POEMS

I wrote poems for years without calling them that, without seeing myself as a poet. I stuffed them into drawers. Left them in computer folders. Nobody knew. I hardly knew myself. They didn't matter.

It began when I wrote some words as a gift to the people of Star Island NH, the temporary community of UUs (Unitarian-Universalists) with whom my sons and I spent a week every summer. I posted those words on a bulletin board there. Back in NYC I got a package in the mail. Someone had spent hours making an art piece from my words. "Unsaid on Star Island" meant enough to him to do that. Interesting.

I still stuffed my scribblings in drawers. Years of working on the Hedgebrook board to foster women writers' voices finally got to me in 2003. I was about to be 70 and no one had heard my voice. I could hear my NY editor, T George Harris saying, "Oh just bareass it, Medlock."

Knowing I had to take my shot, I created Bareass Press and Pagemakered a book of 70 poems, calling it Arias, Riffs & Whispers, Words Written for Voices. (Still not "poems.")

My 70th birthday celebration was a coming-out party—five great actors reading from the book—it was terrifying to go bareass, letting people into that so private world.

And it was wonderful. But it wasn't enough to convince me. I was still uneasy when I sent the book to a real poet.

I can say from long acquaintances with writers that most of us, myself included, suffer from imposter syndrome, as in, “I’m doing this writing thing but I’m actually not that good and somebody’s gonna notice that and call me on it. I’m not really a writer.”

There came such a moment, in spades, after a new-found clan member began sending me poems, extraordinary poems, every single day. I researched him and found a history that stretched back half a century, his bona fides including praise from Bukowski and a cohort of other "outlaw" poets—soldiers, cops, seamen, factory workers, cons… Not a twee line among them.

So. Sending him this woman’s Arias, Riffs & Whispers was, as you can imagine, a bit intimidating. This awesome poet and I were now relatives. He might feel obliged to be polite rather than honest. I dreaded his response.

Then an email from him appeared that was not one of his poems. It opened with: “I began reading with all the open mindedness I could muster, and when you find yourself 'mustering' open mindedness, it means you have reservations.”

Uh oh. He dreaded reading the work and possibly hating it. I’m nailed. Not a writer. And then I read:

“What reservations I might have had got swept aside with the first three poems I read, in the Pseudo-bio section -- "Saigon 1960" ... "The Guy from Cap d'Antibes" ... and "Ahfrrikah", which really hit me between the eyes.

“These poems have a gyroscope that keeps them balanced, and the language is limpid. Which is fine and dandy for any sort of writing. But what turns them into poetry, and good poetry, is the way you shape this language into a living moment, carry the reader (this reader, at any rate) directly into what you are describing, and then (and this is the crown jewel), pull the reader beneath the surface into the emotional matrix of the poem, make him one with it.

“The way I identify a really good poem is that it invades me like Attila the Hun. I become excited, agitated, and my mind starts to race. I feel disoriented, like a pygmy stepping out from under his forest canopy onto a savanna for the first time. Many of the poems I've read so far in Arias have done this to me, and reading three or four in a row that have this effect pretty much wrecks my day!”

At that point I had soaked three Kleenex with tears. And it went on.

“I went from Pseudo-bio to Sisters. I didn't start with Sisters because I dreaded being bombarded with bareass feminism. Imagine my surprise when the poems in Sisters hit me even harder than the poems in Pseudo-bio.

"Christ, I love the pithy, razor-sharp quality of "Miss Ena W's Fan". This quality comes out in a number of the poems, "The Guy from Cap", for instance. I laughed out loud, as I did in a number of other poems. And this is just one end of your broad (no pun intended) perspective and emotional spectrum. You render witches as full-dimensional and vividly human as anything I've ever read. And I have never read anything that better describes drowning than "Sea Sister".

"This all ties in with the way you pull the reader down into the matrix of the poem. What you also do in a number of the poems that I like very much is you handle a situation of tragedy and injustice by making the injustice a backdrop on which you etch the humanity of its victims; you use an injustice that detracts from humanity to enhance and fortify humanity; it's sort of like spinning gold out of straw.

"She Does Not Sing For You" totally captures what an incomplete man (and their numbers are legion) yearns for in a woman, some of which he might be entitled to if it were a reciprocal situation, and the last italicized stanza, "Vain, cold, soulless killer of good men—the bitch will pay", nails the hostility that comes forth when unreasonable demands are not met.

"In "Luisa" you again bring something to life better than I've ever seen it done–the 9-11 tragedy. I found myself inside one of those infernal towers for the first time. What makes this even more impressive is you did not (correct me if I'm wrong) experience that disaster firsthand, no more, I suspect, than you ever drowned.

"And good lord, you can be lethal with laser precision! "Spa" for instance. "Give us your tired, your rich, your/yuppie gringas yearning to/stop hyperventilating,/trying for some reason to be bonier." Shit! Wonderful!

"And "Delusion"—"The trainer of mounted police tells his men/to see rabbits when they must control/an undesirable crowd. When the cop/rides over the hippie hunched small/over her fallen child's fragility he/does not see a mother and son/he would give his life for at/any other intersection--/he is clearing a street of rabbits."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So here I thank the Poet John Bennett for blasting away my imposter syndrome, for punching my admission ticket to the world of real writers.

The poems John mentioned in his letter are hot-linked here, and I’m putting others online expeditiously, because I have things to tell you, places to take you, feelings and thoughts to impart.

May the poems invade you, excite you, agitate you, make your mind race, make you laugh out loud, blow the top of your head off, pull you into the matrix of the poem, and make you one with them.

Because that’s what poems should do. And I am a poet.

About Arias, Riffs & Whispers—

"When a wise woman turns to poetry, witches become light, hills are lion women, a grandfather may be dangerous, and God's attention gets called to beauty. Join Ann Medlock in turning poetry into real life, and real life into poetry." — Gloria Steinem

"Beware! These poems stay with you for days—they affect the way you see your world and your place in it. Ann Medlock is a life force; it's rare to know one. Here's your chance." — Goody Cable, creator of the Sylvia Beach Hotel, a reader's paradise

"Ann Medlock's poems achieve an almost impossible perfection: they are impassioned and witty, profound and serenely beautiful, elegant and colloquial. Quite simply, they represent language at its finest." — Andrew Carroll, editor of 101 Great American Poems, co-founder of the American Poetry & Literacy Project.

Arias, Riffs & Whispers; Words Written for Voices is a collection of 70 poems that range from witty, short riffs to full-blown dramatic arias about war, art, heroes, life, death, God, music, love—the stuff and substance of being alive.

Author's Note: The Amazon site is saying they don't have many books. Not true. Last time I looked they actually had 90. Go ahead and order however many copies you want. Just not 91.

You can read many of them right here, with illustrations that aren't in the book. And it would also be lovely if you bought a copy. Buy several—you must have some friends who like poetry. Well, one friend?

If Amazon is still being cranky, email dromnavarna@gmail.com and you'll for sure get a copy.

SAIGON 1960

There's a dead tiger on the sidewalk
in front of our neighborhood bar
and at the table next to the enormous carcass,
a French hunter cursing the missing client
who commissioned the kill.
We are not in Kansas. ...
.
(Full poem on one page)

(On one page)

AHFRRIKAH

A tree buds, blooms, leafs, molts, buds
in a single week.
Say it right – Ahfrrikah.
Afternoon sky leaps from blue to black,
converting air to down-falling river.
Stops. Goes blue again and steams the ground.
All in minutes.
Ahfrrikah. ...
.
(Full poem on one page)

MISS ENA WERTHEIMER'S FAN

Ena's burgundy velvet, her sister's white satin
welcome the touch. You can see the pulse in
their young round arms, shoulders, necks,
feel the press of Betty’s wrist at Ena’s waist.
One, two, twenty certain strokes and the fan
is in Ena’s hand, ready to conceal a foolish whisper.
“Mr. Sargent is so handsome.
Do you think he’ll stay for dinner?” ...
.
(Full poem on one page)

WITCHES

Far down the stone passageway, a key turns,
a heavy door is pried open and shoved shut
as the passageway funnels to our acute ears
a woman's scream
reeling high over the deep imprecations of our jailors.
It is time. They are coming.
The uncertainty ceases now,
the not knowing when they will end this. ...
.
(Full poem on one page)

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SEA SISTER

She hears the ship splinter and crack.
It shudders and is pulled through the seatop
out of the known world
down into some other, terrifying realm
where air cannot fill its sails,
where weight and darkness rule. ...
.
(Full poem on one page)

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SHE DOES NOT SING FOR YOU

To Donne who yearned to heare,
Yeats who pursued,
And Eliot who was right...
SHE DOES NOT SING FOR YOU
Glittering, curving, unknown
to sky, land and flame,
she pauses in her confident progress
through her realm and circles you curiously. ...
.
(Full poem on one page)

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LUISA

I was looking uptown, the day so clear I could almost see
my building there, in the Bronx,
way up the A line, and the school.
I was saying a prayer that the first day of second grade
was going well for Eduardo, when I saw the plane.
The sky was always full of planes,
but this one, this one was all wrong,
not flying where the others did.
Help them, Madre de Dios. ...
.
(Full poem on one page)

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SPA

Tecate’s women cross the grounds,
smooth warm clay in motion,
sculptures down from their pedestals,
moving to chambers booked solid for the week.
Tecate’s women will soothe away
the wrinkles in pale fuzzy skin,
unclench muscles wound tight by
infighting on the fortieth floor,
by alimony battles and Junior's
third involuntary drug rehab. ...
.
(Full poem on one page)

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DELUSIONS

He hears a pachink when the child falls.
Another for the grandfather. Louder
yet for the clean shot at the pumps.
His head rings like a neon arcade
triumphing the points of his kills
as real blood warm pools into
living schoolyard grass onto
the gas station macadam to
swirl with the rainbowed
oil spills. It's virtual, man.
A game with losers
and a winner.
.
(Full poem on one page)

AMERICANS IN AN ANCIENT LAND

We look out at green hills
worn round by centuries of feet and rain
from the terrace of a Tuscan house
cracked, weathered, moss coated,
new once, in the days of Galileo,
inherited by generation upon generation
of Strozzis then Geradescas
born within its welcoming walls.
(Full poem here)

SINGING FOR THE TATTERS

Stucco falls in irregular patches,
mold sees chance and soon attaches.
Velvet chairs bald here and there,
recording forever who sat where.
Silver patina holds the light,
old forks enriching every bite.
Soft wood floors show our passages,
each generation of new menages.
(Full poem here)

FLYING BLIND

White mass passes to starboard
grazing our hull,
but there is no rending of steel
and we do not sink from the sky.
The mass is benign, insubstantial,
water not frozen but inflated,
a jovial mountain of fluff.
(Don't stop. There's danger ahead, in the full poem, here.)

WHEN MONARCHS DIE

The spirits of Los Muertos fly in, millions of them,
as always, right on time for the day of the dead,
knowing their way three thousand miles
home from their annual exile in el norte. ...

(It's way longer...on one page here.)

SONOMA

In the Valley of the Moon, the mountains are women.
They lie serenely silent, protecting us with their gentle warmth.
Lion mothers with golden hips, breasts, shoulders, calves,
all coated with golden grass whose waves chart the wind’s caress.
Live oak trees line their folds with green-black softness.
(Full poem on one page here)

YOUR FAMILY NAME

Your name. The one that ties you to your people.
I have one. I see it there, in the hundreds of records
my son has put into a growing tree,
looking for his place in it all.
If you are Black in these united states, your family name,
the one that may have been assigned or borrowed,
goes back only so far, then disappears, in a sea of evil.
You will not find your place in it all.
Your family may be in one of the documents
my son has unearthed in his searching.
There is no way of knowing.
(Full long poem on one page)

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MELUSINE'S FOOTPRINT

There were promises, sincerely made
in the grip of love,
children borne and cherished,
but a promise is a promise
and he has broken his,
has spied upon her private
meeting with her oceanic self...
(the rest, the full poem on one page, here)

GRAMMAW DIDAH IN THE COTTON MILL

Didah’s skeletal fingers hummingbird across the loom,
pulling bright threads through metal eyes.
Her head darts from drawing to threads,
translating one to another.
[Full poem here}

UNDERSTANDING CORTEZ

Her lover moves across the room
easy, slow, focused,
still damp from the shower
ambling toward the closet
where his soft clothes hang.
She can feel the corded arms
that frame his long, sculptured body
as she watches from the pillows, smiling lazily. ...
[The full poem is here.]

SHARBAT GULA

Seaglass eyes in the desert
green fear glaring forth
above a defiant mouth.
Russian bombs have fallen
in range of those young eyes,
have orphaned her, sent her
to walk through snow to the
camp where the foreign man
asked, “May I take your picture?”...

(The full poem is here.)

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CLERGY

Rainey steps back into the spotlight,
bright dots of sweat
shining on her clear skin.
She cues the combo
and moves into the mike.
The set is half done,
Ellington, Loesser and Kahn
the elegant fabrics
she’s laced in, around and over. ....
(Full Clergy on one page here.)

LOST—OR FOUND—IN QUEENS

An urgent search
a plane to catch
a Ford to dump
we’re out of time
the map’s no help.
Semis blare
neon blinks
tailpipes belch
tempers burst
words burn
planes ascend with purposeful, on-time roars
but the missing rental car lot refuses to appear.
(More about this, on one page)

GOTCHA

Clouds pretend to be mountains until
they move, revealing their massive joke.
Petals fall from the cherry unblemished and
play in the wind, as if they were detritus.
Lizard says he's rock, chortling as
we pass, missing him completely.
Water laps benignly then reforms as
tsunami, biting off the beach and
all the pretty houses.
Mountain stands serene in snow
and silent, curving symmetry,
enhancing views and property values,
until she tires of the charade and
claims her true volcano self.
This is the full poem. You can see it on one page, here.