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| Two Women Thinking About Words ... at the Pacific Ocean, Ogden Point ... |
I found another good poem and I wanted you to share it with Rebecca.
I put it in front of her and ask her to read it out loud to me. I have been thinking about words this week, since I noticed in the Seaside Magazine (February 20210), an article on a woman who has spent many years in Victoria training children in speech. The woman, Souzann McMillan, said she had been trained by Dr. Leona Patterson. I showed the article to Rebecca who later picked up the telephone and made what she thought would only be a short call, telling Souzann that though she didn't know her she felt that they had something in common; the two talked then about their experiences with Leona Patterson. They did have had much in common, but not age. Rebecca thought she might be a few years younger than her, but no, Suzanne was one of Leona’s first students, more my age than Rebecca’s. Suzann had lived kitty corner to the Pattersons, in order to overcome her childhood anxiety, her mother had taken her to Dr Pat to get lessons so that she could overcome her fears about speaking in public.
Overhearing snippets of conversation on the telephone as the two of them talked, I began remembering the reason I had speech lessons when I was in Grade IV. Earl was in Grade III. Miss Tester, his teacher, called my dad and said that she thought Earl was not doing very well in school, that his mind was usually on making jokes or misbehaving, and she thought he might only get to grade 6 in the regular school system. That wasn't my Dad's plan and he thought that Earl might benefit from some kind of lesson where he had to memorize facts. So as not to draw attention to Earl, Doral’s plan of obfuscation was to include me. Both older kids went off to speech lessons as though that were the normal thing for a family to do. Earl went on to graduate from BYU and eventually became a millionaire. I grew up and continue to send children to speech lessons.
I have a repertoire of poems, some of them learned from those speech lessons, some of them learned because I like to have an occasional poem in my backpack for instant play with children, some of them poems taught to me by my mother and father, and the rest are in books of poetry, some of whose spines have yet to be cracked.
Poetry is not my first choice when I'm free reading, but sometimes in The New Yorker I run across a poem that makes me smile as I did today. I had picked up the January 25th issue that has 12 pages about storming about the Washington Capital. I told Steve that I had put a wing clip over those pages, deciding I just wasn't going to read them. But then I remember feminists have made that mistake before with other literature, just not paying attention to someone (Camille Paglia, for example) and it has turned out to our collective detriment not to take on those arguments earlier in the career of people we want to be in dialogue with. So while reading that long and horrible article I came across a poem about death. Since I seem to have always been interested in the act of passing away, I read the poem and that's the one I asked Rebecca to read aloud to me. I am going to slow down and do the same thing, read it aloud again. I love the part about the parentheses, using them so often when I write.
LAST WORDS
I don't want to die in a poem
The words burning in eulogy
the sun howling why
the moon sighing why not
I don't want to die in bed
which is a poem gone wrong
a world turning in on itself
a floating navel of reams
I won't meet death in a field
like a dot punctuating a page
it's too vast yet too tiny
everyone will say it's a bit cinematic
I don't want you to pass away in your arms
those gentle parentheses
nor expire outside of their swoon
self-propelled determined shouting Let the end come
as the best parts of living have come
unsought and undeserved
inconvenient
now that's a good death
what nonsense you say
that's not even worth writing down
``` Rita Dove (The New Yorker, Jan. 25, 2021)
Overhearing snippets of conversation on the telephone as the two of them talked, I began remembering the reason I had speech lessons when I was in Grade IV. Earl was in Grade III. Miss Tester, his teacher, called my dad and said that she thought Earl was not doing very well in school, that his mind was usually on making jokes or misbehaving, and she thought he might only get to grade 6 in the regular school system. That wasn't my Dad's plan and he thought that Earl might benefit from some kind of lesson where he had to memorize facts. So as not to draw attention to Earl, Doral’s plan of obfuscation was to include me. Both older kids went off to speech lessons as though that were the normal thing for a family to do. Earl went on to graduate from BYU and eventually became a millionaire. I grew up and continue to send children to speech lessons.
I have a repertoire of poems, some of them learned from those speech lessons, some of them learned because I like to have an occasional poem in my backpack for instant play with children, some of them poems taught to me by my mother and father, and the rest are in books of poetry, some of whose spines have yet to be cracked.
Poetry is not my first choice when I'm free reading, but sometimes in The New Yorker I run across a poem that makes me smile as I did today. I had picked up the January 25th issue that has 12 pages about storming about the Washington Capital. I told Steve that I had put a wing clip over those pages, deciding I just wasn't going to read them. But then I remember feminists have made that mistake before with other literature, just not paying attention to someone (Camille Paglia, for example) and it has turned out to our collective detriment not to take on those arguments earlier in the career of people we want to be in dialogue with. So while reading that long and horrible article I came across a poem about death. Since I seem to have always been interested in the act of passing away, I read the poem and that's the one I asked Rebecca to read aloud to me. I am going to slow down and do the same thing, read it aloud again. I love the part about the parentheses, using them so often when I write.
LAST WORDS
I don't want to die in a poem
The words burning in eulogy
the sun howling why
the moon sighing why not
I don't want to die in bed
which is a poem gone wrong
a world turning in on itself
a floating navel of reams
I won't meet death in a field
like a dot punctuating a page
it's too vast yet too tiny
everyone will say it's a bit cinematic
I don't want you to pass away in your arms
those gentle parentheses
nor expire outside of their swoon
self-propelled determined shouting Let the end come
as the best parts of living have come
unsought and undeserved
inconvenient
now that's a good death
what nonsense you say
that's not even worth writing down
``` Rita Dove (The New Yorker, Jan. 25, 2021)
Oh Arta you are so funny! Arta you have alot of humor in you I am learning to laugh more at myself and that the whole of the world that passes by. Hope your bones are healing, I want to write you a long letter and will try next week, I'm with Richard, scene i cant read anymore i listen and have found out a lot of things, that writers forget in there sentences. Honestly Arta being able just to listen can be a blessing. I used to love writing but have skipped over to listening. My moto is body still mouth shut. "Life is fraught with opportunities to keep your mouth shut"-Winston Churchill
ReplyDeleteHow ever I stand in aw in all you have written and congratulate your creative ability to put your thoughts in words. love Sharon.
I am glad you are having fun reading, Sharon Manley, and that you still like to write letters by hand. We have been friends for a long time.
ReplyDeleteAs you say about yourself, I too say I am trying to learn the lesson of when people are speaking to me, and when they are speaking to others, and when I should join in and when I to do the Churchillian act of staying quiet.
So lovely to hear from you out on the blog.
And you made me laugh, saying writers forget a lot of what they should say in their sentences. That perfectly describes me at the start of every sentence. I start to go one way with it and it ends up going in another direction. That must be part of why I like writing. The surprise at the end of finding out what I think.