I used to write poetry. It’s been a long time, but lately, I’ve had an urge to start again. So it was interesting timing that my Christmas present from Sweetheart’s father and his wife was a volume of Seamus Heaney’s poetry.
There are massive holes in my literary education. Heaney was one of them, but thanks to D&K, that will be changing.
All the Christmas books from D&K include, somewhere inside, a photograph of a dead white guy. It’s fun to get money any time, of course, but there’s something truly special about being part of a family in which every holiday means that someone spent significant amounts of time imagining what you would love to read and went hunting for it.
Getting back to poetry, one of my favorite under-appreciated poets is Kelly Cherry. I met her when I was a baby journalist and my first editor sent me out to interview her. We don’t see each other often, but established enough of a connection to remain friends nearly 30 years down the road.
I was writing a lot more poetry then. Reading hers blew me away. It still does. I once told her – because it’s true – that my poems were like melody lines and hers were entire symphonies. Here’s one:
“From Venice: Letter to an Ex-Husband” (The Horses of San Marco)
I am riding on bronze,
Astride a sea-city.
I love my horse
With more than human pity.
His helpless eye,
His cool, wide flank
Are no less real than yours,
I frankly think.
His deep gold hue is like liquid,
As if a canal had been poured into the mold
Of a horse. He canters
Above the world.
Bold as the sky,
Eternity between his teeth
Like a bit.
Oh I love my
Horse with more than human
Love, with love
That is truer, animalistic,
Given to no man.
On him I ride
Through salt air and
The sinister, traitorous streets,
Sculpture’s bride.
It’s from her collection “Death and Transfiguration,” but she has many more. She’s written short stories and novels, too.
Anyway, back to when we met. It was an interesting time. First Husband had just met Better Wife than I’d Been, and I was madly in love with a guy I now refer to (when I refer to him at all) as Mr. Perfect from the Neck Down. The first time he dumped me was just after Thanksgiving.
This is a poem I wrote about it.
“Tonight’s Special”
What I would like
Is a fuse
To attach to the solstice moon
Lighting the year’s longest night.
Shining,
Benign
All ripe and round.
Both of you,
Full of yourselves.
I, temporarily eclipsed by
Circumstance
In the pursuit
Of personal illumination,
Want that fuse
Lit.
Want to watch it crackle
And burn.
Explode
And fizzle.
Become a collection
Of harmless ashes
Floating,
Aimless
In a cold sky.
As unaware as the moon,
You have wreaked
Careless havoc in
Your attempt to ripen
And you continue on,
Willfully ignorant of
Any connection you
Could possibly have
To tides
Smashing against
Innocent beaches
As you orbit some
Nebulous idea
You call
“Holiness.”
the sentence factory 