Telling Our Stories

the fox came every evening to my door
asking for nothing. my fear
trapped me inside, hoping to dismiss her
but she sat till morning, waiting.

at dawn we would, each of us,
rise from our haunches, look through the glass
then walk away.

did she gather her village around her
and sing of the hairless moon face,
the trembling snout, the ignorant eyes?

child, i tell you now it was not
the animal blood i was hiding from,
it was the poet in her, the poet and the
terrible stories she could tell.

--  Lucille Clifton, (1936-2010)

Comments

[Flannista]

The Sassistas! would like to thank Jerseysista who emailed us two Lucille Clifton poems a couple of weeks ago, including "Telling Our Stories" above. At the time, Jersey did not know that Clifton had died on February 13th. Clifton's obituary is linked to her name in this post.

Clifton was the poet laureate of the state of Maryland, and I met her once at a Mary Oliver poetry reading. I love Clifton's poems, described by Poetry Magazine editor Christian Wilman as "at once outraged and tender, small and explosive, sassy and devout."

I also love this paragraph from her obituary:
*****
Yet, for all her acclaim, Ms Clifton stayed grounded in the give-and-take of the everyday. She wrote poetry while listening to Bach, but she also like to watch "The Price is Right" and go gambling in Atlantic City.
*****
Rest in peace.

[Flannista]

How many of you hide from the poet in you?

Why? In what ways?

[Flannista]

One of my favorite poems by Clifton, from "Blessing the Boats" -- my margin note indicates that I first read this poem on January 20, 2001:

TITLE:
why some people be mad at me sometimes

POEM:
they ask me to remember
but they want me to remember
their memories
and i keep on remembering mine

[Flannista]

In pondering how I would answer the questions I raised in my 5:34 a.m. comment, I (now that I am middle-aged) hide from the poet in me by NOT COMPLETING my stories.

I begin many. Tell a few. I seldom complete them.

It is time to complete them.

[nowayasista]

Not big on memory lane. Too much time spent recreating in the mind things that cannot be again. Best to make new stories. And let someone else tell them.

[half-a-sista]

Telling stories about what happened to me, even if I might remember them differently than other people involved, frees me from carrying them with me through life. A therapist once said, "I can teach you how to put down that bag of stuff you are carrying or I can teach you how to carry it better. You decide." At the time (and for many years after) I decided to carry it better. Now, the more I write about what I think happened or did happen, the more I put the past down and go on with a lighter load.

Lucille Clifton was an excellent poet. I'm sorry to hear that she died on February 13. Her poem, Love Rejected, is one of my favorites.

Love rejected
hurts so much more
than Love rejecting.
they act like they don't love their country
No
What it is
is they found out
their country don't love them.

[Flannista]

nowayasista -- I can predict now how you will come down on telling stories. Do you like being predictable? Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't.

half-a-sista: I really like the "carrying it better" perspective. Thank you. Thanks, too, for posting another poem by Lucille Clifton. I had forgotten "Love Rejected."

So simple and powerful.

[Flannista]

If you read Clifton's obituary, you will learn that she lost two children. Here is a haiku she wrote in honor of the son that died. It is from a collection called, "Mercy":

TITLE: sonku

his heart, they said, was
three times the regular size.
yes, i said, i know.

[Jerseysista]

The poem in the main post above is exquisite. It exemplifies poetry while describing poetry. For me, good poems are those that hold multiple layers of meaning and make use of metaphors that hit hidden emotions we don’t even know are there or that we cannot describe in any other way.

In this poem, the poet has an unnamed fear trapped within that the fox can reveal through terrible poetry, mesmerizing the poet even as she recoils in the presence of animal blood, trembling and entrapment.

[Chrysosistah]

Hello, Sassosphere! Find myself in a peaceful happy place today, and enjoying it. No particular poem echoing around for me, just a peaceful feeling. Got to see the Jade Buddha this week, and the mantra they chanted was very sweet to hear - peace, self-confidence, wisdom, security. Found a new church, and the whole family is enjoying it - very welcoming, accepting place, very diverse, and UCC besides ;-)

All's well, and all will be well, and all will be well....

[Flannista]

Thanks for sassing in, Chryso. Always lovely when a family finds a church home . . . and then thinks of Julian of Norwich's, "all will be well."

"It exemplifies poetry while describing poetry." Brilliant, Jersey, Precisely the danger of telling terrible stories: being mesmerized to the point of entrapment; being focused to the point of revelation.

Sometimes it's just a crap shoot.

Sometimes it's a fox hunt.