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Poetry
Compiled by Jim Richards
Meridian Magazine Poetry Editor
Editors'
Note: When Jim Richards wrote us and proposed we make a call for
poetry, we were not prepared for the offerings of the soul that
would come floating through cyberspace. As many of you are closet
poets as have opinions on cola drinks!
And
why not. What is more delicious than groping for that delicious
combination of rhythm and words that says what you mean? We, at
Meridian, are pleased to offer a forum for poets, something rarely
found in popular publications today.
Read
with joy.
Welcome to Meridian's
poetry page! I'm happy to introduce our first three poems:
"Still-Life,"
by Mark Bennion
"Judas" and
"Untitled" by Tonia Hoffman.
Since the day
we posted the call for poetry, we have received hundreds of poems,
and more arrive each day. I was excited to find such a generous
amount of submissions. When we first posted the call for poetry
I wasn't sure what kind of response we would get. After all, the
poet's occupation is not one that is popularly pursued today. As
Nobel Laureate Wislawa Szymborska puts it:
Contemporary
poets are skeptical and suspicious even, or perhaps especially,
about themselves. They publicly confess to being poets only reluctantly,
as if they were a little ashamed of it. . . . When they fill out
questionnaires or chat with strangers-that is, when they can't
avoid revealing their profession-poets prefer to use the general
term "writer" or replace "poet" with the name of whatever job
they do in addition to writing.
Or as one of
my professors has put it: when you tell someone you are pursuing
a profession in business, no one asks you to justify yourself. But
tell someone you are aspiring to be a poet and people respond "with
a touch of incredulity and alarm." It's possible that being a Latter-day
Saint exacerbates the contemporary poets' already uncommon position,
making them a minority within a minority. This being the case, I
was enthused when so many of you let the poet inside you come out
and share some work with me. Why should the poet be ashamed, anyway?
I mean it's not like we are guilty of some illicit love affair,
are we?
Okay, I admit
it. I am in love. I'm in love with language. I love the
way it smells, earthy and clean as a forest. I love to walk outside
and take my fill of it. I also love to find it inside, in a dark
room, where a sentence flames like a vanilla candle. I can smell
language wherever I go. I've smelled it in a potato field where
solid, rooty nouns were breaking through the earth. I've smelled
it at the ocean where words blow inland, salty and brisk. I've smelled
it in the stench that pools beneath a dumpster, and I love it.
I love the way
it tastes. Sometimes I take a good gerund out of the ice-tray and
suck on it till my tongue turns blue. Or I savor the salty verbs
that lovers use. Have you ever popped the word olive into
your mouth and let it roll around for a while before you crush it
between your teeth? Ever noticed the way some tastes like
you have slid a burning match into your mouth and closed your lips.
Taste the smoke?
The sound of
language is another thing. Some words crack like a ring being dropped
on a table. Some clip like a golfer's swing. Or what about words
that glug like bare feet being pulled out of mud? Then there are
those that sound like a like a like a broken record-I love those
words. I've heard them dripping from a faucet. I've heard them erupt
like cheers after a game-winning shot. And I've heard them stay
silent, trembling at the chin like a scolded child. Tapping on a
microphone, walking in a gutter filled with leaves, rubbing together
like marbles in pouch-I love the sound of words.
I also love
language that is palpable, like rope. Hold on tight or it will slip
and burn your hands. Some words sting like skin slapping water.
Other words are loose and warm as sand. Some words are pointed as
a pinecone. Some are a campfire where you can warm your hands. I
love to get down on my knees and work with words, dig them out of
their stony recesses and plant them next to each other to create
something new. Some of them are heavy as boulders and won't budge.
Some must be smitten together and broken. Some of them spark.
Language is
good looking. It looks like a long field of grass, enclosed in barbed-wire,
a single horse grazing. It looks like a lime-colored snake disappearing
into a hole. Look up. You can see it hanging like a pair of tennis
shoes from a telephone wire. Look down. There's a wool scarf in
the gutter. I look inside myself and the words are dark, dark red.
I look at the language of a quiet grove of trees, and I see God,
bearded with fire.
Words work.
I have seen them breaking up concrete, cutting through rebar. I've
seen them sitting in the office all day with a cold pain in the
lower back. I've seen them pacing at night inside a dark apartment,
holding a crying child. I've seen them on their knees at the bedside.
Sweaty, I've seen them stop on the sidewalk and enjoy a surprising
breeze.
You can never
tell what language will do. It is dangerous. It might explode, like
a shot bird. It might melt in a pan. It might gather in your arms
and fall asleep. It might wake up and scream. It might bark and
bite you in the ankle. It might drawn its hand down your face to
close your eyes. It might open them.
I admit it-I'm
a lover of language. And like a lover, I'm embarrassed, I'm shy,
I'm a poet. That's why I hide. That's why I cover my face. Because
at this very moment, in the act of love, you have caught me-so I
turn my head to the side, and blush.
Still-Life
At dusk we lived
for dizziness,
a quick roll
down the backyard slope--
two droplets
racing down a slide--
spinning past
the jungle gym,
eyes catching
the sun in chain links.
In the slight
drop of temperature
our minds dipped
certain and sly.
Our bodies grew
like garden corn:
his white kernels
and shuck,
dandelion hair
rising
beyond my reach,
and in each turn
not seeing how
the dogs paced the yard
next door or
how the Lily sisters
coughed at our
tumble--their tongues yellow
in raspy throats.
Brian and I kept
swimming the
grass, the long sloped
fairway where
we hollered and bobbed
above limp swings,
bounced
in the crop
dust air--snapping
the breath of
fireflies, somersaulting
as the night
dunked the sun.
—Mark Bennion
Mark Bennion
grew up in Ephraim, Utah and Rexburg, Idaho. In both places the
best he could hope for was good classic rock on the radio. In
recent years Mark has taken a liking to kimchee, clapping, and
birdsong. He currently teaches in the Ricks College English Department.
Whether teaching,
writing, or loafing, he constantly makes comparisons between his
wife (Krissy) of nine months and Dante's Beatrice.
---
Judas
My blood has never felt such venom
As when I trod toward him there.
My heart wrought by a tempest
I could not bear,
I cursed with every step.
I reached,
And touched his shoulder,
And he turned to meet my gaze,
But my eyes fell to his sandaled feet,
And then,
Before my lips could speak,
I saw his hand touch mine.
For a moment I only shivered, then
I swiftly kissed his cheek,
And turned and sobbed,
My cries unheard
Through the mockings of the mob.
"Thou art my Lord," I whispered there,
As tears washed the dust from my own feet.
Just as my kiss had his hands pierced,
My soul it had also poisoned deep.
—Tonia
Hoffman
Untitled
I doubt not the strength in the sinewed arms
of this man whose love encircles my soul.
One might ask if they don't crush me, trap me,
or otherwise hold me down,
And I suppose they could . . .
But these arms,
His arms,
They are my private cathedral,
The pillars that suspend the world's fury
While I search among thieves
For my wings.
—Tonia
Hoffman
Tonia Hoffman
is twenty-five years old and lives with her husband, Darby, and
daughter, Haylee, on a large ranch beside the beautiful Green
River in LaBarge, Wyoming. She is a registered nurse, but has
not practiced since April of 2000 when Haylee was born. She loves
gardening, baking, the outdoors, and spending time with family.
She has enjoyed writing (especially poetry) for as long as she
can remember, and has had a few things published, mostly in college
magazines.
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