Tom Dooley and Me

Virginia's new poet laureate, Sofia Starnes, is compiling an anthology called The Nearest Poem Anthology, designed to be a collection of poems and short essays about how one poem you didn't write affected your life.

I’ve never thought of myself as someone influenced by poetry. Drama, yes. Fiction, no doubt. But a poem? I just never considered how one poem had become a refrain in my life.

From when I was three onward until about seven or eight, my grandmother read to me every night before bed. We didn’t have a television at first, and even when we did, she still read to me. First, little Golden Books, then more books for older children. By first grade, I was reading three grades ahead of my peers.

We read Black Beauty and Old Yeller, Sand Dune Pony and My Friend Flicka, all the Nancy Drew books. Hardy Boys, too. She believed a good story was written for children, not for boys or girls. Her personal favorite was a collection of American poems. I didn’t know a poem from Adam at that time, but I liked the rhythm of the language, how it sounded when she read it. She read some poems to the point where some of the lines were permanently imprinted on gray cells deep in my brain.

By middle school I read about archaeologists and missionaries and doctors working in strange, exotic lands. I wanted to dig in the dirt and find dinosaur bones. Before long I knew the difference between an archaeologist and a paleontologist. Later, I found some books about a doctor who worked in Indochina building hospitals and treating the native people. I had to look for Laos and Indochina on my globe, because I had no idea where they were.

My mother brought home three books about Dr. Thomas Dooley, who helped found what we now call a non-governmental organization, an NGO. Called Medico, the charity sought to establish hospitals and treatment centers in Communist-controlled territory. He wrote with passion and humor, often passing off the dangers he faced with a flip of the pen.

I read and reread these books. Something pricked my brain. Cadences in the language were similar to poems my grandmother read aloud. I began searching for more memories. I opened the second book, The Edge of Tomorrow, and found a chapter title that was screamingly familiar: “But I Have Promises to Keep.” I knew that line. I’d heard my grandmother read it so many times.

I rooted in our bookshelves until I found her battered anthology of great American poems. I curled in a chair and thumbed the well-loved pages until I found Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on Snowy Evening.” And there were the words from the chapter title, parts of the refrain that appeared without attribution in Dr. Dooley’s books, and distant memories of my beloved grandmother, reading to me with me lying in her lap.

I studied comparative literature for years. I read Shakespeare and the poetic language of Chaucer. I read the romantic poets, the American iambic pentameter poets that made me seasick. I read Tang poetry and Han Shan in Chinese. I read Basho in Japanese, but the only poem that continues to influence decisions is a humble poem by Robert Frost.

I can't write a decent poem to save my life, but I can appreciate the work of others. Starnes' new anthology will be a welcome addition to my bookshelves.

The Writing Life -- Mine

Have you always wanted to be a writer? Do you have a novel in you screaming to get out? I'd like to say I always wanted to be a writer, but I didn't. Oh, I played with writing from grade school onward, but not seriously.

My first adventure into writing fiction was part of a third-grade assignment to write my autobiography. For crying out loud, I was eight. I hadn't had a life to write about, so I made one up. It was pretty good, as I remember. I also remember two other things about that assignment: my first and only F, and my mother saying that if I was going to lie, I should consider being a novelist.

In college, I wrote my first novel. On my trusty Underwood upright, no less. I wrote a science fantasy novel. Yes, on a manual typewriter. I couldn't afford the latest IBM Selectric, so it was manual or handwritten. I was enthralled by Ray Bradbury and a guy I was dating. It seemed so easy to write science fantasy. All you had to do was let your imagination go. I did. I spent a summer after sophomore year pounding away on the keyboard, piling up a huge stack of pages. I reached "The End" and pronounced I had written a novel.

My mother asked to read it. She actually finished it. She never said it was dreadful, but she suggested I continue with my education. Mind you, I wasn't in a creative writing program. I read the story. I cannot describe how dreadful it was. I mean, redefined dumb. Redefined purple prose. Redefined "don't quit your day job." I fed every page into the fireplace.

In grad school, I decided I had more to say so I started writing poetry. Pure, unadulterated doggerel. I really hated reading poetry. What made me think I could write something I didn't like reading? At least with the science fantasy, I read and loved Bradbury.

I piddled around with writing off and on for years. I wrote several novels, all of which are gathering cyber dust. I ground out pages, pages and more pages. I was hooked. I didn't know what I didn't know about writing. I knew I was possessed to write.

And then I bought a book called My Time: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life by Abigail Trafford. Her book changed my outlook on life. Seriously.

To know what she wrote that was so profound and why it hit me will have to wait until the next post.

Honoring My Mother

Eight years ago my mother died from small-cell lung cancer. She was a former smoker who’d quit ten years earlier, but the damage was done. We had a special dynamic: I was an only child, and she was an only mother. When her health became delicate, long before the cancer diagnosis, she came to live with my husband Terry and me.

It wasn’t always easy, having her in the house, but it was worth it for peace of mind. I knew where she was, that she was well taken care of, that if she needed help in the middle of the night, we’d be there.

I didn’t write about my mother for six years following her death. I couldn’t. One night, I went to a poetry reading and book signing by Jim Minick, a wonderful Appalachian poet who teaches at Radford University. He's become a good friend over the years. Jim read from his collection Her Secret Song, a collection of love poems dedicated to his aunt who also died of cancer. His love for this woman who suffered from “elephant man’s disease” brought me to tears. I cried all the way home.

I couldn’t sleep that night. I rose before dawn and walked my normal two-mile walk in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. When the sun rose over a dew-studded pasture, I heard a poem in my head. It took 24 minutes to put every word together. I couldn’t wait to get to my desk and put fingers on keyboard. I let the poem sit for a week before rereading it. I changed one word. I called it Three Weeks.

I got up enough nerve to take it to my writing group in Roanoke, the Valley Writers. When my turn came, I couldn’t read the poem. My girlfriend and fellow writer, Donna Knox, stepped in to read. She broke down at the end.

Since then, I’ve read the poem at dozens of events. People cry and remember a lost loved one. I love the shared memories. My purpose as a writer is to encourage people to talk and share while they are being entertained. We’ve all been through loss. If sharing simple words has a positive effect, I’m satisfied. I’ve done something good.

I’d love to publish it somewhere. I’ve sent it in to several poetry and cancer journals. I have the rejections to prove it. I keep sending it out. One of the days someone will like it enough to publish it. If you want to read the poem, send me an email. I’ll send you a copy. All I ask is you let me know how it affected you, even if you didn’t like it.

A cool evening with Sheri Wright's poetry

Friday last was a perfect day. Cooler than the scorching mid 90s of the previous two weeks. Little humidity. Light breezes. After dinner out, Terry and I decided to take in the early evening on our deck, watching the birds head for roosts and nests. Even the squirrels were quieting down for the evening.

I picked up a book from the coffee table and took it outside. I started reading a poem or two when I looked up and saw the sky was nearly dark. I had finished the book. I got lost in the lovely images Sheri Wright used in The Courtship of Reason. I found myself returning to poems about dignity in aging and death. "Visitors" reminds us that we all grow old, no matter how young we may be today. And with that growing old comes wisdom, loss, and changes. I liked "Room 237" where a patient in a hospital lies dying, waiting for her mother to call her in for one last glass of lemonade.

None of these poems are sad, but they remind us to honor the elderly and treat them with respect. One day, God willing and the creeks don't rise, we too will be elderly and in need of respect.

Thank you, Sheri, for another wonderful collection of verse.