by Anne MacNaughton
This year has been a good one for several of new Mexico's prolific women poets. C.S. Merrill, Joan Logghe, Renee Gregorio, and Judyth Hill each have had a volume of poetry recently published, and published by a local small press. These new books present the quiet and exquisite, the voluptuous and ironic, a good sampling of the vibrant work of four of our best poets.
Containing 108 poems of clear brilliant grace, C.S. Merrill's poetic biography of Georgia O'Keeffe chronicles the artist in her last days at the adobe studio-home in Abiquiu. Written during seven years in the 1970s when the author served as "librarian, secretary, cook, nurse of companion..." to the elderly O'Keeffe, the collection presents a rich portrait of the eccentric behind the myth and so is of interest on that point alone. However, it also is a must read for those who appreciate superb literary work. A master of quiet observance, the poet says, "...you must know exactly/what you mean/by each word./You mustn't suppose/or imagine./You must know." Neither distant abstraction nor sycophantic hagiography, this is a collection of poems that stand on their own, coming out clean and spare while fleshing out the icon that is their subject.
We are allowed an intimate glimpse of O'Keeffe in her dailiness (she is referred to by last name only, as if she were a student at a girls' college, a military inductee or--a singular force). She paints large color abstractions while complaining that her public wants only flowers and skulls. She discloses an active interest in herbs and flowers, her difficulties with the Stieglitz clan, an odd predilection for nude walks through the woods and a fierce but charming directness. She entices the poet-author with vivid colors, superb dinners and intriguing conversation. A fierce, independent woman, extremely competent and secretly competitive, not so much affable as admirable, a bohemian, a human-dynamo, and undeniably a genius.
In these poems we walk the mesa above the Rio Chama and the Abiquiu cliffs. We meet Jackie Sanchez who helps in the garden and Frank who helps with the heavy work on large canvasses. We meet Tony Luhan, Mabel Dodge and Laura Gilpin and eavesdrop on a visit from Allen Ginsberg. And gradually, while ingesting the simple grace and breadth of these poems, we come to meet O'Keeffe herself, who appears actually larger in life than in myth, due in part to these delightful, multi-dimensional portraits:
To paint the 26 foot painting--sky and clouds
O'Keeffe stood on two 10 ft. long tables
then one six foot plank, sat on the table,
then stood on a chair, then sat on a chair
then on the floor to reach all parts
of the canvas; any coat of color
must cover the whole canvas in a day
because there would be a line
where she stopped.
Frank would come
to the ranch, mix huge amounts of paint
for her in the morning. She rose at six,
painted all day, found herself cleaning
brushes at 9pm; took two months.
"O'Keeffe: Days in a Life" is a beautiful book, tastefully designed by La Alameda Press' Jeff Bryan with a plain black-ink-on-white cover, as if there were no colors with which to dare to paint so bold a subject. This small press in Albuquerque's North Valley is only five years old, yet has developed a list of belles lettres that includes some of the best contemporary poetry in the state. There are new works like Joan Logghe's "Twenty Years in Bed With the Same Man" (see review below) and reprints of two fine titles that are now out of print in their original, small-run editions: Nanao Sakaki's fresh translations of Issa, titled "Inch by Inch," and John Brandi's "Weeding the Cosmos," both works published originally by Tooth of Time. The quality of the publications themselves, the beautiful design and careful vision of the editors are a boon to the state's literary culture. Perhaps New Mexico is finally getting the small press it deserves!
One might call Joan Logghe's collection of "Marriage Poems" a sensitive and passionate glimpse into woman's central relationship, or love poems for the postmodern world, or a book of family values the way they really are. Logghe, wife, mother and poet, resides in the Espanola Valley, where she keeps horses, house and watch over the detailed images of daily living. From here she sacralizes the everyday life of an end-of-century, middle-aged, middle American woman, and the songs ring true:
If you want to grow your heart
use the vowels from "man" and "woman."
Your heart will grow like a city
stretching out in spacious suburbs.
Your heart will be the color alba.
No more will you go on saying
silencio and nada.
After 12 years and four small books of poetry, the fifth book from the remarkable poet Renee Gregorio is her first full-length collection of work and comes as the fifth offering from a small and steadily improving press in Taos. Gregorio's strong, quiet voice and lithe rhythms fill this volume with womanly grace while they fill her words with intense, contained sensitivity.
The poems, love-strong and vibrant, paint brisk images in the mind while slowly sucking tears from the soul. We enjoy them and they have their effect on us who taste the bitter within the tender, like the sharpness in the aftertaste of young fruit:
What I hold most precious changes shape;
I'm afraid to relinquish all those other lives,
remembering the stitch in every shirt,
the voices of old men in pubs.
I can't release them. They live and breathe
in my skin.
from "Claiming the Invisible"
Remote and unyielding, this mountain life.
Staying is all there is, but lonely.
...
I'm caught in the tumbleweed.
I'm caught in the mountains.
I make laws for a kind of living;
I could fill the alphabet with exceptions.
from "Residences"
"Men Need Space" is the latest collection from the prolific word-image and dynamic performer, Judyth Hill. Focusing on men, women and relationships, this collection brings together the most popular of her performed work (and she writes all her pieces for performance) on marriage, divorce, love and passion.
While there is some overlap with her earlier collection ("A Presence of Angels," Asher, 1995), only a few of the works are repeated and the new ones are full of that unique humor and ribald imagery for which this poet is deservedly known:
Men need space.
We're talking South Dakota. Wyoming.
Men need Wyoming and the Mid-West.
The Mid-West was invented for men.
And it's a good thing, because women hate the
Mid-West.
What's to like? The only good part is Chicago and
moving away...
I took a copy of this book to a high school class I was working in and watched as it was fought over by students of both sexes who were hungry to read something with so sassy a title. Their eagerness was rewarded as they took turns reading selected pieces out loud to each other, laughing and enjoying. Their enthusiasm for truly contemporary work was full reward for me. And the highest praise for Hill.
Article Posted by permission of the Author © 1996 Anne MacNaughton.