Sunday, August 24, 2025

The Poetry of Transitions: When and Why


When I say I've been writing poems ever since I could shape the letters of the words, well, that was really my second stage. The first came as soon as I could repeat the lines my mother spoke or sang: "Jack and Jill -- went up the hill -- to fetch a pail of water," we repeated to each other. And very soon, I began to protest about that particular poem: "Mommy, water and after do NOT rhyme." 

But they almost do, and that too was something to learn.

In The Art of the Poetic Line, James Longenbach teaches that "All poems live or die on their capacity to lure us from their beginnings to their ends by a pattern of sounds." 

Reading that, more than sixty years after Mom and I began poetry together, brought all the strands together for me. California poet Ellen Bass pointed to Longenbach's book during one of her classes that I first enrolled in during the Covid pandemic. Between her lessons and the resources she listed, I found new strengths.

And now a book of my poems, THRESHOLDS, will be published in a few more months. 

Starting with an OLLI (aka Osher) talk on September 25, I'm inviting you to join me to explore the poetry of transition. After all, autumn in Vermont practically defines transition: blazing with color, gusting with northwest wind, stripping the gardens and toughening our word-winged selves for winter.

As they say: Watch this spot for more.

Eve in Vermont

 

She sits on the front step

potato in her hand, peeling

turning the round cool white

and brown form, rubbing off

the traces of soil, rejoicing—

“potato, potato,” naming it.

When the bird flies past it calls

and again she says “potato” but then

she looks up, shakes her hair,

follows the angled wings in flight.

She grins and calls out “blue jay”

and it answers.

 

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