The Red Letters

 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 #173

 

 

 

 

A Language for Colors

 

 

Asfar she would say

pointing at a yellow tulip.

 

And the color of grass?

 

Akhdar.

 

My young daughter had mastered

not only the colors

but also the throaty KH,

two letters in English

that equal one in Arabic.

 

I would tell her it’s the same sound

as in khamseh, khubez, sabanekh—

five, bread, spinach

 

and my favorite name

Khaled, Immortal.

 

I once confessed to a friend wistfully

that I would not name my son Khaled

because Americans couldn’t pronounce it.

Now I wonder about such wisdom:

even my eight-year-old

could constrict her throat muscles the right way

to say Khaled—

 

immortal like an ancient olive tree,

a flame that never abates,

a mother’s love.

 

This spring, I saw a patch

of double hybrid tulips,

asfar tinged with akhdar,

and thought of my daughter’s

satisfied grin at learning those words

thousands of miles away

from her grandparents’ home

in Palestine.

 

Here we are, hybrid Americans

living between two languages

and speaking in colors,

splendid flowers in a distant field

 

 

                             ––Zeina Azzam

 

 

“There was a child went forth every day,” wrote the Good Gray Poet, “And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became. . .”.  And, upon first reading Leaves of Grass, the truth of that idea struck me immediately, resonating with my own distant memory.  In innocence, there seemed to be a much more permeable membrane between our consciousness and the surrounding world.  The crossing over from seeing into becoming felt, not only possible, but inevitable, utterly normal.  “And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,/ Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.”  I can remember, as a child, watching a grasshopper slowly climbing a waist-high stalk of timothy; eye to eye, we ached with the exertion, the need to ascend.  (When was the last time I felt such immersion!)  But soon enough (and just like Adam in the Garden) even children feel compelled to name those tangible experiences–– grasshopper, timothy, such words came later.  And while language created an almost-visceral power and a certain sense of permanence––after all, I can call up that memory many decades later just by speaking those names–– it also brought with it a separation between the beholder and the beauty beheld. 

 

But how to assess the layers of complexity surrounding such a moment if the very act of naming––and the spoken language that child is inheriting––already involves the experience of expulsion, fixed borders, and innocence lost?  Palestinian-American Zeina Azzam has had quite an interesting journey toward becoming the poet she is today.  Her family on both sides was rooted in Nazareth, in the Galilee.  (If memory serves, there was another child that went forth from that ancient town. . .but that’s for another story.)  Her parents fled their home in 1948 as war raged around them––a conflict that would eventually establish Israel as the official Jewish homeland.  But one person’s liberation can sometimes be another’s dispossession; as refugees, and empty-handed, her parents made their way to Syria, where Zeina was born.  After spending some of her childhood in Lebanon, she and her family emigrated to the United States when Zeina was a ten-year-old.  And today––writer, educator, activist–– she is the Poet Laureate for Alexandria, Virginia.  Astonishing, yes?  Last month, Zeina published Some Things Never Leave You (Tiger Bark Press) from which today’s Red Letter selection is taken.  In the memory poem, she is teaching her own young daughter (not to mention her readers) the Arabic words for the colors that surround us in the world.  She is also offering us a glimpse of the path––the many interwoven paths––words blaze before us and which guide our footsteps.  That is true for all of us but especially so in the hyphenated histories (in this case, Palestinian-American) that are integral in the American experience.  We carry within us, embedded in our very words, the lives and landscapes that helped give us meaning and purpose.  You might be interested to know that Zeina’s daughter, ­­­Lena, will give birth to her second baby any day now.  And another child will venture out into this achingly beautiful existence, reaching for fistfuls of the yellow, the green, the red––the asfar, akhdar, ahmar––profuse across the heart’s vast fields.

 

 

 

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:

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

 

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

 

MY COVID: The Paths Not Taken

 
    *** Painting by Denise Penizzoto

By Doug Holder

In May of 2023, I was a participant in an international poetry festival at the U/Mass Lowell Campus, in Lowell, MA. Many of the poets and writers there were from South America, and it was a pleasure to meet, read, and talk with many of these folks. In May we were confident that the dreaded virus was not a threat. The reports from the media indicated that the numbers had greatly diminished.

During this festival, many of the panels, etc... took place indoors-- and for a number of hours. Many of the participants were without masks--and I was one of them.

Two days after the said event, I woke up with muscle aches and flu-like symptoms. I tested my myself and the line was brazenly, bright red. This was a  straight-no-chaser moment. I was a home for the virus. Friends left food at my door, etc... but I  live basically alone with my cat Klezmer. People told me to take Paxlovid--but I brushed them aside. I thought, " I can sweat this out, like other times when I was sick." But those other times were when I was younger--not a 68 year old man--who should know better.

So as it turned out this saga turned into an elongated " Long Day's Journey into Night." I was feverish, experiencing chills, cold sweats-- coughed up copious amounts of phlegm, I lost a lot of weight in a short time, damp tissues surrounded me on my bed -- I looked like something out of a Lucien Freud nightmare.

One night I was fitfully sleeping, I woke up, and there was a gaudy man in a cheap polyester sports jacket. He looked like some snake oil salesman from the Twilight Zone or a "Crazy Eddie" ad. And he was real as day. His thinning hair seemed to slicked down on his scalp by a wave of Vitalis. He said with a cracked smile  through a TV screen of sorts, " Elegant and Eternal, Elegant and Eternal" What was he pitching? A boat ride to hell? Elegant coffins? I shot up from my pillow and there he was again--in my frightened face, " Elegant and Eternal, Elegant and Eternal. " I got up shaking. I  took a shot of whiskey to stabilize myself--then went back to bed.

Later that night, I found myself in vivid dream. It was a pastoral scene, walking with my late wife Dianne, flowers abounded, the air perfumed-- a hint of music was in the background. I was incredibly happy--and I did not want to leave. Just as I decided to stay, my cat jumped up on me, and woke me up from this dream. I guess he knew something was wrong. Cats are that way.

I finally recovered, but it took me most of the month of May.  Since then, I have thought about this incident a lot --and the two paths that were offered to me.

NEW ENGLAND POETRY CLUB ANNOUNCES PRIZE WINNERS 2023

 We are proud to announce!    ( Click on picture for a larger view)

Red Letter Poem #172

  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 #172

 

 

 

 

A new global survey from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University confirms what is likely obvious to even the casual observer: many people––in America and abroad––are simply choosing to avoid the news.  The main causes identified in the report include the coverage of the devastating war in Ukraine, but also rampant political polarization and the threat of climate change.  Bad news depresses people – who’d have imagined?  The findings revealed that, while the majority are still regular consumers of the news, 42% of Americans actively avoid news reportage at least some of the time, feeling it grinds them down, or lacks trustworthiness.  A stunning fifteen percent declared they have disconnected from news coverage entirely.  And since many who say they are paying attention to current affairs do so via social media sites like WhatsApp and Telegram, where they are simply discussing the news with friends – and where things like well-researched data and alternative viewpoints will prove scarce – this goes far in explaining the increased feelings of alienation as we become more and more siloed in our comfortable viewpoints.

 

Europeans – closer to the conflict in Ukraine and more directly affected – admitted they’re turning off the war coverage in even greater numbers.  I shouldn’t have been surprised; how emotionally debilitating it is to continually see images of innocent lives (very much like our own) being so brutally and wantonly destroyed.  How many times can you witness apartment buildings torn open like paper parcels, or marketplaces strewn with dead bodies, before you just want to bury your head under the blankets?  But we know that, without an informed electorate, democracies can’t help but wither on the vine – and we’re seeing those effects around the world.  Yet sometimes, even with our guard up, things like poetry and art can find a way to sneak past our defenses.  Perhaps it’s that sense of sharing a first-hand observer’s point-of-view; or the fact that artists are willing to place their own hearts and minds at risk in order to come to terms with the maelstrom.  And so, every few months, I try to feature a poem from a contemporary Ukrainian poet who can remind us (gently, sometimes, or desperately) that the unprovoked war in their homeland continues – and real lives are hanging in the balance.  Perhaps we can actually do something to help.  But, in any case, our honest attention – to both the daily suffering of Ukrainians and their increasingly common instances of true courage – becomes a small act of solidarity.  And so I offer you a poem by Lyudmyla Khersonska from a new book of English translations: Today Is A Different War, published by New England’s own Arrowsmith Press.  Lyudmyla is an esteemed poet and translator, author of four previous collections.  I expected the heartbreak such a book must certainly contain, but was caught off-guard by the abundance of humor in the poems.  Perhaps laughter is the human mind’s only defense against such madness.  A perfect example is a poem like “Where, She Asks, Are My Irises”; the speaker is wondering where her flowers have gone – “they were tall, with their little tongues sticking out.”  The answer comes in the form of a Russian propagandist: “oh yes, we saw them. . .we denazified your irises,/ they were preparing an attack,/ planning to join the eu and nato,/ stockpiling biological bees”. 

 

For today’s Red Letter, I bring you the opening poem from the book, “War. Day 1”, a darkly playful lyric whose speaker can’t quite wrap her head around what’s taking place in her country.  Ah, the innocence –when she (and we) hadn’t grown quite so accustomed to the horrors occurring almost daily.  Because of its almost Alice-Through-the-Looking-Glass tone, we accidentally allow our minds to inhabit that bedroom, to witness the beginning of the onslaught, to consider how we’d respond. . .if it were me.  That’s the beauty of poetry – the you morphs into me before the heart has a chance to raise the steel shutters – and for that I am profoundly grateful.  An often-quoted passage from William Carlos William’s begins: “It is difficult/ to get the news from poems/. . .” – but Lyudmyla’s poetry respectfully provides a counterargument.   “. . .yet men die miserably every day,” Williams continues, “for lack/ of what is found there.”  May that not be our fate.  We – who are fortunate enough not to suffer daily bombardments, the cold-blooded sacrifice of our loved ones – need to strengthen our resolve, turn on the news broadcast, open the daily newspaper, discover how our startled minds will respond.  Or perhaps read a poem that shakes our very spirits – like stemware trembling on a snow-white tablecloth – and then raise a glass to the people who are willing to give everything so that their nation might endure.

 

 

 

War. Day 1

 

 

In the morning, rockets sang outside the window

instead of birds.  She tumbled out of bed in her cheery pajamas,

ran across the chilly floor, like a blue sky, barefoot.

What is this red blob, flying outside the window?

What is this, so frightening?  Flying over our heads

towards a peaceful morning

with such a demonic whistle?

Why are these clear glasses shaking, the clear soul, shaking,

why is she trembling?

So the war is here.  No one asked it for a visit,

no one made its bed, or set the table

with a snow-white tablecloth.  How would she wash blood drops

off the white linen fabric?  “Is this war?” she asked the closed door,

barefoot in her cheery pajamas.

“What a guest––uninvited and scary.  I won’t

open up, won’t treat it to a good meal, or put on

my nice dress.”  “Don’t open,” the door boomed.

“Don’t feed it or put on your pretty dress.

If it forces its way in, hit it with an axe––“

 

 

                                ––Lyudmyla Khersonska

      

Translated by Olga Livshin and Andrew Janco

 

 

 

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:

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

 

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