I am so pleased theONE ART: A Journal of Poetryhas published my poem, “The Amaryllis.” This poem is based on a very vivid memory of my time in Lake Charles, Louisiana nearly a lifetime ago. This online journal is one I check often, discovering new favorite poems and poets whose work I have not previously known. Take a few minutes to scroll down their archives to make your own particular discoveries of new voices and visions. (Recent favorites of mine include “My Late Husband Speaks to Me in Flute” by Faith Shearin and “In Darkness” by Ted Kooser.)
Note: One Art posts a new poem most days, so you might need to scroll down a bit, to October 17, 2021 to locate the poem. (Scroll slowly so you can read the newest poems by other poets!)
View from the base of the Poem Steps, Northfield, Minnesota
To move from the ideal to the material, Rob invited a number of local poets to contribute one line, and seventeen of us responded. Now the text of this new poem has been published–through the medium of paint and the industriousness of our by former and current directors of the Northfield Public Library, Teresa Jensen and Natalie Draper–on the steps leading up to Bridge Square from the Riverwalk in Northfield. The poem is the collaborative work of 17 local poets: Heather Candels, D.E. Green, Steve McCown, Susan Jaret McKinstry, Leslie Schultz, David Walters, Mar Valdecantos, Christine Kallman, Becky Boling, Marie Gery, Tayde Rodríguez, Lucy González Mirón, Diane LeBlanc, Alondra Pérez, Riki Kölbl Nelson, Karen Herseth Wee, and Toni Easterson. The poem was painted onto the Riverwalk steps in late summer this year. Below, you can see images of eleven of these poets near their own contributed line. (See the Northfield Public Library website now to see a photograph of a Poet Laureate Rob Hardy at the podium, and look again at a later date to see images of all the participating poets.)
We all need joyful news and celebrations of community spirit. Last year, our Poet Laureate, Rob Hardy (who is also a classics professor) conceived an idea to create a modern twist on the classic Greek form of the rhapsode, which literally means “to sew songs [together]”–a beautiful concept, one I imagine to be rather like creating a lyrical quilt.
As edited–or rather woven, stitched, and shaped–by Rob Hardy from the raw material of submitted lines, here is the complete poem:
We come to the river starry-eyed,
across bridges reaching out to neighbors
over the river’s rushing waters: nuestro río
está lleno de vida y vida para nuestras familias.
Two deer, silent as shadows, bend & drink.
Clouds tumble and lift, kiss and part.
Train sounds shape our dreams.
Linger here till the wind shifts,
under sun’s sweet touch and winter’s raw chill,
the funk of damp moss, sweet hints of sap.
In fish and flood, in unmoving stone,
the river remembers, stirring up the waves
of childhood, so melancholic and so eager.
Listen to the words of these speaking waters:
calling my name to the south, to the north calling yours.
Hermosas esas corrientes de agua que llevan
tantos recuerdos tristes y felices pero dan un placer
de verlas correr a través de nuestro lindo pueblo.
Listen. The river tells us where it needs to go.
Susan Jaret McKinstryChristine KallmanHeather CandelsSteve McCowanD.E. Green and Becky BolingToni EastersonRiki Kölbl NelsonMar ValdecantosKaren Herseth WeeLeslie Schultz
Much more durable than a traditional quilt, this community effort is likely to endure for many years to come.
I am just thrilled–beyond thrilled–that my most recent collection of poems,Larks at Sunrise: Light-Hearted Poems for Dark Times has received a review from poet, teacher, and critic Barbara Egel. It has just been published online in Light Poetry Magazine. (If you would like to know the backstory of how it came to be published or how to find your own copy of the book, click on the first link. To learn more about Barbara’s work, click on the second. To find Barbara’s review, click on the third.)
I have been a fan of Light since 2013. Editor Melissa Balmain and her editorial colleagues Julie Kane, Allison Joseph, Kevin Durkin, and Gail White regularly publish some of the most incisive poems about current events and the human condition, poems that demonstrate how comedy stems from painful truths and yet transforms them into laughter, at least for a moment. And it is wonderful to see that Light poets, whose more somber-toned poems I have enjoyed in other journals, and whose books are on my shelves, know their way around a limerick, a knee-slapper of a haiku, or a rollicking quatrain. (Even T. S. Eliot looked up from the devastation of The Wasteland to pen Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats before diving into the labors of composing Four Quartets and an acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature. It is good to know that many of today’s poetic luminaries have a forum for sharing their razor-sharp wit and quirky humor alongside their other serious works.)
The review ofLarks is one of five reviews in the current issue of Light. The others consider The Colosseum Critical Introduction to Rhina P. Espaillat by Leslie Monsour (Franciscan University, 2021); Natural Causes: Poetry and Prose (1994 to 2019) by W. E. Holloway (Guy de Chemincreux, 2020); The Beekeeper and Other Love Poems by Barbara Loots (Kelsay Books, 2020); and Strange to Say: Etymology as Serious Entertainment by Deborah Warren (Paul Dry Books, 2021)–a work dedicated to Rhina P. Espaillat.
Because I have published some reviews myself, I know how much care and thought goes into considering some one else’s words and then to summarize one’s impressions in one’s own lively prose. Thank you, Barbara, for your attention to this craft of critique, and to looking so kindly at my own book.
It has given me such a lift that it will be a while before I come down to earth!
If you find yourself in need of a little extra buoyancy, especially now, as another Covid-inflected winter gathers, check outLight’s Poems of the Week, their most recent online issue, and the well-stocked larder of their archive.
