Running Out in search of water on the high plains by Lucas Bessire

 

Running Out in search of water on the high plains by Lucas Bessire. Princeton University Press, 2021. 236 pages. $19.69.

Review by Ed Meek

If you find  all the current articles, news and books on climate change overwhelming, one place you might want to start is with Running Out by Lucas Bessire. Running Out is an eminently readable nonfiction hybrid narrative about the author’s attempt to go back home again to the plains where his father owns a ranch and farm that sits atop a body of water called the Ogallala Aquifer. This underground source of irrigation runs all the way from South Dakota and Wyoming, through Colorado and Kansas to Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. A fifth of the wheat, corn cattle and cotton in the US comes from farms and ranches in those states. And that source of water is running out.

Bessire traces his own roots five generations back in Kansas and he returns to the family spread to confront what is referred to as the depletion of the aquifer. At the same time, Bessire is patching relations up with his father who accompanies him on investigative visits to those in control of irrigation and those who work the land. On this journey, Bessire explores the region’s history including our shameful dealings with Native Americans and the destruction of what was once a rich environment populated by millions of buffalo, antelope, wolves and birds. He learns that “southwest Kansas is a front line of the global water crisis.” According to Bessire, “most of the major aquifers in the world’s arid or semi-arid zones are rapidly declining.”

Bessire is an anthropologist by training so he examines the roots of the culture that has brought us to this point. It’s “drill baby drill” as Sarah Palin said, until the wells run dry. Our attitude toward water turns out to be similar to our perspectives about fossil fuels and topsoil and animals. Bessire notes that “over a single three-year period between 1871 and 1874, three to seven million bison were killed.” This occurred because 1872 was “the pivotal year for settler colonization in southwest Kansas.” Prior to that, this was Comanche, Kiowa and Cheyenne territory. US troops were told to “kill every buffalo you can” because “every buffalo dead is an Indian gone.” Once the food source of native tribes was eradicated, they could be herded onto reservations.

Fast-forward to our current era when “corporate profits are a key part of the aquifer depletion puzzle.” Bessire points out that “Southwest Kansas is home to some of the nation’s largest corporate feeders, beef and poultry-packing plants, slaughterhouses, dairies, milk-drying plants, and hog farms.” This includes massive feedlots of cattle, millions of hogs, plants that produce corn ethanol and bio-diesel. Businesses worth billions.

The farmers and ranch owners tend to be libertarians. “People have the right to do what they want with their land” a local rancher says to Bessire. This perspective is exploited by big business and the rich and powerful. Colin Jerolmack delves into this notion in Up to Heaven and Down to Hell about the devastating effects of fracking in Pennsylvania and the resistance of locals to interfere with the decisions of their neighbors even when those decisions hurt the community.

In Kansas the decisions regarding irrigation are made by the Groundwater Management District who, as representatives of the landowners are committed to “a situation of controlled decline.” The emphasis of the GMD, however, is not on conservation but on business, and this emphasis often comes at the expense of water. There are some landowners who are attempting to cut back on water use but they are in the minority.

The sense of loss that pervades the book is balanced is by Bessire’s lyrical writing which serves as a respite for the reader. “I stepped out of the barn in the cool morning…dogs wagged around my legs. Red cattle lazed by green tanks after watering. Songbirds trilled. Irrigation motors droned. The sun hung just above the eastern horizon. I felt its light warmth brush my skin.” There are many such descriptive passages in the book.

Running Out is also about Bessire’s return to his father’s ranch after leaving years before. He feels a sense of responsibility for what has been done to the plains by his antecedents. He realizes that he had little idea of this when he was growing up in the same way that many of us are only now learning of the effects of burning fossil fuels on our environment and our unwitting complicity in the process, or the effects of systemic racism on Black Americans, or the harmful effects of neoliberal trade policies on the working class.

Bessire does not see an easy way out of the mess we’ve made, but he finds inspiration in his grandmother’s struggle to develop as an individual and his father’s acceptance and help with digging for information for his book. As Bessire says, “trying to respond to a planetary crisis begins with a critical reckoning with the terms of my existence, complicit and otherwise.” We may not have caused these problems we are faced with, but we had better figure out how to address them.

Clearly Hidden by Lindy Bergin Conroe

 

Clearly Hidden by Lindy Bergin Conroe

Review by Doug Holder

In “Clearly Hidden" by Lindy Bergin Conroe, we have a well-honed mystery story about an aptly named woman writer, “Pen.” It seems that this protagonist is having her life threatened by any number of bad-acting men. Conroe, who has worked as a therapist for many years, expertly gets into all the baggage and messiness that comes with life and relationships. But she is a writer as well-- so she does not forget her Holy Grail—writing an engaging novel.

If you are a fan of Cape Cod then you will be especially drawn to this book because of the author’s painterly eye. Her writing can be described as painterly because she evokes the coastal landscape, the azure lap of the ocean, the breath taking views of glacial rock, against the ravages of the sea and time. The sea, maybe because of its primal amniotic pull, is a place for many of the characters to meditate, as the plot thickens.

Conroe traces her character Pen’s progress from a wallflower to an unabashed warrior—against those who seek her demise. And of course, she has help with her beefcake boyfriend---- a romantic interest—that makes things more interesting. As Louie Armstrong sang to his gal Lucy, “ Take your shoes off Lucy/and let’s get juicy”

Any by the way—much to my epicurean pleasure-- Conroe is into food, and can we say there is a lot to 'feast' your eyes on—at one point I had to rush out of my home for a lobster roll and a bear claw.

Highly Recommended.

Somerville's Charlotte Anne Dore-- A singer, puppeteer, and actor who immerses herself in her work.

 I caught up to Somerville's Charlotte Anne Dore to talk about her life and work as a puppeteer, actor,  and singer. It seems what ever this multi-talented person does-- from belting out a few numbers in a cabaret-- expertly manipulating puppets--to playing Mary Jo Kopechne in the major motion picture  "Chappaquiddick," she intensely immerses herself in her work.

First off, how has it been for you-- the artist, to be living in Somerville?

I have lived in Somerville since 1993 and have an art studio in Union square. What I love about Somerville is you can walk everywhere. There are so many beautiful buildings ( although sadly over the last few years some have been knocked down.) I saw a beautiful home on Lowell street with a big garden and thought that has a lot of land and then two weeks later the place was being torn down and they are currently building on it ... it breaks my heart to see beautiful homes get destroyed. When they are renovated I love that. As an artist to see the history and the crafts-person-ship (craftsmanship) of buildings is inspiring. In Somerville you are also close to Boston for work. During the pandemic the Somerville Arts Council really supported artists like myself who lost our income when we couldn’t perform shows for so many months. I had the opportunity to do a live stream for the city and then had an emergency grant-- very grateful.

Talk about multi-talented artists, you are an accomplished puppeteer, actor, coach, and singer. How did you become so eclectic?  What allured you into the world of puppets?

I’ve always loved visual art and always loved music and acting. I grew up watching Shirley Temple films on BBC. I was born and grew up in the UK. The films were already old at the time but I loved the singing and dancing. At a very young age I visited a doll museum and saw an amazing puppet show at Little Angel Marionette Theatre in London. Those two things have made me fascinated with dolls, toys and puppets. I was around 5 when I built my first puppet and ended up building puppets as part of my art exam ( O levels) I took at age 16. This interest went through college and my first job was as a puppeteer at a shopping Mall in the UK. Even though I act professionally as much as I do puppetry, but it’s more unusual people remember the puppetry part. For me puppets are just an extension of acting dance, music, words, your whole creative body is interlinked and that’s why these skills all fit together and compliment one another. Puppets combine all my visual art skills and my theatrical theatre/acting skills into one and ultimately that is where the doors have opened. Pre- pandemic I would present over 100 puppet shows a year. It’s been slow picking back up.

You have been in any number of films. One film was "Chappaquiddick."  This film, released in 2018 dealt with the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, when she drowned in a car driven by Ted Kennedy. You play the mother of Mary Jo. How did you get into the character?  How did you envision the mother?

There is actually footage of Gwen Kopechne talking in an interview and I studied that and her expression in great detail, as well as having dialect coaching from the film company. I researched the role and immersed myself in the lines. When I approach roles my goal is to “become.” In acting its sometimes termed “ the art of becoming” and it is a process. It’s hard to explain in a short article but basically you loose yourself in the role and their motives and situation. I had my hair cut for the role. It’s now finally grown back. The cut looked great but I didn’t feel myself.

I love the " American Song Book." I read that you have now ventured in cabaret. Is it the relative intimacy of Cabaret that you are attracted to? Or perhaps the sniff of decadence as portrayed in the movie "Cabaret?"

I love immersive theatre and have done that for years. My puppet shows are also extremely interactive. I have always loved the dynamic relationship between audience and performer so of course Cabaret is a perfect vehicle because it’s all about telling stories and connecting with the audience. I also LOVE music and singing. I started going to Hump night at Club Cafe a few years ago where the amazing Brian Patton plays shows tunes and people sing along then you get up and sing one song. I had so much great response there I ended up producing 2 solo shows that went really well. I don’t have a solo show planned there just yet but I have started to return and be part of Boston’s Cabaret scene again.

Tell us about some recent and upcoming projects.  Recently you finished a project called " Holiday Tree" can you touch on that?

I wrote a solo show during 2020 and felt it was inspired and needed to be workshopped and developed as an adult/ family ( rather than a kids show per say). I applied for some grants and residencies and was delighted when I was accepted by Appolinaire Theatre at Chelsea Theatre Works for their Resident Artist program. I took them up on the opportunity and self- produced a show that we presented in person and also live streamed around the world thanks to Cambridge Community Center for the Arts who sponsored the livestream

I read that you are available for hire at any number of venues. How should one contact you?

My websites have contact links and I can also be called 617-633-2832

Also e mail rosalitaspuppets@aol.com. My websites also have contact info and contact forms www.rosalitaspuppets.com and www.charlottedore.com

Red Letter Poem #89

 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 #89

 

 

It’s too long a list – all of Rita Dove’s flourishing accomplishments – but let me boil them down to three: recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for poetry; former United States Poet Laureate; and, currently, the Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Virginia (representing her life as a private poet, public artist, and committed educator.)  Back when she gave me permission to print a poem from her then-forthcoming collection, Playlist for the Apocalypse (W. W. Norton), as Red Letter #57, I asked if I might follow it up a few months later with a ‘golden oldie’ – one of her signature pieces, and long a favorite of mine: “American Smooth.”  It was the title poem from her 2004 collection, a sort of rhapsody centered around a couple dancing together in the dark.  I always thought the piece operated on two distinct levels: first, as a love poem about that moment when the self-consciousness inherent in our public gestures is somehow surpassed – if momentarily – and we feel our hearts and minds rise into something like the sublime.  But I also took it to be a kind of ars poetica about the years of diligent practice an artist must commit to if she or he is to develop genuine craftsmanship – all so that, at the crucial moment, what might have simply been a workmanlike effort actually elevates both the poet and poem into those rarefied heights to which all art aspires.

 

But then Playlist… appeared and, after reading through a long section – The Little Book of Woe – I turned to the back of the collection to a group of lengthy notes the poet included.  In one entry, I (and all Rita’s devoted readers) received some rather startling news.  Those shocking bits of sentences still echo: “On December 7, 1997…stepped in the shower, and discovered…numb from the chest down…diagnosis…Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis.”  This can be a devastating illness and, especially at the time, treatments were not particularly effective.  She explained that, in struggling to comprehend her situation – but “first and foremost, to spare my aging parents” – she decided not to make the news public. . .until now.  She also told how her husband scoured the Internet and came upon an experimental drug for MS that was having promising results.  Eventually the treatment was able to reduce the loss of muscular control and provided tremendous relief.  But my mind leaped when I read how she relearned to walk steadily through, of all things, ballroom dancing “which taught me how numb toes could gauge balance by how much pressure was exerted on the floor.”

 

Now, in re-reading “American Smooth”, I’m engaged by an inescapable third dimension of the poem: of course love is still central in the piece, as is the reflection on all sorts of art-making endeavors.  But I also experience the poem as a very intimate document, a sort of radical declaration of hope.  It strikes me as the sort of transmission the subconscious mind conveys directly to the hand, and which it may take the intermediary mind of the poet months or years to fully comprehend.   Perhaps, when the poem was published, the third set of meanings was only intended for two sets of eyes – her husband’s and her own – buoyed by this swelling music.  But this continued practice helped Rita’s body stabilize its place in the material world so that other dances, other poems might follow – and for that I am grateful.  Decades after that initial shock, this fine writer continues to partner with us across the imagined dancefloor that is each printed page.  Our mortal reprieves, our escapes from gravity are – by their very nature – only temporary affairs.  But at that surprising elevation a fine poem sometimes achieves, we can better understand the larger patterns we’re enmeshed in; and perhaps we return to the dance with just a little more life in our step.

 

 

 

American Smooth

 

 

 

We were dancing—it must have

been a foxtrot or a waltz,

something romantic but

requiring restraint,

rise and fall, precise

execution as we moved

into the next song without

stopping, two chests heaving

above a seven-league

stride—such perfect agony,

one learns to smile through,

ecstatic mimicry

being the sine qua non

of American Smooth.

And because I was distracted

by the effort of

keeping my frame

(the leftward lean, head turned

just enough to gaze out

past your ear and always

smiling, smiling),

I didn’t notice

how still you’d become until

we had done it

(for two measures?

four?)—achieved flight,

that swift and serene

magnificence,

before the earth

remembered who we were

and brought us down.

 

 

­­                       –– Rita Dove

 

 

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 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/3070-redletter-111121), 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.

lesser case by Mark Decarteret

 

Mark Decarteret, lesser case. Nixes Mate Books.  2021. 86pp. $18.00

REVIEW BY RUTH HOBERMAN

            The bio in lesser case tells us little about Mark Decarteret:  only that he “has appeared next to Charles Bukowski in a lo-fi fold out, Pope John Paul II in a high-test collection of Catholic poetry, Billy Collins in an Italian fashion coffee table book, and Mary Oliver in a 3785 page pirated lit-trap.”  More traditional accounts on-line note that Decarteret   has been the poet laureate of Portsmouth New Hampshire (2009-2011), has worked at Water Street Books in Exeter, and is widely published—in anthologies; in journals such as AGNI, Boston Review, Chicago Review, Poetry East, and Third Coast; and in six previous collections. 

            But Decarteret’s elusive “About the Author” is revealing in its way, evoking him through juxtaposition rather than as a biographical self.  The poems in lesser case push against any easy distillation of meaning or authorial presence.  In Decarteret’s previous  book, For Lack of a Calling, punctuation, capital letters, and syntax operated more or less conventionally.  Here, in contrast, the upper case is reserved for “I” and Jesus, there are no periods, and the syntax is sometimes difficult to parse—as in the book’s title:  lesser than what?  should it be “lower case”? if not, what kind of case?

            The book’s first poem, “front,” while providing no answers to these questions, invites the reader in, to a place

                        where my shaking finds company

                        more light has gone bad

                        & yet the weary recognitions

                        always happily remain

If I take the title as continuous with the first line, the poem situates me at the front of this book, keeping the speaker company as he shakes—whether from age, illness, or uncertainty—a shaking that has replaced an earlier more “resolute” self: 

                        first we had bed creaks

                        & all sorts of hunger

                        then reality sat in even

                        more radiant aberrations.

I love those oxymoronic “radiant aberrations,” with their celebration of weirdnesses and mistakes which, given the poem’s positioning, we then expect to encounter in the poems that follow.  Indeed, the phrase “reality sat in” (not “set in” as we might expect) hints at strangenesses to come.

            One strangeness is the poems’ relation to the natural world.  In a 2018 interview, Decarteret described the nature-poems in For Lack of a Calling as “eco-laments” about “living in a time and place where [nature has] almost run its course in some way.”  In lesser case he rejects the poetic praise of nature as self-serving. Take, for example, “I have a minor in visual arts,” which ridicules his own past use of imagery:

                        now those starlings I once rated

                        an 8 are not even worth

                        throwing one’s latest voice—

                        that shock of hearing one

                        making a lesser case for oneself

Perhaps the “lesser case” is their and our inevitable stance in a fallen world, where manufacturing tropes (“what’s not to liken to anything else?” he asks) brings us no closer to anything and leaves the poet “wobbly as a calf/licked well past relevance.”  As the speaker notes in “inhabitants,” the poem that follows, “we won’t ever be/worthy of this house.”

            When Decarteret allows himself to indulge in descriptive language, it’s wonderful:  in “some say (seed),” for example, a cardinal comes “crashing the scrub/singing & stammering/cross-tongued” amid “branches signing/their iciest of scripts—/a blanket of wet/& then chatter, exaltation.” But the exaltation is dashed in the next stanza: “this response to be cashed in—/an image in shambles again/like a berry’s taxed memory.”  Decarteret undercuts easy pleasures, opting always for the “lesser case.” 

            A related strangeness is Decarteret’s harsh stance toward his own role as poet.  In “the last ever ode to one’s pencil” the speaker lambastes himself:

                        even w/the sky full of sun, unflawed

                        I’ll waffle or low-ball, tell you lies

 

                        go what you’ve come to call

                        post-modernist on you

 

                        try to sell you on the same sparrow

                        I saw yesterday atop the potted flowers

Like the “berry’s taxed memory” in “some say (seed),” the sparrow has been compromised by human greed, and the poet’s words are complicit.  Indeed, with his “lab coat & paper hat,” balling up “more poems into asterisks*,” the poet sounds downright ludicrous.

            That asterisk*, though, is a key pivot, as it sends us to an actual footnote: “please know if I’m lost on you, stolen & sold-off-in-lots, that my line about love was about a lot more than just votes.”  Asterisk:  a quasi-star that sends us toward additional annotations and qualifications—away from, rather than toward the source of light. Or love.

            There is a presence here that counterbalances the poet’s “lesser case”: the subtle, complicated invocation of Christianity as a source of transcendence.  Various poem titles—missal, host, lord god bird—invite us to think in these terms.  And various poems not only suggest that humanity on its own is a sorry thing but hint at an alternative. In “rather,” for example, the speaker has come to hate  “the velvety kings/we’d become/thinking ourselves/all but invisible/as our hair was combed/back in the mirror/by yet another.” Another what?  Some presence we’ve preferred to ignore?

            I’ll conclude with a final strangeness, Decarteret’s poem “the kingfisher,” with its homage to Charles Olson’s 1949 poem “Kingfishers.”  Critics argue over what Olson was getting at in his poem.  Olson himself, in his 1950 essay on “projective verse”  argued for a poetry that was kinetic, more speech act than discourse, and thus resistant to paraphrase:  “the conventions which logic has forced on syntax must be broken open as quietly as must the too set feet of the old line.” Decarteret’s poems have a similar resistance to being pinned down, a similar pressure on the reader to follow their short lines and uncertain syntax into self-questioning and suspense.  “What does not change/is the will to change,” Olson’s poem opens, a line equally relevant to lesser case.  But even as Decarteret quotes Olson several times in “the kingfisher,” he does so with a difference—shifting from several to a single kingfisher in his title, and extending his poem beyond Olson’s final, inconclusive line, “I hunt among stones.” Decarteret concludes:

                        I hunt among stones

                        where the shadows have long been

                        trying to enter their side of our story

Or, as the speaker says in “lord god bird,” “if one holds their/place long enough/one will begin/to see the ghosts/burning their way/back into things.”