FIRE

A Poem for Ada Limón, using her words

by Pauletta Hansel

Ada Limón Is Named the Next Poet Laureate: Poetry, she said, can help the nation “become whole again” in a fraught, divided moment. Photo by Carla Ciuffo for The New York Times, July 12, 2022

                                

Sometimes I imagine all my lovely poets 

out there in the world of their bodies

having a poetry party

with dry red wine uncorked and pimento cheese 

spread out on a warm lawn, or gathered 

around the inside of a picture window,

still black water holding the stars, 

talking poems made 

            in the white heat of the moment… or 

            written from inside the well ...

Reminding themselves that

            when things are bad, 

            we still have our words

            and each other.

And then I get on Facebook

and I see it really is true. 

            When the day calls for fire 

            and your friends have all the matches 

            to burn it down, Ada posts,

and I know these friends,

some of them anyway,

and the R.J Corman rail line

running by her house,

            surrounded by wild things, 

            green trees, grasses.

 

But never mind my invitation

lost on the internet,

I’ll read myself in

between the lines—

            “If you want to win anything—your race, your self, your life—

            you have to go a little berserk”—this woman even gets good fortune cookies, 

and on the radio now Ada Limón is talking 

about female rage and how

                        sometimes we need

                        to step into that room and make ourselves

                        fully known and fully seen.

 

Even “The Onion” loves this woman, the railroad spike

bisecting Trump’s hypothalamus and he calls a meeting 

to name her poet laureate.

            When we name things we are more tender to them…

            But I am also aware of the hubris of naming things.

 

She’s not my friend,

even though she seems to live inside my body,

            more tired than I should be, 

            …hurting more, 

            my brain keeps saying 

            “this country hates women, 

                        this country hates women”

                                    over and over…

            And of course women are hesitant

            about our subject matter. 

            Of course we are. 

            We’ve been taught that from the very beginning

to ask ourselves,

            Should I take the “I” out? Should I erase my being?

But there she is, Ada Limón, singing the song 

of our shared bones, and, yes,

sometimes the song 

is enough.

Author's Notes:

Italicized lines are from the following sources: 

Ada Limón's Facebook timeline, October 2018

https://soundcloud.com/kutnews/this-is-just-to-say-ada-limon-and-carrie-fountain https://www.cleavermagazine.com/a-conversation-with-ada-limon-author-of-the-carrying-interview-by-grant-clauser/

https://politics.theonion.com/calm-measured-trump-hard-at-work-after-freak-accident-1829686798

“The Poetry of Perseverance: An Interview with Ada Limón,” Poets & Writers September/October 2018.

 

The final lines reference “A New National Anthem,” The Carrying, by Ada Limon

 

Pauletta Hansel’s newest poetry collection is Heartbreak Tree, an exploration of the intersection of gender and place in Appalachia. Her writing is featured in Oxford American, Rattle, The New Verse News and Poetry Daily, among others. Pauletta was Cincinnati’s first Poet Laureate and is 2022 Writer-in-Residence for The Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library. 

ON THE APPOINTMENT OF JOY HARJO AS POET LAUREATE

by Peter Witt

Portrait by Sophie Herxheimer for Poetry Foundation.

I jumped for Joy
  with her appointment
  her anointment
as poet laureate
  her native background
  her tone, her sound
  her qualities
  beyond a baccalaureate
a musician and author
what does she offer?
  a box checked
  for ancestry
  recognition of her poetry
  her mastery
  ultimate flattery

As a nation
  we're diverse
  should display
  in our verse
different voices
  make different choices
honor perspectives
  varied objectives

Joins Joseph, Louise,
Robert, Rita, Juan
as firsts, but not lasts
there will be more
  in store
for melting cauldron
to remind our children
  not all are white
  not all are male
but if we fail
to honor our diversity
  our history
  our mystery
we lose
  our sanity
  our humanity

So, yes
I jumped for Joy
as we enjoy
the magic
of her
poetic
wisdom

Peter Witt lives in Texas and is a retired professor.  His poetry appears on allpoetry.com and has been included in several publications.

ROYAL WEDDING

by Harold Oberman

It’s days like this
When I’m glad I’m not
Britain’s Poet Laureate.
Appointed by the monarch,
Expected to write verse
About significant national occasions,
There’d be an expectation I’d have to write about this.
Oh Lord
And Ladies,
Commoners and Kings,
Take me to the Tower.

I’m content to be
The self-appointed
Poet Laureate Of My House
And write about
Significant occasions there:

How the AC clicked on for the first time all Spring
Filled the upstairs bedroom with cold air
Soon confused by the ceiling fan
Into a current or eddy or breeze
That stirred the blank pages of this pad Into a rustling call for a blue pen;

How a random bee somehow got inside again,
Buzzed against the window pane until it dropped
Onto the inside sill, exhausted and wing-broken
From, I guess, its quest to get back to the hive
To produce honey or such, or to mate,

Or to meet the Queen.

Harold Oberman is the Poet Laureate of 25-d Montagu Street.  He likes pomp, but not necessarily circumstance or monarchy.

OUR RUIN

by Amy Holman

Today, all the old houses
have hidden harrowed humans,
and the midden of their captors,
their own enduring bodies--

or so it seems when the flask
from the inside jacket pocket offers
us our ruin: society on the news.
Even the laureate of Fresno

turns a stick-up into stature,
lines of brutal fighting in his corner
market. As usual the armed forces
are a locked room in a foreclosed

house with a girl pounding
on a dirty window. We wonder
who she is, but not ourselves,
frowning on the doorstep.


Amy Holman is the author of Wrens Fly Through This Opened Window, published in 2010 with Somondoco Press. The news is one of her favorite sources for topics, and poems have previously appeared in New Verse News. Recent poetry and prose is in The Same, Marco Polo Arts Magazine, and Zocolo Public Square. She teaches poetry at The Hudson Valley Writers Center, and is a literary consultant in Brooklyn, NY.