Poet of the Week Archive: February, 2006

February 15 - 19, 2006: Sally Logan

I met Sally Logan many years ago when I was to teach a master class in poetry for the North Carolina Writers' Network. I had not selected Sally's work for that class, and I recall the disappointment in her face when we met. After that meeting, I began to look for her work in North Carolina journals and I realized what a fine poet she was in the process of becoming. I have read her full-length manuscript with admiration and her new chapbook,Vigils for the Dead, recently published, with a mixture of pleasure and gratitude that such a poet now has her work out in the world for people to enjoy. I find her poetry, like her own demeanor, deceptively modest. She writes quiet but startling poems-poems that silence you and make you aware all over again of Richard Wilbur's line, "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World." Sally's poems do this with a finely honed voice that resonates and haunts. I use the word "exquisite" for her poems, because they are not heavy-handed-no, not at all. They wield their craft with the precision of a silver crochet hook. They make beautiful chains out of our loves and our losses.-K.S.B.

Blue

Blue, I say,
but you want azure,
open your mouth for it,
eager to feel it rampant
on your tongue,
dizzy with longing
for its intensity.
Always wanting more,
you dream a deeper
shade of indigo.
Its danger excites you.
One by one, you lift
your stained fingers
for me to lick,
to taste the wild flavor.
You loop ribbons
of lapis lazuli
around my shoulders,
ravish me with fragrance
of sapphire and indolent
aquamarine, larkspur,
the fantasy of delphinium.
All right, I reply, red.
I hear you whisper
vermilion.

Risky Behavior

From the blackgum's highest
branches, two squirrels race
headfirst down the tree,

then turn and ascend
with such speed and so smoothly
they could be gray birds fleeing a hawk.

They gorge themselves
on the tree's dark fruit,
stretch their bodies to reach

where the sweet drupes hang
until they seem suspended in air-
daredevils seeing how far they can go.

A free-fall of leaves
as they continue to chase
each other around the tree.

See, how like lovers they circle,
running toward, running away.

Consolations

I

My thin aunt speaks endlessly about her loss,
daily eulogies she repeats
to anyone who will listen.
His closet's untouched after twenty years.
She's still a bride dreaming
her honeymoon. Dead, he's returned
dressed in white, penitent, pleading.

II

We love our dead, arrange their pictures
on our dressing tables, silver-framed
reliquaries commemorating our losses.
On the high shelves of our closets,
we hide the wallet with his driver's license,
the brush with grey hair still caught
in its bristles, the last grocery list.

III

Do not tell us how to mourn,
instructing us as though the shape
that grief assumes had only one form,
as though our sorrows were like wet leaves
the sun will dry, the wind blow away.

Why We Scratch

Insect bites sometimes itch
for weeks.

They weep with the least
provocation.

Ooze crusts odd shapes
on the skin,

volcanoes of pores
erupting

fire that can't
be extinguished,

the way we love
what can't be satisfied.

Learning to Live Alone

Awake, I hear night sounds I can't identify.
I interpret the whippoorwill's song
as signals from the dead,
magnify the hard-shelled beetle's thump
against the house into awkward phantoms
lurking in the yard.

Reading Dracula when I was young,
I imagined the swish of a tree branch
was the brush of his wings against my window.
I would cross my arms across my chest
and choke back the voice
that wanted to invite him in.

Now, I am learning to sing in Italian.
Unfamiliar words twist in my mouth,
sounds I do not intend, the sharp taste
of frustration bitter on my tongue.
It takes practice, says my teacher, breathe.

For years I listened to the music
of others' dreams, lulled by shared rhythms
that kept my own silent. Now, at mid-life
I am learning to live alone,
the sound of wings as dark
as a widow's imagination
still wake me in the night.
Practice, I say to myself, breathe.

All of these poems by Sally Logan are drawn from her new collection Vigils for the Dead, a chapbook of poetry just published by Longleaf Press, in Fayetteville. Her poetry has been published in many journals, including Tar River Poetry, Southern Poetry Review, and Crucible. In 1999, she was selected for the North Carolina Writers' Network Blumenthal Writers and Readers series. She serves on the board of Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities, in Southern Pines. She is a graduate of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ms. Logan lives in Chapel Hill with Keats, a Coton de Tulear, and Dixie, her daughter's fourteen-year-old (senile) black lab. She is a gardener, a bird watcher, and grandmother to Mason and Katie.

February 20 - 26, 2006: Robert Watson

Robert Watson is a master of the Contemporary American Moment. Whether walking alone at night, buying cigarettes at a drugstore, or sitting in his backyard, he makes each poem resonate with both ironic humor and pathos. As one of his students years ago in the graduate writing program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, I saw his generosity and open-mindedness in class after class. He was able to read a poem on its own terms, regardless of what earlier assignment might have triggered it. One of my favorite stories is that of a lovely Japanese MFA student who had struggled through a sestina assigned by Allen Tate our first semester. Mr. Tate, himself a memorable teacher, simply had no response other than, "This is a failed sestina." The young woman turned the same poem in to Bob's class the following semester, saying nothing about it being a sestina. Bob loved the poem and was able to see what it succeeded in achieving. He brought a caring focus to all of his students, and because I lived only a few paces down from his house on Highland Avenue, I saw the ways in which he brought these same qualities to his family. His home was filled with his wife's stunning paintings, and he often introduced himself as the husband of the painter Betty Watson. He was just the teacher I needed when I came to UNC-G as an awkward but ambitious young woman from the deep South. He helped me understand that poetry can spring from many sources and have many voices, tones, and textures. That's probably the most important lesson a young poet can learn and I remain grateful to Bob for setting such a good example for me to follow in the years that lay ahead.-K.S.B.

Please Write: Don't Phone

While there is mail there is hope.
After we have hung up I can't recall
Your words, and your voice sounds strange
Whether from distance, a bad cold, deceit,
I don't know. When you call I'm asleep
Or bathing or my mouth is full of toast.

I can't think of what to say.
"We have rain"? "We have snow"?

Let us write instead: surely our fingers spread out
With pen on paper touch more of the mind's flesh
Than the sound waves moving from throat to lips
To phone, through wire, to one ear.
I can touch the paper you touch.
I can see you undressed in your calligraphy.
I can read you over and over.
I can read you day after day.
I can wait at the mailbox with my hair combed,
In my best suit.
I hang up. What did you say?
What did you say? Your phone call is gone.
I hold the envelope you addressed in my hand.
I hold the skin that covers you.

Lost

It's hard for me to get lost in this town
But I try. I seem to know all the streets
And paths. Yes, even where no streetlights are:
At night I can find my way, can name the lanes
Without signs, name the sleepers in their houses,
The dead who built them. How can I get lost?

I try to get lost, to take a wrong turn
That leads to a strange street, an unknown house
Where I ring a bell. The door creaks open
An inch. I say, "I'm lost, very lost."
A voice answers in a tongue I do not know.
I rejoice. At last I am on the threshold
Of the unknown, unexplored. I am lost.

But then a car pulls up to the curbstone
And familiar voices call. "Hey there.
There he is. We found him." They found me.

Dogs

I hear them bark outside my window, dogs
The country is going to, packs of them.
Rabid dogs, plunging through the forest and field,
Our city streets at night, leaping at doors,
At each others' throats, at our throats. I've heard
About them all my years. Daytimes they are
Behind fences, chained in yards, locked in barns.
And in daylight they wag tails, like our hands.
Nights on the loose, howling they race in packs.

Midnight this tumult calls me to the window
Where outside in moonlight I see my neighbor
Unlock his gate. He looks long-eared and furry.
I hear him growl, snap his jaws. I bark back.

The Uncertainty Principle

From my captain's chair in the yard
I steer the earth among the stars.

Inside the house my wife's asleep.
Our hall clock ticks out minutes, hours.

A cloudless autumn night outdoors
For sailing through the universe.

All thoughts of civic duty gone
Or right or wrong I travel on.

I am not Noah riding a flood
With all the birds and beasts aboard,

Nor am I Ulysses awash
In interstellar seas.

I do not search for gold or for
The waters of eternal youth.

Unmindful of my past I sail
Through chandeliers of planets

In search of what I do not know.
The universe swells like a balloon

After the big bang that began
It all. Before the crunch that marks

The end, I'd like to be certain
Of where I am and what is where.

Robert Watson has published five poetry collections, most recently, The Pendulum: New and Selected, from which these poems are drawn (Louisiana State University Press), Selected Poems (Atheneum), and Night Blooming Cactus(Athenaeum). He is also the author of two novels, Three Sides of the Mirror and Lily Lang. Among his many honors, are awards form the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. He has taught at Williams College, the Johns Hopkins University, and for many years at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. When not traveling around the globe, Mr. Watson lives with his wife, the painter Betty Watson, in Greensboro, North Carolina.

February 27 - March 5, 2006: Tanure Ojaide

Tanure Ojaide's work beautifully unites and harmonizes Africa's traditional strengths with its contemporary yearnings. In some poems he captures the essence of humanity in his accounts of love sought and love lost. In others, he shines a light on the environmental tragedies that have occurred with the exploitation of Nigeria's natural resources.

As I travel from the surface to the core of his poems, I understand how his words compose a path for his people, the Urhobo, just as the poems of Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou have done for African Americans. Yet Tanure Ojaide is his own man, sharing his heart and singular longings-a wonderful accomplishment skillfully and honestly achieved. Though his work is celebrated widely in other countries and within university communities in the United States, others in the U.S. have not yet heard of him. For all, the poems that follow offer much to consider and enjoy.

April Turner, a native of Charlotte, is a writer, actress, producer, and dancer. Among her stage-produced writing credits are C.O.T.O.: Chocolate on the Outside, Reservations, and Nikky's Gone. Her television acting credits include One Tree Hill, ER, and Surface. Recently she was honored with a National Performance Network Creation Fund grant, the Pearl Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Arts in Mecklenburg County, and the Mahogany Dime Award for Excellence in the Arts in North Carolina.

I Want to Dance
(after Eloho' statement and dance at the Comfort Suites)

With Papa Wemba's flavored voice
pulling everybody off their seats,
the spirit of the dance possessed her.
"I want to dance!" she cried out,
steering wheelchair to the dance floor.
Strapped, she threw hands, then head,
from one direction to another-
she trembled, gesturing. Limbs
for long atrophied from thieving
strokes and comatose cells wake.
"I want to dance!" and she got
not one partner but many, dazed-
Mom danced with her, as others
and I that she had cast a spell over.
The floor shook harder with her entry,
head and hands dancing for coy legs;
the wheelchair holding back her eyes
from fully lighting into magic stars.
And so she danced, hands uplifted
and head nodding frantically to
cadences of a worshipping priestess;
she danced to life, despite the strap.
"I want to dance!" Who won't?

Remembering
(for Ezekiel Okpan)

The day the farmer lost all his harvest to locusts
the day the herdsman lost all his cows to rinderpest

the day the fisherman lost his boat and nets to a storm
the day there was a total eclipse of the sun

the day fire left dry leaves to burn out green ones
the day water failed to quench the burning thirst

the day the wind refused to blow away smothering fumes
the day the earth opened up a bottomless pit to another world

the day the muse thrashed the minstrel
the day the minstrel was struck dumb

the day the goat refused to eat yam leaves
the day the parrot refused to eat corn

the day the drums refused to beat for the dancer
the day the iroko was struck down by lightning

the day all the gates closed to the fugitive
the day the crossroads refused its sacrifice

the day all the alarms refused to go off
the day the clear-eyed guide lost his vision

the day the boneless beast opened its mouth
to swallow an entire man like sauteed crayfish

that was the day of the summer solstice when in
Jerusalem and my best friend died in Sapele.
--Hawthornden Castle. June 21, 2004

To The Janja Weed

May the fire you spread gleefully this way
scorch you and your family at the other end

may your patrons in government corridors
become dead vultures to the entire world

may the horses you ride to sack villages
throw you into vainglorious days

may the identity you hide now in scarves
be stripped by the Maker when you need cover

may those you chase out of life in these raids
turn round to pursue you out of the next life

may you have sway of night your haunt
and day reduce you to the lowest vermin

may you escape justice of Khartoum's courts
and be condemned forever in a higher trial

may those you kill to seize their property
deny you the ultimate refuge of peace

may djinns you invoke in your despoliation
testify against you in the final judgment

may you be victim of your blood thirst
and wander without relief from paradise

may the fire seeds you sow in Darfur
consume you and your damned bands. . .

I Knew You Were Pregnant
               (for Mbwidiffu)

Indeed you were several years pregnant
without knowing your changed condition.

From a distance I saw the pregnancy
before you knew what you carried simply

without knowing was so cherished;
you did not need to wear Saudi gold.

There's been a soft glow on your face
for as long as I can remember knowing you;

there's been so much texture in every word
that you want to hold back but which flies out

and in the air becomes a flaming flower whose
jasmine fragrance Gucci seeks for a secret deal.

I saw the pregnancy in your unhappy moments
when for no reason you swore you were hurt

and wanted no company to excoriate your wound
that bled profusely for you to paint the uneven world-

you would spare the roaches but not the vultures;
you would save slaves and execute their lords.

I caught you early dancing naked before a mirror
that you did not care to look at for fear of your face

that harbored eyes of a gorgon and hair now black
then covered that made you a spirited matriarch.

I saw your pregnancy while you were in flight
from the circumcising ritual of the maidens-

it flashed in the savannah darkness swathing you,
kept generous djinns as invisible guides and guards.

You carried the pregnancy despite the sad faces
of your sisters with whom sex is a mere suppository.

Long before you dreamed of kissing a lonely night
I knew you were pregnant

in the rage against broken vows and parents
that called you names before your married friends.

In your mask of a motherly maiden
I knew you were already pregnant-

the ripe fruit carries its flavored juice;
so silent in its trademark sweetness.

I knew you were already pregnant
when you were washed ashore listening

to the minstrel's magic harp in moonlight
and soon joined the muse to sing blues.

I knew you have carried pregnancy for years
because patience is your unknown but real name;

you watched the commonwealth racked pale,
then invoked thunder to smite politicians

& in the revolution you dread but love
deliver a woman president for the nation.

Long before midwives talked of trimesters
and pundits and diviners stargazed

on television to survive famine
I knew you were already pregnant.

I knew you could only be pregnant
in the deep songs you sang. . .

Aruo-o (Urhobo)

Mi kue ibosu vwiyo-o,
mi kue ukpebo vwiyo-o.
Ane me rue ogua r'Egba-a.
Mevwe orharha.
Agba je dje idimarha
ne evu r'ogua r'adjene.
Odie iyeri eje
ariri mue-e.
Ohwunu de she,
odie efoke r'arirhiri-i.
Ona vaye abo.
Ukpe avwe ame ke vwe da,
aya jovwo k'idimarha vwo ho.
Obo re se ohwo okpo
v'obo re rhovwo ohwo
die ovuovo-o.
Ne obara ve ofigbo so.
"Akpo wene"
ode omo r'omiovwon.
Brabo obo ase ke vwe
rhuere rhoma si vwe?
Ire sie ero nu
cha be ero kue avware.
Akpo okokodo,
amre oto roye-e.
Me ya sheri
ogiribo ki hwe vwe-e.

No Admittance (English)

I wear neither the red, nor
the white uniform of sectarians.
I am forbidden from Egba's shrine.
I am the stranger.
Let them also keep away the larvae
from the medicine-man's shrine.
Not every fish
can be caught with a net.
When a gun explodes,
fear not for the tortoise.
This one has eluded them.
Instead of giving me water to drink,
they left it for larvae to swim.
What irritates you
and what bites you
aren't the same.
Think of blood and palm oil.
"Life changes,"
elders impress on all.
How many times what I am denied
turns out to save me?
Those we have ignored
turn out to laugh at us.
Life is so deep,
its end cannot be seen.
I didn't go far
before a thunderstorm soaked me.

The Second Moon

I

In the second moon of the season a public censor arrives
wields an axe and rallies stars on a war footing

she puts into their hands tires to necklace me
she sets up a jury of rivals to try my sincerity

pride of night the garden once in bloom a wasteland
the fountain of sweet memories drips sour draughts

what made water sour in two moons of the season
who threw flour into it to bring about this poison?

In the second moon of the season a hot garden
I seek refuge indoors a total blackout in force.

II

Mami Wata gone underwater a sea fish,
I am stunned by what I saw in a flash.

I paid the price of diamond for a black bead.
A glowworm takes over dominion of the dark

& I sing alone indoors despite the outside moon-
I refuse to look at the changed face many faces

yes, the cracked mirror presents many faces
I no more know the beauty of the playground.

The mirrors carry neither perfume nor body odor
this patchwork is not the silken body of my muse.

I saw a broad smile as an invitation
but a sudden grimace turned me off.

I took the offer of a flower as a love token
but it soon turned toxic and made me sick.

I took the superlatives for high compliments
but ha-ha made them metaphors for mockery.

I heard a bird sing beautifully from a distance
but at close quarters I stopped ears from splitting.

The mermaid knocked me out with her powdered face
but a python soon slipped in and broke our embrace.

In all these I thought I was wide-awake
but in fact had fallen into a daydream!

III

The moon is not shining bright tonight
don't ask me to go to the sky to put it right.

Victims of losses and stabbing parade the world for pity
so much pain that makes the brave cry in bed alone at night.

Does a man fall sick or die from denial of hope?
It hurts that the kingdom loses its throne of gold.

The moon is not shining bright tonight
don't ask me to go to the sky to put it right.

The minstrel is sad the muse sad at either end
they blow hot air at the flower in their hands

can they still nurse it into a flame of all flames
can they see through the sad alley to a thoroughfare?

Should a man wear sackcloth when not in mourning?
The livery of words is down in solidarity since morning.

The moon is not shining bright tonight
don't ask me to go to the sky to put it right.

IV

For all the flak the moon takes for appearance
blessed be the light that lifts the spirit

for all the accusations of fickleness
blessed be the beauty that gods desire

for all the distance of the moon to the earth
blessed be her illuminating power over all

for all the hide-and-seek with clouds
blessed be the dispenser of fortune

for all the magic the moon performs
blessed be the down-to-earth figure

for all the absence of the moon at day
blessed be the perennial presence

for all the turning back at some moments
blessed be the deity that follows her devotee

for all the truancy and idleness of the moon
blessed be the companion that relieves the heart

for all the sadness the moon suffers
blessed be the savory joy of meetings

for all the confused state of the moon's mind
blessed be the steadfast love that defies depths

for all the obstacles thrown along the way
blessed be the pathfinder that arrives on time

for all the taunts and mockery of the moon
blessed be the gracefulness of a goddess

for all they say of the self-centered dominion
blessed be the queen that plays with children

for all the praises and denunciations
blessed be the eternal flower of flames

for all the pain the moon gives to the distant lover
blessed be the muse that inspires the endless song

Born in the oil-rich Niger Delta area of Nigeria, Tanure Ojaide was raised by his grandmother in a riverine rural environment. He attended a Catholic Grammar School and Federal Government College, Warri. Ojaide was later educated at the University of Ibadan, where he received a bachelor's degree in English, and Syracuse University, where he received both the M.A. in Creative Writing and Ph.D. in English. A Fellow in Writing of the University of Iowa, his poetry awards include the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for the Africa Region (1987), the All-Africa Okigbo Prize for Poetry (1988, 1997), the BBC Arts and Africa Poetry Award (1988), and the Association of Nigerian Authors Poetry Award (1988, 1994, and 2003). Mr. Ojaide taught for many years at The University of Maiduguri (Nigeria), and is currently Professor of Africana Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he teaches African/Pan-African literature and art. He received a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship for the 1999/2000 academic year to collect and study the "Udje Dance Songs of Nigeria's Urhobo People." He has also received a Fulbright research/teaching fellowship (2002-2003). He has published fourteen collections of poetry, a memoir, a short story collection, a novel, and four books of literary criticism. He has read from his poetry in Britain, Canada, France, Ghana, Israel, Mexico, Nigeria, The Netherlands, Spain, the United States, and South Africa. His poetry has been translated into Chinese, Dutch, French, and Spanish.