April 11, 2023 Spotlight on “A Riddle” by Kelly Cherry and Context for My Poem, “What?”

Photo by Meg Theno

Kelly Cherry (1940-2022) was one of my teachers at UW-Madison. We had not remained in touch directly, but I continue to read and admire her work. After writing my own poem for today, which takes the form of a riddle, I thought one of her short poems that I have read so often that, without even trying to, I have committed it to memory. I was saddened to learn this morning that Kelly Cherry died last year. (Her own website is kellycherrybooks.com.)

This favorite poem of mine is from her book, Relativity: A Point of View (Louisiana State University Press, 1977).

A Riddle

My beauty is beyond compare
And easy reach. No man would dare
To comb my loosed effulgent hair.
I keep my distance but on rare
Occasions condescend to bear
Eight things that move a man to prayer
(Yet none a child), then disappear
In broad daylight beyond blue air.
Man's grasp still falls just short of there.

Answer

A comet. Coma means hair. According to a verse
published in the seventeenth century, the comet was
thought to bring "wind, famine, plague, death to kings,
earthquake, floods, and direful change."

Context for My Poem, “What?”:

The answer to my riddle is rather obvious, I think: thwarted ambition.

Lately rejections from editiors have flown in thick and fast, making me realize that the roots of my amibitions for my work, which I tend to think of as modest, must run deeper than I usually care to acknowledge. An iceberg structure, perhaps, with 9/10s below the level of consciousness? In any case, it helps to attempt to pin the emotion to the page in the form of a poem.

Now, to dust off my hands and move from black and white into the colorful, uplifting space of the garden!

Crossed Purpose (Leslie Schultz)
Approaching the Buddha (Leslie Schultz)

Until tomorrow, LESLIE

2 thoughts on “April 11, 2023 Spotlight on “A Riddle” by Kelly Cherry and Context for My Poem, “What?”

  1. Love the poem and its descriptions that are so vivid. Can’t say as I guessed the answer but I am in a foggy black-and-white mind at the moment. I blame that.

    I like the idea of a riddle in poem form. I must have come across that before but it delighted me this morning. And to learn of Kelly Cherry.

    The wildly unpredictable world of publishing at any level is such an ongoing source of frustration and irritation, isn’t it? I drove past a yard the other day with a bright yellow metal sculpture in it that said: PERSIST!

Comments are closed.