Emerging in Poetry

I had a pleasant surprise – the editors and staff of Hawk andWhippoorwill poetry journal have nominated my poem “How a vine staves off eviction” for a Pushcart. The poem was in their Summer 2019 issue. Hawk & Whippoorwill, published in Boston at summer and winter solstices, focuses on the relationships between nature and humankind. 

 

Many of my poems were written with the idea to reflect human life through the natural world. Besides vacationing in the Northern Woods as a child, I used to go on fishing and apple picking excursions with my father to southern Wisconsin. My dad expressed what many say, that he felt his religion when he was in nature. He also liked the computer and kept up weekly email contact after I got on the internet and had poetry published there. I was surprised, during his last year, when he wrote wondering if I had a new poem for him to read there.

How could religion not be a point to ponder? Having a fascination for the first and last books of the Bible, I concluded in the 1990's that environmentalists were doing God's first mandate. They were taking care of the garden while too many were living outside of it. I tried to write poems as if they might express a theology but of course that failed. Poetry is an art form and, I felt, true when it is concrete and in perspective. 

I wished I'd photographed the yard tree hosting a vine that grew into the form of a man standing on an upper branch.  However that happened, the sight inspired a poem as it might have inspired visual art.

Image by Jolee G @ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I don't often refer to myself as a poet though I've had many poems published. I liked poetry and early, made a little book called “My Favorite Poems.” My own poem inclusion disappointed. I remember going to my fifth grade teacher in despair because I blocked on a poem. She suggested that I start with a different subject. So I wrote a narrative science fiction poem, finding that her suggestion worked. I was comfortable with stories in prose.

And I was to become more taken up with flute playing so that I had to consider a performance career. Many years later, I opened a drawer of paper documents, bank and such, but also a cache of poetry I sent as application to the University of Minnesota writing program. I'd read much more contemporary poetry and finally re-read what I never submitted for publication. I thought, oh, even though this stuff was inspired by Tess Gallagher, it is something different in rhythm and resonance. It was written by a flute player. I felt I entered poetry after leaving the daily practice of music.

Poetry became a cryptic diary for me. It captured the year, the atmosphere, the ideas in my head, the relationships I had. Sometimes it reminded me of the books I read.  I was always afraid of too much influence from a well-known author. The cure for that, I'd thought, was to read many. Even then, I was influenced by Denise Levertov, Mary Oliver, Louise Bogan, Nancy Willard, W. S. Merwin, and Dylan Thomas, poets that come immediately to mind.

After writing in other creative genres, I felt poetry was the most honest. It's been a lulling late afternoon break for me, poet or person writing poetry.