Rita Dove – Ken Craft

Salad Days for Poetry: They’re Wilting

poetry

As Shakespeare would say (and did in Act I, Scene 5, of his 1606 play, Antony & Cleopatra) alas for the “salad days” of poetry.

No, he didn’t mention the poetry part, just the salad days part, through the mouth of the beautiful Cleopatra reminiscing about her foolish, younger (read: greener) days.

Over time the foolish part has fallen off the salad, leaving the younger part, so the expression “salad days” (the green of youth, which we have a tendency to worship) now indicate only a good thing.

But alas, when it comes to poetry, the salad days are behind us — at least if you use The New York Times Magazine, a Sunday staple for many readers, as an indicator. During Trump’s first administration, poetry enjoyed an explosion of voices, many minority and under-represented ones previously unheard from. Each Sunday you could find a poem in the Times Magazine, too, curated by a rotating editor. The last was Anne Boyer, who resigned in November of 2023 to protest the war in Gaza.

Despite Trump’s second administration and its push against diversity, equity, and inclusion programs (DEI) on all fronts, minority voices and identity poetry have remained as strong as ever in Poetry World. Not so in the bigger landscape of journalism. Though the New York Times remains a bastion of truth against Trump & his sycophants’ frequent lies, they decided against continuing the poetry column after Boyer’s political resignation. Thus ended a creative stretch in a highly-visible market, one once edited by the likes of Terrance Hayes, Natasha Tretheway, Matthew Zapruder, and Rita Dove.

It appears that poetry is being pushed back toward the ivory tower of its undoing. No more will you see sweet little poems like this one about a couple in the Puerto Rican countryside, which once appeared in the Magazine‘s Sunday pages. It reads like a side of salad, I think, and was written by the very cooly-named poet Blas Falconer. I leave the dressing to you:

“A man and a woman touched”
by Blas Falconer

at night under stairs,
pinball machines ringing, and,
Sundays, he drove her to

the springs of Coamo, the chapel of
San Germán. Had she ever known
happiness? The road
littered with mangos seemed

to go on
forever. She thought,
The people can’t eat

them fast enough,
as if she were not
one of those people.

Ah, love and sadness. And sweet mangos. And the salad days of our youth. Foolishly, we thought the good times were here for good. In Poetry World — and in the dark countryside surrounding it, now run by corporations, greed, and corruption — I guess we should have known better.

“Go on. Get on, girl.”

poetry poetry readings

This week’s New York Times Magazine poem, selected by Rita Dove, is “One-Way Gate” by Jenny George. I immediately liked the poem, but I cheered even more when I read the brief bio stating that “Jenny George is a poet whose debut collection, The Dream of Reason, was published last year by Copper Canyon Press.”

“Debut” and “Copper Canyon Press” in the same sentence? Very, meet impressive! That’s a top-of-the-line poetry publisher, so breaking through is worthy of all available kudos (“All kudos on deck!” as was once said).

Now back to the poem. As it is, like us, set in January (take a look out your window if you need any reminders), and as it features lines where the speaker looks one way while the cattle look another, one can’t help but think of Janus, the Roman god famous for being two-faced.

Sounds bad, but is he any different from the rest of us, looking both to the past and to the future, regretting on the one hand and hoping on the other? Just don’t tell the Buddhists with their “PRESENT” pennants, will you?

Reading this poem, one can see why Jenny George might catch an editor’s eye. For one, her topic is unique. For another, she has an interesting facility with words and the underlying thoughts that marry them.

For a taste, let’s read “One-Way Gate” together and then run back through the gate because, unlike the cattle, we can.

One-Way Gate
by Jenny George

I was moving the herd from the lower pasture
to the loading pen up by the road.
It was cold and their mouths steamed like torn bread.
The gate swung on its wheel, knocking at the herd
as they pushed through. They stomped
and pocked the freezing mud with their hooves.
This was January. I faced backward into the hard year.
The herd faced forward as the herd always does,
muscling through the lit pane of winter air.

It could have been any gate, any moment when things go
one way and not the other — an act of tenderness
or a small, cruel thing done with a pocketknife.
A child being born. Or the way we move
from sleeping to dreams, as a river flows uneasy under ice.

Of course, nothing can ever be returned to exactly.
In the pen the herd nosed the fence and I forked them hay.
A few dry snowflakes swirled the air. The truck would be there
in an hour. Hey, good girl. Go on. Get on, girl.

In S1, I just love the simile, “It was cold and their mouths steamed like torn bread.” It’s one of those “stops-me” similes. What the…? Torn bread? But wait, I kind of get it. There’s slant rhyme and there’s “slant simile” (and if there wasn’t, I just made it up, so now there is.)

Torn white bread! Maybe circa 19 Wonder-Bread-Three. Like steam “tearing loose” from the mouth in the winter air. Get it?

Then, at the end of the stanza, the herd is seen “muscling through the lit pane of winter air.” Not as high on the Wowzer Scale, but still very nice indeed.

S3, which follows the middle stanza’s more philosophical turn, brings us back to concrete details. It’s one of those deadpan, “life is just so banal, but…” finishes. Nothing spectacular or catchy, instead going for effect through the sheer simplicity of moving dumb beasts that are juxtaposed to a one-way gate of fate. These poor beasts don’t know the quarter of it (or should I say, the “quarter pound with cheese” of it?).

All that banal stuff only heightens the impact of those parting words: “Hey, good girl. Go on. Get on, girl.” Alas, the time to “get on” comes for all of us, eventually.

Our truck will be waiting someday. As will a market in the sky….

Riddle Me This

poetry poetry in the news reading poetry

riddle

Good news: Poetry continues to work its way back into everyday media. Or every weekend media, anyway, as evidenced by the New York Times Magazine, a Sunday insert that includes a poem selected by Rita Dove each week.

Yesterday, the magazine included an Elizabeth Spires poem. I’m going to hold back on the title to see if you can guess what it’s about. Game? Good. Here we go:

A shirt I was born in.
I wear it. Or it wears me.
White, of course.

A loose fit.
Growing as I grow
but slowly going dull.

It must be washed
once, twice, three times,
then hung to dry.

There, can you see it?
Hanging high
on the hill.

Waving its arms
in the wind. Beckoning.
Sun shining through.

I don’t know about you, but as I read it yesterday, I thought it sounded like a poem for children. One of those puzzle poems. One of those here-are-the-clues, now-see-if-you-can-guess-what-I-am deals. Sold at Personifications R Us. Aisle 6. Bottom shelf (where wee ones can see riddles rolling among the dust bunnies). Where teachers buy poems without titles and put students on the hunt.

If you haven’t guessed already, it’s about your immortal (thinking the best here) soul and carries the title “Picture of a Soul.”

Nice, but nicer still is the quote Dove alludes to in the short introduction. It’s a Wallace Stevens bit I’d never heard before: “the poet is the priest of the invisible.”

I wonder if someone has stolen that for a book title yet. Or is it too cheeky? Priest of the Invisible: Poems. I’ll check with Dewey, then Decimal, and get back to you.

Until then, Happy Indigenous Peoples Day!