listening after dark

Poetry as exorcism

How to Survive Graduate School

First, you must be sure of yourself,
sure of your reasons.
Money is a reason. Be sure to have plenty.
Be sure you are ready
for long evenings, bloodshot eyes,
the same same same same discussions over and over
forever and ever amen. Be sure
to have plenty of chocolate on hand,
and booze – whatever kind you prefer – but plenty.
Be assured your time will be siphoned
drop by drop – painfully –
like syrup through a narrow straw,
shaken loose like gold dust from gravel in a sieve –
you are the gravel – just the same
dusty gritty tired-eyed worn-down chipped-off
hardscrabble grimy colorless worthless gravel
forever and ever amen.

© 2011 April K Szuch

Hello, blog

Every so often I remember something I blogged about once, and so I go in search of it. Usually I end up lost in the archives, wondering/remembering why I wrote about taxes or car trouble or the meaning of life. Back then, this blog was a place to describe and contemplate. I'm not sure what it is now — maybe a place for pictures, a place to keep track of those former thoughts.

I've started a poetry group at the library. We have only had one meeting so far, with very minimal attendance, but the outcome was better than I had hoped. It has been such a long time since I discussed poetry, I forgot the words people use to talk about it. Which may be a good thing.

I haven't written much poetry since I started grad school — since moving to Casper, actually. Perhaps this is not a very poetic place. Anyway, I missed it. There are so many bad cliches and so much cheesiness surrounding poetry and poets, but still...I think it can be well done, and surprising, and important. Like novels and movies. Not every one is a masterpiece, but there is usually something pleasant or interesting about it. And every once in a while you stumble on one that makes you catch your breath and reread, rewind. And sometimes they make you laugh.

7-30-09

And we always write of ourselves, as if to say,
You hear me speaking. You stop, turn
and with rapt fascination listen. And listen.

So I've kept an orchid alive
for months now, all summer acutally.
I tell you, I'm proud. You nod, agreeing.

I told you once, long ago, when we were listing
birthdays, favorite colors and our respective siblings,
that I collect emu eggs. Every year you send me another.

You got married but I couldn't come. I was revising my memoir
and my editor wouldn't tolerate an interruption.
I sent a card and a rooster figurine, the kind you've always collected.

© 2009 April K Szuch

Is poetry relevant?

Of course, I should not answer this question, because my answer would be, "Yes. Always. For someone. In some form."

Some people might be moved by William Butler Yeats, while others are amused by Billy Collins or love the cadences of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Some grasp the intensity of Sylvia Plath, Pablo Neruda, Emily Dickinson — or anyone. Whatever the need or the mood, there is a poet, and a poem, to fit.

I would say, if you think poetry is no longer relevant, do you understand it? Do you realize your need for it? (This is also how I would respond if you think libraries are no longer relevant. But that is for another time.)

For example, a bit by Terence Winch:

the trouble with the future is that it doesn’t stop
when it gets to the place you want to be.

Rainy night, rummaging through old poems

From 2005:

When you are this happy, you tell yourself God must be
upset by your bliss. Something must not be right.
He's waiting, piss-poor and grouchy,
holding a staff, stroking his beard.
He loves you, dammit.

Telephonic mysteries

First of all, ever since I got a cell phone, I've become one of those people—the kind who are irritated by callers who don't leave messages. I mean, it made sense in the old days, before caller ID (which means up through 2005, for me, and up through the present, for my parents...hey, it's just easier that way). Of course, if you have the wrong number, it makes sense not to leave a message. Yet it still leaves me wondering. Who are they? Why did they dial my number, out of all numbers? Tonight I had a missed call from a foreign area code, which, when I looked it up, appears to be out of South Dakota. I know absolutely no one in South Dakota. Obviously it was a mistake. Yet still, I wonder... Who? Why?

On a less contemplative note, I got my electricity bill today. Only up $14 from my last bill, and this during the coldest weeks of the year (I hope; God I hope!). I've been cold, sure, but my sheepskin slipper boots, silk long underwear and fleece blanket have been my fondest friends. My little wheel-around radiator is also my friend. Warming my clothes on it in the mornings reminds me of childhood, our house in the woods, our big iron stove in the living room and unheated bedrooms. It was always a joy to wake to the sound of my dad building a fire so my brother and I could run out and warm our clothes before dressing. Which makes it sound like we lived in the Yukon in 1935. Which we didn't. Just in northeastern Washington, off a small highway, in our little woods, where things probably haven't changed a whole lot since 1935. Better plumbing, sure. Better dental care. Just as many guns. Fewer trees.

And because it's been a while, and because I'm longing for the days when it's light again in the evenings and I can walk and hike after work, before sunset...

View from the Foothills
10-11-06

—and a bird glided sideways in the wind
its bright underbelly a beacon in the sky
while all its energy concentrated on holding steady
with wings rigid in the updraft.

—and someone made a seat, a long while ago
or just this summer, bracing flat rocks against
each other, facing west. The sun is bright in my eyes.

—and spread below me is the small city, all dark green
except for glaring rooftops and patches
of trees turned gold by the changing days.

—and the scattered succession of reflections
off car windows from the streets below
seem to signal some larger purpose for being here
above the city, alone, watching the influence of wind
and low sunlight on the tufted grasses at my feet.

© 2006 April K Szuch

On killing the mealy bugs

My Sun Star was infested for a few days, but I put an end to that. Water, a little rubbing alcohol and a drop or two of dish soap, mixed together, then sprayed on all the leaves and flowers, got rid of those little bugs. And luckily before any of my other eight houseplants were affected. But what's a mealy bug, you ask? See for yourself. Just don't be like me when I was a kid: after I saw a highly enlarged illustration of a bed bug, I didn't sleep well for weeks.

In other plant news, I have flower seedlings coming up on my patio. I've also planted mint, basil, chives, lavender and some other flowers. It's exciting to see the green tips come up out of the soil, which I've watered and tended. I could be a farmer, I think. It amazes me that those little black seeds really turn into something.

SANTA FE SKIES

Stories on the radio

When I was in eastern Canada last fall, I spent a lot of time listening to public radio while driving. I'd have to find a new station every 50 miles or so, and the programming alternated between jazz, French music, blues, opera, news and classical. Once, in New Brunswick, I think, I heard a story about a composer. I forget his last name, but his first was Fritz. The story was so intriguing, I dug out a scrap of paper and took notes while driving. I knew it would later become a poem.

---

Fritz the Unknown
10-27-05

His father wanted him to be anything
but a musician. He sent his son to watch sheep
somewhere in the country. His mind must have been filled
with song even then, even before he could play or write.
Suppose he hummed to the sheep.

When his failure at woolgathering became apparent,
his father tried again. Sheep require careful attention,
but fruit are another manner. (So he must have thought.)
Off went the son to grow oranges, but the silence
must have been overwhelming. No rutting, no chewing of cud.

After this first half of his life, spent in the pursuit
of failed ventures, his father relented.
Shipped to Leipzig, Finland, he began to learn.
He spent hours drinking schnapps with a man called Greek.
Eventually his fame was secured in Paris, of course.

So the story goes. But what must those years have grown
in him, through the gathering of sheep and oranges,
the solitary humming, symphonies composed on scraps
or in margins when he should have been calculating
the year’s profits. What songs he must have lived.

© 2005 April K Szuch

Story poem

I wrote this last night. In fact, it nearly wrote itself. The characters became vivid by the end. I'm not sure if I really like it or what it says, but I think it's a valid story.

...

The Permission of Memory
1-14-06

I
Last May I painted one room blue, the color of
your suitcase. You left quietly, latching
the screen door and taking the morning paper
with you. The grass was damp with dew
and I held my breath
while waiting for the coffee to brew. I never drank
coffee before that morning.
I thought I knew the things
I needed. Caffeine wasn’t among them.

Ten days later I flew to Detroit, the coldest
of places.
I walked the streets without a sweater.
But I wore a hat. I did that much
to protect myself.

II
Cinnamon brought me home to Savannah.
Mama taught me to make apple pie, at last.
I’d been begging her for years. Still, she wouldn’t share
the recipe. “It’s in my head,” she told me. “Safe.”
It’s where she keeps all the important things.

She wanted me to take a pie with me—
“the fruits of your labor,” she insisted—
but it wouldn’t have lasted through the flight.

I ate a slice, warm, with a glass of milk,
and called a cab.
“You know I love you, baby,” she called after me.
Flour still on her apron.
“I know, Mama,” I put my suitcase on the backseat,
slid myself in. “I know.”

© 2006 April K Szuch

Countdown: 24 hours

As of this time tomorrow, I'll be on my way north, beginning my adventure. Until further notice, I'll be putting listening after dark on hold and posting on wanderlust.

A poem to leave you with:

The Sky That Covers Me
8-27-05

Twelve days more at home, twelve days before I settle into the road
and take that adventure everyone seems to be wanting. Leave all this:
This attic room, a morning breeze—warm and the end of summer.
These bed sheets I’ve had through all the best years of my life.
The music I will carry with me, but not the warm air,
not the rushing of the creek outside my window, not the friends
except in thought and memory—a phone call
now and again, a letter.

I want to stay here among books and bright walls, fall coming,
things just beginning, things ending.
Wanting to run away, to return to the woods of my birth—
tamarack trees, aspen and pine lining the narrow roads,
protruding roots I knew to avoid on my bike—any bike; I didn’t care—
or while running, when running wasn’t something I loved or hated
but a better way to move: without proper shoes or the glasses
I later learned I needed.

This week I’ve written myself into corners and back out
again into freedom, into singularity.
Perhaps I was handled roughly or too gently as a child.
I’m imagining the light angling off seaside grasses
two thousand miles away. I’m imagining that sunset
when I was twelve—a red ball, hanging on the horizon,
while we drove home. This could have been all the adventure
I ever wanted.

© 2005 April K Szuch

Where have I been?

I haven't been doing much this week, it seems, except working and thinking about leaving. My atlas waits on the floor near my desk; I reach for it almost every evening.

I've been getting in touch with a lot of old (and new) friends, which is great. My e-mail inbox is consistently full. And the time keeps on flying by.

...

We meet here at this strange angle,
in the cross hairs of circumstance.
Simply living and leaving, we are, and meaning, all the while,
to reconcile what we know with who we've become.

...

I wonder:
• Am I guiding my own life or is God guiding me? I'm the one who must act and decide, but whose impetus is behind it all?
• Do all decisions seem right only after they're made?
• Am I the only one whose decisions all seem to turn out well?

...

Perhaps I have too many friends. Can I end on this,
call this the end? Our friendship is not a thing
any more than my hands are things, my feet, my dreams.

I'm grouchy today, too outward, too forward-looking.
I want to leave here with everything finished, loose ends tied,
nothing unraveled. Messy knots or scattered thoughts? I think I must choose

perplexity.

Lately I sleep on my side, my extra pillow
along my back, thinking
it could be a person. But I'm glad it's not a person.