It's another language, these poems.
A secret language making itself un-secret as the poems are read by you.
Reminds me of that game, telephone, at childhood sleepovers.
Remember that game?
You whisper in her ear and she whispers in her ear and she whispers….
So I read and try to understand this new language before me. My advice: spend time with the poems of E. Treadwell.
Don't just come and go like it's McPoem and you know what will be, like you know how it will taste.
Her poems -- they will take care of you, "for we are made of dark & salt/of waterlight, of care of care/of care"
Here Come The Posy Thoughts:
I feel romantic. What I mean by this:
when I first read her, I feel there is magic in the world and delight in the world, and pleasure.
And I want to see what she sees. I want to be there.
In fact, I am there, when I read.
"in the quiet of the year
our fates like stars like fates like stars
our fates
bright birds dark greens
rain cold glories soothe us all"
Reading further, I notice there is violence in the almanack:
"Hearts sewn with invisible ink/into their hands," writes the poet.
I say: no matter that the ink is invisible. having anything sewn into your hands, hurts.
All of her poems are "creatures dripping in light" but there's more. I keep falling in. And then Penny.
In the Penny Marvel poems, shit gets real.
"our lady of the honey bees,
west-oak & tidal
please help to absolve & rectify
my errors & failings…"
It's not that the poet grows up because she's already grown, but some of the gauze of Posy is fading, dappled, different. There's a rush of words now as though to get them out out out.
Instead of the palace of Posy, we find beseeching, and the kind of hurt, pain, that wants to lead us out, towards awakening, but isn't quite sure how:
Aha! A solution! Or is it prayer?
"be it mended
every--thing--"
I don't mean to suggest that Penny was written in response to Posy because I do not know if this is true and I do not want to assume but when I read Posy I read the sea dream and the undertow (again, the hearts sewn into hands, implying needle sharp) and then Penny is the light of the world when we awaken and see where we are and what we need and we CALL OUT for help.
BE IT MENDED.
*
Now I will use the word love:
I love the way the poet builds. It reminds me of beautiful shiny cans stacked at market, helpful, headlined, and this is not an insult this is not a diminution of the project but her work here is gloriously domestic but also travelogue, like the best paper airplanes and the best sleepover whispers, and the best girls, the best all of us. Shopping carts of love. Poems in the shopping carts. Poems on the wings of planes. Love.
For some there is a separation: life person vs poet person. For E. Treadwell, there is no separation and in reading her words we experience craft and mind.
A loving touch stacked those heavenly nouns sky high, for us.
A secret language making itself un-secret as the poems are read by you.
Reminds me of that game, telephone, at childhood sleepovers.
Remember that game?
You whisper in her ear and she whispers in her ear and she whispers….
So I read and try to understand this new language before me. My advice: spend time with the poems of E. Treadwell.
Don't just come and go like it's McPoem and you know what will be, like you know how it will taste.
Her poems -- they will take care of you, "for we are made of dark & salt/of waterlight, of care of care/of care"
Here Come The Posy Thoughts:
I feel romantic. What I mean by this:
when I first read her, I feel there is magic in the world and delight in the world, and pleasure.
And I want to see what she sees. I want to be there.
In fact, I am there, when I read.
"in the quiet of the year
our fates like stars like fates like stars
our fates
bright birds dark greens
rain cold glories soothe us all"
Reading further, I notice there is violence in the almanack:
"Hearts sewn with invisible ink/into their hands," writes the poet.
I say: no matter that the ink is invisible. having anything sewn into your hands, hurts.
All of her poems are "creatures dripping in light" but there's more. I keep falling in. And then Penny.
In the Penny Marvel poems, shit gets real.
"our lady of the honey bees,
west-oak & tidal
please help to absolve & rectify
my errors & failings…"
It's not that the poet grows up because she's already grown, but some of the gauze of Posy is fading, dappled, different. There's a rush of words now as though to get them out out out.
Instead of the palace of Posy, we find beseeching, and the kind of hurt, pain, that wants to lead us out, towards awakening, but isn't quite sure how:
Aha! A solution! Or is it prayer?
"be it mended
every--thing--"
I don't mean to suggest that Penny was written in response to Posy because I do not know if this is true and I do not want to assume but when I read Posy I read the sea dream and the undertow (again, the hearts sewn into hands, implying needle sharp) and then Penny is the light of the world when we awaken and see where we are and what we need and we CALL OUT for help.
BE IT MENDED.
*
Now I will use the word love:
I love the way the poet builds. It reminds me of beautiful shiny cans stacked at market, helpful, headlined, and this is not an insult this is not a diminution of the project but her work here is gloriously domestic but also travelogue, like the best paper airplanes and the best sleepover whispers, and the best girls, the best all of us. Shopping carts of love. Poems in the shopping carts. Poems on the wings of planes. Love.
For some there is a separation: life person vs poet person. For E. Treadwell, there is no separation and in reading her words we experience craft and mind.
A loving touch stacked those heavenly nouns sky high, for us.