The Red Letters 3.0: A New Beginning (Perhaps)

The Red Letter Poem Project

NOW ONLINE! I was asked to write an essay for Askold Melnyczuk’s Arrowsmith Journal about what I learned from the first year of the Red Letter Project. It also became a meditation about the relationship between poet and reader. If you’d like to take a look, here is a link –

https://www.arrowsmithpress.com/community-of-voices

-- and you’ll also be able to check out the variety of marvelous literary projects that appear under Askold’s Arrowsmith imprint. Enjoy!



At the outset of the Covid pandemic, when fear was at its highest, the Red Letter Project was intended to remind us of community: that, even isolated in our separate homes, we could still face this challenge together. As Arlington’s Poet Laureate, I began sending out a poem of comfort each Friday, featuring the fine talents from our town and its neighbors. Because I enlisted the partnership of seven local arts and community organizations, distribution of the poems spread quickly – and, with subscribers sharing and re-posting the installments, soon we had readers, not only throughout the Commonwealth, but across the country. And I delighted in the weekly e-mails I’d receive with praise for the poets; as one reader recently commented: “You give me the gift of a quiet, contemplative break—with something to take away and reflect on.”



Then our circumstance changed dramatically again: following the murder of George Floyd, the massive social and political unrest, and the national economic catastrophe, the distress of the pandemic was magnified. Red Letter 2.0 announced that I would seek out as diverse a set of voices as I could find – from Massachusetts and beyond – so that their poems might inspire, challenge, deepen the conversation we were, by necessity, engaged in.



Now, with widespread vaccination, an economic rebound, and a shift in the political landscape, I intend to help this forum continue to evolve – Red Letter 3.0. For the last 15 months, I’ve heard one question again and again: when will we get back our old lives? It may pain us to admit it, but that is little more than a fantasy. Our lives have been altered irrevocably – not only our understanding of how thoroughly interdependent we are, both locally and globally, but how fragile and utterly precious is all that we love. Weren’t you bowled over recently by how good it felt just to hug a friend or family member? Or to walk unmasked through a grocery, noticing all the faces? So I think the question we must wrestle with is this: knowing what we know, how will we begin shaping our new life? Will we quickly forget how grateful we felt that strangers put themselves at risk, every day, so that we might purchase milk and bread, ride the bus to work, or be cared for by a doctor or nurse? Will we slip back into our old drowse and look away from the pain so many are forced to endure – in this, the wealthiest nation on the planet? Will we stop noticing those simple beauties all around us? The poet Mary Oliver said it plainly: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” I will continue to offer RLP readers the work of poets who are engaged in these questions, hoping their voices will fortify all of ours.



Two of our partner sites will continue re-posting each Red Letter weekly: the YourArlington news blog (https://www.yourarlington.com/easyblog/entry/28-poetry/3035-redletter-072921), and the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene (http://dougholder.blogspot.com). 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.



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 #73





Summertime and the livin’ is. . . well yes, easy (though perhaps for only moments at a time) – and then desperate, intoxicating, frantic, beguiling, maddeningly boring, drenched in tears and punctuated by (if you’re lucky) bouts of laughter that erupt like fireworks. It’s not just the long stretch of hot days and lush foliage that propel our moods to their extremes. I believe we’ve been conditioned by years of the school calendar to spend nine months longing for the unreasonable promise of summer, only to be confronted by the fitful and all-too-ordinary reality. Needless to say, the entertainment industry helps to compound the anticipation, plying us with frothy summer pop tunes and Hollywood confections that make us crave those fantasies about love and adventure all the more. And as the Buddha has taught us, expectation is the source of all suffering – and so summer provides that too, often in generous doses.



Chen Chen’s poem plays off those summer tropes, though the expectations he’s wrestling with are familial, societal, and even poetical. But by intensifying the feverish turns of the imagination, he seems to be concocting his escape plan. Or is he? Is that fantasy of ‘falling in love midair’ hinting at how flights of the imagination can somehow rescue us – poet and reader alike – or only another catchy top-40 chorus in search of a guitar riff? But what I’m much more convinced of – reading Chen Chen’s highly-acclaimed inaugural collection, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions) – is that this poet has found inventive ways to intensify language while defying assumptions about how a poem must sound. Chen Chen creates seemingly playful vignettes that dazzle the imagination and break the heart, often at the same time. Born in Xiamen, China, he grew up in Massachusetts, and sometimes his writing attempts to surf the riptides between cultures. Recipient of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize and the Thom Gunn Award, Chen Chen currently teaches at Brandeis University as the Jacob Ziskind Poet-in-Residence. And so, before the new school year rolls around, I’m humming a summer tune under my breath and thinking: one of these mornings, I’m gonna rise up singing. . . not just because the Gershwin lyric promised us that, but because of magic tricks like the one Chen Chen has pulled off with such aplomb. Perhaps, as August wanes, I really will spread my wings and take to the sky. This poet almost makes it look easy.





Summer Was Forever





Time dripped from the faucet like a magician’s botched trick.

I did not want to applaud it. I stood to one side & thought,

What it’s time for is a garden. Or a croissant factory. What kind

of work do I need to be doing? My parents said: Doctor,

married to lawyer. The faucet said: Drip, drop,

your life sucks. But sometimes no one said anything & I saw

him, the local paper boy on his route. His beanstalk frame

& fragile bicycle. & I knew: we would be so terribly

happy. Our work would be simple. Our kissing would rhyme

with cardiac arrest. Birds would overthrow the cathedral towers.

I would have a magician’s hair, full of sleeves & saws,

unashamed to tell the whole town our first date was

in a leaky faucet factory. How we fell in love during jumps

on his tragic uncle’s trampoline. We fell in love in midair.





–– Chen Chen

 

The Red Letters 3.0: A New Beginning (Perhaps)

 The Red Letters 3.0: A New Beginning (Perhaps)   

At the outset of the Covid pandemic, when fear was at its highest, the Red Letter Project was intended to remind us of community: that, even isolated in our separate homes, we could still face this challenge together. As Arlington’s Poet Laureate, I began sending out a poem of comfort each Friday, featuring the fine talents from our town and its neighbors. Because I enlisted the partnership of seven local arts and community organizations, distribution of the poems spread quickly – and, with subscribers sharing and re-posting the installments, soon we had readers, not only throughout the Commonwealth, but across the country. And I delighted in the weekly e-mails I’d receive with praise for the poets; as one reader recently commented: “You give me the gift of a quiet, contemplative break—with something to take away and reflect on.”



Then our circumstance changed dramatically again: following the murder of George Floyd, the massive social and political unrest, and the national economic catastrophe, the distress of the pandemic was magnified. Red Letter 2.0 announced that I would seek out as diverse a set of voices as I could find – from Massachusetts and beyond – so that their poems might inspire, challenge, deepen the conversation we were, by necessity, engaged in.



Now, with widespread vaccination, an economic rebound, and a shift in the political landscape, I intend to help this forum continue to evolve – Red Letter 3.0. For the last 15 months, I’ve heard one question again and again: when will we get back our old lives? It may pain us to admit it, but that is little more than a fantasy. Our lives have been altered irrevocably – not only our understanding of how thoroughly interdependent we are, both locally and globally, but how fragile and utterly precious is all that we love. Weren’t you bowled over recently by how good it felt just to hug a friend or family member? Or to walk unmasked through a grocery, noticing all the faces? So I think the question we must wrestle with is this: knowing what we know, how will we begin shaping our new life? Will we quickly forget how grateful we felt that strangers put themselves at risk, every day, so that we might purchase milk and bread, ride the bus to work, or be cared for by a doctor or nurse? Will we slip back into our old drowse and look away from the pain so many are forced to endure – in this, the wealthiest nation on the planet? Will we stop noticing those simple beauties all around us? The poet Mary Oliver said it plainly: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” I will continue to offer RLP readers the work of poets who are engaged in these questions, hoping their voices will fortify all of ours.



Two of our partner sites will continue re-posting each Red Letter weekly: the YourArlington News Blog (https://www.yourarlington.com/easyblog/entry/28-poetry/3015-redletter-061121), and the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene (http://dougholder.blogspot.com). 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.

 

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 #67





To my mind, this may be the greatest gift poetry and art have to offer: to make the invisible visible. And I’m not just talking about mystical visions and emotional depths – I mean the profound complexity masked by the dailiness of our existence which we, blinded by habit, most often overlook. And, sadly, that applies to the human beings moving through their own lives in close proximity – whose love or fear, pain or exultation can go unnoticed. . .that is, until some observant eye, some artistic apprehension penetrates the veil. That’s what Jim Foritano does here in his portrait of Al, a hot dog vendor near New York’s famed citadel of art, the Met. Not only does Jim humanize this gentleman, he hints at the depth of suffering – emotional as well as economic – our current plague has visited upon his reality. I might have been tempted to call Al an antihero, until I came to the poet’s lines: “Al lifts// N.Y.C. hands/ that held arms// in Vietnam” – and then I found myself feeling somewhat abashed at how easily we substitute appearances for the unique quality of our individual experience. I cannot know all that this man is carrying within him – but close observation, or perhaps a quick conversation over a purchase (two ‘dogs, please, ‘kraut, deli mustard) can allow us a glimpse. I’m anxious to see whether our year-and-a-half of isolation will make us, for example, more appreciative of those fellow commuters packed in beside us on the Red Line; or the clutch of tourists bustling through Boston Garden, begging directions; or even that unnamed neighbor from down the street with whom, before Covid, we exchanged only a slight nod in passing. Jim’s poem put me in mind of the lines spoken by George Bailey, Jimmy Stewart’s character from It’s a Wonderful Life, as he rails against Bedford Falls’ stone-hearted banker: “Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about, they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community.” I have the feeling this would not come as news to Al.



J.C. (Jim) Foritano reports that “he was born and grew to some semblance of maturity in Arlington, then moved to Belmont, and is now a proud Cantabridgian.” But as a member of the Beehive poetry group at the Robbins Library, he frequently revisits his Arlingtonian roots. He began writing poetry in the 1960’s at Colby College where one of his professors published a chapbook of his work. Throughout a lifetime of teaching (“and learning!”), Jim says that writing poems helps him sharpen his attention and makes himself more available to what’s happening around him.





Plague is Plague





Tell that to the vendor

of ‘dogs by the curb



of the Met. Others

number their dead. Al



numbers his ‘dogs

gone unsold, gone cold,



as the art lovers flock

to shelter. Al lifts



N.Y.C. hands

that held arms



in Vietnam, but now

he patrols empty



streets holding

dangers



he can’t meet,

meat he can’t



sell. Two trucks

idle; two shoulders



idle while Al

lifts



empty palms

into an eloquent



shrug: a New York

Second



he can’t fill.





–– J. C. Foritano

The Red Letters 3.0: A New Beginning (Perhaps)

 

The Red Letter Poem Project

 

The Red Letters 3.0: A New Beginning (Perhaps)   

At the outset of the Covid pandemic, when fear was at its highest, the Red Letter Project was intended to remind us of community: that, even isolated in our separate homes, we could still face this challenge together.  As Arlington’s Poet Laureate, I began sending out a poem of comfort each Friday, featuring the fine talents from our town and its neighbors.  Because I enlisted the partnership of seven local arts and community organizations, distribution of the poems spread quickly – and, with subscribers sharing and re-posting the installments, soon we had readers, not only throughout the Commonwealth, but across the country.  And I delighted in the weekly e-mails I’d receive with praise for the poets; as one reader recently commented: “You give me the gift of a quiet, contemplative break—with something to take away and reflect on.” 

 



Then our circumstance changed dramatically again: following the murder of George Floyd, the massive social and political unrest, and the national economic catastrophe, the distress of the pandemic was magnified.  Red Letter 2.0 announced that I would seek out as diverse a set of voices as I could find – from Massachusetts and beyond – so that their poems might inspire, challenge, deepen the conversation we were, by necessity, engaged in.

Now, with widespread vaccination, an economic rebound, and a shift in the political landscape, I intend to help this forum continue to evolve – Red Letter 3.0.  For the last 15 months, I’ve heard one question again and again: when will we get back our old lives?  It may pain us to admit it, but that is little more than a fantasy.  Our lives have been altered irrevocably – not only our understanding of how thoroughly interdependent we are, both locally and globally, but how fragile and utterly precious is all that we love.  Weren’t you bowled over recently by how good it felt just to hug a friend or family member?  Or to walk unmasked through a grocery, noticing all the faces?  So I think the question we must wrestle with is this: knowing what we know, how will we begin shaping our new life?  Will we quickly forget how grateful we felt that strangers put themselves at risk, every day, so that we might purchase milk and bread, ride the bus to work, or be cared for by a doctor or nurse?  Will we slip back into our old drowse and look away from the pain so many are forced to endure – in this, the wealthiest nation on the planet?  Will we stop noticing those simple beauties all around us?  The poet Mary Oliver said it plainly: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”  I will continue to offer RLP readers the work of poets who are engaged in these questions, hoping their voices will fortify all of ours.

 

Two of our partner sites will continue re-posting each Red Letter weekly: the YourArlington News Blog (https://www.yourarlington.com/easyblog/entry/28-poetry/3001-redletter-042321.html), and the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene (http://dougholder.blogspot.com).  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.

 

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 #63

 

 

 

To walk the talk.  In the world of business, this phrase of admiration refers to an individual who not only expresses some essential philosophical stance, but turns those concepts into concrete action.  In the world of poetry, I know of few who walk the talk more determinedly, with more grace and sheer delight, than Jane Hirshfield.  Her literary accomplishments include: nine volumes of poetry; three books of literary essays; a foundational anthology presenting four millennia of global women’s poetry; a much-prized co-translation from the Japanese; and frequent engagements as speaker and educator that carry her around the world.  Over her four-decade-long career, Jane has proven to be a trustworthy reporter on the human condition, reflecting both the beauty and pain inherent in that experience.  I’m delighted to see that her path in Alaya, published in 1982, is recognizably the same one traveled today in Ledger, her latest collection. 

 

Of course, there’s been evolution over time: the lush music of her early lyrics has grown more crystalline, restrained.  Her uncanny ability – capturing images that reveal the way the societal, material and spiritual experience of being human is, at every moment, interconnected – has become more subtle and refined.  In her recent work, we still find the wise regard and depth of feeling we’ve come to expect from Hirshfield poems, but it’s joined with a new fierceness, even anger, at the continuing brutality we inflict on each other and on the planet itself.  Her poem "Let Them Not Say", for example, has become something of an anthem in the movement combating climate change.  Many poets write today as if the self was the only object worthy of inquiry.  But art, music, science and history are braided into Jane’s curiosity and thought.  Her exploration encompasses human nature, the natural world, and their interwoven fates.  She’s developed a large and devoted readership, among whom I happily count myself.

 

The footer of Jane’s e-mails holds a quotation from another well-loved poet, Gwendolyn Brooks: “We are each other’s/ business;/ we are each other’s/ harvest;/ we are each other’s/ magnitude and bond.”  The business Jane is engaged in is the very one we each should attend to if we are to live without shackling ourselves to blindness and regret: how to love the days we are given, even as they escape us; how to embrace the simple beauties we encounter, though they are fragile and fleeting; and how to honor those same desires in every living being.  If we, at times, decline to pursue this enterprise – and in our busy lives, that’s easy to do – rest assured, some 48-point headline will soon come along to trumpet the latest calamity and wake us from our drowse. 

 

Coming upon the shell of a dead cicada, the great Japanese poet Basho wrote: “he sung himself utterly away.”  If Jane Hirshfield had to write a job description for the project of her poetry, I think that might come close: to continue singing until there is no more left of the instrument she was given – both voice and heart.  Those who love her poetry are grateful she’s employed her talents in that pursuit.

 

 

 

Practice

 

 

I touch my toes.

 

When I was a child,

this was difficult.

Now I touch my toes daily.

 

In 2012, in Sanford, Florida,

someone nearby was touching her toes before bed.

 

Three weeks ago,

in the Philippines or Myanmar, someone was stretching.

 

Tomorrow, someone elsewhere will bend

first to one side, then the other.

 

I also do ten push-ups, morning and evening.

 

Women's push-ups,

from the knees.

They resemble certain forms of religious bowing.

 

In place of one, two, four, seven,

I count the names of incomprehension: Sanford, Ferguson,

Charleston.

Aleppo, Sarajevo, Nagasaki.

 

I never reach: Troy, Ur.

 

I have done this for years now.

Bystander, listener. One of the lucky.

I do not seem to grow stronger.

 

                 

                                           –– Jane Hirshfield

 

                                                (from: Ledger; Alfred A. Knopf)