I wish our clever young poets would remember
". . . Poetry equals the best words in the best order." It has taken me a while to understand that. While I liked poetry well enough as a child and, in fifth grade, my teacher had a poem of mine published in a teacher's magazine, I didn't read or write much poetry. Then as a teen, we had a little group that got together for diverse intellectual pursuits in a very romantic, gable apartment on Gingerbread Lane [I kid you not]. Our leader read to us out of the Oxford Book of Modern Poetry. Our favorite poem was "Lepanto," by G. K. Chesterton, a British poet who also wrote the Father Brown Mysteries [and a Christian apologist along the lines of C. S. Lewis]. "Lepanto" is a long, epic–style poem about the crusades and Don Juan, with a great rhyme scheme and a driving beat. We had it almost all memorized and would shout out all the great lines as our leader read it through. But that was the only poem I liked.
my homely definitions of prose and poetry;
that is, prose equals words in their best order;
poetry equals the best words in the best order.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
My twenties was a difficult decade as I was in and out of college while also living/working as a single mom, but when my second husband and I moved to western Virginia, I was able to finish college. In nearby Roanoke, there was a little college named Hollins. I had heard of it in the early 1970s when I read a book by Lee Smith, The Last Day the Dogbushes Bloomed, her Hollins undergrad thesis. I was blown away by this book and always kept the name of the college tucked away in my mind. And then, one day, we moved 32.5 miles north of it!
I applied rather late but was accepted at the last moment, totally thrilled! Thereby began a wonderful college career where I majored in both English and History, and was asked to write honor theses for both. I excelled at Hollins and loved every minute of it, even though it was hard and challenging and often kept me from my family. Well, this essay isn't about me and Hollins, it's about poetry!
If I hadn't gone to Hollins, I would have never become a poet, for I had already decided to focus on becoming a novelist, as that was what I did: write stories. But I had to fulfill some course requirements, which necessitated studying of poetry. I took Modern Poetry, because, after all, that's what I knew best from many years earlier. It was a good class, but I found it difficult to grasp the meanings of the poems. I chose to approach the more technical sides of poetry: musicality, diction, rhythm, rhyme, etc.
In the second semester, I was finally allowed to take my first creative writing class, with the same professor. The course mandated that we write both fiction and poetry, one each a week. So, as I wrote what I considered totally unnecessary and uninspired poems, I sort of imitated the Modern poets, such as using syllables like Marianne Moore [and the first poem was about my crooked little toe]. The professor took me aside and told me people don't write like that anymore. I was rather surprised by her reaction but it didn't stop me. I ceased the syllabic writing and focused more on diction [word choice] and etymology, the layered meanings behind words.
The short stories I wrote were well accepted, but I began find that when I started a story it turned into a poem. I became caught up with the beauty of the words and the weight of their meaning. Though my first poems were about silly little things, I soon took on serious subjects, often in a more oblique approach. Some people really loved my poems; most people hated them. Of one in particular, in an Advanced Writing Seminar, I received many negative, truly nasty comments. When I expressed my dismay to Richard Dillard, the professor, he said that I was being true to the subject matter, the poem was true and honest and, though lyrical, pretty darn blunt, and if others despised it, then I had done my job.
I learned many good things about writing poetry from Mr. RHW Dillard! but also from several other poets and friends. And while all could agree that my poetry was different, no one could explain exactly how it was singular, perhaps unique, until I found Coleridge's quote: the best words in the best order. When I write a poem, I revise, revise, revise, and revise, and then revise even more. RHW Dillard is a great believer in this, and I agreed with him on that point, though revision is often a bad word to say out loud around writers of any milieu! But through the revision process I find the best words and their best order, so that in all my poems each word is exactly where it should be and has equal weight [importance] with all the other words. Also significant in the ordering of the poems are the caesuras or enjambments, i.e. line breaks; my most infamous one is found in the first line of the poem, "Cry":
The ranger answered it was a wolf
Tree, so we glanced back at the oak,
Five arm spans wide.
When the poem is first read, one thinks it's about wolves, not trees, but then a lupine thread weaves throughout the poem, which ends up with the "tears of the wolf." It is almost cliché today to write about big old romantic trees found deep in the woods, but I caught people's attention with that opening line. So, the order in which a word is placed in my poems is equally as important as where this order may be fractured, broken apart.
William Carlos Williams wrote "Tract," a poem about a funeral procession where the "rough plain hearse" has gilt wheels. While "tract" is an odd title for a poem about death—for many reasons, I found in scanning the poem, my curiosity aroused over the word gilt, the past tense of gild, which means to cover with a thin layer of gold. Below the word's definition, the etymology reveals an archaic meaning: "to smear with blood." In the time of sacrifices, over time blood gilded the altars, perhaps with that slight golden tone that old dried blood often has. A blood sacrifice was often an atonement for sin; perhaps it is no mistake that the word guilt is a homonym.
In my poems, I, too, look beyond the usual definitions for either the archaic meaning or the source words, whether it is from Latin, Greek, Norse, Old English, even Aramaic. By doing this I try to create a poem of many layers from the immediate emotional response to a more intellectual exercise. A good example of a poem using this technique, and quite openly, is "Supernatural Love," by Gjertrud Schnackenberg [the type of poet I aspire to become though we are on very different tracks].
But poetry is not all about technique and little word games. The best words are often the words that best describe how we feel at some given point in our life. The emotional component of a poem is not to be ignored, but I prefer that it not be out in the open, but for it to be discovered through the whole of the poem. I have one poem, that RHW Dillard called my best lyrical love poem, entitled "Manure." It's about a couple's actual search for manure, but it is also about the very deep, profound love they share. And with one astronomy class, I found fodder for writing poems about physics and the stars and tie those two into the emotional fray I write about. "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways," has already been done and done well; I find it more of a challenge to count the ways in a method never written or spoken before.
It is my hope that you enjoy reading my poems. It is my challenge to you to read them more than once, and to read them aloud, as that is when the words really sing, as is my intent. You may not like my voice, my style, my craft, but I hope you respect that I work very hard in the creation of each poem. If you find yourself really despising one, well, maybe then, I have done my job.
May the best order of the best words come your way!
If you are interested in any of the poems mentioned in the above piece, you can find them on my website The Best Order. Click on Poets & Poetry, then Poetry, then Cynthia Coleman's Favorite poems. Also, you can click on Poets & Poetry, then Poets, then Cynthia Coleman, for other of my poems. The poem hated in the Seminar class is entitled the "Nature of Things."
Twilight Reel
In the subtle dichotomy of flesh, the night
Air—soft, scented—slides across bare limbs,
Warms us as we gaze upon the tenebrous sky,
Three nights before sacred translation
Of flesh into the essence of that
Which hovers beyond the brim of vision.
Called to evensong by stellar winds, we hear
The bear's roar, dog's howl, leonine aspiration
Diminished by the churr of bees
In Cancer's shell—we turn to listen, silenced
As the moon's full face rises, obscures
All which lay hidden by night's fall, illuminating
That we are the island universe, surrounded
By coupled stars that cling to each other
As we embrace, unable to resist the gravity
Of mutual enticement—tumbling, huddled
Together against damp quilts or the black
Sponge of space—an eternal dance, the deity's
Grace of carnal joy turned, turned, returned
To divine ecstasy, seamless fusion into
One.
Top of the Page.
The Weavers Dream
Sometimes I drift
And float above my bed
Follow the cracks along the ceiling and walls
Inspect the cobweb corners and try
To probe the secret of the spider.
How do you do it? But they only blink
And gulp and scurry from my touch,
Crawl inside the lamp and die exposed.
Deflated, I land back between the sheets
A little lower.
Top of the Page.
In Time
He says, when I have time, then—
Speaks of it as some abstract thing, floating
To him when course of time streams by.
Therefore, time fits not his life, it merely ticks
Silent on his wrist to be watched, until the day
The old Father stands before him
Bearing time upon his hands.
I, on the other hand, see time in everything,
Everyday: the jib of light limning the window frame,
Shadow–play of moon phasing in and out the month,
The sprout of grass, sugar frost on leaves,
Silver brindling dark his hair. I see nothing
Abstract about time; it is not a man–made
Construct, designed to order the elegant life.
I believe time began when all was created,
When God spoke light, and one atom cracked
Open a universe moving beyond mere limits
Of thought, fueled by energy, visible by light
Waves, each a color of its own frequency, currents
Of specified intervals, periodic cycles, natural
Undamped oscillation—in other words: time.
Time does not abide in space as a forest
Of unheard trees felled; all its nuances have names:
Seconds, minutes, hours, days . . . . But
We have named them not, not we whose minds expand
Only as far as our little local group, galaxies
We see through look–back time. Our segments of seasons
And life were spoken into being the moment time began:
In the beginning . . . . God said, Let there be light!
It was good and so He divided the overwhelming
Empty deep of dark, named light, day, the dark, night—
Day passed into night, and morning came. So time
Began with exclamation, the spark ignited
With a few well spoken words, sacred monosyllabic
Meter that wound time and all into being.
I do not wait for time to curl up to me;
It is a holy gift of reckoning, the measurement
Of my life and work, a talent given not
To be squandered, buried under wasted moments.
I count the seasons of time and find in them
Intervals of space, periods to squeeze opportunities,
Knowing there is all eternity for then.
Top of the Page.
The Power Of Love
With my arm I can blot out a river,
Drain it from sight, dam it from a distance.
With my palm I can conceal the sun,
Cool it down to a hand–held white dwarf.
With my finger I can crush a star, douse
It with one wet tip of an extended kiss.
With your body—our flesh—we can obscure,
Eclipse the universe, reduce it to one.
Top of the Page.
Anamorphosis
A magician once taught me a trick:
To hold a lit paper match between
Forefinger and thumb, and nimbly
Twist long edge to short—snuff!
My only phantasmic illusion—slight, easy
To perform, but tricks them each time
They try, fingers stiff, awkward, to extinguish
The fuse inching toward tender flesh.
Sometimes, I like to do it alone, for myself,
Strike the match, watch it flare, the blue
Flame taper to gold as it dances
Upon the round red tip, until I flick—
And a thin ghost line of smoke trails
Upward from the ashen head
Which cools to black, crumbles, leaves
Lingering that sulfurous scent.
? ? ?
In what manner then is life extinguished?
How do we go from being to not being, or exist
One moment, then not the next?
What is this splaying of spirit and flesh?
In that quicksilver moment between life
And death, what happens when the spark
Of quiddity dampers, like the snap
Of match between deft fingers,
A gesture never undone, an instant only
As long as one fret, one tick, the pulse
Of a second's hand split into smallest
Segment of time: ten to the ninth, or less.
How can everything that inheres us—
Hopes, dreams, thoughts, imaginings—
How can they just cease to be? Does all
That natural energy die without legacy?
Or does it leak from us— this essence—
Float untethered beyond the moon,
A liminal trail through the vault of heaven
Drifting forever towards eternity?
Top of the Page.
The Distance Between
I've stood on the edge of the moon,
Peered down upon you sleeping
Wrapped in fuzzy cotton quilts,
As though they could keep you warm
In my blue friend's thin light.
The night air rustles your hair
And your breathing—soft, shallow—
Whistles through your clenched jaw.
You want me near, to squat
On the face of earth—but I live
With the man in the moon,
And together, we only watch.
Top of the Page.
Oblique
Up from Flag Pond
To the Carolina crest:
An asphalt serpent twists
Along draws and ridges draped
In the thickest nap of green,
Circling higher and higher, a tongue's
Reach to open skies, fearless
To look back at the emptiness
Of time against stone.
We are travelers, merciless
In the ribless innards that crankles
Us left, lurches us right, the ascent
Of blue car through green ophidian—
We search for the few pegs of relief,
Remnants of flimsy rails, flaking
White, that as we rise grow
Arms, which mock us with their litter
Skittering the road with their bits
Of rent silk crepe, black against black,
Patches of grief, wreathes that once hung
On the markers of those who ignored
The serpent's hiss, those whose memories
Are pegged to earth by lovers unwilling
To forget, let go, drive on—
Obi crosses that do not warn, but call
The shades of long past to walk again
This path of Appalachian voodoo.
Top of the Page.
Daughter's Egress
for Margaret
She is the lunar chip cast deep
Into the soft dark, unafraid
Of the astronomical leap,
That leap beneath the waves
Which plunges into the future—
A destiny without form, an unmade
Bed. The tidal froth below lures
This moon tooth. Hard biting, rolled
Within the ocean's tongue, it matures
From grit to gem. A pearl unfolds—
A teardrop smooth and brilliant—
Reflects her mother's glow.
Top of the Page.
Hunger For Azaleas
I
From you I learned to scrape sod
Off each measured circle before digging
Deeper than the root–ball depth,
Learned to chop peat in with clay
To form a finely sifted heap
Over which unfurled roots drape—
And also, how to tuck in strays.
Yet I never mastered your technique
Where heavy shoveled clods arabesque,
Transform mid–air.
You believed your movements clumsy and awkward,
Revealing the pre–school left–handed switch
That inverted your world; yet shovel
In hand, your planting of azaleas
Reached the sublime grace and effortless ease
Of mind over matter—and dirt, heavy on the blade,
Sprinkles back into a curved mound,
A raised moat, sealed protection for each plant.
You said they'd bloom hot and fiery
In cool spring air, setting dead woods on fire
In a cataphonic vision of clashing ocher and magenta
Paired with cherry red and coral pink,
And our eyes would search for the relief
Of ground pine, the running web of green
That cools the feet, cushions the fall,
As azaleas blind us.
II
You wanted closed casket and you won,
Though I knew the mortician's skill
Could bring you back momentarily
To pre–cancerous days of healthy flesh—
But not to see you after the last breath,
Not to see your face again for a millennium,
To think of you there under heavy clay, alone—
It was a hard wish to grant.
You told me how it would feel,
The tear-mingled sense of grief
Yet relief, and the bell–isolation
Like a game show booth-and everyone hovers
Around just like you said, mouthing
Requests of what shirt and socks and tie,
Wondering what were your favorite hymns,
And just when was it you were born?
But I can pull out a vacuous smile and point
To your old dented box
Where everything's been prepared.
You were smooth, had it all figured out,
Been through it so many times yourself
And knew what a novice I'd be,
Yet you never told me about these holes
In the story line that I keep slipping through,
Never told me that there'd be a few forgotten
Things never said or done that burn
In my heart, sear my tongue unsaid,
Moments unrelieved.
III
I tell you, it's a dreary spring,
With each vista blurred by a heavy mist
That will not pass, will not move on
Unless a warm front slips in from behind.
Yet in the shrouded gloom the woods do burn
With a blaze no tear can douse, a fire
Consumes me, blinds my eyes,
And I hunger for azaleas.
Top of the Page.
Tom's Ideal
"The Natural bridge, the most sublime of Nature's works,
though not comprehended under the present head, must not be pretermitted."
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, QUERY V: Its Cascades and Caverns?
For two summers I gardened
At Natural Bridge which tourists could not find
Even if under their feet, and it was
Hard to tell them, when they asked
Me how they could see it for free, thinking
It was a natural wonder standing out
There, proud against the horizon, gateway
To some heavenly experience, gracefully given
For free. But they winced when I told them
The view only could be seen by full price,
There was no other way but by the gate;
Yet they doubted its worth, until I lectured
Them on Washington and Jefferson, and even if
Still not convinced of its value, I would throw
A curve to their one–track–mind: You know,
It's a real bridge, a working bridge, and you
Stand on it right now. As they scurried to buy
Their tickets I'd call after them to be sure to see
The nightly show: The Creation Story
Volleyed against curving rocks through light
And sound, where Scourby and Muzak compete
Against kaleidoscopic mayhem shot
Through the air. Now I feel guilty
For leading them astray from truth—Tom's
Vision of the sublime—which they'd paid
A pocketful to see; for while he wrote that the Bridge
Was the epitome of sublime, it is not
From the bottom looking up; from there, merely Beauty,
Which causes hearts to sigh, eyes to tear, but
Cannot bring one to experience the sublime, which science
Knows as substance changing from one form
To another, skipping the intermediary step,
Like water-ice to steam—with no
Liquefaction in between. The sublime does not happen
When those from Indiana or Japan stand below
The arch and strain their necks to follow swallows dart
In and out of needle's eye, or discover rorschah eagle
Along the inner curve. And while experiencing
Creation Was Tom's intent, it cannot be witnessed from a bench
During a psychedelic hour at twilight. No. That is Beauty.
The sublime is not beautiful or lovely, it does not fill
The heart with sentiment or joy; it is terror.
How else can you go from one state to another skipping
The calm before the storm without violence? But that's the fun
Part, Tom did say, but only if you creep
Up to the parapet, crawl to the brink, cling with knuckles,
White, to green sod, while earth slips away from sight,
Drop your head over the edge, peer down the abrupt
Gap between earth and heaven, and feel the rumble
Of Creation that begins with vomit and headache,
And the tremble of earth mimics your body, and you can see
How the ground collapsed when Creator drew
His finger down this tiny vein of rock, crushing
All except fifty feet of harder stuff, knowing we
Would need to cross over someday, abate our terror
Of being stranded without some means to bridge
The rift between us.
Top of the Page.
Turn Of Tongue
Even half–lit, I could not see
Whom these strangers were, sitting in the living
Room, though told they were my family:
Aunts, uncles, cousins, my grandmother.
All foreign to me, living up north, a row
House squeezed in between its twins, heavy
With queer odors, home ground sausage
And piroghi; a home thick with clacking
Tongues, gibberish to my southern ears. People
Who looked past this little child pretending
That I could not see their curious difference
From me, acting as though I must be dismembered
From the family tree, an uninvited guest tagging
Along with long–lost brother, my father. So I sat
Watching them re–enact family drama
From Long ago, sibling rivalry, pecking order, who best
Pronounced the mother tongue—Lithuanian.
Huddled beside my mother's chair, a very silent
Chair, uttering not a single word, churning
With displacement—my mother, she tells me
Play outside, and shoves me through
A battle zone defenseless—I pretend
Invisibility, imagine octopus arms covering eyes,
Ears, mouth, scurrying me across
The diagonal line to freedom, though a buzz
In my ear follows me outside—the tiny
Woman they say bore my father last: a crinkly smile,
Eyes that shone through the darkness of jabber, and a hand
Leads me into the shine of out–of–doors, a plop
Of green in a thick tarpaper canyon.
Green of grass surrounded by the deeper green
Of trees, dappled underneath like the sides of rainbow
Trout my father catches each spring. His mother's hand,
Plump, warm, slightly crusty, leads me to the bed
Of flowers spangled with the hum of flying things:
Butterflies, beetles, bumble and honey bees.
Her tongue clicks a sound, but I stare at her
Outstretched fore finger and watch as a fat
Bee hovers down between knuckles. And my grandmother
Clucks at it as she strokes the tiniest wisp of bee fur,
Then pulls my hand up, my forefinger to the bee
And I brush the velvet of its wee yellow back; it's poky,
Springy, bristles like my old toothbrush softened.
With a flick, my grandmother frees this bee and calls
Another, and another, and then sets one down
On my finger, its teeny feet barely felt except
As it walks up and down the spine of my pointer, leaving
Behind the smallest trail of gold, which Grandmother
Brushes when the bee takes off, then she takes me
By the hand, leads me to the screened–in back porch
Where we lay down on the sliding daybed rocking the world
Into late afternoon, hand–in–hand, these two little people
With no language in between but the dance of bees.
Letter to the Author: Cynthia B. Coleman