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Ep. 369 Blessing the Boats by Lucille Clifton — The Stacks Book Club (Tiana Clark)
01:05:41
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- [00:00]
Tracy Thomas
Hey, listeners. I'm here to tell you about an exciting event that's happening on Sunday, May 4. It is called Stack the Shelves and it is a special pop up bookshop that the Stacks is hosting dedicated to supporting individuals and families impacted by the recent Los Angeles wildfires. We're going to have books, author signings, a kid's corner, food, music, lawn games, special guests, and more. And so now here's the part where I turn to you, the amazing Stacks community, and ask you for help. In order to make this day a safe, smashing success. We need volunteers local to Los Angeles. We need your donations, which will be tax deductible. Thanks to our partners at LA Room and Board, a fantastic nonprofit, 100% of your donations will go directly to families, including gift cards to Octavia's Bookshelf so they can continue to build their libraries. And we need your help spreading the word. Head to the snackspodcast.com shelves to get all the details. Again, that is the snacks podcast.com shelves.
- [01:05]
Tiana Clark
I think there's a way in which her poems just remind me of like an auntie at the kitchen table. It's giving auntie energy, big auntie energy, which if you know the aunt you go to for wisdom and for laughter, there's always a knife moment where like you think you're safe and then she just, she gets you and you're like, whoa. That just really like kind of cut through through me in a very clear way. But there's a clarity. There's like a. There's crystalline clarity to her work.
- [01:31]
Tracy Thomas
Welcome to the Stat, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I'm your host, Tracy Thomas, and it is the Stacks Book Club Day. To wrap up National Poetry Month, we will be discussing Blessing the Boats by Lucille Clifton with our returning guest poet and essayist Tiana Clark. Today, Tiana and I discuss the brilliance of Lucille Clifton, from her ability to write a short, searing poem to encapsulating the Persona of others and finding the humor in life. We also talk about the importance of reference, references and poems. And the invitation to readers who maybe never felt like they had a home in the world of poetry. Be sure to listen to the end of today's episode to find out what our May book club pick will be. And a quick reminder. Everything we talk about on each episode of the Stacks can be found in the link in the show notes. If you love this episode, if you love this podcast, if you love supporting independent creators, head to patreon.com thestax and join our readerly community, aka the stacks pack. Or find out more of what I'm talking about when it comes to books, pop culture, sports, non fiction, everything. By subscribing to my newsletter at Tracy Thomas substack.com. by joining either of these communities, you get perks like bonus episodes, reading guides, and more. Plus, you get to know that you're making the stacks happen every single week. All right, now it is time for my conversation with Tiana Clark about Lucille Clifton's collection, Blessing the Boats. All right, everybody, it's book club. It's April, which means it is poetry Month. I am joined again by poet Tiana Clark, whose new book is called Scorched Earth. Tiana, welcome back to the snacks.
- [03:17]
Tiana Clark
Hi. Thanks for having me. Tracy, Happy to be back.
- [03:20]
Tracy Thomas
I'm so happy you're here. So, everybody, you already know this, but just in case you don't, we are talking about Blessing the Boats, which are new and selected poems from 1988 through 2000 by the Lucille Clifton. I don't know that there's such thing as a spoiler for a poetry collection, but if there is, we will spoil this book. Okay? We're going to talk about it. We're going to go into detail. You're probably safe. They're actually just poems. So it's. It's not. Not a big plot twist. We always start here for book club episodes, which is generally, what did you think of this book? And also if you've read it before, any reflections on how that maybe has changed since the last time you've read it?
- [04:05]
Tiana Clark
You know, I've been reading Lucille Clifton's work for so long, but, yeah, I think this is like the first time I've actually kind of sat down. Cause usually when I pick up her, I mean, her poems are so small, they're almost like little fortune cookies that you can kind of take with you. And so it was so great to actually kind of read through her. How do you say oeuvre? Ouh. You don't say that word.
- [04:27]
Tracy Thomas
I don't know. Oeuvre. Ooh, okay, sorry. That I'm fluent in making up how to say things.
- [04:35]
Tiana Clark
I never know how to say that word. But I think one thing that actually reading through Blessing the Boats, that I actually didn't realize it actually kind of broke my heart is the theme of, I think, childhood sexual trauma and abuse. And seeing that thread throughout and just how those memories, how she actually changed and shaped them throughout her years, that was really, really striking to me that I think I hadn't picked up before. And I actually think it's pretty masterful and brilliant and also heart rending. But I think that she is a poet that I constantly return to. I think her concision and her, like, just pure distillation, how she's able to say so much and so little.
- [05:15]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah.
- [05:16]
Tiana Clark
I pulled this quote from Elizabeth Alexander that I think sums her up perfectly. She wrote physically small poems with enormous and profound inner worlds. Do you think that's. How do you think about that?
- [05:28]
Tracy Thomas
I think. I think that's great. I mean, I'm a big. I'm a big Elizabeth Alexander fan. We actually did her memoir for book club years ago on the podcast, and I didn't know her at all, her work at all. The book is called Light of the World, and it's about the sudden death of her husband. And I think of all the book club books we've ever done, that was the most, like, pleasantly surprised and taken I was. By a book because I knew nothing about it and was just like, this is amazing. So, long story short, love that book. I think that. I think that totally nails Lucille Clifton's poems. I think, for me, I'd never read any books of her work. I'd only kind of read the poems that people talk about and know famously. The one that's like, every day something has tried to kill me, and it's failed.
- [06:18]
Tiana Clark
Yeah.
- [06:18]
Tracy Thomas
And it's failed. Like, won't you come celebrate with me? Or something. I think that's what it's called. And the thing that I knew about her, that I think I knew, I now know even more to be true, is that the voltas are volting. Okay, the voltas. And I think this is. That's the correct way to say it, but it's like the twist at the end of the poem. Yeah, it's like, poem, poem, poem, volta. Like, talking about this, talking about this, talking about this. Oh, actually, that whole time I was talking about that. In your face. Amazing. It's funny that you say that. This thread of, like, sexual abuse as a child, that never once occurred to me in reading this collection, I never picked up on that at all. I think what surprised me the most about the collection was how much religion was in this one. I mean, there's so many poems that I was like. Took a note that was just. Tiana can explain this to me later. Because I. Because in your collection, you write a lot about your relationship to religion. And so I assume that some of those probably made a lot more sense to you. Like the Lucifer poems. I was like, okay, I Just got some insight.
- [07:23]
Tiana Clark
I've got some insight.
- [07:24]
Tracy Thomas
Okay, okay. We'll do religion. We'll do religion later. But those are sort of my big. And my other big takeaway is that I feel like there were a lot of poems in this collection that I did not really, like, feel anything about, but there were a handful that I loved so much. Like, the last poem about. I think it's called, like, Heaven. Maybe. I don't know the final poem, but it's like. It's called Heaven with the Brother. I read it. Like, I read it, and then I was just. And then I started tearing up, and then I read it, like, four more times, and then I just went to sleep. Like, I just loved that poem, so. Which is to say, like, her skill, when it lands for me, it really lands. But there was a lot of stuff that I was just like. Okay.
- [08:12]
Tiana Clark
You know, it's so interesting, that poem Heaven, too, is that. I think I forgot how funny Whistle Clifton is. And that particular. You know, because it ends with the brothers, like, waiting, you know, for her in heaven. And I just love. Like, even when she was right, she was wrong.
- [08:24]
Tracy Thomas
She's wrong. I know. It just perfectly captures. I have an older brother, and it perfectly captures brother, sister, relationship, at least my experiences having a brother. And I. And I also took notes on her sense of humor and, like. And I think. I mean, we could start here, kind of. Because my sense of humor in poetry is. It's really difficult to do because there has to be an understanding of your audience and, like, who exactly you're winking and nodding to. And that has to be really specific because especially in her case, you're using so few words.
- [08:58]
Tiana Clark
Yeah.
- [08:59]
Tracy Thomas
I'm curious what you. Because you also have humor in a lot of your poems.
- [09:03]
Tiana Clark
Yeah. I think humor, levity is actually really, really hard to do. And I never try to be funny, but I. But I also think capturing your voice is just capturing who you are. And obviously, as, like, you know, the holistic human experience, you know, there's not just joy, but there's sorrow. There's also humor in the darkness. And I think that she nails that. Like, I think a great example is this is Wishes for my. For sons on page 71. You know, that's. I wish them cramps. I wish them a strange town and the last tampon. I wish them no. 7 11. Like, that it's funny. You know what I mean? Yeah, like, yeah, totally.
- [09:39]
Tracy Thomas
And actually all of these sort of period poems, the. To my last period poems to my uterus. Like, though There's a menstruation one also. Like, the. All of those ones are sort of like tongue in cheek. A little.
- [09:52]
Tiana Clark
Yeah. To start, like, to my last period. Well, girl, goodbye. Like, it's just like. But I think there's a way in which her poems just remind me of, like, an auntie at the kitchen table. You know, that there's a very colloquial ness of. I think that if you know that kind of auntie and your family, it's giving auntie energy, big auntie energy, which if you know, the aunt, you go to for wisdom and for laughter. Right. You laugh with them and you cry with them. You go for them for advice. And I feel like it's interesting that you noted the volta because her poems almost have that haiku, like, quality, or a tonka, which is like a haiku within two more lines of 77.
- [10:27]
Tracy Thomas
Oh.
- [10:27]
Tiana Clark
And so in a. In a tonka, you actually also have a volta, just like you would in a sonnet. And so she has that. Like, that twist, that turn. There's always, like, something, like, there's always a knife moment where, like, you think you're safe, and then she just. She gets you, and you're like, whoa.
- [10:41]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah.
- [10:41]
Tiana Clark
Wow, that is intense. You know, like, she just has these lines sometimes that I'm like, whoa. That just really, like, kind of cut through, through me in a very clear way. But there's a clarity. There's a. There's a crystalline clarity to her work that I really, really admire. And I actually think it's difficult. I feel like it's almost like figure skating. Like, when you see a really good figure skater, all you're seeing is them, like, easing across the ice. But you know how much, like, work.
- [11:07]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah.
- [11:07]
Tiana Clark
You know, and muscle memory is there, but there's, like, an intellect that meets the intuition in her work that seems so seamless. But I actually think it's difficult to actually write a very short poem because the economy and our attention is just. You. Such a small space to do really big things.
- [11:23]
Tracy Thomas
Can I ask you about poem length? I wanted to ask you about this last time because you have in your collection some shorter poems and then you have some longer poems, and you actually, like, write to the long poem. Like, you have a poem about the long poem. And I know you love Ross Gay, who also writes long poems. So my question is, as you're writing a poem, are you thinking, like, this is gonna be probably, like, a long one? Are you thinking, like, I need more for this? I want this to be long or I want this to be short. Or does a poem sort of come to you and sort of land? And it's like, I'm just 12 lines, like. And you just work within that. Whatever comes. Like, how much fleshing out or editing down do poems sort of require? And obviously each poem is different, but, like, in general, how does that work? And then I guess sort of a volta to this question would be, in this collection, there are some, like, poem series where it's like, 1, 2, 3, 4, and it's all on the same thing. So how did. How does she know. How does one know to do that instead of do a longer poem with, like, four big stanzas or something?
- [12:36]
Tiana Clark
Yeah, it's like the famous the chicken or the egg. You know, each poem is its own world. That's like telling you its own logic, its own rules, its own gravity. Right. But I will say, for example, I think for my. For my collection Scorched Earth, I was actively and intentionally leaning into link. Like, that was a. That was top of mind and something that I was actively thinking about. And so if anything, I was giving myself permission, which allowed for, like, when I sensed that kind of stopping, I actually kept going. But there have been a few times in my life where a poem just kind of comes out and it's small, and it just wants to be small. And, like, I'll try to write more, and it just is, like, not going. And it's just me kind of being like, oh, you just want to be a small little guy. Okay, like. Or it's editors. I had a. Actually a longer poem in the book, and then I sent it to Amy. It's Akamatotal. And she cut it. It's by tiramisu poem. She cut it at the tiramisu part. And I was like, okay, Amy, like, I will do whatever you say. Sometimes it's a really good editor. And I don't even remember the rest of that poem. Didn't need it, but an editor to come in and be like, actually, I think the poem ends here. So I say, sometimes it's the poem, sometimes it's the poet, sometimes it's the editor. Right. I think with sections, you know, I think it's a way of just organizing information, almost like chapters in a book. So sometimes with my students, when they have, like, a lot of really big content and they're pulling in lots of the world, you know, I will say, like, hey, your reader might need to have their handheld a little bit. Or how can we organize all of this information into ways that can make sense. You know, I think there's a shapeshifter series in here that's in sections, and I think it's a way to kind of organize the information or the. The. The lita poems, you know, I think, are in sections.
- [14:13]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah.
- [14:13]
Tiana Clark
Um, and for me, it's almost like facets on a diamond. We're just turning, turning. Central theme, but we're turning, turning, turning. So each turn is a section, right? Um, yeah. And it's interesting how we encounter that, like, if it's a new poem or if it's a section of poem. At least if it's in the same poem universe, we're on the same world. We're just turning that diamond to a different angle.
- [14:31]
Tracy Thomas
Right.
- [14:32]
Tiana Clark
There's so many poems I want to talk about. I hope we get to so many.
- [14:34]
Tracy Thomas
Okay, yeah, let's. I mean, where do you want to start? I have. There's so many things that I want to. That are broadly about the poems, but I think we could talk about them within a lot of the poems. So if there's ones you are just dying to talk about, let's talk about them.
- [14:47]
Tiana Clark
Well, I mean, this is a horrible one, but I think. I think it's important. But on page 20, the Jasper, Texas, 1998 for James Byrd, Jr.
- [14:56]
Tracy Thomas
Okay, wait. So before we even get to the poem, this is something I want to talk about. I want to talk about how important cultural references are in poetry. Because as a kid growing up, you learn poetry in school, and you learn a lot of, like, old, dead white guys who are talking about a landscape, Right? And, like, that is what you're told is good poetry. And there's so much like, we have to figure this out. And the older I get, and the more I try to read poems, the more I realize the poems I like the most are the poems that are referencing things that I, too, understand where they feel like a cultural conversation. I personally am less interested in your emotional truth, and I'm more interested in you telling me about a thing. And I felt like that so much in reading this book, when I would catch a reference, for example, obviously this one, the one on the next page, Alabama 9, 1563, the poem Lorena, I was like, oh, I know what this is. But I imagine that a male or a Gen Z or maybe a Gen Alpha would read Lorena and have no clue. Clue that they were missing the word Bobbit or even who Lorena Bobbitt was. And so I was thinking a lot about that in these poems that there are kind of Back to the auntie thing. There are jokes and cultural references that if you don't understand them, the poems just, like, could be a total miss for you. Or maybe not a total miss, but just not as fully exciting.
- [16:25]
Tiana Clark
Yeah. Oh, man. I have so many thoughts about this. So in my first book, I wrote a poem after Rihanna, and I was inspired because I saw Hanif Abdoukarib write a poem after Carly Rae Jepsen, and I was like, I want to write about pop culture. And I wrote this errastic poem called bbhmm.
- [16:43]
Tracy Thomas
What does that mean?
- [16:45]
Tiana Clark
Oh, a craftic poem is a poem off of. Traditionally, it's a poem off of a piece of art. Okay. So I think the famous example is John Keats, Ode to a Grecian Urn. And then a modern example. I was wanting to do a modern take on this really old tradition of Ekran called a crastic poetry. Comes from the. The Greek speak out, and it's like you're voicing the painting to make a static image sing. But I wanted to. I was like, well, what's my version of something that's speaking to me? And it was bitch butter, have my money, Kind of what you're saying. This is my world reflecting back to me. And I was really interested in seeing this black woman in a role of retribution. And in grad school, one of my mentors was like, tiana, you shouldn't do a pop culture reference because you don't want to timestamp in your poetry. Don't you? Don't you care about mastery? Don't you care about legacy? And I just did a book tour event where Ocean Vong was in conversation with me, and he said something. We were having the same exact conversation. He said something I've been thinking about ever since. And he goes, why are we so obsessed with things that can last forever? The things that last forever are so destructive to our world. He's like, actually, the things that are beautiful are the things that are ephemeral. A sunset, a butterfly. And I was like. I was like, I wish I had that response. Grad school.
- [17:52]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah.
- [17:53]
Tiana Clark
I think this goes to your point, though, of whatever writer you are, you are pulling in and reflecting the world around you and for your readers, like it would for think of Shakespeare Shoster. You had to have your teachers explain that to you or your teachers emboldened you to do some research. I mean, I had. I had to reconfront myself with the myth of Leda and the swan. I had kind of known about it. I was like, let Me, go back and make sure I understand all the beats. And let me go. I'm gonna read the poems. Let me go research the lead a myth, go back to the poems and see what else they have to say to me. And, like, sometimes poems require extra work. Extra, like, work off the page. And that's always that question of writing, of, like, how much work do you want your writer to do? But I also am here to say, like, if we had to look up stuff for the old dead white guys, we can look up stuff for the black poets, you know? Right.
- [18:38]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah. And I think, like, I mean, we talked about audience a little bit last time, and everyone listening knows I'm obsessed with it. But I do think, and I guess I should say one of the things that I'm also obsessed with is hosting, which should come as no surprise since I host a podcast. But one of my favorite books is this book called the Art of Gathering by Priya Parker. And it's all about hosting events, gatherings, and what a successful gathering looks like. And I was thinking about this idea when it comes to these poems, because one of the things Priya talks about in her book is that any good gathering should have an exclusive guest list. Right. That there is some intention on who is invited in and who is kept out. Not necessarily to be bitchy or be like, you don't belong at my party, but let's say you're having a baby shower and you want the baby shower to be about, you know, women imparting wisdom to other women, then maybe the baby's father's not going to be there and the men in the family aren't going to be there. Or maybe your baby shower is about welcoming your child into their new family so all of your friends and family are invited and, like. And people that are more, you know, co workers might not be, and that there's some intention about who is part of the gathering. And I think with these poems that are specific and based in cultural historical references, you get that.
- [20:04]
Tiana Clark
Yeah.
- [20:04]
Tracy Thomas
Like, yes, you can research and you can be invited into this moment, but for some people, it's just going to be a click. No one has to say. No one had to tell me that Alabama, 1959, 1563, before I read any more was about anything other than that bombing, because I know that date, right. And some people might have had to get a little deeper and say, oh, Cynthia, Cynthia and Carol. And be like, oh, okay, those names sound familiar. And some people might have gotten all the way to the end and had to go back but that there is some sort of, like. I mean, it's sort of, won't you come celebrate with me? Like, it's like this invitation from her to her readers of, like, you're in. Come on in. Let's talk about these things that we know and we feel.
- [20:47]
Tiana Clark
Yeah. I think this directly corresponds to her poem on 38. Why some people be mad at me sometimes.
- [20:53]
Tracy Thomas
Oh, my God, yes.
- [20:54]
Tiana Clark
Can I read this? It's very short. Because I think this goes to this conversation. They ask me to remember, but they want me to remember their memories, and I keep on remembering mine. And I feel like that's what her whole. This whole book is about.
- [21:08]
Tracy Thomas
Right.
- [21:08]
Tiana Clark
And because really, this is like a snapshot into each of, you know, the books that she had written up until this year, 2000. Right. And I think. I think we have five books. But I think right now we're living in an age where people want to believe in this fiction of America that never existed. Number one, we're seeing the attack on cultural memory. We're seeing the scrubbing of black history, of trans history. And so I think this poem gets to that of, like, they're asking me remember. But, like, I actually read about this. I think that because she was a Maryland poet laureate for a long time, and There was something 250th anniversary, and they. She was. They commissioned her to write a poem, and she was, like, thinking about what poem she wanted to write and that she came up with this poem and she read it, which I was like, this is a badass move. But I think that's the thing of, like, you want me to celebrate something that didn't actually happen.
- [21:52]
Tracy Thomas
It's not my thing.
- [21:53]
Tiana Clark
Yeah.
- [21:53]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah, this is your thing.
- [21:55]
Tiana Clark
And I feel like all of these poems are what she wants to remember, what she wants to be in the historical record. She wants to talk about James Birch. She wants to talk about those four little girls that were bombed in that church because history has often either forgotten them or scrubbed them. She's pointing us back to what matters.
- [22:12]
Tracy Thomas
In her life and. And that the people who are reading her poems, that their stories and their memories are worthy of poetry.
- [22:20]
Tiana Clark
Exactly.
- [22:21]
Tracy Thomas
Right. Like that. It's like, not only am I writing this and this is what I want to remember, but this is our history, and it is beautiful and tragic and whatever enough to warrant being in a poem or a poetry collection.
- [22:35]
Tiana Clark
Yeah. It was interesting when I was. I was reading the piece in the New Yorker from Elizabeth Alexander after she died, and she was. She compared her writing to Emily Dickinson, but with the compression, but with a political consciousness that Emily Dickinson kind of didn't have, you know, at that time. And so I think, like, you know, with Emily Dickinson, intense inner, private world. But there's something about Lucille Clifton's work that it's the intensity of her world that's tied to the whole world, right? It's the personal.
- [23:00]
Tracy Thomas
There's a publicness, There's a personal, political.
- [23:02]
Tiana Clark
I like what you said, though, about the party. Because the thing about the party is, like, well, number one, what kind of party are you gonna be having? And that determines your guest list. And so I also think there's a way in which she's saying, hey, for those of you who have felt lost, forgotten, abused, broken, not seen as beautiful, come to my. This is my party.
- [23:18]
Tracy Thomas
This is our party. Yeah, for sure. Okay, I want you to read the poem you wanted to read on 20 the Jasper, Texas, 1998.
- [23:24]
Tiana Clark
I mean, it's so devastating. Okay. For Jay Bird. I am a man's head hunched in the road. I was chosen to speak by the members of my body. The arm, as it pulled away, pointed toward me. The hand opened once and was gone. Why? And why? And why should I call a white man brother? Who is the human in this place? The thing that is dragged or the dragger? What does my daughter say? The sun is a blister overhead. If I were alive, I could not bear it. The townsfolk sing We Shall Overcome while hope bleeds slowly from my mouth into the dirt that covers us all. I am done with this dust. I am done. I mean, it's so good. I mean, number one, the role of Persona. I don't do a lot of Persona poems. I've only done a few. But I think she's an expert at.
- [24:18]
Tracy Thomas
It because she does so many, you.
- [24:21]
Tiana Clark
Know, to do the role of Persona, and especially with something like this, number one, can be really dangerous. Right? But the way that she does it, I think, is masterful. And, I mean, I hope people still remember this. I hope Gen Z. If they don't, I hope that it encourages them to go look up what happened. I mean, it's absolutely horrific. But I think there's certain things that she's doing in the poems of just like, you know, I was chosen to speak by the members of my body. I think I. We looked up the case, and the police officers found, like, over 80 parts of his body strewn in that three miles. You know what I mean? But then even just have that one line like, I'm chosen to speak, you Know, by the members of my body. And even though I think what she does with questions here. Right. Like, sometimes a question can do more work in a poem than actually, like, saying the thing. So they're like, who is the human in this place?
- [25:10]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah.
- [25:10]
Tiana Clark
You know, obviously, these violent white supremacist perpetrators were treating this man like an animal. Right. And then at the end, though, there's a transference that's happening. Right. So it's like, who is human here? But then at the end of the poem, into the dirt that covers us all. Like, at the end, we're all going.
- [25:28]
Tracy Thomas
In or on, I guess.
- [25:30]
Tiana Clark
Yeah.
- [25:31]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah.
- [25:32]
Tiana Clark
And also, I think this moment that kind of devastates me. If I were alive, I could not bear it. You know, there's. We don't know how long he lived through that experience or when he died. But I think, just like, I think for me, the. One of the major points of a poem is a bridge of empathy and understanding. It brings us to that moment of a shared sorrow, shared grief. But we come away, like, with, I hope, a type of empathy or tenderness or understanding about the world. And I think this poem that reminds me of this tragedy that happened and these. Like that why and why and why, like, we're still asking that now, right? Aren't we?
- [26:07]
Tracy Thomas
Right. Right. Yeah. To speak to the Persona poems a little bit, because there's so many in the book. As we talked about before, my poetry coach and therapist is Jose Olivarez. And when I started reading this poetry collection, he sort of challenged me, and he was like, you should read it slowly over the course of the month, like a few a day. And we can. We can talk about some of them. And, you know, so I would read a few and then, like, send a voice memo and be like, this is what I'm thinking. That's what I'm feeling. And after I finished just yesterday or two days ago, he was saying that one of his big takeaways was how well she personifies others in her writing but still maintains her own voice like that. She is never lost in the poems. And I had not thought of it that way or really noticed it. I'd never even heard the term Persona poem until I got to the Lorena poem. And I looked it up to make sure that the reference was the reference that I thought it was. And then I saw that it was called a Persona poem. So that's definitely, like, not a thought that I would have had about. About it, like, her voice versus the taking on. But I do think that this poem While she is embodying, you know, James Byrd. Is that. Is that. It does feel like a Lucille Clifton poem. It doesn't feel like someone else's poem.
- [27:28]
Tiana Clark
Like, that's for sure what I told my students, too. Whenever you write in Persona, there's always still a ghost of the self. Right. That needs to be there. It's almost like that. Those Greek tragedies, I mean, you study the play, like, you have. You have the big play. Right. The sad or the happy. But you still know there's an actor behind that mask.
- [27:44]
Tracy Thomas
Right, Right. Yeah, that makes sense. But it seems like that is also really hard to do.
- [27:50]
Tiana Clark
Oh, very difficult to do. And that's why I think, especially in a poem like this, that's dealing with such a grieving, horrific, like, horrible, you know, act of violence. But I think that the way that she does it here is, like. It breaks my heart to even have, like, the town's foot sing. We shall overcome my hope bleed solely away from my mouth. I mean, I'm just like. I'm devastated by that. Utterly devastated.
- [28:09]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah.
- [28:09]
Tiana Clark
You know?
- [28:10]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah. I mean, I think, like, a big takeaway from the collection, just even talking about with you, but even coming into this conversation is that a lot of the things that she does are really hard, and she makes it seem really easy. Whether that's, like, humor, short poems, Persona poems, like, all these things we've talked about. I just feel like lesser poets would stumble.
- [28:31]
Tiana Clark
Oh, absolutely.
- [28:32]
Tracy Thomas
On. On so much of this. And so this collection does make clear why she is a great. Simply, even if even not knowing a ton about poems, even I was taking notes, like, short poems seem pretty hard.
- [28:45]
Tiana Clark
Yeah. And there's also a way in which I think she's bearing witness, you know, even through Persona, it's still bearing witness to what's happening while still having her tone. Right. And I also think I saw an interview or I was reading an interview where, you know, she had six children, and a lot of people were like this. You know, people always ask me why I watch Home. She's like, well, you have six kids, you know. But I think that was her mode of subtraction. Her mode of, like, pure distillation. Right. Like, getting to the heart of it really quickly.
- [29:10]
Tracy Thomas
Right. And I think that's, like, very clear in her humor, too. Her humor is very to the point. It's not. You know, some people are funny. Like, they tell a whole long thing. And then some people can just, like, cut you down in one line, and you're like, damn, that's hilarious. And she's feels like the latter for sure.
- [29:27]
Tiana Clark
Yeah. Can I look at another poem that's nearby? It's on 25. Study the masters. I loved this poem. Should I read it? This one? Yeah.
- [29:36]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah. I love when you read it. So good.
- [29:38]
Tiana Clark
Oh, thanks. Study the masters. Like my Aunt Timmy. It was her iron or one like hers that smoothed the sheets the master poet slept on. Home or hotel. What matters is he lay himself down on her handiwork and dreamed. She dreamed too. Words. Some Cherokee, some Maasai, and some huge in particular as Hope. If you'd heard her chanting as she ironed, you would understand form and line and discipline and order and America. I just was, like, going back to our conversation, I think about the traditional western canon and like, contemporary poets now and who is invited to the party and who Lucille Clifton is writing for. You know, she's writing for Aunt Timmy, right? She's writing for the people. Like, there's an invisible labor here, right? And for the people who weren't allowed to go to MFAs or weren't. Weren't able to have the privilege to study literature, to be published poets. And I like that in this. This poem, it's refocusing who. Who are the masters here, right? Obviously, there's probably a master slave dynamic, but I feel like Lucille Clifton is inversing that here, right? And also, I just love it, like, as she's singing, right? This kind of music, this. This the poetry of her body, right? You would understand form and line. Like you would understand craft, right? But it's in discipline and order. And then we have Anne, that coordinate conjunction, but then that line break and America lowercase, you know, which is one of her modes. But even to have America lowercase, like. Yeah, this is a very American way of looking at mastery, right? You know, in literature or even in work and labor. And I feel like she's putting those two things in conversation and making us think about that in a really interesting way. And I. I heard her write about that, that she wanted to make sure that, like, her poems could be read in academia. And also for the janitor. That was also. She wanted her poems to be. We talked about accessibility last time. She wanted her poems to be accessible in that way.
- [31:30]
Tracy Thomas
Okay, we're gonna take a quick break and we're gonna come right back. Imagine if edibles just made you feel good instead of too high. Consistent, mellow, and super delicious. Lumi gummies are specifically designed to make you feel good, not stoned. Whether you're looking for an end of day de stressor a midday mood boost or help getting the best sleep ever. Lume Gummies has a strain that's right for you. Microdose Gummies can be a total game changer. I love to curl up with a book and let the rest of the world melt away. And as you all know, reading is my job, but it's also my passion and it shouldn't ever feel like a chore. With Lumi Gummies, it never does. Lumi Gummies are available nationwide. Go to lumigummies.com that's L U M I gummies.com and use the code the stacks for 30 off your order. Again, that's L U M I gums.com code the stacks lumigummies.com code the stacks hey all, I wanted to tell you about Village well. It is a woman owned, community focused bookstore and cafe located in the heart of downtown Culver City. If live close to Culver city you should 1000% stop by, but if you're not in the Los Angeles area, you can buy books directly from their website shop.village well.com you can also support their podcast Village well Podcast, which interviews authors and fellow readers about the books that capture their imagination. There's a fantastic episode with friend of this pod, Jason De Leon that you should definitely check out. Village well Podcast releases new episodes every Wednesday. Wherever you listen to your podcasts, you won't want to miss it. Hey friends, it's me, Tracy. And if you love what you hear on today's episode of the Stacks or any episode of the Stacks and you want to dive deeper into the world of books with me, I've got two great ways for you to do that the Stacks Pack on Patreon and my newsletter unstacked over on Substack. Patreon is where the Stacks community really shines. We've got a Discord Monthly Book Club meetups and our year long mega reading challenge to help you push your reading goals. If you want to be part of this incredible community and I cannot overstate that, head to patreon.com thestacks now. Over on my substack I'm sharing my thoughts twice a week from what I'm reading to what's happening in the book world in pop culture and sports, and on Substack you're going to find my mini reviews, rankings, reading goals and plenty of opinions. Whether you want to subscribe for free or unlock even more with a paid subscription, you can do that by going to tracythomas.substack.com and and if you join Patreon or Substack, you are going to get a monthly bonus episode. If you want to support this black woman run independent podcast and treat yourself to some extra bookish bonus content, go to patreon.com thestacks or Tracy thomas.substack.com to join. I would love to have you. Okay, we are back. I want to make sure we leave time to do the religion poems. But I had a thought that strikes me as at one time brilliant and also the exact kind of thought that a like freshman poetry student would have and think that they like crack the code on poems. But as I was reading this collection, I decided that there's only two kinds of poems and one is a grief poem and one is a love poem. Am I a 18 year old white boy who goes to Dartmouth or what? Like that kind of thought is like so like the kind of thing that someone's like. I read three poetry collections and I feel this way, but I just felt like these in this book, it was like their grief poems or their love poems.
- [35:19]
Tiana Clark
I guess for me I don't know how to separate love from grief. So they, I, I feel like at the root of all her poems is love. And I think from that foundation of love is the grief and the sorrow. Right? Like, yeah, I don't know. I don't know how to.
- [35:35]
Tracy Thomas
So there's only one kind of poem.
- [35:36]
Tiana Clark
A love poem, but this really great quote from Jericho Brown, I'm gonna mess it up. He basically talks about like, you know, all, all poems are love poems. Don't all poems have to fall in love? Don't all political poems have to like he kind of goes in this long like I see thing of like, you know, all, all the political poems, all the love poems, all the grief poems, they're all, they're all pouring into each other. I guess it don't seem so.
- [35:58]
Tracy Thomas
I guess I could have a Pulitzer then. So I'm not a freshman at Dartmouth. I run me my Pulitzer.
- [36:04]
Tiana Clark
Yes, give it to her now, people. Give her, her flowers.
- [36:09]
Tracy Thomas
Okay. Interesting. I just, I think in this, this reading and I think also maybe in this political moment, the grief poems are all the ones I was the most drawn to. The ones that were either about her losing people in her life. Of the poems that felt like so of this moment, like Sorrow Song on, on page 39 felt so right now. White lady on page 60 felt so right now. I'll read this one because I think this one, this one to me felt like, you know, I, I think when we read Backlist things we always are thinking about, like, does this stand the test of time? And this was one where I was like, does she just write this from the grave, like, yesterday?
- [36:47]
Tiana Clark
Yeah.
- [36:48]
Tracy Thomas
Sorrow song. And I'm not nearly as good as Tiana, so just go with me, people. For the eyes of the children, the last to melt, the last to vaporize. For the lingering eyes of the children staring. The eyes of the children of Buchenwald, of Vietnam and Johannesburg. For the eyes of the children of Nagasaki. For the eyes of the children of the Middle Passage. For Cherokee eyes, Ethiopian eyes, Russian eyes, American eyes. For all that remains of the children, their eyes staring at us amazed to see the extraordinary evil in ordinary men. It's got my volta. I mean, I'm just. I'm just like, is she gonna put Gaza in? Like, I was just waiting for Gaza to be in there. Right. Like. And I also love. There's one part where she says. Where she says, for the Cherokee eyes, the Ethiopian eyes, the Russian eyes, American eyes. And that, to me, it found. Sounds like she's saying Americanized. Yeah, yeah. And that just felt like. That's the reading out loud piece. Because I love to read poems out loud.
- [37:52]
Tiana Clark
Well, even with other poem, again, she's using these subtle things with word, but like iron, but also irony. Like, the irony of, you know, she's. She does a lot of wordplay. No, I think that you're right. I think you're actually. Okay, this is where you get your Pulitzer too. Because I think there's a way in which I think maybe let's. I don't know if I believe in a poem maybe lasting forever, but I will say there is something about this poem. As if, like, every poet of their age could keep adding to this poem.
- [38:17]
Tracy Thomas
Yes.
- [38:17]
Tiana Clark
You know what I mean? And I think also what she's doing here with the eyes of, like, their eyes on its own staring at us. And then we have the seizure of this visual breath, like, being. It's complicit back to us. And then amazes the extraordinary, that modifier there, that adjective. Extraordinary, evil. And extraordinary is.
- [38:37]
Tracy Thomas
Extraordinary is truly an extraordinary word. It feels so good in the mouth. It's chewy. It's like. It's a little bit tough, but, like, extra. Like the vowel sounds. And you get that. It's like.
- [38:49]
Tiana Clark
Yeah, it's.
- [38:52]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah, I just.
- [38:53]
Tiana Clark
Extraordinary.
- [38:56]
Tracy Thomas
It's just such. And. Yeah. And you can alight. You can do, like, extraordinary or you can do extraordinary.
- [39:01]
Tiana Clark
But to have that right above ordinary men, which is such a crap word. Yeah.
- [39:07]
Tracy Thomas
Ordinary doesn't feel. It's the extra. I. I don't know. There's something. Extraordinary is like, one of my absolute favorite words. It's just so out loud. It's such a powerful word, and I feel like on the page, it doesn't really do that much. Like, when you look at extraordinary, it doesn't do a lot, but, like, it's use. It's a useful word.
- [39:25]
Tiana Clark
It's so useful. I think what strikes me in this book, again, it seems simple, but actually it's making me think. I think what fascist governments do is they make us seem like these men are like. Like you're like, what? How? It's like these are ordinary men. The most ordinary men.
- [39:39]
Tracy Thomas
The most basic. I mean.
- [39:41]
Tiana Clark
Yeah.
- [39:41]
Tracy Thomas
I think that's the one thing when I think about, like, the Trump administration that maybe by accident, I think by accident he and his administration have exposed because their whole shtick is like, we're ordinary people. They sort of have told on themselves because, like, the kinds of mistakes they make and the things that they do and the way that they say things, like, so plainly, it actually takes the air out of them. Even though I don't think George Bush or Barack Obama or Joe Biden or any of the others presidents we've had are. Are extraordinary, they at least pretended to be. And I feel like Trump and them are sort of telling on themselves by being like, oh, we're just regular degular. Our suits don't fit. Like, we just. Whatever. And I feel like, I think when we look back on this moment in history, if we're lucky. Lucky enough to do that, there will be some sort of a shift of, like, the. The men that were supposed to be extraordinary sort of told on themselves.
- [40:40]
Tiana Clark
Yeah. And they failed us horrifically. I think what's also interesting about this administration is how they're attacking the language. And it starts with the language. Right.
- [40:48]
Tracy Thomas
And they're attacking the children.
- [40:50]
Tiana Clark
And the children. Absolutely. And it's interesting because I think they are also attacking empathy. And I'm like, when did we lose sight of that? Like, if we've lost empathy as a country, then, like, we are doomed to fail. But I think that's why I love poetry so much, is that it reminds me, like, no, the power of empathy is. That's all there is.
- [41:10]
Tracy Thomas
Right, Right. Well, and I guess you could also say that, like, not only is poetry about the power of empathy, but it's also clearly about the power of language. And maybe that those two things can't really be separated.
- [41:21]
Tiana Clark
Yeah.
- [41:21]
Tracy Thomas
I mean, I don't know. Maybe you can. Because I think you can have empathy without having the language for it. Right. Like, sometimes, like, a hug can go really far or a hand hold or a gesture that is completely silent or devoid of language. But I think politically, you can't have empathy without language.
- [41:43]
Tiana Clark
Yeah.
- [41:43]
Tracy Thomas
Or like, publicly.
- [41:44]
Tiana Clark
Yeah. It's not in this book. It's in her other big book. She has another poem called Kent State, where she says, white ways are the ways of death. I always think about that a lot.
- [41:53]
Tracy Thomas
And again, Kent State, one of my obsessions. One of my historical obsessions. I know. I think. I do think, like, a lot of her references are just so in my wheelhouse that I'm like, locked. Locked in. Let's do. Let's do the religion poems.
- [42:09]
Tiana Clark
Let's go there. Okay. Let's go to the Lucifer poems. Or is that. Were those ones that you were puzzled on? Or.
- [42:13]
Tracy Thomas
I have the Eve poems. I have the Lucifer poems. And then I don't know the Myth of Leda, but there were. I felt like it. So. Okay, really quickly, before we do this. So the book is structured. It starts with the new poems that. I'm assuming those poems were not in any book previously. Those are just. They're called New Poems. Not. Because that's the name of the book.
- [42:31]
Tiana Clark
Yeah.
- [42:31]
Tracy Thomas
And those are from 2000. And then she goes back to the beginning to 1988, and then works forward in time. So the last section is 1996.
- [42:42]
Tiana Clark
Correct.
- [42:42]
Tracy Thomas
So we go from 2000, 1988, work our way back to 1996. I found that my favorite poems were mostly in 2000, 1988 and 1996. I found that the middle sections, because I sort of, like, folded down. This was. Jose recommended. Just like, marking the poems that spoke to me and just like, marking them. Don't stress. You could go back. And so I would. If I liked a poem a lot, I would read it a few times. If I didn't quite understand what's going on, I would read it a few times. And some of them I read once and was like, fold. And some of them I read, like, three times. And then I maybe took a note, but I didn't fold because I didn't feel like I like, you know, whatever. But when I went back to look, it was like multiple poems in the 2000, 1988, and 1996, and then a sprinkling in, like, 1993 or 1990. Actually, none in 1993. Not one.
- [43:36]
Tiana Clark
Not here yet. Be dragons.
- [43:38]
Tracy Thomas
Nope. From the Book of Light? No. Nothing I liked that one a lot.
- [43:42]
Tiana Clark
Well, that's what. I looked up the reference. I had to. Because I was like, I just love the line, who among us can imagine ourselves unimagined? I was just thinking about all the scrubbing of Di right now, that line.
- [43:50]
Tracy Thomas
I was like, well, it doesn't mean that I didn't think, like, there were good lines, but, like, none of the poems felt like there was. Must be folded. You know, that's. I'm trying to work new ways of doing poetry. I'm trying to, like. I feel. I do legitimately feel like Jose is my therapist because he's literally giving me, like, exercises. Like, try this when you try that when you read. And I'm. I'm trying to take it really seriously.
- [44:14]
Tiana Clark
Well, just real quick about. It seems we're talking about language, but just real quick on that. 88. So I. I looked this up. I didn't know this, but my little nerdy notes. But apparently cartographers, when they reach the limit of the known world, they allegedly mark their maps with the rubric, here be dragons.
- [44:27]
Tracy Thomas
Ooh.
- [44:28]
Tiana Clark
And so it's interesting to think about that when you go to SP because so many languages have fallen off the edge of the world into the dragon's mouth, which to me is like a. A metaphor for colonialism. Some where there be monsters whose teeth are sharp and sparkle with lost people. Lost poems. Who among us can imagine ourselves unimagined? Who among us can speak with so fragile tongue and remain proud? And there's that. I just been thinking about who among us can imagine ourselves unimagined? Especially, like, with people be. Literally their bodies being disappeared right now, you know, and trans and black people being literally disappeared from the historical record when they're trying to unimagine us. Lucille Clifton is like, absolutely not.
- [45:07]
Tracy Thomas
We'll see. Now, this would get a fold. I just needed help with this one. Like, again, this is just like, you know, I'm not saying any of the ones I didn't fold weren't great, but anyway, sorry. No, I mean, it's good. It's really good.
- [45:20]
Tiana Clark
Well, I. I did struggle with the end of, like. What does she meant by fragile? Then? I was like, oh, yeah, the white fragility, right? Humongous. Can speak so fragile tongue and remain proud. Like, how can you be so proud of yourself for what you're conquering, Right? You know what I mean?
- [45:31]
Tracy Thomas
Right?
- [45:31]
Tiana Clark
You're taking away, right? What you're disappearing. How could you. Like, they're proud what they're doing with all These deportations, they're proud about it. How could you be proud about that?
- [45:40]
Tracy Thomas
And also, like, the fragile tongue. Not just fragility, but also the sort of, like, preciousness of, like, haughty language. If you think of, like, the conquering colonialist class of the past, two of, like, you know, high tea and all of these things. Like this sort of, like, fragile disposition.
- [45:58]
Tiana Clark
Yeah.
- [45:59]
Tracy Thomas
To, like, that. There's something proud about being very pale skinned. Right. Like, to have a hat that covers your face. All of that.
- [46:05]
Tiana Clark
Yeah. But let's get to Lucifer.
- [46:08]
Tracy Thomas
Lucifer.
- [46:08]
Tiana Clark
Okay, so I did some research about this because I was a little confused at first, and I did grow up in the church, but I. I was like, what are you doing, Ms. Lucille? What are you doing? However. Okay, so Lucille means light. Lucifer means bearer of light. And so I think there's a way in which actually where Lucille is trying to merge her poetry Persona with the. With the kind of myth of Lucifer, the story of Lucifer. I think it's really interesting here because with. With Lot's wife, with Eve, with Lucifer, she's retelling. Or with Leda, she's retelling these myths through her own portal, her own. Her own experiences. There was another Lucifer poem, though, that got to what I wanted to say.
- [46:47]
Tracy Thomas
Remembering the birth of Lucifer, there's like a. There's like a stint of them whispered to Lucifer.
- [46:51]
Tiana Clark
Yeah. There's one where I think it kind of. Oh, yeah. On page 81, Lucifer speaks in its own voice, which is funny because it's like kind of her voice too. But.
- [47:00]
Tracy Thomas
And all of these poems like that lead up from that first Lucifer one to that lead up to the. These last ones, they're all sort of in this religious vein, this whole chunk. It's like this era was like a religious. The book that she pulled these from or whatever. It's like a very religious moment, it feels like, in her storytelling.
- [47:18]
Tiana Clark
But at the end of this poem, she says, or Lucifer, I guess, says, I became the Lord of snake for Adam and for Eve. I, the only Lucifer Lightbringer created out of fire. Illuminate I could. And so illuminate I did. And it's so interesting to me because that word, one illumination, but also fire, which made me think about Prometheus, right. That. That knowledge from the gods. And then what did Lucifer do? Right, the snake. He's. He's telling them, this is the. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is the knowledge. Right. But also what happens with that. It's damnation and punishment, but also Eve is now aware Eve has just as much agency. Right. And it's like, illuminate I could, and so illuminate I did. And that is, to me, the role of the poet. The role of the poet is to illuminate the love and the grief that you're talking about. The humor and the horror. Right. And so I think there's a way in which, like that bringer of light, Lucille Clifton, is also illuminating for us, not the horrors and the love of the world. Right. I just think there's something about that word illuminate being tied to that sense of knowledge that I think is kind of interesting. That's how I kind of read it. For me, Okay.
- [48:24]
Tracy Thomas
I just. I. I mean, for me, I just. That's, like, so not my knowledge base. And so a lot of these, like, it was hard to even know how to unpack them.
- [48:32]
Tiana Clark
Yeah.
- [48:33]
Tracy Thomas
I think the thing that I noticed more than anything in a lot of the religious poems was the capitalization, because there's basically no capitalization in any of the other poems for any proper nouns or line starts or after periods or anything, but, like, God capitalized or he is capitalized in these. In these poems. And I thought that was really interesting because, like, why. Why does she. Why does she choose to capitalize God and he. When she doesn't choose to capitalize, you know, her. Her dead husband's name or the capital I or the first line, like, she doesn't follow any other capitalization rules. And so I just was thinking, like, why is she doing it here? And I don't know if you have any insight into that.
- [49:13]
Tiana Clark
Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. I mean, I've often thought about her role of the lowercase I and why she chose to do that. Some people have said it was a sense of, like, humility or like, kind of like lowering oneself. But I feel so much audacity in her work, so I don't know how I feel about that. But it's interesting. I hadn't quite caught, like, on 73, she does capitalize God. Right? And Lucifer and Eve and Adam. All. All the proper nouns still remain lowercase, which was one of her, like, main modes. Words.
- [49:40]
Tracy Thomas
Right. But she capitalizes, I think he. And a few of them, too. I think I took a note on that somewhere.
- [49:45]
Tiana Clark
Yeah.
- [49:47]
Tracy Thomas
On. Okay. There's a capital H. And he. On page 46. Yes. He is wearing my grand. It's called My dream about God.
- [49:55]
Tiana Clark
I think whenever she references God, she uses the capital letters. Now, I'm noticing, because it's like God and then he. She's referring to God here. That's capitalized. So maybe there's a reference there.
- [50:03]
Tracy Thomas
Right, A reference there, I would say, above all others.
- [50:06]
Tiana Clark
Yeah.
- [50:06]
Tracy Thomas
And do you know, like, like biographically speaking, was she particularly religious? Like, was she. Do you, do you know anything about that?
- [50:13]
Tiana Clark
I've read a little bit about. I mean, I think she grew up in the church. I don't know in her years. I think that she called herself. I think she even referred to as a two headed woman. She said that she often had like. I think she sees herself as like a conjurer woman. Like she had voices speak to her. I get the sense that she definitely grew up in the church. She seems like a very like mystical, spiritual. I get a very secular, almost arcane like mysticism from her more than I get like a, like Christian ideology.
- [50:41]
Tracy Thomas
So that's what I get to. Which is why I think the cap. Because I thought it was obviously for God, because it's God and he that are capitalized. But I thought that seemed kind of antithetical to the sense that I get of her. Because I don't think that she. She doesn't strike me in the poems that she's particularly reverential to. To him or God any more that she is to history or humanity or women or you know, her aunt or whoever that is. And so I did. I think that's what tripped me up about it is like, why is she choosing to capitalize God if she doesn't have to? She's already said, I'm not, I'm not capitalizing anything. But then she's like, okay, I am capitalizing this. So it made me think maybe she was more religious devout than perhaps she seems on the page.
- [51:29]
Tiana Clark
Well, you know, I grew up in the church. I didn't go to church anymore. But I still have that reverence in me. I think I saw that old school. Like, I don't really like when people say GD around me because I saw him like, don't, don't. Like it's like a. Oh, interesting. So I'm wondering if she still had some like, old school. I want to say really quickly though, on 74, whisper to whisper to Lucifer, it starts. Lucifer's six fingers. I don't know if you know this. I looked it up. Lucille Clifton was born with extra fingers.
- [51:52]
Tracy Thomas
I don't know if you know this. So was I.
- [51:56]
Tiana Clark
Then you're like Lucille Clifton. But they. So she had her two fingers cut off.
- [52:00]
Tracy Thomas
So did I. But I still have a little nub My dad had both. I just have one.
- [52:05]
Tiana Clark
Is it called something like Polydactyl?
- [52:07]
Tracy Thomas
I don't know. I don't know. I just know it's a genetic mutation. My grandmother had it, my dad had it. I had it. But my brother doesn't and my kids don't. It's a. It's like a recessive whatever. But my kids are obsessed with mine. They're like, what is that? I'm like, it's a finger. They're like, no, it's not.
- [52:23]
Tiana Clark
They have a picture when you were born with the.
- [52:24]
Tracy Thomas
I don't think so.
- [52:25]
Tiana Clark
A little guy.
- [52:26]
Tracy Thomas
They do it right away, sort of like an umbilical cord.
- [52:28]
Tiana Clark
Yeah, but I thought when she said Lucifer's six finger, that was another way that I feel like she was merging herself with Lucifer's, you know, identity in the poem. Because obviously we know that. I don't mean. I don't know if it was Fred six fingers, but that was another hint to me. I was like, but now also, you and Lucille are connected.
- [52:44]
Tracy Thomas
I know. Another connection. Another connection. Okay, before we get out of here, because we're kind of coming to the end. So sad. I want to talk about the title poem, Blessing the boat at St. Mary's will you read it for us?
- [52:57]
Tiana Clark
Yes. What page is it on?
- [52:58]
Tracy Thomas
It's on page 82.
- [53:00]
Tiana Clark
Blessing the boats at St. Mary's May the tide that is entering even now the lip of our understanding Carry you out beyond the face of fear. May you kiss the wind, then turn from it, certain that it will love your back. May you open your eyes to water, Water waving forever. And may you in your innocence Sail through this to that.
- [53:27]
Tracy Thomas
Okay, what do you love about it?
- [53:29]
Tiana Clark
Talk to me. Okay.
- [53:33]
Tracy Thomas
Well.
- [53:33]
Tiana Clark
Okay. I did some research. Poetry in her time. So she taught at St. Mary's College of Maryland for a very long time.
- [53:39]
Tracy Thomas
This is like a graduation poem.
- [53:41]
Tiana Clark
And so she did read it at commencement. And so apparently, I guess, in Maryland, they have a scene called Blessing of the Fleet. And it's like honoring some English ancestors that came over here or whatever. But I love that she's kind of taking that ritual of the blessing of, you know, that fleet of the boats. And the boat is now a metaphor, right? It's taking from this historical event, but for our own lives. Right. The journeys that we all take in our lives. And I just. I also love that. That. So it's made the tide and made the wind, these really uncontrollable forces. That's what she's blessing. She's blessing the Kind of like uncontrollable forces that we actually have no control over. But she's. The blessing is I hope that they will love your back like wherever those things are pushing you. Right. Like you are now the boat. You are now the one being pushed out into whatever journey is ahead of you. And I love this, this line break of like water, water wavering and again all that beautiful alliteration with the music there. And then again it ends abstractly but I love it of like may you and your innocence sail through this to that like again it's so simple but it's. She executes it and such to me a masterful way of like it's vague but we know exactly what she's. Or we can all substitute like a Mad libs of whatever journey in our life of like you know, that. That difficulty. Next difficulty that, that you know, graduation to a new career, wedding, babies. You know, there's so many things that you could like plug in there like a life. Mad Libs, right?
- [55:01]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah. Yeah. It definitely feels like a all purpose poem in some ways. Like that you could turn to it at any time in your life when you felt like like you or someone, you know, was like embarking on something, anything. I love, I love the May, the May, the whatever. This is like again such a random reference. But I think that's the thing that's cool about poetry is like any random reference that pops into your head when you read a poem. Like you could make it work kind of thing in a way that like in non fiction it's sort of like okay, we're not talking about that. But one of my favorite musicals is Fiddler on the Roof and they do the Sabbath prayer and it's, you know, may the Lord protect and defend you. And as soon as I started this poem, I just wrote down a prayer. Like it just feels like such a prayer.
- [55:49]
Tiana Clark
Yeah.
- [55:49]
Tracy Thomas
Because I mean obviously we know because it's blessing. But I feel like a prayer is slightly different than a blessing. Right. Like a blessing is. I'm, I'm. I'm. I'm saying this is so Right. But then when you say may, that's sort of asking. And I feel like a prayer is more of a request.
- [56:06]
Tiana Clark
Yeah.
- [56:07]
Tracy Thomas
And so I feel like, like there's some sort of authority and a blessing. But the way that it, this poem is written, it also feels like she's, she's hoping this for, for her, for her blessed or like she's praying for this or asking for this.
- [56:21]
Tiana Clark
Yeah. There's just like a mode of supplication.
- [56:23]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah, like some. Like a little bit of humbleness to the. To this. And I think so. I. I really like that. I think may is another word that I think is really powerful.
- [56:33]
Tiana Clark
I love that. Yeah, no, I do definitely think that. That. That humility with that lowercase ness. Yeah, there's some. There's some. There's a conversation there that I think is important and.
- [56:43]
Tracy Thomas
Cause also it implies that this is. This probably like, might not happen. Like the wind at your back might not be or might capsize. Loving. Yeah, like you might not. I'm asking for this because this is not the case necessarily. You might end up with rough waters or like, you might not sail from this to that. You might get stuck in the this forever. You might not, you know, like. So I think there's also that piece of this that it feels like a humbling before something bigger. And in this case, maybe the water, the ocean, the biggest thing we've got on earth.
- [57:19]
Tiana Clark
I don't know if we want to do this before we leave, but I. The. The incest poems. I mean, it's a pretty heavy theme. Let's do it. It. Is it too heavy?
- [57:29]
Tracy Thomas
I have time. As long as you have time.
- [57:31]
Tiana Clark
Well, I just didn't notice it. And then when I reread it, it completely impacted me. I just. Just want to give a big content warning though, because I feel like it's poem. So on page 15, there's actually a whole series here I want to hit. So. The moon child.
- [57:47]
Tracy Thomas
Oh, I. I folded that one down.
- [57:49]
Tiana Clark
I mean, this broke my heart. Right? You know, but I didn't understand at first. But then when I reread this poem and I was just like heartbroken, you know, because it's like the girls talking about, oh, our first kisses and da, da, da. And then. Who is teaching you? How do you say? My father. It reminded me of Pecola. Right?
- [58:13]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah.
- [58:13]
Tiana Clark
From the blue sky. And then the moon is queen of everything. She rules the oceans, rivers, rain. When I'm asked whose tears these are, I always blame the moon. And the moon is this silent witness that is not helping this child. The moon is witnessing everything. She said you. You were the queen of everything. You have all this power, but you. But you know, you cannot protect me. Which is fascinating because then when we get to the poem, that's way towards the end of her life, which. Hold on, let me see if I can find it. It's about her mother. When she passes. Yeah, on page 125. What did she know? When did she Know it. Which is interesting to me. So what, this. This is from the earlier section. This is like, how many years have passed? Maybe like 20 years. Which is to say, for you writers out there, it takes a long time.
- [58:57]
Tracy Thomas
For these poems to come.
- [59:00]
Tiana Clark
But in the evenings, when it was a soft tap, tap into the room, the cold curve of the sheet arced off, the fingers sliding in, and the hard clench against the wall before and after all the cold air, cold edges, why the little girl never smiled. They are supposed to know everything, our mothers. What did she know? When did she know it? And so there's something to me about the moon child and then also the mother now, the implication of, like, mom, you're supposed to protect me. Mom, you're supposed to know, right? And then it's what did she know? When did she know? Which also is the title, right? So that just devastated me utterly. And then the shapeshifter poems, which are about, you know, the man coming into the room that's turning into a werewolf. And the werewolf, how is the werewolf changed by the moon, right? And to me, like, this moon that's changing this man that's hurting this girl. And those shapeshifter poems, like, utterly just destroyed me. And then on page 55, the last thing, like the poem at the end of the world is the poem that little girl breathes into her pillow, the one she cannot tell, the one there is no one to hear. This poem is a political poem, is a war poem, is a universal poem, but is not about these things. This poem is about one human heart. This poem is a poem at the end of the world, which is the little girl's heart wanting to be saved, wanting to be rescued from this horror, right? I don't know. I just was, like, seeing that whole theme throughout was just like. And seeing how basically her whole life she's reckoning with these things, right? And then even with that fox at the end, that fox that keeps coming.
- [60:36]
Tracy Thomas
To her door, leaving fox on 113.
- [60:38]
Tiana Clark
That I'm actually on 109, telling, telling our.
- [60:41]
Tracy Thomas
Oh, there's all these fox.
- [60:42]
Tiana Clark
Yeah, yeah, there's a bunch of them telling our stories.
- [60:44]
Tracy Thomas
And then fox, the coming fox, deer, fox, leaving.
- [60:47]
Tiana Clark
Yeah, but she says, child, I'll tell you now, it was not the animal blood I was hiding from. It was the poet in her. The poet and the terrible stories she could tell, right? Like, we all have terrible stories that we could or could not tell. And that's why it's so hard. The job of the poet, to me, is the job of the Witness.
- [61:02]
Tracy Thomas
And not just could, could and could not, like, able to, but also, like, could actually tell it well, right. Like, that she had to get to 1996 to be able to tell some of these poems, which I try to.
- [61:17]
Tiana Clark
Tell my students, because I'm like, look, I go. You all are just now beginning to write these things. For example, I never met my dad. It took me, like, probably 15 years until I ever felt like I could write that poem. Just to give yourself that time and space that the difficult content takes time to work through.
- [61:33]
Tracy Thomas
Right. I mean, as you're going through these poems, I'm like, how did I miss this theme? I did notice it in some of them, like in Moonchild, obviously, but I think I didn't quite connect it throughout. I don't know, because, like, there's obviously these poems and there's, like, the religious poems we talked about, and then there's also the, like, everyone in her life, dying poems. George Sales, which I also loved that one. Oh, my God, I love that one. That was the first poem in the book that I was like. Yes. Like, that was the first one that really, like. Like, I was like, okay, we're cooking. And so I think I just maybe kind of like, didn't. I didn't. I didn't connect them. But now I'm like, of course. This so obvious as you're.
- [62:18]
Tiana Clark
It's so striking. We get to the Lorena poem because now you have that knowledge of, like, again, an act of retribution, about an act of vengeance. And if you know the storyliner, Bobbitt, she was heavily abused.
- [62:27]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah, yeah.
- [62:28]
Tiana Clark
By her husband. Raped by her husband. And, you know, but how it was portrayed in the media of, like, this.
- [62:33]
Tracy Thomas
Hysterical crazy that she was, like, psychotic and a violent, like, nut job. And also in a lot of ways, and at the time, she was portrayed as, like, hypersexual, which is really interesting. Like, that she was like, a vixen in a lot of ways, which is, like, so crazy.
- [62:51]
Tiana Clark
Also loaded, I think, for, like, an Ecuadorian immigrant woman. Yes, yes, for sure. You know, I think what I'm noticing, too, when you're going back to that role Persona, the poems that Lucille decides to act in Persona, you can tell there's an engine of. She's one. She is feeling some kind of connection or some kind of empathy towards that character or person. Right. Lucifer, you know, Fred, her husband that passed her mom, you know, the Reina Bob. It's people that she's wanting to. Like, she feels a kinship to, or somehow, I'm Sensing.
- [63:19]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah. And I think just to kind of go back to your point, the Lorena Baba poem, I. I didn't remember this, but I'm looking now is the second to last poem, which is to say, if we're on this journey, about this sexual violence that she experienced as a child, that the. The final word on that, at least in this collection, is, chop it off, bitch. Like, you know, like, that. She's like. And this is where the story ends. It doesn't end with, like, you know, what did my mom know? Where did she know? Like, but it ends with. And then sometimes you take the kitchen. Cheers. You know, and then sometimes, you know, and I love. I just love that it ends. I thought it could fly. I love it so. Great, because that poem is funny. Okay, we have to get out of here. But before we do, can I just read the last poem? I just love it so much. I want to just get it on the official Stacks record. It's called Heaven. My brother is crouched at the edge, looking down. He has gathered a circle of cloudy friends around him, and they are watching the world. I can feel them there. I always could. I used to try to explain to him the afterlife. And he would laugh. He is laughing now, pointing toward me. She was my sister, I feel him say. Even when she was right, she was wrong. I just love it.
- [64:34]
Tiana Clark
I just love it.
- [64:35]
Tracy Thomas
I love it. I love it. I just imagine there are so many poems to me that feel difficult and confusing, and a lot of work has to go into them. And then there are so many poems that I feel like are very obvious and clear, but are not enjoyable or exciting. And this poem, to me, takes exactly zero work and also feels so, like. I just. I don't know. It feels so full and good. And I think that, to me, I think those are the poems that I love the most. The ones that are, like, there's no pretense here. Like, the words are the words. And also the words are working in a way. You would never think that these few words or these kind of words could in this way. And I just think so. So good, because you asked me last time what it was that I loved about Ellen Bass, and I think it's that same thing. The words are not. She's not trying to trick me.
- [65:24]
Tiana Clark
No.
- [65:24]
Tracy Thomas
She's not trying to make me do work too hard. She's just saying, let's just put these words together and let them do things to the reader.
- [65:32]
Tiana Clark
Yeah. There's a complex simplicity to her work. Yes. And I think that she wanted her Work to stand for again, the whole of the human experience, all of it. I think it also. I mean, quotations on the word plain. But I think there's a. There's a colloquial. She's talking to us. It feels, like, very, like, direct. I just want to say really quickly. I know it's at the end, but I read an interview about the fox poems, and a lot of people were saying what they thought it was, but she actually said, for her, it actually was a real memory. Like, it was a real thing that happened. This fox kept on showing up on her doorstep, and they kept on having these, like, moments. And so she kept writing about the fox showing up at her door. But actually, for her, she said the fox stood for desire. That, you know, to be over 60, to feel like your body. She had so many health issues. You know, her body's kidney failure and cancer, and she felt kind of. I. I think in one of the poems even says, like, unfuckable. It happened, you know, And I think she felt the sense of desire, kind of like the. The fox representing this, like, you know, distance with desire that I thought was actually, like, really striking to, like, read that and to experience the metaphor in that way.
- [66:36]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah. And we didn't even get to talk about all the, like, ailment poems, if you will.
- [66:41]
Tiana Clark
Oh, the cancer.
- [66:41]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah, the cancer.
- [66:42]
Tiana Clark
There's just so much.
- [66:43]
Tracy Thomas
The dialysis one is so good.
- [66:46]
Tiana Clark
Yeah. But I think this is such a great introduction that if you like her work or. I love what you said, if you've noticed that you liked certain poems or sections, then go get that book and you have that book waiting for you.
- [66:54]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah, I think I want to do the 1996 one and the 1988 one, because I really like those. Okay, everybody. This was a dream. Tiana. This was. I mean, not to play favorites, but I think so far, this is my favorite poetry episode we've done.
- [67:07]
Tiana Clark
Oh, my God.
- [67:08]
Tracy Thomas
Because. I don't know. For a lot of reasons, but mostly because you're fantastic and you did all the nerdy poetry research. But don't tell the others, okay? Don't tell me.
- [67:17]
Tiana Clark
Doesn't Jose listen?
- [67:18]
Tracy Thomas
Hi, Jose. I never. We've never done a poetry episode with me, but he will one day. We can't wait.
- [67:25]
Tiana Clark
Well, you have the best poetry teacher in the world.
- [67:27]
Tracy Thomas
I know. I mean, I have. I feel like I've collected so many of you now. Because I'll be coming to you with poetry questions, too.
- [67:33]
Tiana Clark
Don't worry.
- [67:35]
Tracy Thomas
Everybody else listening at home. You can get both Tiana's book or Scorched Earth and Blessing the Boats. If you didn't end up reading it, you can get it wherever you get your books. It should be said Blessing the Boats was a National Book Award winner as well. So this book, it was a banger in 2000 when it came out and it still bangs 25 years later. And then the last thing I'll say is, if you're listening now, keep listening to the end so that you can find out what our May Book club pick will be. Tiana, thank you so much for being here. Thank you Tracy and everyone else. We will see you in the Stacks. All right, y'all, that does it for us this week. Thank you so much for listening. And thank you again to Tiana Clark for joining the show. Now it's time for what you've all been waiting for, the announcement of our May Book club pick. We are going to be reading a modern classic by a living legend. We are reading Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley. It's set in 1948 Los Angeles. It is the first book in the Easy Rawling series. It has made space for black detectives in the literary world for decades to come. I cannot wait to read this with you all. We will be discussing the book on Wednesday, May 28, and you can tune in next Wednesday, May 7 to find out who our book club guest will be for this pick. If you love the podcast, if you want inside access to it, head to patreon.com the stacks to join the Stacks Pack and make sure you're subscribed to my newsletter@tracy thomas.substack.com Be sure to subscribe to the Stacks wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're listening through Apple Podcasts or Spotify, leave us a rating and a review. For more from the Stacks, follow us on social media, Hestax, Pod, on Instagram threads and TikTok, and check out our website@thestaxpodcast.com this episode of the Stacks was edited by Christian Duenas with production assistance from Wia Frillo. Our graphic designer is Robin McRite, and our theme music is from Tagirigis. The Stax is created and produced by me, Tracy Thomas.