It was a sunny afternoon in Pittsburgh. I was sitting in my parked car just outside the music building. I was laid back in the driver’s seat, my foot hanging out the window, and looking up at the Cathedral of Learning across the street. I remember the diffused orange glint of the sun all around my car. It was late afternoon, one of my favorite times of day, and I was listening to the radio. Jan Beatty, a poet and teacher at the University of Pittsburgh (whom I later took numerous classes with), was interviewing another poet, a man who I seem to recall was named Mike James and he wrote a book of poems which I seem to remember being titled Pennies in a Jar. The interesting twist is that I have never been able to find this man or his book of poems anywhere so either I hallucinated this whole event or my memory has been failing me for longer than I care to admit! Nevertheless I heard him read a simple poem about a woman washing dishes by hand in the kitchen. The radio was on, it was dark outside, and suddenly her husband came up behind and hugged her gently in the night. It was a lovely poem and struck me deeply. Almost immediately after he finished reading his poem, I sat dazed looking out into the evening sunlight as I reclined back in my car. It was so simple, so graceful, touching, and true. And then suddenly out of the nothing I heard a quiet but forthright voice speak within – Let’s learn to write poetry. Okay! That sounded very good to me! So that very moment as I recall it (but perhaps it was actually over a few days’ time) I literally got out of my car, carefully crossed Forbes avenue, walked across the green and into the towering gothic cathedral. I took the elevator up to the fifth floor and walked into the office of the English department class enrollments. For the next 3 years I took a poetry writing course every semester and never looked back.
So in that vein, I thought that today I’d share a few poems with you that I’ve written over the years. I think I’d like to put together a book of poems at some point in time, but I know that takes much thought, consideration, and work to get it just right. Perhaps that’s in the cards for me down the road sooner or later. I think I would like that. It could be a sort of a capstone for myself if you will of all that poetry means to me and all that it has done for me for so many years. I love poetry and had a blast channeling the muse, hacking my way through my own conventions and compulsions, and perhaps sometimes weaving my way through to something not too bad. When I had the great pleasure and privilege to work with Tony Hoagland, I recall him saying something along the lines of “It’s one thing to write a good line of poetry. The hard part is trying to write a series of good lines so that when it’s all done you have a good poem.” Oh so true indeed Tony! It has been an interesting process to go back and look over the poems I wrote from what is now more years ago than I realized! Some of the poems I came across I had no recollection of even writing. In one poem I honestly cannot believe that I even wrote it! Surely that’s someone else’s poem – surely – though who it could be I cannot say. Nevertheless besides this one seemingly stowaway poem of mine, I do recall not just each of my poems, I even recall certain lines from them, words and phrases, and even in some cases the specific circumstances I found myself in when I wrote the original draft.
The stories that rest underneath poems don’t necessarily have words or an arc to them – they are moments flashing in the mind, some gasp or glitch in my normal perceptions. In the case of the poem “Gougères Chardin” for example I remember specifically I was at the Getty Museum alone for the day wandering around an exhibit of 18h century innovations, technologies, and furniture. As I was ambling my way through, a solitary painting caught my eye. It was a still life of fish hanging down over a thick wooden table with cheeses and vegetables on top. It was a typical still life I suppose. Nothing exceptional or out of the ordinary about it per say. But even still something struck me, and I immediately began to write. And out of that moment “Gougères Chardin” emerged. The real and personal history of this poem endears it to me that much more. It is a private enjoyment. Something that may not be on the page necessarily, or perhaps it most definitely is, I don’t know, but what I do know is that the poem itself is actually also a reminder, a touchstone, or portal for me right back to that moment in the museum where something happened. And frankly that is tender. That is beautiful and dear. And it makes me grateful once again for the words we urge onto the page. The labor and struggle of art is indeed worthwhile. Like a memory signifying something beyond our understanding, beyond articulation, poetry and language transport us to places within ourselves alive and vibrant, mysterious and serene.
So perhaps for your reading pleasure, I’ve included a few poems from my archives. I hope you enjoy them and even more so I hope you catch the great spirit of our dear muse poetry.
(Poet’s note: the lines of enjambment in some of the poems below do not appear correctly when viewed on a mobile device. It appears the proper enjambments can be viewed on a desktop screen. I apologize for the inconsistency. Thank you and Enjoy!)
Gougères Chardin
These fishy scales dripping cold,
dead vegetables on the table. A
hearty meal simply nothing more can
come of this. The gourd and beet (radishes)
lying together masquerading solemnity,
nonchalance in the cheese, the
linens the knife and fork aching in
hands ready to eat another plate
white with blue edging
Palm Leaves
My grandmother died in her home while I was still at college. She passed away with a cancer under her lungs, spreading
like an open palm. Like an open palm,
she taught me how to make her spaghetti sauce. That was the afternoon she washed all the dishes behind my back, where
I caught her at the sink before she toppled.
Her smooth skin, that lime-green kitchen counter, her cancer smiling, wincing
with love.
Bird Camera
A flicker, no flash, flutter
the determination of one eye green
invading the mountain storming another
castle a dead tire driving by the highway
a small flock of black birds tight swirl
whipped over and around out into blue
white puff clouds the camera of the sky lensatic,
crisp, mounds in the distance farther and farther
away a flicker, no flash, flutter
Thank you for sharing such beautifully written poems.
Thank you so much! I’m so glad you liked them! Write on! 😀