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The Poetry Podcast, hosted by C. Patrice Aries Christian, focuses on engaging with poetry, featuring poets, and discussing various topics related to poetry. Season 2 explores grief and poetry, inspired by the recent loss of the host's beloved grandmother, who was a poet. The host shares personal experiences with grief, struggles with writing poetry, and finds solace in reading works by poets like Gloria Anzaldua. The episode highlights the poem "Creature of Darkness" by Anzaldua and discusses its imagery and structure. The host also promotes the idea of hosting poetry parties to make gatherings unique and memorable. Welcome to the Poetry Podcast. I am your host, C. Patrice Aries Christian. I am a writer, a scholar, a poetry consultant, and an educator with a passion for poetry. On this podcast, we deal with all things poetry. Well, not all. I can almost guarantee we won't be dwelling on iambic pentameter, rhyme scheme, or other things that our teachers emphasized in school. This podcast introduces or reacquaints you with poetry, engages in commentary, and features poets and their work. Each week, I read a poem, at least one, and use it to delve into a topic. From time to time, I'll feature a poet, a scholar, a novice writer, or someone who finds that poetry eludes them. At the end of each episode, I leave you with a challenge inspired by the poet, the poem, or theme of the episode. I believe poetry is for everyone, and this podcast is a tool to connect you with poetry, no matter what your relationship with it currently is. Welcome back to Season 2 of the Poetry Podcast with me, your host, C. Patrice Aries Christian. Last season on the podcast, we discussed hope, love, and joy in poetry. Some of the poets we covered were Langston Hughes, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and June Jordan. I also discussed the elements of poetry and how to write poetry. This season, you'll hear from some of my longtime friends, from poets, and yes, even from my therapist. While this podcast won't always feature guests, this season is full of them. For our first episode this season, however, I want to talk to you about grief and poetry. Some of you may be wondering why it took several months for me to release new episodes of the podcast between Season 1 and Season 2, and why Season 1 ended so abruptly. Suffice it to say, life was, and has been, and is, life-ing. And sometimes that means there's growth and development, like when I first went on hiatus. And sometimes that means things suck, for a lack of a better word. Or is that the best word? It gets the point across. Recently, my family and I experienced the loss of a loved one. And oh my goodness, was she beloved. And she was a poet. My grandmother, grandmommy, and I were partners. When I had to grab the hand of an adult before crossing the street, hers was the one I reached for. I grew up knowing I was loved because of members of my family, not the least of which were my mother and grandmommy. My grandmommy and I were very close, and I remember toddling or tiptoeing after her through the garden, where she'd show me how to tell if the corn was ripe. I learned to play spades on her knee, and my goodness, was she a boss when it came to spades. I learned to cook from her and from my mother, and I've been cooking ever since. Grandmommy and I were kindred spirits and found contentment in our home and among our books and belongings. We admired each other, we adored each other, and we could not agree on who loved the other more. I love you better, we would each say to the other, and chuckle because we each knew who really loved the other better. It was me! Just kidding. She was funny, and she was so creative. She was a visionary, she was an artist, and she was amazing, and I'll miss her forever. Grief sucks, have I said that already? But grief is a part of life. When I was in high school, I experienced grief when my mother's favorite cousin, Cousin Tomkey, were a seller in that country, so don't ask me what his real name was, when Cousin Tomkey died. I loved him a lot, and his passing led to my first depressive episode. My senior year, my classmate David died, and again I learned about the feelings of grief. In college, my favorite cousin, and Grandmommy's favorite cousin, Cousin Douglas died, and I felt that loss very deeply. I didn't go to his funeral. Instead, I went to my favorite spot on campus, where he was a professor and I was a student. I went to that spot, and hugged by the branches of my favorite tree, I wrote poetry. Grandmommy loved this poem that I wrote for Cousin Douglas, Upon Remembering Cousin Douglas, and he had hazel eyes, eyes that sparkled, twinkled when he laughed, and his laughter was like tinkling bells when he was especially tickled. Oh, Cousin Douglas, he was a jovial man. He carried the world on his shoulders with a smile and a wink, and I never knew him to be melancholy. The angel of death visited him on Monday, like he'll visit us all, and I'll admit I was distraught at first, until I remembered his smile, his laugh, his sense of humor, and he had hazel eyes, my Cousin Douglas. He had hazel eyes that twinkled when he laughed. Fast forward many years, and we grow stronger as the loss lingers, and at least for me, I forgot the raw ripeness right after a loss, but this death, my grandmommy's transition, hit me harder and deeper than anything I've ever experienced, and y'all, this grief is still very new. My grief manifests in body-wracking sobs, silent streams of tears, and a semi-permanent existence on the sofa draped in her face. I've taken to wandering the house in the darkness of the wee hours of the morning, and either eating too little or almost everything. I either find myself ignoring phone calls or soliloquizing about all that was this loved one. As I try to manage my grief, it is all I can do to keep up with some of my daily responsibilities, like my jobs, plural, and my business, while keeping myself and the household in a somewhat semblance of not totally falling apart. When I do more than simply exist, it is because I am the queen of dissociation. Years of trauma and years of grad school are to thank for that. I cannot write, or rather, I do not have the energy to write poetry. I try to say I cannot write because I find that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. When I say I cannot write, I psych myself out and I don't write. When I acknowledge that I don't have the energy to write, it reminds me that I will eventually have the energy, even if it's just for a couple of lines. And while I grieve, I read poetry. I have been reading old favorites like June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Gloria Anzaldua. I have been reading namespaces like Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, and Claudia Rankine. I have also been exploring Ocean Vuong, Ross Gay, and Amy Nezeku-Matato, Camille Dungy, Jericho Brown, and Rupi Kaur. I have met local poets like Zion Simmons and read their books. I have been reading Poetry is Not a Luxury, Poems for All Seasons. My poetry collection has grown as I grieve. One of the poems I want to highlight on this episode is Creature of Darkness by Gloria Anzaldua. I really get so much from this poem. I identify with the creature of darkness, though I think of myself as a nighttime ghost. We both haunt spaces and shadows. The experiences described by the narrator are so very relatable. The grief is palpable. Creature of Darkness by Gloria Anzaldua. Three weeks I've wallowed in this deep place, this under place, this grieving place, getting heavier and heavier, sleeping by day, creeping out at night. Nothing I can do, nothing I want to do, but stay small and still in the dark. No thought. I want not to think. That stirs up the pain, opens the wound, starts the healing. I don't want it to stop. I want to sit here and pick at the scab, watch the blood flow, lift the salt from my face, while all the time a part of me cries, stop, stop. Behind that voice, shadows snicker. No, we like it here in the dark. We like sitting here with our grief and our longing. This is where we live, home, they whisper. We're a creature of darkness. A lump of me says, what are you hiding under that black log, that gray fog, a pink salamander, a mole without eyes, things that slide into holes. Oh, creature of darkness, creature of night, creature afraid of the light. I let my friends think I'm doing a gig somewhere on the other coast. They would come around, hoax me out of the deep. No one must find me here in the dark. So I feed that hole to stifle the loss, to muffle the loss, to smother the loss. But it grows and grows, and I grow fat, and I grow numb. Sole inhabitant of this dark underplace, this grieving place. No one must find me suspended in darkness, soft furry body, loose hanging skin, swinging upside down to the Europe of bat. Three weeks I rocked with that wide open maw, refusing to move, barely daring to breathe, thinking deeper, growing great with mouth, a creature afraid of the dark, a creature at home in the dark. I like the imagery in this poem, as I'll do is imagery of the creature with a wide open maw. What diction? She didn't say mouth, she said maw. And did you notice the repetition in the poem? There's the symmetry with the repetition of three weeks in the first and last stanzas. In the first and last stanzas, three weeks I've wallowed, three weeks I rocked with that wide open maw. And so Dua also creates parallel phrases in her lines. Nothing I can do, nothing I want to do, and I grow fat, and I grow numb. She repeats form, preposition, and verb with the lines to muscle the loss, to smother the loss. Additionally, in stanzas six and nine, as I'll do, I'll write creature of darkness, creature of night, creature afraid of the light, and a creature afraid of the dark, a creature at home in the dark. I recently held a poetry workshop, and the participants really related to this poem. My error was in not asking them specifically what they connected with, and yet they seemed to engage with the visceral emotion in this poem. The ones that wrote poetry inspired by creature of darkness create a beautiful work full of emotion. And now, a word from our sponsor, me. Looking to host an event, but not sure how to make it pop? Want to make your party memorable? Have an idea for a gathering of friends, colleagues, or family, but not sure what would make it unique? You need to have a poetry party. And just what is a poetry party? Imagine your group learning how to and creating verses of poetry in an afternoon or an evening based on your chosen theme. Whether you all sit around a conference table at a work function, a dining table before or after dinner, or outside in the perfect weather, each participant learns and creates a poem that they can choose to share or take with them in silence. My first poetry party involved my closest friends and family, and we wrote together under a beautiful sky. And in the evening, we shared our poetry, judgment-free, around a fire pit. Other events partner with local businesses, plant shops, coffee shops, small cafes, to create a unique experience for the community. You can have a great poetry party in conjunction with dinner parties, baby showers. For instance, let's all write a poem for the baby. Any theme. Birthday parties and solstices. A poetry party can double as a great work function as well. It's a great way to connect with yourself and with others. As your poetry hostess, I work with you to make a fantastic event that your guests will remember for years. I offer two options. Option one gives you a self-guided package on writing poetry, tailored to the theme or themes of your choice. For option two, I lead your group through a writing workshop tailored to the theme or themes of your choice. I can do this in person or virtually, depending on your location and budget. To book a consultation or to get more information, see my website, www.cpatricearieschristian.com. And now, back to the poetry podcast. She was a poet by grandmommy and her lines were beautiful and the essence of herself. I wish we had had more conversations about poetry and yet I know what some of her answers would be if I were to start asking questions. Why do you write? To give God the glory. Do you have a muse? Our heavenly father. She had no formal training and yet she had a mastery over rhyme and rhythm that was all her own. I wrote her a poem for her birthday every four years and I was due to write her one this year. I want to write that poem. I want to write again. I feel the yearning and the itch of my fingers needing to hold a pen. I catch words on my tongue and hear fragments of ghosts of lines wafting somewhere in the recesses of my mind. And I'm starting to write again. Slowly, hesitantly, I greet my old friend's creativity and let poetry flow or fall rather stupid and imperfect. Grief is still there as it always will be but my calling is to write and I know that someday soon I must and when I do I will try to let it sustain me. I will let it slowly start to soothe the ache of loss. Gloria Anzaldua's narrator experiences the grief for at least three weeks. We don't know how long a narrator experiences this part of the grieving process. The opening and closing of the poem with that three weeks gives us a sense of time but also gives us a sense of hope that like time, this part of the grieving process is measurable. As I conclude this episode, episode one of season two, welcome back. I want to share one more poem. This is Remember Me by Christina Rossetti. Remember me when I've gone away, gone far away into the silent land. When you can no more hold me by the hand, nor I have care to go yet turning to stay. Remember me when no more day by day you tell me of our future that you'd planned. Only remember me, you understand, it will be it will be late to counsel then or pray. Yet if you should forget me for a while and afterwards remember, do not grieve. For if the darkness and corruption leave a message of the thoughts that once I had, better by far you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad. I keep going back to Remember by Christina Rossetti. Her narrator says, remember me when I've gone away and entreats her listener to accept the loss and remember her. However, if the listener should forget her for a time, remember her again but do not grieve. Remember, better by far you better by far you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad. I know that my grandmommy would not want her family to be sad but oh how she is missed. Poetry and the reading and writing of it can help us heal even in our grief. As I go forward I will try to remember this and take some more time to read and write poetry. I'll continue to read poems about grief and I'll read grandmommy's poetry. There's the idea that grief doesn't get lighter or easier it stays the same but we get stronger and so we're able to carry the grief better. I take comfort in this but I also wonder what happens when our grief doubles and triples as we age and lose more people. I know I don't have to end on a positive note but it's in my nature so I'm trying hard to end this one positively and that leads me to my challenge for you this week. Write a poem for your loved ones or for ones that have loved you. I'm still working on a poem and have been off and on for years, mostly off, of the other mothers in my life. The women who are and aren't related to me who have given me guidance, who have loved me conditionally and unconditionally, who have taught me how to laugh, how to love, how to be imperfect and how to be amazing despite those imperfections. Considering grandmommy's transition from this world I want to revisit that poem but I digress. This week your challenge is to work on a poem for a loved one. Be as specific or as vague as you'd like to be and as a secondary challenge send me your favorite poems about grief. What poems feed or support or sustain you in times of grief? Who are the best writers of grief? Send them to me via cpatrice at cpatricearieschristian.com
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