My Days as a Poet

Like so many people before me, I wanted to write. I’d left my corporate job in international finance and moved to Texas, enrolled in a creative writing course at a local college, and on the first day of class, I sat on the front row, anxious to discover the art of writing.

Much to my surprise, the class would cover poetry for the first six weeks. The first assignment was to create a poem. That night I stressed so much I could not sleep. About three in the morning, rhyming lines about a young horse and an old stallion flowed through my mind. I got out of bed and wrote the entire poem. I later earned $25.00 when I sold that poem, despite its rhyming scheme, to a nature magazine. I became a regular contributor to that magazine.

The professor had reasons to start with poetry. Poems often have a strong narrative voice; they are filled with expressive power and do so with a few carefully chosen words. By the end of the six weeks, I loved writing them and I continue to do so on occasion.

It took my friend Ann McKennis’s inquiry about my poems on the Rothko Chapel to prompt me to look back at poetry I’d written. The Rothko Chapel in Houston is non-denominational, and it also serves as a lecture hall, a meditative space, and a major work of modern art by Mark Rothko who also influenced the architecture of the building. His paintings, in various hues of black, inspired me to write several poems, such as this one:

Red and Black

Painting is about thinking,

not merely spreading paint on a canvass—

not until the idea germinates, sprouts,

spreads like lips, hot lips covered in red lipstick,

fondling every thread of primed cloth,

like a woman arousing her lover,

her tongue licking nectar from his body.

Apply paint with controlled strokes,

drawing out emotions,

pulling passion with color.

 

Allow wet paint to slosh

from surface to edge, leave it

fuzzy so the eye adjusts before

the brain sees the artist’s inspiration.

Take red, like rage, then black,

which contains it all, and white,

as Melville said, the most fearful color—

for it is the abyss, the infinity of

death. But it is black that

swallows the red.

***

The Rothko Chapel was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in September 2000.

Kathryn Lane writes mystery and suspense novels set in foreign countries. In her award-winning Nikki Garcia Mystery Series, her protagonist is a private investigator currently based in Miami. Her latest publication is Stolen Diary, a story about a socially awkward math genius.

Kathryn’s own early work life started out as a painter in oils. To earn a living, she became a certified public accountant and embarked on a career in international finance with Johnson & Johnson.

Two decades later, she left the corporate world to create mystery and suspense thrillers, drawing inspiration from her Mexican background as well as her travels in over ninety countries.

She also dabbles in poetry, an activity she pursues during snippets of creative renewal. During the summer months, Kathryn and her husband, Bob Hurt, escape to the mountains of northern New Mexico to avoid the Texas heat.

Rothko Chapel Pictures: Public domain

The War Against Women That No One Wants to Admit–and a Poem

Trigger Warnings for child molestation and abuse and for sexual assault and domestic violence.

Whenever I read this poem in public, I preface it with a statement that there is a war against women taking place, followed by the current statistics on sexual assault, rape, physical assault, and murder, statistics that have risen every time I check them again and which are always worse for women of color and Native women. I don’t read this poem in public much, however, because it makes men uncomfortable–they shift in their seats visibly–and it brings so many women up to me afterward in tears to say that this poem was about their own lives. I have begun to feel that I should provide a therapist to the audience before I read it.

As we live through the nightmare created when Rowe v Wade was cast down by the Supreme Court, however, this poem feels appropriate. This is, ultimately, what patriarchy comes down to–women and girls at the mercy of men hurting them, simply because they can. We can always hope that they won’t–and not all of them do–but ultimately, they can. And they can get away with it over and over again, while women who try to keep them from getting away with it suffer and pay a huge price. Nothing there has really changed since I was a girl, except that women are generally less and less inclined to go quietly along. Our rage has grown too great. Though things were supposed to have changed, our current situation has shown us that they haven’t. But they will. They must.

P.O.W.

Before I fall into the past,

I drive to the library,

thumb open a book

about the death of a child

in Greenwich Village and

plunge

back

in

time

to trash-filled rooms smelling

of milk, urine, beer and blood,

doors locked and curtains drawn

against the world,

dirty baby brother caged in a playpen,

mother nursing broken nose,

split lip, overflowing ashtray,

and father filling the room to the ceiling,

shouting drunken songs and threats

before whom I tremble and dance,

wobbly diversion, to keep away

the sound of fist against face,

bone against wall.

 

The book never shows

the other little brothers and sister hiding

around corners and under covers,

but I know they are there

and dance faster,

sing the songs that give him pleasure,

pay the price for their sleep

later, his hand pinching flat nipples,

thrusting between schoolgirl thighs,

as dangerous to please as to anger

the giant who holds the keys

to our family prison. Mother

has no way to keep him from me,

but I can do it for her and them.

 

Locked by these pages

behind enemy lines again

where I plan futile sabotage

and murder every night,

nine-year-old underground,

I read the end.

Suddenly defiant, attacked,

slammed into a wall,

sliding into coma, death

after the allies arrive,

too late, in clean uniforms so like his own

to shake their heads at the smell and mess—

the end I almost believe,

the end that chance keeps at bay

long enough for me to grow and flee,

my nightmare alive on the page.

 

Freed too late,

I close the book,

two hours vanished,

stand and try to walk

to the front door on uncertain legs

as if nothing were wrong.

No one must know.

I look at those around me

without seeming to,

an old skill,

making sure no one can tell.

Panic pushes me to the car

where the back window reflects

a woman, the unbruised kind.

 

In the space of three quick breaths

I recognize myself,

slam back into adult body and life,

drive home repeating a mantra,

“Ben will never hurt me–

All men are not violent,”

reminding myself to believe the first,

to hope for the last.

 

II

 

Years later, my little sister will sleep,

pregnant, knife under her pillow,

two stepdaughters huddled

at the foot of her bed,

in case her husband

breaks through the door

again. Finally,

she escapes

with just the baby.

 

My daughter calls collect

from a pay phone on a New Hampshire street.

She’ll stay in a shelter for battered women,

be thrown against the wall

returning to pack

for the trip back to Missouri,

a week before her second anniversary.

With her father and brother,

the trip home will take three days,

and she will call for me again.

 

Ana and Kay, who sat in my classes,

Vicky, who exchanged toddlers with me once a week,

Pat and Karen, who shared my work,

and two Nancys I have known,

among others too many to count,

hide marks on their bodies and memories,

while at the campus women’s center

where I plan programs for women students

on professional advancement

and how to have it all,

the phone rings every week with calls we forward

to safe houses and shelters.

 

In my adult life, I’ve suffered no man

to touch me in anger,

but I sleep light.

 

Published in Heart’s Migration (Tia Chucha Press, 2009)

Linda Rodriguez’s 13th book, Unpapered: Writers Consider Native American Identity and Cultural Belonging, will publish in May 2023. She also edited Woven Voices: 3 Generations of Puertorriqueña Poets Look at Their American Lives, The World Is One Place: Native American Poets Visit the Middle East, The Fish That Got Away: The Sixth Guppy Anthology, Fishy Business: The Fifth Guppy Anthology, and other anthologies.

Dark Sister: Poems was a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award. Her three earlier Skeet  Bannion mystery novels—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, Every Last Secret—and earlier books of poetry—Skin Hunger and Heart’s Migration—received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices & Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. She also published Plotting the Character-Driven Novel, based on her popular workshop.  Her short story, “The Good Neighbor,” published in Kansas City Noir, was optioned for film.

Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International Thriller Writers, Native Writers Circle of the Americas, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, and Kansas City Cherokee Community. Learn more about her at http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com or follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/rodriguez_linda  or on Mastodon at https://mastodon.social/rodriguez_linda.

What Crow Says

For Native American Heritage Month

by Linda Rodriguez

I have a strong propensity for crows. They’re birds that don’t get the love and respect that other
birds do because they’re not as flashy in appearance and their voices are harsher, even though
they are classified as songbirds.

Crows are intelligent, can make tools and remember the faces of those humans who have been
a threat to them or their community, even have rituals to mourn their dead. They often bring us
messages of wisdom from the Creator and show us the way when we need guidance.

This poem is the first in a sequence of mine called “First Cousins Speak.” In these poems, some
of our relatives in the larger world discuss humans, those troubled, puzzling late-come additions
to Creation.

WHAT CROW SAYS

This is how gods are made.
The land is wild and free,
soil just beginning to cover the warm rock.
One day, the stone lights up
with the dreams of animals.
Out of the shining,
something other awakens.
These things happen so easily.
Nature is crowded—
everything intent on being warm.
Who knew what damage dreams could wreak?
This furless, clawless thing created
from whatever’s wasted or not wanted in us,
we watched it arise
walking on two feet like Bear
but so weak and slow.
Bear can outrun a horse,
kill a deer with one blow.
It should have died but didn’t.
Some tenacity kept it alive
and breeding and changing
the very world around it
We all spoke the same language

until that changed, too.
Now we’re left with consequences.
Now we are the other,
everything other to this being.
We are the constant target in the crosshairs.
Now we live with the burden of being seen,
living into our observed death.
Great plans never work out.
Chaos is forever seeping in.
All it takes is a crack in creation
like this to ruin everything.
Here is a wound no spell can heal.
We’ve tried them all.
Not even Spider can weave us whole again.
Spoilage creeps over the whole land.
Cherish your wildness.
It’s all we have left.
Live close to the edge.

 

**

Linda Rodriguez’s fourth Skeet Bannion mystery, Every Family Doubt, the follow-up to Plotting the Character-Driven NovelRevising the Character-Driven Novel, and her co-edited anthology, Unpapered: Writers Consider Native American Identity and Cultural Belonging, will publish in 2023. Her novels—Every Hidden FearEvery Broken TrustEvery Last Secret—and books of poetry— Dark SisterHeart’s Migration, and Skin Hunger—have received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book, Midwest Voices & Visions, and Ragdale and Macondo fellowships.

Rodriguez is past chair of AWP Indigenous Writer’s Caucus and Border Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers Collective and The Writers Place, and member of Native Writers Circle of the Americas, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, and Kansas City Cherokee Community. http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com.