Tis the season of miracles—Hanukkah, Christmas, Santa Clause. My grandchildren can barely contain themselves. “Grandma,” they ask, “Is Santa really going to come down the chimney?” One of them suspects that Amazon might be Santa Clause. Or, as she reasons, he might need a little help from UPS.
Of course, it’s not just the young who are in festive moods. My niece just finished her chemo treatments. A fellow swimmer at the Y informed me today that she is finally pregnant after years of failed IVF treatments. Yesterday, when I was eating a sad looking Mediterranean salad at Panera’s, debating whether to risk contracting salmonella when a young man at the next table knelt on the sticky floor beside his table and proposed to a blushing blond in sweat pants. “Yes!” she shouted. “YES!” as he slid the diamond ring on her finger. I clapped and took photos with their iPhones.
It is also season of record sales, or so I am told at the local book shops. Best-selling books are selling best. My friend who works at the second-hand bookshop says they have no more books about miracles on the shelf, books like The Secret, The Course in Miracles, Think and Grow Rich, Super Attractor and other books about manifesting your dreams. Poetry is selling, too, they assure me. But of course, it’s a small market.
I confess that I, too love miracles, and books on miracles. Recipes for bliss and healing. Books that tell me I only have to do __________, and my life will blossom like the Amaryllis on my window sill.
Mary Oliver, the best-selling, feel-good poet of our time, loved by my yoga teacher, answered this question in “Wild Geese” with the line: “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” Is that all?
I guess it depends on your definition of a miracle. For me it means simply stopping time. (Okay, maybe that’s not so simple.) Writing, meditating, reading—all take me into outside of ordinary time. And offer a kind of magic. Poetry, in particular, can seem like a dream manifested, a spiritual gift.
I love what David Lehman says in Columbia Today on The Joy of Poetry, when he refers to writing poetry as “one of the highest callings.” And:
“Poetry is personal,” says Lehman, reflecting on its diminished role in modern times. “It’s not written to effect social change. It’s written to add to the store of knowledge and to enhance our sense of the beauty of creation. It’s an act of celebration. Sometimes it’s an act of mourning. It’s fundamental to the human heart.”
There are so many books of poetry to celebrate this year. First on my Christmas wish list is Hell I Love Everybody, the Essential James Tate, which Denise Duhamel mentioned in her weekly post. Hell, I love everything Tate wrote.
For those who love philosopher poets, there’s Harvey Hix’s Moral Tales. A short poem from Hix:
E pluribus unum.
We’re like barkeeps provided with various
available bottles (pleasure sweet as honey-made mead,
sober judgment, alcohol-free, clear and bitter
as tonic water . . . ) and charged to mix one perfect drink.
There are also books to look forward to in 2024 including Jessica Jacobs’ unalone and Phil Metres’ Fugitive/Refuge, which appear to have the exact same cover.!?
I caught a glimpse of an early draft of at Jacobs’ manuscript, and I have read enough to know that unalone promises to be the perfect gift for those of us who are fans of midrash, as is the book, Let There Be Light, the Real Story of Her Creation, by Liana Finck, a graphic novel, which The New Yorker lists as one of the best books of the year. I love books that reimagine our origin stories.
And I love the fairy tale opening, Once upon a time. Or just Once. Which brings me to the last book I will mention that I am looking forward to: Danny Lawless’s forthcoming collection, [I tell you this now]. A sample poem:
Once
Beautiful, gliding word, although perhaps less a word
than an exhalation; circa 1300
a simple adverbial generative—an f-like s become ce
affixed to the Middle English æne, meaning
“formerly, at one time” per the OED. Nevertheless,
its intent always complex, contextual: sometimes a little wince
in there, a little ache. Desire, too. And wonder.
Once, we begin, our lips puckered, as if for a kiss,
but a kiss that never comes, breathless, forever in the past.
Go to Source
Author: Nin Andrews
