most human of activities – where attentive minds and skilled hands echo what was once thought of as ‘the divine work of Creation.’ Starting out with the clutter of raw of materials, vision must first arise, then skill take hold, as clarity slowly emerges – all before some product can be manufactured. Perhaps we’ve forgotten that the very word is anchored to that Latin root: manū, by hand. Sad to say, the work of capable hands has been, to a large extent, devalued in our economy, supplanted by the mechanization of production and, more recently, the Amazonification of desire. But the term should remind us that we were once surrounded by goods made by hand, produced with a craftsman’s pride, and exemplifying the dignity of such labor.

Moira Linehan centers her fourth collection of poems, & Company (Dos Madres Press), on the figure of her maternal grandmother – a talented dress designer and seamstress who left France in 1905 to start a new life on these American shores. The poems – like today’s “Ars Poetica” – celebrate women making a variety of works by hand. The writing is rich with detail and the specialized vocabulary of sewing, painting, home-making – all in order to conjure the spirits of these artists and artisans, to make their achievement visible to a contemporary audience. What we frequently fail to consider is the effect those handmade beauties might have on those who experience them – in their homes, communities, or even museums. The Arts and Crafts movement, that flourished in Britain and Europe in the 19th and early 20th century, was centered around the need for such work. They made these their watchwords: Head Hand and Heart. It spoke to their belief that such a holistic sense of creativity could revolutionize society and heal its ills. One of their leading proponents, William Morris, declared: “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." My impression is that Moira’s grandmother would be nodding her approval. Of course, you’ll have noticed that Moira has titled her piece of handiwork “Ars Poetica”, a term for a poem that attempts to give definition to the art form. And I believe she is attempting, in this carefully-constructed unrhymed sonnet, to make us feel the “weight, texture, give, nap” of language, almost as if we could touch its materials with our very hands – yet another homage to her forebear.

I hope you’ll permit me yet one more quotation on the subject, again from another craftsman so much more accomplished than I am – this from the great German poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Approaching one new year at the dawn of the 20^th century, he wrote this in a letter to a friend: “And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done. . .”. I could not think of a better wish for you, gentle reader, or for myself. Though we tend to live our lives as if the year – or the great cycles of years – is given to us outright, somewhere in our minds we know that nothing is promised. To more thoroughly savor this very day, why not notice one well-made thing close at hand that brings us pleasure. Or better yet, why not make a new one ourselves – whether it be a hand-knitted scarf, a crusty loaf of sourdough, a well-framed photograph, or a vessel for memory in the form of a well-wrought verse. Our heads, hands, and hearts cannot help but feel grateful for the effort.

Ars Poetica

Nine-tenths preparation, this artist’s work.

First, fabric between thumb and forefinger,

feeling weight, texture, give, nap. The planning

beforehand. Washing washable textiles

to shrink them before they’re sewn. Laying out

the pattern so the design flows, the plaid lines

match, the dress drapes. Shears sharp so the seams

won’t pucker, twist, ravel. A seamstress’s stress.

Then the fitting, the pinning and re-pinning

those seams. Right shade of thread? The sewing,

seemingly magic, not one stitch visible.

Each seam, steam-pressed flat till at last the sewn

carries material and a dressmaker’s vision

out into the world, all in one piece, seamlessly.

––Moira Linehan