This week, in my “Modern Poetry’s Media” course, I told my undergrads about poet Helene Johnson‘s success during the Harlem Renaissance, subsequent disappearance from the literary scene, and rediscovery late in the 20th century. “Rediscovery” is a funny term, of course–she knew where she was the whole time, although other poets and the critics weren’t tuned to her signal. I adore her work and am grateful for the existence of the posthumous anthology This Waiting for Love, edited by Verner D. Mitchell and containing poems, letters, and lots of background information. It’s a great example of how literary scholarship can serve us all, notwithstanding the university-haters who are loud and powerful right now.
Next week I’m teaching excerpts from another amazing piece of scholarship: Changing is Not Vanishing: A Collection of American Indian Poetry to 1930, edited by Robert Dale Parker. (Notice both books were published by university presses.) Parker combed through decades of newspapers and magazines, finding treasures I’d never seen before, much less encountered during my own education. Mary Cornelia Hartshorne is on the syllabus for Monday, and as I prepped, it clicked how young she was: she wrote these poems (originally published in The American Indian) in her late teens. And then she went on with her life in a way Parker couldn’t discover.
My current favorite is “Fallen Leaves,” also the only poem by Hartshorne that seems to be online. Subtitled “An Indian Grandmother’s Parable,” it begins by quoting “white sages” to the effect that Native American lives and cultures are “scattered” and gone like last year’s leaves. The rest of the poem is the grandmother talking back to that ignorance, depicting the leaves in detail, chronicling how “discarded fragments” become “dry, chattering parchments / that crackle and rustle like old women’s laughter.” The leaves go on to protect and nourish a new spring’s “leaflets,” helped by streams “manumitted” from the ice (=released from enslavement). In short, scattering isn’t the end of people a militarily dominant culture wants to forget. Those leaves are still delivering news.
The technologies of digital dispersal might make a positive, negative, or mixed difference to how the works of contemporary poets persist decades from now. Power suppresses identities and stories that don’t serve its interests, witness the many assaults on people and information these past weeks–and poetry is an art of backtalk, even when that dissent takes twisty underground paths. Sometimes code–or even a disarming beauty–is the best way to smuggle a message through.
I’m heading now into one of my busiest runs for Mycocosmic, trying my limited best to manipulate manipulative social media platforms so that my events are visible to the people who might want to attend them–so smuggling is on my mind. Here’s my schedule of seven events in eight days (during Mercury in retrograde, what could go wrong?):
- March 21, 10 am: Virginia Festival of the Book, “Everyday Wonders,” Jefferson Madison Regional Library Central, Charlottesville VA, with Charlotte Matthews, Hayden Saunier, & Lisa Fishman
- March 22, 7 pm: Bull City Press Presents, at Mettlesome Theater in Durham, NC with Bridget Bell, 800 Taylor Street, Suite 9-156
- March 23, 5 pm: Busboys & Poets, 14th & V, Washington, DC, “Poetry Talks Back” with Sylvia Jones and Natasha Sajé
- March 26-28: AWP in Los Angeles
- Thurs 3/27, 10:35-11:50 am, “Understories & Mycocosms: Tapping Hidden Networks,” Room 403A, Level 2, Convention Center
- Thurs 3/27, 7:00-9:00 pm, Reading with MER, SWIMM, Whale Road, Perugia, & Cultivating Voices, MG Studio, 1319 W. 11th St
- Fri 3/28, 3:00-3:30 pm, Signing with Tupelo Press, Bookfair Booth 604
- Fri 3/28, 7:00-9:00 pm, Tupelo Press Reading at The Philosophical Research Society, 3910 Los Feliz Blvd
Honestly, if I can survive the travel, I think all these adventures and conversations will be fun–the Durham event actually involves a comedy group that improvises in response to the poets! I’m also looking forward to connecting with friends who live elsewhere. Three high school friends, some old and new poetry friends, a former student, and my son cheered me on at KGB Bar this week, which felt amazing. The local launch was packed with people from different parts of my life, too. It’s moving to be a part of such a congregation.
Meanwhile, I’m also feeling joy about introducing these writers to a genuinely interested group of students. Johnson’s and Hartshorne’s stories also help me stay philosophical during the wins and losses of my book launch: of course their work remains wonderful and valuable, as contemporary poetry will, too, to whatever extent it wafts into and mulches the future. It’s challenging to persist, yet of course it’s worth it.
Below a teaser for my “10 Questions” with Poets & Writers: you have to create a free long-in to read the whole interview, but I hope you will!
LESLEY WHEELER 