January 1, 2025 • 25 mins
Abigail Chabitnoy curates poems that dwell in fields of searching, connecting, and being. She introduces Michael Wasson communing with those who are no longer breathing (“Aposiopesis [or, The Field between the Living & the Dead]”), Jean Valentine considering the moment and its boundaries (“To my soul”), and Saretta Morgan writing into love over many years (“Dearth-light”). To close, Chabitnoy reads her poem “Signs You Are Standing at the End,” which enters its own field of imagining across time.
Find the full recordings of Wasson, Valentine, and Morgan reading for the Poetry Center on Voca:
Michael Wasson (April 27, 2023)
Jean Valentine (September 25, 2008)
Saretta Morgan (March 28, 2024)
Full transcripts of every episode are available on Buzzsprout. Look for the transcript tab under each episode.
Voca is now fully captioned, with interactive transcripts and captions available for all readings! Read more about the project here, or try out this new feature by visiting Voca.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JULIE SWARSTA (00:02):
Welcome to Poetry Centered, the show
that brings you archivalrecordings of poets reading
and speaking about theirwork, curated and introduced
by a contemporary poet.
The show features recordingsfrom Voca, an online archive
of poetry readings from theUniversity of Arizona Poetry
Center.
(00:22):
I'm Julie Swarstad Johnson.
Thank you for joiningus to celebrate
the new year with poetry.
It's a pleasure to welcome poetAbigail Chabitnoy as our host
today.
Abigail is the author of twofull-length poetry collections--
How to Dress a Fish andIn the Current Where
Drowning is Beautiful.
(00:43):
She is a professorat UMass Amherst
and a mentor at the Instituteof American Indian Arts.
For this episode, Abigailhas brought together poems
by Michael Wasson, JeanValentine, and Saretta Morgan.
She thinks aboutthem each as dwelling
in a type of field, placeswhere we search and wait
(01:03):
inhabit a moment and communewith those who are gone.
Her own poem offered at theend enters this same space.
Abigail, thank you so much forbringing these poems to us.
Welcome to the show.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ABIGAIL CHABITNOY (01:21):
Cama'i.
Hello.
This is Abigail Chabitnoy.
And I'm recordingthis at my desk
in South Hadley, Massachusetts.
The first recording I wouldlike to share is Michael Wasson
reading "Aposiopesis or TheField Between the Living
and the Dead" recordedon April 27, 2023.
(01:47):
I adore Michael Wasson'spoetry, and even more so,
enjoy hearing them read it.
There is such tenderness.
A softness that if perhaps avulnerability is not a weakness.
Michael Wasson's poemsremind me, both in the poem
(02:08):
and in life, the importanceof allowing oneself
to feel and to feel deeply.
This poem in particularreminds me how in such feeling,
in the poetic act,we participate
in a continuity of being fromand before and beyond the self.
(02:34):
"Aposiopesis or The FieldBetween the Living and the Dead"
is the first poem of hiscollection, Swallowed Light.
The poem beginswith the word and.
"And forgive me for I cannottell you how to begin."
(02:56):
It begins with a gestureof picking up or joining
a thread already existing.
The poem is honest in that thespeaker is forthright in what
they cannot tell you,but in that admission,
rather than finding a lack, thereader is afforded a glimpse
(03:17):
into the speaker's yearning.
And of course, itis the body as much
as the heart and mind inwhich we locate feeling.
And in the poem,a kind of prayer
that, for me still resonateswith an authenticity
I often find lackingoutside of poetry.
(03:41):
The body and the heart andmind are not to be separate.
This is another lesson I findin Michael Wasson's work.
Increasingly, inmy own work, I'm
interested in thepoem and its gesture.
Its intention.
The poem's strengths,but also its failings.
(04:06):
This poem does notprovide answers.
I'm not even surethat it is comfort
I find in the finallines, though that
is at first what I'm expecting.
That's where I thoughtthe poem was leading.
Perhaps, you will hearsomething different.
But the poem, both on thepage and in its utterance,
(04:27):
its sounding in the world,calls into being the very field
Michael Wasson speaksof, where quote,
"the animal made withtwo hands," end quote,
is lost but waiting, andwhere we find, quote,
"the dead who still love you,who are still remembering,"
(04:52):
end quote.
Past and present.
Our ancestors before and afterand ourselves in our softness
and our hurt all meet in thefield, wherewith loss to one
might find thepromise for beginning
(05:13):
the promise of carrying on.
So here is Michael Wassonreading "Aposiopesis
or The Field Between theLiving and the Dead."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MICHA (05:30):
We're going to start with the first poem in the book.
This is "Aposiopesis or TheField Between the Living
and the Dead."And forgive me for I cannot
tell you how to begin,But here is the body,
(05:51):
like the urge to pray.
Your mouth alreadygone, and we never
said you; a boy, woman, man.
Only the animalmade with two hands,
(06:14):
And lost in the field waitingfor human life to re-enter,
as if through a door broken.
And yet the dead who love you,Who are still remembering the
touch of blood-warmed skin,Abandon you like
(06:36):
every yesterday.
Like this single paradiseof every body's silence
resting daylightinto the only dusk
we have been made to see.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
AB (07:03):
The second recording I would like to share is Jean Valentine
reading "To My Soul" recordedon September 25, 2008.
Jean Valentine's poems havebeen influential to my own work
from the very beginning.
She was, in fact, one of thefirst poets I fell in love with,
(07:26):
and I often returnedto her work when
I need a reminderof how much joy
is to be experienced in poetry.
So often of late, it's becomefor me a scholarly or ambitious
or perhaps possessing pursuit.
But poems such as these remindme why I turned to the medium
(07:48):
in the first place.
I imagine the time Ispend reading poems, often
as part of my idealmorning ritual
with coffee before theday is in full swing
and the demands ofthe outside world
will not be put off anylonger as a bonus time.
Though, even as Isay that, I'm struck
(08:10):
by the essentialvalue of this time
I spend supposedlynot contributing
in any productive wayto society at large.
Not to be dramatic,but frankly, it's
a crime that takes such time isa privilege, when, in fact, it
is an utter human necessity.
Because this bonustime is a time
(08:32):
where I am not alone, where Iam in the company of another.
Not for any utilitarian functionbeyond being for a moment.
Absolutely andtranscendently human.
We've made living such adifficult and toilsome business,
and despite themany advancements
(08:52):
we have made meant toincrease what time we might
put towards leisure,we find more ways
to promote labor asour highest purpose.
While I do not thinkthe definition of a poem
is contingent on compressionfor compression sake,
I'm struck by how a well-craftedshort poem can similarly
(09:15):
exceed the pragmaticlimits of its existence,
whether on the page oras we hear it spoken.
The moment becomesbriefly infinite.
I'm also increasinglyfinding myself
tuned in to moments ofserendipitous connection.
In this poem, too, a fieldwherein the soul remains still
(09:39):
as the speaker is swept inmotion, separate and not
from the daily simple actof sweeping coffee grains
from the table.
In perhaps anothermessage from the universe,
I recently sharedwith my students
how I often bulk when I readthe words soul in a poem.
(10:02):
For me, it is aword that is either
loaded down withpersonal baggage
or used as a lazy substitute.
It's a personal cringeword, if you will,
which is perhaps anothercrime of the modern era.
And yet, when usedeffectively, it does remind me
of the original potentialscope of the sacred
(10:25):
and how it can be found withinthe self, even within the daily.
Here is Jean Valentinereading "To My Soul."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This one is called "To My Soul."Will I miss you uncanny
(10:45):
other in the next life?
And you and I, myother, leave the body,
Not leave the Earth.
And you, a child in the field,And a child on a
train, go by, go by.
(11:11):
And what we had giveway like coffee grains,
Brushed across paper.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The third and last recording Iwould like to share is Saretta
(11:31):
Morgan reading "Dearth-light"recorded on March 28, 2024.
In her own introduction ofthe poem, Saretta Morgan says,
it was written over thecourse of five years,
and I love this as a reminderthat for as little space
(11:52):
as a poem mightoccupy on the page,
even as it can berecited in mere minutes,
it is such long work weas poets are bent to.
The work of thepoet is a lifestyle,
is a tuning thatcan be such a labor.
But as I mentionedbefore, is perhaps
(12:15):
the most deserving labor ofour brief time on this plane.
It is also a reminderto allow the poem
to be open to the forces ofand beyond its incitement,
and to move beyondthem, as she says,
how the relationship changedover the course of the writing.
(12:38):
As an educator andpractitioner, it
is an example of whatwe mean to not let
the poem be stifledby where we thought
we were heading when we began.
This long seeinglabor and openness
to allow the poem to chartits own becoming, our two
key lessons I strive toimpart to my students.
(13:03):
I'm also drawn to this poemas someone who has admittedly
not even attempted a lovepoem, since some very
cliched and melodramaticlines written in high school.
For its assumption of thedifficulty of practicing
love as its subjectas love poem.
(13:24):
The poem makes space forthe true contradictions
and complexities of feeling,not attempting resolve,
but creating a field.
Yes, in this poem, too, a field,albeit quote, "a ruined field."
And I promise,this was completely
unintentional andunplanned, though I'm
(13:46):
delighted by the circumstance.
But as I was saying, creatinga field in which again,
our idea of love can expand.
Beyond the idea of romantic andidyllic lifetime-lasting love
I realize that I alsoimmediately think
(14:07):
of love and the waysthe world imposes on it
as a subject of human interest.
But here, the field is alandscape, is a desert.
Is teeming with so muchlife, so much world.
The poem is situated in thegesture of moving between, not
(14:33):
the boundaries, but inthis state of movement.
And while there is a feelingof distance, of lament
almost, even as thespeaker imagines
what it would beto harvest light,
another impossibleand essential labor,
(14:55):
even as the poem endsin an assertion of love,
albeit one that is changingand not always easy,
that is not theend of the story.
Once again, this is SarettaMorgan reading "Dearth-light."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SARETT (15:18):
I'm going to read a long one right now, which
is a love poem that I wroteover the course of five years.
And by the end ofthose five years,
the relationshiphad changed form.
But it remains in my mind, alove poem about the difficulties
of practicing lovewith another person
and all the ways theworld imposes on that.
(15:40):
"Dearth-light."Now, in coming between
one desert and another,I recognize the edges
parting and clear.
I dip my hand into thebath, over your hair.
I ask you not to shave.
I ask, open the hair, andskin blades open the river.
(16:03):
And your great eye opensover a ruined field.
From here, geographyextends a labored pulse,
More music, palmed casings.
This love story-- a horsestill drunk from war,
Where I am the incredibleabsence of her jaw.
A soft pink gaining.
You say, Dearth is noname for a horse, here.
(16:27):
How she rises fromevery passing wound.
The officer's gouged Jaspereyes from the mud, I love you.
Dearth irrational,makes empty the valley,
From elongated shadows,pulp of her desire.
When this happens, we mustlove ourselves fiercely,
The ancestors andlost humans declared.
(16:49):
The human who was wearing thehat of a particular sports team.
The human who droppedtheir hair comb.
The human who thoughtshe would reach Utah.
By Tuesday.
Only deserts witnessed the slowand complete life of water,
a story of justice andforaged box springs.
The one sound offered wanderingnight without horizon,
(17:10):
Each exceeds its genre whileremaining truly intact.
This epic has no hero butflesh, which defies imagination.
The carrion large birds fearambulant and calling your name
For grounding andcomments for what
hinges beyond a thorough wound.
Likely to suffer, my giftstumbles graft with sores.
(17:34):
Bring me the officer's music.
Bring me the landscapegouged from your eyes.
Low basin flora.
Verdant inching, vertebral ache.
A warm anatomy tofeel threatened,
Endangered by thick, muscled,and in danger of iridescent
over, And in the tissue betweenfloodplains and the officer's
(17:56):
science, And the quiet betweenand want for shade,
The hooded eyes and fluid body.
Gentle body for whom I lie down.
Tonight, I walk the dog,Committing to memory the
darkened color and shapeof each car to pass.
So it must have been for thefirst stars to harvest light
from what they followed.
(18:17):
I've placed ashotgun on layaway,
A service I haven'tused since I was 12,
Having unlearned to beashamed of needing time
or not knowing how to use it.
Knowing the distinctionharbored in the officer's heart,
Perceiving it throughits disciplinary veils.
The horse stampsout from waxy brush,
Viral smell and the cutsup her thighs tell me,
(18:38):
Baby duck, your wreckedunsleeping door.
Love, if you are where I am,Even your smallest of errors,
Your most wrecked door.
The rock faces are opened.
The genres are all upfor aerial eradication,
To the 40-year-old fish,To the abundant bufflehead and
(18:59):
ring necked ducks drifting southacross the sunset, I love you.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
In light of these serendipitousmeetings in the field,
(19:19):
I'm going to read oneof the earlier poems
in my second collection,In the Current
Where Drowning Is Beautiful.
Like Michael Wilson,I am searching
in this poem for a fieldin which to commune
with those no longer breathing.
Those outside of my own self.
(19:41):
While not as brief asJean Valentine's, it
is interested in themoment and its boundaries
and what is woven betweennumerous such singularities.
And, like SarettaMorgan, the poem,
from the conception of its firstimages to its life on the page,
(20:01):
was years before I understoodwhat the lines were sounding.
And I and the poem havechanged in the meantime.
I and how I relateto the world have
changed, continue to change.
Each time I utter the poem is areminder of this ongoing life.
(20:22):
Here is "Signs You AreStanding at the End." Quyanaa.
Thank you for joining me.
"Signs You AreStanding at the End."
Two-thirds of thecountry is in drought.
The waters haveall gone walking.
(20:46):
Nunakuarluni.
When white peaks crested therolling hills behind our house,
I knew it was time.
We understand sincewe are children,
waves, break waves,travel waves, do the wave.
Did the wave makeit across the room?
(21:07):
Did the people who startedit move across the room?
Cause of death, traumatized.
Cause of death, bad heart.
Cause of death, exposureto the cold air,
To want of sea ice,To warming air,
(21:31):
To a landscape without trees.
Too many ribs to the sea, toghosts, to loss of stable Earth.
To plant one's feet,One's seed, one's
egg, one's teeth.
I heard it was an accidentin the end in the breakers.
(21:52):
There was no boatwhen I heard it.
I took my sister and someothers out the back door.
The calm was not.
And the neatlykept lawn was not.
The sleeper wave was not.
Too many teeth I saw too late.
(22:14):
The wave wouldnot be dove under.
It turned snow,wet, and heaving.
And we were alreadyrunning after a field.
I could hear every dead thing.
How do we behave in the field?
(22:36):
They asked for a story.
The ones we'd haveto leave behind,
Swallowed by thehoary mouth roar.
Never ignore what someonetells you in a dream.
Once the women said,You are trying to remember
what someone said, who is dead.
(23:00):
Quliyangua'uciikamken.
Laam'paaq kuarsgu.
I will tell you a story,hard to leave in good light.
Quyanaa.
Thanks for listening.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JULIE SWA (23:25):
You've been listening to Abigail Chabitnoy.
And this is Poetry Centered.
Abigail, thank you somuch for bringing us
into this field ofattention with you.
Listeners, thank you, as always,for spending this time with us.
We hope you're enjoyingthese curated forays
into the vocal archive.
You too are invited to explorethe archive on your own.
(23:48):
In the show notes,you can always
find links to the fullrecordings of poetry readings
that include the individualpoems you've heard today.
Voca is home to recordingsfrom 1963 through the present,
and they're free andavailable to you anywhere
in the world atvoca.arizona.edu.
(24:09):
In two weeks, we hope you'lljoin us for a new episode hosted
by Mackenzie Polonyi.
Happy New Year to eachof you, and take care.
Poetry Centered is a project ofthe University of Arizona Poetry
Center, home to a world classlibrary collection of more than
80,000 items related tocontemporary poetry in English
(24:32):
and English translation.
Located on the campus of theUniversity of Arizona in Tucson,
the Poetry Centerlibrary and buildings
are housed on the Indigenoushomelands of the Tohono O'odham
and Pascua Yaqui.
Poetry Centered is the workof Aria Pahari, that's me,
and Julie Swarstad Johnson.
(24:54):
Explore Voca-- the PoetryCenter's audio-visual archive
online at voca.arizona.edu.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JULIE SWARSTA (00:02):
Welcome to Poetry Centered, the show
that brings you archivalrecordings of poets reading
and speaking about theirwork, curated and introduced
by a contemporary poet.
The show features recordingsfrom Voca, an online archive
of poetry readings from theUniversity of Arizona Poetry
Center.
(00:22):
I'm Julie Swarstad Johnson.
Thank you for joiningus to celebrate
the new year with poetry.
It's a pleasure to welcome poetAbigail Chabitnoy as our host
today.
Abigail is the author of twofull-length poetry collections--
How to Dress a Fish andIn the Current Where
Drowning is Beautiful.
(00:43):
She is a professorat UMass Amherst
and a mentor at the Instituteof American Indian Arts.
For this episode, Abigailhas brought together poems
by Michael Wasson, JeanValentine, and Saretta Morgan.
She thinks aboutthem each as dwelling
in a type of field, placeswhere we search and wait
(01:03):
inhabit a moment and communewith those who are gone.
Her own poem offered at theend enters this same space.
Abigail, thank you so much forbringing these poems to us.
Welcome to the show.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ABIGAIL CHABITNOY (01:21):
Cama'i.
Hello.
This is Abigail Chabitnoy.
And I'm recordingthis at my desk
in South Hadley, Massachusetts.
The first recording I wouldlike to share is Michael Wasson
reading "Aposiopesis or TheField Between the Living
and the Dead" recordedon April 27, 2023.
(01:47):
I adore Michael Wasson'spoetry, and even more so,
enjoy hearing them read it.
There is such tenderness.
A softness that if perhaps avulnerability is not a weakness.
Michael Wasson's poemsremind me, both in the poem
(02:08):
and in life, the importanceof allowing oneself
to feel and to feel deeply.
This poem in particularreminds me how in such feeling,
in the poetic act,we participate
in a continuity of being fromand before and beyond the self.
(02:34):
"Aposiopesis or The FieldBetween the Living and the Dead"
is the first poem of hiscollection, Swallowed Light.
The poem beginswith the word and.
"And forgive me for I cannottell you how to begin."
(02:56):
It begins with a gestureof picking up or joining
a thread already existing.
The poem is honest in that thespeaker is forthright in what
they cannot tell you,but in that admission,
rather than finding a lack, thereader is afforded a glimpse
(03:17):
into the speaker's yearning.
And of course, itis the body as much
as the heart and mind inwhich we locate feeling.
And in the poem,a kind of prayer
that, for me still resonateswith an authenticity
I often find lackingoutside of poetry.
(03:41):
The body and the heart andmind are not to be separate.
This is another lesson I findin Michael Wasson's work.
Increasingly, inmy own work, I'm
interested in thepoem and its gesture.
Its intention.
The poem's strengths,but also its failings.
(04:06):
This poem does notprovide answers.
I'm not even surethat it is comfort
I find in the finallines, though that
is at first what I'm expecting.
That's where I thoughtthe poem was leading.
Perhaps, you will hearsomething different.
But the poem, both on thepage and in its utterance,
(04:27):
its sounding in the world,calls into being the very field
Michael Wasson speaksof, where quote,
"the animal made withtwo hands," end quote,
is lost but waiting, andwhere we find, quote,
"the dead who still love you,who are still remembering,"
(04:52):
end quote.
Past and present.
Our ancestors before and afterand ourselves in our softness
and our hurt all meet in thefield, wherewith loss to one
might find thepromise for beginning
(05:13):
the promise of carrying on.
So here is Michael Wassonreading "Aposiopesis
or The Field Between theLiving and the Dead."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MICHA (05:30):
We're going to start with the first poem in the book.
This is "Aposiopesis or TheField Between the Living
and the Dead."And forgive me for I cannot
tell you how to begin,But here is the body,
(05:51):
like the urge to pray.
Your mouth alreadygone, and we never
said you; a boy, woman, man.
Only the animalmade with two hands,
(06:14):
And lost in the field waitingfor human life to re-enter,
as if through a door broken.
And yet the dead who love you,Who are still remembering the
touch of blood-warmed skin,Abandon you like
(06:36):
every yesterday.
Like this single paradiseof every body's silence
resting daylightinto the only dusk
we have been made to see.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
AB (07:03):
The second recording I would like to share is Jean Valentine
reading "To My Soul" recordedon September 25, 2008.
Jean Valentine's poems havebeen influential to my own work
from the very beginning.
She was, in fact, one of thefirst poets I fell in love with,
(07:26):
and I often returnedto her work when
I need a reminderof how much joy
is to be experienced in poetry.
So often of late, it's becomefor me a scholarly or ambitious
or perhaps possessing pursuit.
But poems such as these remindme why I turned to the medium
(07:48):
in the first place.
I imagine the time Ispend reading poems, often
as part of my idealmorning ritual
with coffee before theday is in full swing
and the demands ofthe outside world
will not be put off anylonger as a bonus time.
Though, even as Isay that, I'm struck
(08:10):
by the essentialvalue of this time
I spend supposedlynot contributing
in any productive wayto society at large.
Not to be dramatic,but frankly, it's
a crime that takes such time isa privilege, when, in fact, it
is an utter human necessity.
Because this bonustime is a time
(08:32):
where I am not alone, where Iam in the company of another.
Not for any utilitarian functionbeyond being for a moment.
Absolutely andtranscendently human.
We've made living such adifficult and toilsome business,
and despite themany advancements
(08:52):
we have made meant toincrease what time we might
put towards leisure,we find more ways
to promote labor asour highest purpose.
While I do not thinkthe definition of a poem
is contingent on compressionfor compression sake,
I'm struck by how a well-craftedshort poem can similarly
(09:15):
exceed the pragmaticlimits of its existence,
whether on the page oras we hear it spoken.
The moment becomesbriefly infinite.
I'm also increasinglyfinding myself
tuned in to moments ofserendipitous connection.
In this poem, too, a fieldwherein the soul remains still
(09:39):
as the speaker is swept inmotion, separate and not
from the daily simple actof sweeping coffee grains
from the table.
In perhaps anothermessage from the universe,
I recently sharedwith my students
how I often bulk when I readthe words soul in a poem.
(10:02):
For me, it is aword that is either
loaded down withpersonal baggage
or used as a lazy substitute.
It's a personal cringeword, if you will,
which is perhaps anothercrime of the modern era.
And yet, when usedeffectively, it does remind me
of the original potentialscope of the sacred
(10:25):
and how it can be found withinthe self, even within the daily.
Here is Jean Valentinereading "To My Soul."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This one is called "To My Soul."Will I miss you uncanny
(10:45):
other in the next life?
And you and I, myother, leave the body,
Not leave the Earth.
And you, a child in the field,And a child on a
train, go by, go by.
(11:11):
And what we had giveway like coffee grains,
Brushed across paper.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The third and last recording Iwould like to share is Saretta
(11:31):
Morgan reading "Dearth-light"recorded on March 28, 2024.
In her own introduction ofthe poem, Saretta Morgan says,
it was written over thecourse of five years,
and I love this as a reminderthat for as little space
(11:52):
as a poem mightoccupy on the page,
even as it can berecited in mere minutes,
it is such long work weas poets are bent to.
The work of thepoet is a lifestyle,
is a tuning thatcan be such a labor.
But as I mentionedbefore, is perhaps
(12:15):
the most deserving labor ofour brief time on this plane.
It is also a reminderto allow the poem
to be open to the forces ofand beyond its incitement,
and to move beyondthem, as she says,
how the relationship changedover the course of the writing.
(12:38):
As an educator andpractitioner, it
is an example of whatwe mean to not let
the poem be stifledby where we thought
we were heading when we began.
This long seeinglabor and openness
to allow the poem to chartits own becoming, our two
key lessons I strive toimpart to my students.
(13:03):
I'm also drawn to this poemas someone who has admittedly
not even attempted a lovepoem, since some very
cliched and melodramaticlines written in high school.
For its assumption of thedifficulty of practicing
love as its subjectas love poem.
(13:24):
The poem makes space forthe true contradictions
and complexities of feeling,not attempting resolve,
but creating a field.
Yes, in this poem, too, a field,albeit quote, "a ruined field."
And I promise,this was completely
unintentional andunplanned, though I'm
(13:46):
delighted by the circumstance.
But as I was saying, creatinga field in which again,
our idea of love can expand.
Beyond the idea of romantic andidyllic lifetime-lasting love
I realize that I alsoimmediately think
(14:07):
of love and the waysthe world imposes on it
as a subject of human interest.
But here, the field is alandscape, is a desert.
Is teeming with so muchlife, so much world.
The poem is situated in thegesture of moving between, not
(14:33):
the boundaries, but inthis state of movement.
And while there is a feelingof distance, of lament
almost, even as thespeaker imagines
what it would beto harvest light,
another impossibleand essential labor,
(14:55):
even as the poem endsin an assertion of love,
albeit one that is changingand not always easy,
that is not theend of the story.
Once again, this is SarettaMorgan reading "Dearth-light."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SARETT (15:18):
I'm going to read a long one right now, which
is a love poem that I wroteover the course of five years.
And by the end ofthose five years,
the relationshiphad changed form.
But it remains in my mind, alove poem about the difficulties
of practicing lovewith another person
and all the ways theworld imposes on that.
(15:40):
"Dearth-light."Now, in coming between
one desert and another,I recognize the edges
parting and clear.
I dip my hand into thebath, over your hair.
I ask you not to shave.
I ask, open the hair, andskin blades open the river.
(16:03):
And your great eye opensover a ruined field.
From here, geographyextends a labored pulse,
More music, palmed casings.
This love story-- a horsestill drunk from war,
Where I am the incredibleabsence of her jaw.
A soft pink gaining.
You say, Dearth is noname for a horse, here.
(16:27):
How she rises fromevery passing wound.
The officer's gouged Jaspereyes from the mud, I love you.
Dearth irrational,makes empty the valley,
From elongated shadows,pulp of her desire.
When this happens, we mustlove ourselves fiercely,
The ancestors andlost humans declared.
(16:49):
The human who was wearing thehat of a particular sports team.
The human who droppedtheir hair comb.
The human who thoughtshe would reach Utah.
By Tuesday.
Only deserts witnessed the slowand complete life of water,
a story of justice andforaged box springs.
The one sound offered wanderingnight without horizon,
(17:10):
Each exceeds its genre whileremaining truly intact.
This epic has no hero butflesh, which defies imagination.
The carrion large birds fearambulant and calling your name
For grounding andcomments for what
hinges beyond a thorough wound.
Likely to suffer, my giftstumbles graft with sores.
(17:34):
Bring me the officer's music.
Bring me the landscapegouged from your eyes.
Low basin flora.
Verdant inching, vertebral ache.
A warm anatomy tofeel threatened,
Endangered by thick, muscled,and in danger of iridescent
over, And in the tissue betweenfloodplains and the officer's
(17:56):
science, And the quiet betweenand want for shade,
The hooded eyes and fluid body.
Gentle body for whom I lie down.
Tonight, I walk the dog,Committing to memory the
darkened color and shapeof each car to pass.
So it must have been for thefirst stars to harvest light
from what they followed.
(18:17):
I've placed ashotgun on layaway,
A service I haven'tused since I was 12,
Having unlearned to beashamed of needing time
or not knowing how to use it.
Knowing the distinctionharbored in the officer's heart,
Perceiving it throughits disciplinary veils.
The horse stampsout from waxy brush,
Viral smell and the cutsup her thighs tell me,
(18:38):
Baby duck, your wreckedunsleeping door.
Love, if you are where I am,Even your smallest of errors,
Your most wrecked door.
The rock faces are opened.
The genres are all upfor aerial eradication,
To the 40-year-old fish,To the abundant bufflehead and
(18:59):
ring necked ducks drifting southacross the sunset, I love you.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
In light of these serendipitousmeetings in the field,
(19:19):
I'm going to read oneof the earlier poems
in my second collection,In the Current
Where Drowning Is Beautiful.
Like Michael Wilson,I am searching
in this poem for a fieldin which to commune
with those no longer breathing.
Those outside of my own self.
(19:41):
While not as brief asJean Valentine's, it
is interested in themoment and its boundaries
and what is woven betweennumerous such singularities.
And, like SarettaMorgan, the poem,
from the conception of its firstimages to its life on the page,
(20:01):
was years before I understoodwhat the lines were sounding.
And I and the poem havechanged in the meantime.
I and how I relateto the world have
changed, continue to change.
Each time I utter the poem is areminder of this ongoing life.
(20:22):
Here is "Signs You AreStanding at the End." Quyanaa.
Thank you for joining me.
"Signs You AreStanding at the End."
Two-thirds of thecountry is in drought.
The waters haveall gone walking.
(20:46):
Nunakuarluni.
When white peaks crested therolling hills behind our house,
I knew it was time.
We understand sincewe are children,
waves, break waves,travel waves, do the wave.
Did the wave makeit across the room?
(21:07):
Did the people who startedit move across the room?
Cause of death, traumatized.
Cause of death, bad heart.
Cause of death, exposureto the cold air,
To want of sea ice,To warming air,
(21:31):
To a landscape without trees.
Too many ribs to the sea, toghosts, to loss of stable Earth.
To plant one's feet,One's seed, one's
egg, one's teeth.
I heard it was an accidentin the end in the breakers.
(21:52):
There was no boatwhen I heard it.
I took my sister and someothers out the back door.
The calm was not.
And the neatlykept lawn was not.
The sleeper wave was not.
Too many teeth I saw too late.
(22:14):
The wave wouldnot be dove under.
It turned snow,wet, and heaving.
And we were alreadyrunning after a field.
I could hear every dead thing.
How do we behave in the field?
(22:36):
They asked for a story.
The ones we'd haveto leave behind,
Swallowed by thehoary mouth roar.
Never ignore what someonetells you in a dream.
Once the women said,You are trying to remember
what someone said, who is dead.
(23:00):
Quliyangua'uciikamken.
Laam'paaq kuarsgu.
I will tell you a story,hard to leave in good light.
Quyanaa.
Thanks for listening.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JULIE SWA (23:25):
You've been listening to Abigail Chabitnoy.
And this is Poetry Centered.
Abigail, thank you somuch for bringing us
into this field ofattention with you.
Listeners, thank you, as always,for spending this time with us.
We hope you're enjoyingthese curated forays
into the vocal archive.
You too are invited to explorethe archive on your own.
(23:48):
In the show notes,you can always
find links to the fullrecordings of poetry readings
that include the individualpoems you've heard today.
Voca is home to recordingsfrom 1963 through the present,
and they're free andavailable to you anywhere
in the world atvoca.arizona.edu.
(24:09):
In two weeks, we hope you'lljoin us for a new episode hosted
by Mackenzie Polonyi.
Happy New Year to eachof you, and take care.
Poetry Centered is a project ofthe University of Arizona Poetry
Center, home to a world classlibrary collection of more than
80,000 items related tocontemporary poetry in English
(24:32):
and English translation.
Located on the campus of theUniversity of Arizona in Tucson,
the Poetry Centerlibrary and buildings
are housed on the Indigenoushomelands of the Tohono O'odham
and Pascua Yaqui.
Poetry Centered is the workof Aria Pahari, that's me,
and Julie Swarstad Johnson.
(24:54):
Explore Voca-- the PoetryCenter's audio-visual archive
online at voca.arizona.edu.
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