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Teresa Carson on Poetry: “Poem-Lunking”

October 15, 2020 By Dimitri Reyes Leave a Comment

This week’s poem & video:

“When a Roadside Altar Speaks,” poem by Dimitri Reyes

“When a Roadside Altar Speaks,” video poem by Yuval Nitzan & Dimitri Reyes

Are you up for a deep poem exploration? If yes then put on your hardhat with the headlamp on it and get ready to go “poem-lunking” (yep, my newly coined word for close reading).

Today I want to talk about a poem featured in the Dispatches From 2020 folio from CavanKerry’s own Marketing & Communications Director, Dimitri Reyes. Particularly, how his poem, “When a Roadside Altar Speaks” uses indirectness as a rhetorical strategy in which it, as Emily Dickinson once famously wrote, “Tell[s] all the truth but tell[s] it slant.” This can be a very powerful strategy; if used well, it compels a reader to travel into the poem’s deep, possibly dark, spaces. In this case, indirectness allows for a direct and passionate political statement to be made in a way that invites both listening and responding. Remember, good poems want to engage the reader in a two-sided conversation.

This week’s note will be quite free-form because I want to suggest a few ways in which you might approach a poem. It will also be incomplete (i.e. I’ll concentrate on the opening and closing lines) because it would take a much longer note to do a comprehensive analysis of “When a Roadside Altar Speaks” … which means you’ll still have a lot of poem to explore on your own!

Let’s begin with first impressions:

The title, which is the real beginning to any poem, sets up an anthropomorphic situation: an object (or collection of objects in this case) will be speaking as if it were human. Right away, that catches my eye. What is gained by having an object speak? What is lost? I, having lived in NJ for most of my life, know what a “roadside altar” is … but maybe you don’t … which would add another level of mystery to an already mysterious title.
Short lines. While you would think short lines make a poem move faster, the opposite is true because of the little pause that happens between lines. If you honor the lineation of the poem then those pauses must be taken into account.
The lines in the second half are less regularly placed on the page than in the first half. I wonder if the change in form signals an emotional change? Maybe some kind of disintegration happens in the second half?
Lots of space. Space between stanzas also slows down the pace of the poem. In this poem, space between stanzas might also indicate a moment when the speaker is pausing to gather their thoughts.

Here’s the link to the award-winning video poem.
Dimitri does a great job of honoring his own line & stanza breaks.

Now let’s go a bit deeper:

Dimitri, understanding that some images were regionally/ experientially specific, included a handful of notes with his submission to this project, which he allowed us to post here. After you’ve watched the video, reread the poem while taking his notes into consideration.

On my first reading I “got” the overall sense of the poem but that wasn’t enough. The poem called me back; it said, “No, pay closer attention to what I’m saying.” When I did, here’s some of what I heard:

I love how the poem begins with a sound that comes out of the blue. But what is the source of the sound? Given the context of a “roadside altar,” I hear the “pop … pop … pop” as gunshots. But I can’t be certain, can I?
What does the “ – – -“ mean? Not silence but wordless—I first wrote “soundless,” but it does have a sound albeit a non-human one. Seems to be a transition of some kind.
The dots started to connect in my mind: if I go with the idea of “gunshots” then maybe I can take the leap that “- – -“ indicates a person’s heart flatlining, a person in the split-second transition between life and death? Which makes sense because the roadside altar, the substitute (in a sense) for the person takes over speaking in the next stanza.
I love how the altar announces it will speak “fluently” and “in a few words.” A fluent roadside altar. A little tongue-in-cheek? But, maybe, on a more serious note, the altar can speak more “fluently” than the victim? Or more fluently about the overall situation because of its point of view …
Which leads me to the lines about the sneakers. Again because of my NJ background I immediately thought of sneakers thrown over utility wires. Except, remember my earlier question about what is gained by having an altar as speaker? Well, one huge gain is a different point of view. The altar, which sits on the ground, only sees sneakers on the ground. Because children and young adults often wear sneakers, “many feet” = “many young people.” I don’t know why, but these sneakers seem to be running, right?
Oh … and … wait … maybe the gunshot victim is also a young person and, considering other references of place and cultural community sprinkled through the poem, a person of color.

Whew. Exploring the opening eight lines took time but now the full horror of the narrative has been excavated: this roadside altar commemorates the homicide of a young person. The altar seems to be telling a reverse-narrative. Maybe telling us its origin story?

Which leads me to the end of the poem where something quite marvelous happens.

It begins with the line “That it’s okay to sell my Civic.” Huh? Roadside altars don’t own cars. What’s going on here? Remember I said earlier that the “- – -“ was a transitional moment in which the altar took over as the voice for the unknown person in the first two lines? Well, with this line, the altar returns the voice to the victim. Again, thinking in terms of how to get us to listen, it’s a brilliant move. The altar as narrator added a slight distancing which pulled me into the poem … at this moment the altar steps aside and the victim speaks. And oh, though the victim was old enough to own a car, at the moment of death, he sounds so so young.

The final seven lines are devastatingly raw and vulnerable. Honestly, I can’t even transcribe them because they hurt my heart. If I were reading this poem to an audience, then, at this point, my voice would be buried in tears. Not only does this poem get me to listen to another’s experience, it gets me to feel another’s experience. Listening. Empathizing. Couldn’t we use more of them nowadays?

Our poem-lunking expedition is finished for the week but I hope you spend more time with this powerful poem.

As of now, I have no idea what poem-cave we’ll be exploring next time.
Without a doubt some poem or another will grab my arm and say, “Listen to me.”

like what you just read? read the rest of Dispatches from 2020

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Teresa Carson on Poetry: Attention to Summer

August 21, 2020 By Dimitri Reyes Leave a Comment

This week’s poems and music:

“August,” by Naila Moreira

“Summertime” sung by Janis Joplin

“Love Poem at the Beginning of Summer,” by Jack Wiler (American, 1951-2009)

“Summer in the City” performed by the Lovin’ Spoonful

“Temporale Estivo/Summer Lightning Storm,” by Federigo Tozzi

Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto No. 2 ‘Summer’ in G Minor

I hope you and your loved ones are safe, healthy, and in good spirits.

This week I’m taking a break from the Iliad in order to pay some attention to summer. Honestly, my internal clock seems to be stuck in mid-March, which is right when the pandemic shifted life into a different temporal dimension. I hardly remember to turn the pages on our usually-filled-with-appointments-and-reminders desk calendar because it has been full of blank days for the past five months.

What made me realize that the season is nearly over? Well, I received Naila Moreira’s, “scraps and oddments,” her recent newsletter in which she shared some poems, including one of her own, and lyrics about summer.

Because I’ll be talking about place-specific soundscapes in these poems, I’ve paired them with music that creates, to my ear, a similar one. Again, I suggest that you read the poems out loud to experience the full force of their sonic effects. (And maybe dance around the room to experience the full force of the music.)

After reading Naila’s poem, “August,” I started thinking about how the soundscapes of summer differ greatly from place to place. For example, in this poem a hush blankets the night world. Listen to how she builds a languid sonic environment with verbs: creep, exhale, rustle, sleep, and drowns. Listen to how the last two lines are a part of the hush and yet apart from it in that they move into a just-as-languid thought. Oddly enough, I feel that the hush, and therefore the poem, continues, maybe “spreads” a better word, into the white space after its final period. Because of the poem’s unhurried pace, I paired it with Joplin’s rendition of “Summertime.” Doesn’t the opening create a similar landscape?

By the way, I highly recommend that you check out her website at http://www.nailamoreira.com, and/or subscribe to her email newsletter, https://tinyletter.com/naila. Her writings are always thought-filled, inspiring, wide-ranging and lyrical.

But in my decades of Hudson County life, summer nights were noisy: car radios blasting out of open windows, loud laughter on stoops, sirens near and far, basketballs thumping on backboards, barking dogs, raised voices spilling from bars. There would be short bursts of silence (not the same as a hush) but pretty much it was noisy until long after midnight. Thus, I’m very familiar with the “loud” soundscape in Jack Wiler’s “Love Poem at the Beginning of Summer.” Jack recreates the ebb and flow of a city street soundscape. Of course, being Jack, he doesn’t stop there: look at the intricate weaving of noise and quiet, of inside and outside, that follows how the speaker’s thoughts shift back and forth between the absence and the presence of his lover. I’ve read this poem dozens of times yet the last line always surprises me, always takes my breath away: “Everything in the world is asking about you.”

...

Whew! Had to take a minute to recover from that line. Anyway, I paired Jack’s poem with the original version of “Summer in the City,” performed by the Lovin’ Spoonful. I can’t think of another song that better recreates the soundscape of a city, especially NYC, in the summer.

I was hard pressed to come up with a poem that fit my current summer soundscape … until I found “Temporale Estivo/Summer Lightning Storm.” You see, here in Sarasota, most July/August afternoons feature thunderstorms. I happen to love the “thuds” and “rumbles” of thunder and the “pelting” rain on our roof and windows. This poem does a great job of building to the moment when “the thunder bursts.” Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto No. 2 ‘Summer’ in G Minor felt like the perfect match for this poem.

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Teresa Carson on Poetry: Direct Responses to COVID 19 (Part 2)

July 31, 2020 By Dimitri Reyes Leave a Comment

This week’s poems & art:

“Concord Street Hymn,” by Dawn Potter

“Concord Hymn,” Ralph Waldo Emerson (American, 1803-1882)

“Out My Window,” a painting by Leslie Butterfield

“Untitled,” a painting by Jeff Haste

Last week I presented three artists whose current work directly addresses COVID-19 and its many physical, emotional and spiritual effects on our lives and our world. This week I’ll present works that address those issues in a more indirect way, yet are, make no bones about it, as much saturated with COVID-19 as the ones from my COVID-19 Part One post. Over the past three months I’ve had many a conversation with Dawn, Leslie and Jeff about what’s going on so I know how much their hearts and minds are filled with the current state of the world.

Leslie Butterfield and Jeff Haste are not only my friends but also work with me on the ART IN COMMON PLACES program. While “Out My Window” and “Untitled” are both powerful images, I revel in their differences: the bright colors, flowing lines and dreamy quality of “Out My Window” versus the darker palette, straight lines and edginess of “Untitled.” “Out My Window” soothes me, almost rocks me to sleep, while “Untitled” makes me think and want to take action. Isn’t it exciting how two artists have responded to the same moment in time in two very different ways yet both ways are necessary, both are full of truth and humanity?

Leslie, a visual artist, lives in Sarasota. During these dark times, she has found much solace in Nature, especially when she kayaks and sees such wonders of the universe as manatees. Her paintings remind the viewer: Nature continues. When asked how the attached painting connects to COVID-19, she wrote:

“Out My Window” is from my manatee series that has helped keep my spirits up

even when I can’t travel to see my new granddaughter or my children.

Jeff, a painter and book designer, lives in Maine. He’s very plugged into what’s happening politically and culturally so it’s no surprise that his paintings, despite their abstractness, have a “social commentary” feel to them. He wrote about his creative process:

In indirect ways I often think my pieces speak to what’s going on around us without intent or representation. My process is unlike those who have an idea, “I want to look at this or that and incorporate it into my work,” or make pieces about subjects such as endangered species, or whatever. Which is fine. Work may fit into a ‘revisionist’ genre, though I can paint in different ways, the current layering outcomes relate to printmaking.

Usually I take a premise, a recent piece I like for something discovered in its texture and composition, and start to draw anew, wishing I could have something of that technique carry over. It might be stream of consciousness after that, the marks and colors, the layers might go elsewhere, and a series of revisions follows. I have to keep an eye on composition, not wanting to have many forms that might look representational in the layers, it can be a blessing, or a hindrance. The piece speaks to me about what it will become.

This series on how artists are “seeing in a dark time” actually grew out of conversations with poet Dawn Potter. Since March she and I have been having a bi-weekly “poetry call,” during which we discuss the works of a poet. At the time of the conversations we were reading Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus; we’ve since moved on the Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience (I have always been baffled by these much-praised poems but, lucky for me, Dawn has a life-long connection to them!). Anyway, during the early weeks of “shelter at home,” we often turned and re-turned to the question, “What does it mean to be a poet in the midst of this turmoil?”

As Dawn roundly puts it:

So what’s it like to be a poet during this pandemic? Honestly, it feels useless. What do poems matter, compared to baking bread or hanging sheets on the line or standing alone in the sunshine? I’m not being coy here. I’m shocked at how indifferent I’ve become to the public life of an art that I’m devoted to. Of course I’m still writing. But creation feels like enough. I haven’t felt the urge to seek out a platform for this work, and I’ve been wondering if other artists and makers feel a similar shift.

Yet, she continues:

My poet life bears a certain resemblance to my breathing life—which is to say, for me words are like air molecules. I pull them in, I sigh them out, constantly, constantly. When I stop reading and writing, I’ll likely be dead.

First, take a look at how the last line of stanzas 2-4 seems to fall into the next stanza. Take a minute and just read those moves from stanza to stanza. Did your stomach feel a bit queasy? Mine did. And yet, after falling through the air, the end of the line does land on the beginning of the next stanza.

Second, look at the words choices and phrases: unanswerable, meekly, “only information available,” “a needle on the front sidewalk,” scarred, tremble (repeated), maligns, “makes me feel like dirt.” The pattern of somewhat-strong-for-the-situation words/phrases signals the presence of a text beneath the text. Don’t strain to hear the sub-text … let it appear/disappear, as it will. Let the various emotional notes, summoned by the words, appear/disappear, as they will. This is a poem full of nuances.

Third, the repetition of “daffodils.” When I lived in NJ there were years when winter dragged on and on and on … and my winter-worn spirits sank lower and lower … the appearance of daffodils, often breaking through snow, reanimated me. Now that I think about it, daffodils are fragile and resilient; they “tremble,” but “breast the wind.”

Fourth, the inclusion of images of Hope such as: the breeze kicking from the ocean; the daffodils; the thawing earth.

As I sit quietly with the poem, more connections to our COVID-19 reveal themselves: how we seem to be falling through space; our individual/communal vulnerability AND resilience; the strength-giving power of Hope.

Now take a look at “Concord Hymn.”

Why did I include this poem from 183 years ago? Because there is an “intertextual” conversation going on between “Concord Street Hymn” and “Concord Hymn.” Reading the poems together adds another layer of depth to both of them. Did Dawn consciously open this conversation between the two poems? I suspect she did, but don’t know for certain. But I, the reader, bring my history of reading, which happens to include “Concord Hymn,” to the table; therefore I may be initiating the conversation. (You may be initiating other conversations.)

Some things to consider while reading “Concord Street Hymn” in light of “Concord Hymn” (and vice versa):

–Why would the poet open a conversation with “Concord Hymn”? Does this innocent poem about daffodils contain more of a commentary on the times than it appears to?

–The Concord in “Concord Hymn” is a town. In “Concord Street Hymn” Concord has been reduced to a street. What might that difference symbolize in terms of the America of 1837 and the America of now? Are there similarities between then and now?

— What are the differences/similarities between the look of the poems on the page and the sound of them when recited? What are the differences/similarities in your responses to them?

–Look at how Dawn slyly plants pieces of Emerson’s poem in hers—e.g. his “green bank” turns into “half-green bank”; his unfurled flag turns into an unfurling person.

–In a sense these are both “memory” pieces. “Concord Hymn” records the cleaned up version of a cultural memory, the version written long afterwards by someone who didn’t participate in the experience. On the other hand, “Concord Street Hymn” is the “right here, right now” messy account of a communal experience. As such, I think it calls into question the surety of Emerson’s poem.

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Teresa Carson on Poetry: Direct Responses to COVID 19 (Part 1)

July 2, 2020 By Dimitri Reyes Leave a Comment

This week’s poems:

“Hope” and “Slumber” by Danny Shot

Art by Zerbe Sodervick

Art by Brian Riley

I hope you and your loved ones are healthy and safe.

A major part of any artist’s “ordinary life” is spent making art. While the social/political/cultural environment of any given moment in time certainly has an effect on everyone’s art, some artists respond directly to those forces and some don’t. What do I mean by that statement? Well, various artists and friends are responding to COVID-19, giving me the perfect opportunity over my next two posts to illustrate the difference. What’s more exciting is that two of the artists will tell us what sparked their works.

It takes me a long time (often years) to process experiences in a way that allows for them to transform into poems. So, I’m a little in awe of artists who can incorporate big societal experiences—e.g. 9/11; COVID-19—into their work right away and make powerful pieces. Danny Shot, Zerbe Sodervick and Brian Riley have all done that in their art that responds to the ongoing pandemic.

Poet Danny Shot’s Responses to COVID-19

Poet and community activist Danny Shot lives in Hoboken, which is across the river from Manhattan. Like all of NY, NJ and CT, Hoboken was under a strictly enforced lockdown for many weeks. During those lockdown weeks Shot, who is always (at least it seems so to usually-at-home me) out and about, wrote two powerful poems. “Hope,” which addresses communal experiences of the pandemic, and “Slumber,” a poem addressing those experiences on a personal level.

“Hope” is a Whitmanesque look at the COVID-19 world. Pay attention to how Shot juxtaposes various types of details from a lament for the loss of a certain New York to “…Larry Kelly fighting, fighting, fighting/for breath…” to “the sirens passing by the front of our house” to a woman“shouting at passersby/ ‘wear a mask, don’t be an asshole’” to the plight of his friends who are teachers, Shot covers much ground in his writing. He also throws in a bit of sly humor: “I’ve caught up on/reading back issues of the New Yorker and know/as much about Bolivian politics and Fiona Apple’s/mental state as I’ll ever need to know.” Each detail carries a unique emotional tone; together they create an emotional symphony out of our experiences as a community. And isn’t the poem, above all else, a cri de coeur about the importance of community to our survival?

Visual Artist Brian Riley’s Response to COVID-19

When I asked my friend Brian Riley, a visual artist based in NJ, to send a painting directly related to COVID-19, he sent the attached image with a cryptic message about it being “COVID deep energy work.” When pressed for an explanation of that phrase he wrote:

“When COVID hit and closed my healing practice and wellness center over one week, it was a huge blow. I think I was in shock. I made nothing for two weeks then I found myself in the studio. I started making paintings of familiar shapes, things I had been making for years. I showed a painting to a friend who said, ‘Looks like a trumpet.’ Then I saw an Instagram post of a man playing taps on a trumpet. The idea of trumpets playing sad songs got stuck in my head. I repeated it over and over. Then I started drawing and the trumpet morphed into a flower shape. I had some old paint in very hospital gown colors and I started painting flowers for all the people who were dying. The COVID flower series was started.”

Visual Artist Zerbe Sodervick’s Response to COVID-19

Zerbe Sodervick, a visual artist based in Sarasota, made a work of art out of the front door of her apartment for a building-wide contest. While it was not selected, Zerbe mentioned,

“I was glad to just use my door as a platform regarding creative time/art-making in this between-space in our lives. Liminal Time — when we experience space in our lives … these betwixt and between days … no longer where we were and where we journey. What a significant gift (pause) to creative work, art-makers and innovative thinkers.

Sheryl Fullerton, from the Center for Action and Contemplation, commented in a daily meditation: ‘What if we can choose to experience this Liminal space and time, this uncomfortable now, as a place of creativity, as a place of construction and deconstruction, choice and transformation?’

A door makes a mega-sized invitation for people to stop in, see my new series and to share conversation.”

At the end of the month, we’ll be taking a look at some artists, including me, whose current work responds to COVID-19 in more indirect ways.

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