Hiroshima Poems

We are lucky enough to say we have a pal named Garland Richmond, who taught German at Emory University for 37 years, and served as Dean of Student Academic Affairs. He was so valued by the university they named a research award after him! Garland is currently President of Bellingham’s Whatcom Chorale board of directors, and of course contributes his great voice to their programs. His skills as translator were used effectively in translating an entire Chorale program from German into English.

Here’s a beautiful and tragic poem Garland translated from the German with the care we’ve come to expect of him.

Hiroshima
—Maria Luise Kaschnitz
(Translated by Garland Richmond)

The man who threw death down on Hiroshima
Joined a cloister, rings the bells there now.
The man who threw death down on Hiroshima
Jumped in a noose from a stool
And strangled himself.
The man who threw death down on Hiroshima
Went out of his mind, fends off ghosts,
Hundreds of thousands, who come at him nightly,
Resurrected from the dust just for him.

None of that is true.
Not long ago I saw him
In the garden of his house in the suburbs.
The hedges were still young and the rose bushes delicate,
Things don’t grow fast enough for him to hide
In the forest of forgetting. Plain to see was
The naked suburban house, the young wife
Standing beside it in her flowered dress,
Holding the little girl’s hand,
The boy, sitting on the man’s back,
Swinging the whip over his head.
He himself was recognizable
On all fours on the plot of grass, his face
Contorted in laughter, because the photographer
Stood behind the hedge, the eye of the world.

Blueprint by James Bertolino, a broadside. Click on the poem for a larger version.

The poem’s early rhythm and repetition are haunting, and add a kind of urgency to the poem. The second stanza is a simple commentary, with any bitterness justified by what went before. But we still can feel the poet’s fist raised and shaking in the air.

I think one of Garland’s favorite poems may be “Blueprint” by James Bertolino, which is included in Jim’s book Finding Water, Holding Stone. Garland has twice identified New Yorker covers which used the poem’s imagery without crediting the source (he’s such a kidder). I recently made a broadside of this poem to send to Garland as a way of saying “Thank you.” He is a generous soul, active in our community, and very passionate about art, music and literature.

—posted by Anita K. Boyle and James Bertolino

Poetry, Music and Art Collaborate

It’s May already. Tomorrow June begins, marked with a solar eclipse. But this post is about a couple of events Jim and I attended on the Olympic Peninsula during March and April. When I mention the Olympic Peninsula, I mean to include all the little peninsulas that make up the grand Olympic side of Washington.

First, on March 12, Jim and I attended the Jazz Canvas event in Poulsbo with Andy and Lana Ayers. This venue is in the Knowles’ art studio. The jazz trombonist J. Kyle Gregory performed with the house band while the artist Leigh Knowles Metteer worked on a painting inspired by the evening’s music. Great music! And the artist was lively and even invited an audience member to add some creative elements to the painting. As the evening came to a close, the painting was finished and was raffled off. So someone went home with a nice piece of art, and we all left with our culture passions satisfied for the moment. This event happens almost every month, so check out the website www.jazzcanvasonline.com for more information.

Then, on April 8, Jim and I went to Vaughn for another similar event, again with our good friends Lana and Andy.

James Bertolino reads his poems to the Vaughn audience

There was an artist painting and a musician playing, but this time, Jim and I were invited to read poetry, too. It was a wonderful evening, full of a substantial amount of excellent vittles, from lox to brie to wine to whatever your heart desired. The musician was Cheryl Wheeler from the East Coast. The audience was approximately fifty people jammed nicely into the ample living room, and behind the guest musicians and poets was a view of small inlet of Puget Sound. A hummingbird feeder hung from the eaves, busy with the little birds.

Above me there is a hummingbird feeder

Cheryl was funny and entertaining as she sang original work, and a few covers. Jim’s reading was delightful. And I also enjoyed reading there, with such an attentive audience and the beautiful landscape. The artist is local, and I apologize for not including her name here. But she, on the spot, drew portraits of all three of the guest artists. A very colorful and lively evening. A few days after we got back home, I received a very nice email from a friend of ours, Lisa Schmidt, who included a poem she wrote inspired by the evening, which I’m sharing here:

Spring Collage

Just above your voice,
inside your words,
a hummingbird
sips nectar.

From up here
glass-pressed red sunset
sweetens the bay’s brine
and stains alder fibers
condensing the history of water
into my own blank page.

You speak the language
of red-winged blackbirds, of doves,
and the darkness
that started it all
falls silent
with the lion.

This hummingbird’s a mother.
She returns to nourish
her young with spiders
and nectar.
Cocooned in soft fibers
mended with webs
that would entangle,
they wait out the night
to suckle honey blossoms –

Eggshells preserved
with dragonfly.

—Lisa Schmidt

Lisa is a fine poet whose poems I’ve enjoyed since the first time I heard her read at the Auburn Arts Festival. I especially love inspiring others and being inspired by others. It’s a kind of splendid impromptu collaboration. Speaking of inspiration, Chris Jarmick will be the next guest poet on June 2. The photos on this blog post were taken by our host, Jerry Libstaff.

—

Blue River Writers Gathering

I was exceedingly fortunate to have been present for the Blue River Writers Gathering at the Andrews Experimental Forest in the mountains east of Eugene, Oregon. Sponsored by Oregon State University’s Spring Creek Project, writers came from around the Northwest, as far north as Sitka, Alaska, and as far east as Ithaca, New York. We spent a three-day weekend (Friday, September 24th to Sunday, September 26th) talking to each other, hiking in the old growth, learning about the on-going environmental study of the forest (which I believe is in its sixth decade), and writing. Our group of 24 writers included scientists, non-fiction and fiction writers, as well as poets—each of them established in their genre. Our group discussions were characterized by brilliant, passionate discourse about the role of writers in an era of planetary trauma. All of us had opportunities to share our work. We ate wonderfully catered meals together, and enjoyed daily happy hours with wine, beer and hors d’oeuvres.

Some of the ideas and information we discussed included the importance of writers portraying the world around us in language that readers will find seductive, beautiful or arresting, and the fact that old growth in the Andrews Experimental Forest has been largely spared the ravages of invasive insects due to the rich and diverse population of spiders! I characterize that phenomenon as The Golden Age of Arachnid Culture.

by Charles Goodrich

Charles Goodrich did a terrific job of organizing the Blue River Writers Gathering. Key thinkers at the gathering were philosopher/author Kathleen Dean Moore, David Oates, Ellen Waterston, Sarah van Gelder, who was the keynote speaker, and the always eloquent Tim McNulty. Since returning to Bellingham, I have received a marvelous volume of poems by Ellen Waterston, called Between Desert Seasons, whose poems are set in the high desert region of Bend, Oregon. Ellen is Director of The Nature of Words: Central Oregon’s Premier Literary Event, which will run this year from November 3rd through 7th in Bend.

Here is a list of the books I came home with:
• Going to Seed: Dispatches from the Garden, a volume of poetry by Charles Goodrich
• Sitka: A Home in the Wild, with text by Carolyn Servid and photographs by Dan Evans
• Unfurl, Kite, and Veer, Bill Yake’s gorgeous new volume of poetry
• What We Love Will Save Us, a volume of pungent essays by David Oates
• Looking for Parts, a CD of poems by Clem Starck
• The Crooked River Rises, essays by Ellen Waterston
• Temporary Bunk, poems by Lori Anderson Moseman
• The Summer, 2010 water issue of Yes! magazine, Executive Editor Sarah van Gelder
• and a U.S. Department of Agriculture publication titled Invertebrates of the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, Western Cascade Range, Oregon, given to me by Andrews Forest scientist Fred Swanson.

The Blue River Writers Gathering is convened every other year, and I hope I’ll have the opportunity to participate in the next one.
—James Bertolino