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Morton Marcus: This is KUSP, community and listener supported radio. We serve Monterey Bay, Salinas Valley, West Santa Clara Valley, and Big Sur. KUSP is a National Public Radio member station. The Poetry Show is on tap.

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Good evening everybody, this is Mort Marcus and this is the Poetry Show, welcome again. Tonight's guest is Carol Staudacher, author in the field of mental health, a poet, and an editor. Her most recent books are, "Hypnosis for Change,"

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written and then published in 1985. And her most recent, which I'm holding in my hand is, "Beyond Grief." The latter title is the first in her three book series on the grieving process. The second book of that series is now in progress. Her poetry

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has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including the New York Quarterly, Primavera and Five Fingers Review. For 18 years, she has been an independent contractor for business corporations and

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educational publishing companies. Welcome to the show, Carol. Carol Staudacher: Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Morton Marcus: Could you speak a little louder?

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Carol Staudacher: Yes, I can. Morton Marcus: That's great. Carol Staudacher: Thank you, I'm glad to be here. Morton Marcus: Okay, wonderful. Carol, I'm going to tap down

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this wonderful Mozart music and talk to you here personally. I've known you for going on twenty years. Carol Staudacher: Oh you're going to give my age way. Morton Marcus: No, I'm not. No age, just I've known you for 20

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years. And I've known you for all these times as a person who has worked in the writing field and who has really sort of kept a low profile though many people here in Santa Cruz do know you. In fact, I went into my doctor's office today and she said, who

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is on the program tonight? And I said Carol Staudacher, she says, ah, I've heard her read, very good. And it has been a process. You've been a single parent. Carol Staudacher: Yeah.

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Morton Marcus: You have supported yourself and your child. And it has been a long process of both not only keeping yourself in money and everything, but actually continuing to be a writer under really adverse conditions as a

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poet. Carol Staudacher: It has been a long process, it really has. Morton Marcus: What are some of the things that have kept you going, what do you find in poetry itself that really keeps

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you going in that area of writing? Carol Staudacher: Well, I always say that I write, that I edit, and I write textbooks for a living. And I write poetry because I'm alive. And I think for a very long time, it was the

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kind of writing I did because I couldn't help not do it. I'd be driving down the freeway and I'm on the way to work at an educational publishing house and lo and behold, by the time I got there, I would have one or two stanzas. And I suppose it's

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almost the same as dreaming, it was an outlet that was very necessary and allowed me to make sure that my subconscious had someplace to go. Morton Marcus: Okay, I can understand that. Let's hear one

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of these poems that let's say you think best introduces you to the public. Before that, let me just say, this new book, "Beyond Grief," which is a very beautiful book indeed and has such intertitles or chapter titles as: The Characteristics

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of Grief, Personal Coping Strategies, Nurturing Techniques for Anyone Surviving the Loss of a Loved One, and finally, for those assist the- Assisting the Bereaved. Where can one get this? What bookshop?

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Carol Staudacher: That's available- it's distributed nationally, and it's available on B. Dalton's and Waldenbooks stores. Locally, it can be purchased at the Bookshop Santa Cruz I believe and at Logos.

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Morton Marcus: Okay, so there you have it and it is called, "Beyond Grief," and the publisher is looking for- Carol Staudacher: It's New Harbinger Morton Marcus: New Harbinger Publications, right?

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Carol Staudacher: Yes, they specialize in books in the self-help field, mental health books. Morton Marcus: Okay, now a poem to introduce those people who do not know you out there, and many people do. Carol Staudacher.

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Carol Staudacher: I think I'll begin with a poem that is in the first section of my poetry manuscript. The manuscript itself is called, "Living Posthumously." The first poem I'll read is:

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A RED BOOT ABANDONED IN KENTUCKY A red boot abandoned in Kentucky, a wide-brimmed straw in the heart of Georgia, three socks and a belt in New Jersey, everywhere, clothes are being discarded, and the yellow line

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down the middle of Highway 5 is the resting place for the oldest shoe in history. That same loss continues at night in small rooms. The woman bequeathing parts of herself, the child dreaming away the tenderness he was born with, the man excising

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himself with precision, knowing that all things that signify mother: ocean, moon, earth, he can get lost in or on. And all of us find ourselves smaller in mourning, diminished inside, the ticking gone awry. Skin slackened by its quick

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transition, its giving away of what it held and knew was real. Better to give flight to odd garments in daylight, not look back at the woman's sweater, curled in the road like a pale vital organ, nor the blue sleeve beating the ground, a loose

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artery gone mad. Keep driving. When we get there, we can tell them how far we have come, how we've arrived so safely. Morton Marcus: How would you say that really illustrated, you know, your poetry? What are the concerns, thematic concerns, for

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example? Carol Staudacher: Well, a lot of my poetry and I think a lot of any poet's poetry is about loss. And this particular poem is about the loss that we experience as a result of our

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own denial of denying that which is inherent in us. Morton Marcus: The losses obviously have a lot to do with your grieving; writing, I take it also? Carol Staudacher: Yes, there really is a relationship

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between, "Beyond Grief," and the poetry manuscript in that writing poetry allows a poet, I think, to put back what is missing, to look for what is not there, and perhaps to create the place in which the lost can be found.

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Morton Marcus: That's great. That's a great title for a book out, "Where the lost can be found." Carol Staudacher: I'll remember that. Morton Marcus: Next poem.

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Carol Staudacher: I think I'd like to read now the title poem of the book, "Living Posthumously," and before I do, along the lines of what we've talked about in terms of putting back what's missing or looking for what's lost, I'd like to try

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to recall originally the epigraph of this poem, which I dropped, and it will help explain the work a little bit and possibly explain the theme of the book. There was a quote by a man who was writing about Emily Dickinson's worth, who

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said the self has been endowed with the qualities, which are the marks of its grandeur and high aspirations. And these are the very qualities through which the self is systematically debased. It's not the feat that makes the human tragic. It is

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instead, and more especially, that we were created with the instinctive awareness of what it would have meant to win. "Living Posthumously," I'd like to say before I began to read this that the first part of the poem deals with that theme I've

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just stated, which could be summarized in an Emily Dickinson line, "Life is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it." And the second part of the poem is what a writer does about that. Excuse me.

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LIVING POSTHUMOUSLY, ONE. The cock in the yard announces an awakening of feathers, day stumbles forward under its own bright weight. And so we live posthumously, knowing what it would have been like to live,

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and we wince at the facts that prove we live. We lament. Oh, Lord, the angel, too tired to fly, sweats on the hillside. We learned the sky is a blue vague word that spells out, "wait," and it is into that same sky the angel will eventually ascend. We

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notice, when we act as if we are looking for something, a child will often come along to help us find it. Children have such faith that what is lost can be found. And it is that awful noticing, that massacre in the vein that lets us know there

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will be no metaphor truer than the fact as it is, as it just plain is. Neruda knew it when he wrote, "The blood of the children flowed out into the streets like the blood of the children." So we continue where we do not dignify a single act,

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nor recognize one face, go on in seasons that have nothing to do with us, that do not give us back to ourselves in time. TWO. The hatch is hammered shut, eyes adjust to the dark, frightened

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creatures crawl out from the corners for translation or redemption or both. Even the ones who huddled for escape learn for their own quick sake, it isn't worth a try. The mind's long slide down is ecstasy, an ancient child's pure and

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boundless dream before his birth. The huge, warm, red animal hunches, roots in the cerebrum, groans into the mass, then rears back on the great white paper oblivion, singing to save his soul once upon a time. Oh god, oh god, once upon a

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time, such a time. Morton Marcus: So that is the creative act, I take it? That salvation? Carol Staudacher: Yes.

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Morton Marcus: We're all big red animals. This sounds like people, poets who have been on the beach too much or something. That's great. I like the way you get the universe in there, especially nature that has nothing to do with human beings,

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you know, and we try to anthropomorphize so many things and give it human qualities so that we will find the meaning in nature. But the fact that poets have known down through times and in many cultures is that really, you talk to the birds,

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the birds are not talking to you. And they don't understand what you're saying, and you don't understand what they're saying. And you just sort of just slip that right into the poem and just move on to this great alien universe that only

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our singing can make something out of. Carol Staudacher: That's true, more brilliantly said than I could have. Morton Marcus: Oh, no, your poems said it much more

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beautifully than that little praising. Another one. Carol Staudacher: Let's see. Morton Marcus: And, you know, do introduce them and feel free to introduce them.

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Carol Staudacher: I think I'll stay and do a section at a time. The book has four sections and one section is very small. So that was the opening poem. I write a lot about death and this was an unusual poem for me to write because it was one that

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really, it was a spontaneous perception of that which makes us feel alive. Somebody said, I think it was Marge Piercy, that the only time you're really sure that you're doing the right thing, is when you're helping something else that's alive.

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DECIPHERING It's easy to write about death, the dark abyss we can guess at with no one to disprove us. But the uncertain hollow of daylight evades reason, the disturbing nerve of life we cannot

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decipher. Its puzzling compassion for self wears thin too soon, then there he is. I see him in the San Joaquin heat on the highway. A frantic mongrel dog, his whole head lodged helplessly in a milk carton, zigzagging wild and

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blind in the traffic. He rages across four lanes starts back again aided only by the magic of chance or a god. And then there I am dancing forward on my toes like a boxer, trying to stay calm on the blistering asphalt looking over my shoulder to

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cover my tail. It's just the two of us tagging back and forth in the midday traffic. I grab and miss, grab and miss as the wheels cut hotter and closer each time, sweat streams from my breast to my waistband, August sun wears us down equally while

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I weave and I weaken, the dog circles slowly on trembling legs into the heavy mesh of disaster. Crazily, I risk it. In one maniacal moment I plunge past the oncoming caddy, rip the carton from a steaming wilted head, freed the mongrel reals

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once, missing the screech of the semi, then lunges across the open field, disappearing unharmed in the distance. Me, panting, exhausted, aware now of stares from curious passengers checking out the incongruous lady dressed as if for lunch at

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the club, heaving against the cyclone fence at the height of sunlight and the middle of aging and oh, exhilarated, alive, damn, this is living, being certain, if only for a second, that the code can be broken and is.

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Morton Marcus: Great. Now we've been talking about narrative poems on the show for on and off for the last several months, that was a dilly. Carol Staudacher: Well, thank you.

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Morton Marcus: And it reaches, it does. It certainly tells the story and certainly as a narrative, but its impulse is totally lyrical, so it twines around both of those things. And it makes it, you know, as a poem without going out of its way to

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be narrative. I mean, that was the experience. I take it that was true? Carol Staudacher: Yes, you know, it's interesting that you mentioned the twining of those two processes. This was the most

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difficult poem I've written in two years. And it should, I thought from my perspective, it should have been the easiest, because it simply was a story, but it was very, very difficult to do because I couldn't get the language right.

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Morton Marcus: Well, you did. Carol Staudacher: I think I did. Morton Marcus: I mean, it was you know, I it might have been two years in the working. But oh, you said it was the most

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difficult in two years? Carol Staudacher: It was written probably 32 times. There was too much in it. Morton Marcus: I think that's what happens, since it was a

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real experience. What do you cut out? What do you keep? And how do you take the very mundane quality of the language you want to use to describe the experience let's say in a short story or a piece of prose, and make it into poetry, make it so

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that that electricity is there with every word and every phrase. And it is very difficult. I'm actually- I did the same thing. I saved a cat and I've read the poem, and it's been published, but I've never put it in a book. It was in a

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manuscript of divorce poems I was writing and one day coming from Watsonville, this cat tottered out on the freeway, and I did the same thing. And again, it was extremely hard to write the poem itself because it was so real and it was- I mean, why

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I did it, again as you did, your life was in your own hands. And yet, you are absolutely forced to do this, the saving, you weren't even in control of your reason anymore. And that's- that beautiful last lines that you have there about the

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exhilaration in which we can feel the exhilaration in your very syntax, you know, which is great. It is that feeling, it is wonderful, I'm glad Marge said that. Marge and I have come to- [unintelligible].

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Carol Staudacher: Very seldom does it happen. Morton Marcus: But it's good to hear that she said that because she and I have come to the parting of the ways a few years ago, that gives me confidence.

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Carol Staudacher: She has a poem about saving a seagull that caught a hook in its mouth. And I remember why is that never- "Why is it that never anything seems so right," was her last line, so. I could progress to the two poems or- the second

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section of this book is called, "Songs for Susan," and there are two poems written for my daughter. As you mentioned, I am a single parent and my daughter and I grew up together. In fact, I think the process is ongoing. She probably grew up faster than

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I did and both of the poems that are in this book are poems of farewell. The first one was written to her when she went away to college, and the second when she married. It was particularly difficult for us to say goodbye because she was

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going to the other side of the United States. She was going to live in North Carolina and I was staying on the West Coast. And the morning she left was very, very hard for both of us. And I wrote this poem about two weeks later when I was trying to

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recuperate on the beach in Oregon. This morning, married, you sang again. The orchard whines in the wind its loss of fruit. The long crow taunts the sky, seals bark on their scaly, miserable island, and I lower myself

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against a West Coast cliff, maneuver into the sand until it molds to my body. Singing, that's how I think of you. Singing into the kitchen to shake me loose from another mall paralysis of heart, motioning me to join you for the chorus. Or

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singing away your occasional fear, straining your voice to comical feats in front of the bathroom mirror. Even as a baby you woke up singing, hands clapping to a spontaneous song. One Christmas Eve when our car collapsed on the frozen highway,

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you sang your way through seventeen verses neither of us knew. Your five year old profile faint against the windshield, there would be no terror in your song. This morning, newly married, you sang again from behind the bedroom door. It was

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a silly verse from childhood you wanted me to hear, but the voice had changed. Time itself had changed what you might become to what you are. And before dawn, the small crowded car carried off the two of you from this coast to the other, him tall and

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cool and puzzled by his bride. Skeletons suspended in this sea hold their chests, rocking their bones up to the foam. A gull lifts a stranded fish from the crib of rock and I take up my book at the edge of the singular horizon. Yes, I take up my book

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and begin the formal missing. But I don't know what is on these pages, no matter how many times I read them, no matter how hard I try, I only wonder if you're singing now and why. Morton Marcus: Now, you're gonna read both of the poems for your

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daughter or just that one? Carol Staudacher: I think I'll just read that one. They're very similar and oddly enough, they both have to do with singing. Morton Marcus: I'm just looking at the needles here.

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Carol Staudacher: The third section of the book is called, "The Charwoman's Journal," and I could read one- Morton Marcus: You might as well start into it because we'll be coming to the half hour, so now, I make some announcements we

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still have, we'll still have twenty-five minutes to go but you'll have to get both sections in there, so- We can start on section three. Now, what is different about this section? Carol Staudacher: "The Charwoman's Journal," has an odd

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history actually. I hadn't written poems for I think about nine months, and I had a fairly trying and taxing eight days, taking care of a person who was not mentally alert, was mentally ill and I remember thinking during that period of time that

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I'd never write another poem. For some reason I thought, well, this is it. My soul's dead and I'm never going to write another poem. And I got in the car and drove home ten hours later, I wrote all of these poems that are in this section.

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Morton Marcus: Oh, wow. Carol Staudacher: Called- of course that was the the rough draft of them all, but they just came out in one sort of continuous whatever. I don't quite know what to call it.

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Later I was able to go back and edit most of them so that I was pleased with them and a few I threw away. They didn't quite ever make it to the light, but I'll just read one of them. The one that opens this section, it's called, "The Charwoman's

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Journal," the section itself, and the first poem is called: REMEMBERING THE RAG MAN I have cleaned this room bare, all gone but the hollow knocking. Three windows frame three flashes of sunlight. Under

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the eaves, the darkest birds huddled to nest here in this low place. I remember the rag man stopping me, small, young, and singing by the goat shed. I asked him, "If you could see love, what would it look like?" And he answered by pulling his

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dirty pockets inside out, flashing his mouth of old and missing teeth. On this floor a square of yellow warmth, flat and smooth to the touch, light and shadow rearrange themselves gently. The pungence of pine solution climbs to my hair,

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above my hair, thick at the waist of sorrow, I scrub the stone. Morton Marcus: Wow, what a difference that is. I mean, even in language, it also is extremely suggestive of- What it

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was doing to me was it was suggestive almost of European painting scenes, 18th century paintings, Holland paintings, Vermeers, just those wonderful little moments when servants meet rag man from the outside, sunlight streaming through

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windows. And the language was almost ballad-like at times, and even the answer that he gives when he pulls out his pocket. I'd like to hear more of them. Carol Staudacher: Shall I do one more from that section or?

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Morton Marcus: Sure, yes, we don't have to necessarily break at 9:30 either. Do they all have that ballad-like quality? Carol Staudacher: I have never thought of them as having a ballad-like quality but I'd be interested to hear a few. I'm

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pleased you think that. Morton Marcus: A good reason to read several more. Carol Staudacher: Yes, and I'm interested to see if that seems to carry through for you.

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OTHER THINGS RISE UP Once I saw the rag man kneeling forward, moving his thin hands over the ground, placing palms down, pressing the surface gently as if he were trying to keep weeds from pushing out of

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the earth. He said he was feeling for water, that it could be found. Finally the miracle shot from his sprouted stick, splashed in our faces. From my black window, I watched that same place, waiting to see other things rise up: marsh grass, a

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chinaberry tree, my young slim mother from her grave, but none did. Only one long, transparent cloud floated under the moon like steam. His selection was one of luck, of misfortune. Morton Marcus: These are very strange poems, Carol. They are,

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very different from the others. Though that also has it too, I think. The ballad is not, you know, the ballad rhythm is not there with the beats and everything like that but there is a selection of imagery and tone that's very, to me, it

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strikes me as very ballad-like. Thinking of Sir Patrick Spens and all that. Is someone going to get that? It looks like I'm- how am I going to get that? Carol Staudacher: I'll sing!

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Morton Marcus: This is a perfect time for a break, we will be right back with these very wonderful poems by Carol Staudacher. Hello again, this is the Poetry Show and this is Mort Marcus

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with some announcements. First of all, something that Carol has been very much involved with the last several years. This year is the third National Poetry Competition of the Santa Cruz, Monterey local of the National Writers Union. The judge will be

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Denise Levertov, first prize is $150, second prize is $100, and third prize is $50. The following poems are ineligible: translations, any published poem including self-publication, any poem which has received an award before this. Competition will

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extend through July 31st, that's the cutoff date. You must send your poems by July 31st with a stamped self-addressod- dressed envelope to Santa Cruz, Monterey local, NWU, post office box 2409. That's Post Office Box 2409, Aptos, California

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95001-2409. That's Aptos, California 95001-2409. Let me do that again. You're going to send your poems, which is no poem should exceed three pages, and Carol, how many- okay $3 per poem for your entrance fee. No poem should exceed three pages

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and you can send in any number of poems that you want, but each poem must be submitted in triplicate, and only a cover page should have the author's name, address, phone number, and the list of the poems' title. The poems themselves should not

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have the name of the poet on it, right? Carol Staudacher: It's an anonymous competition. Morton Marcus: Right and again, Denise Levertov will judge it. And send those poems, as many as you want with $3 each, each in

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triplicate, to the Santa Cruz-Monterey local NWU, that's National Writers Union. I just [unintelligible]. Post office box 2409, post office box 2409, Aptos, California 95001-2409. Now it's a very worthwhile contest. There have been some

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wonderful winners; last year's winner was Rebecca Ciphely of Bloomfield, New Mexico, so do keep that in mind. I would also like to announce the- Maria Gitin who was on the show around a month ago is giving a poetry weekend on August 15th and 16th.

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Registration will be 9:30 in the morning. There'll be registration, breakfast, poetry exercises, a picnic, and poetry conversation, then poetry exercises again, sharing of your poetry, and wine and hors d'oeuvres at the end of the day.

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That will more or less be repeated on Sunday, so this is August 15th and 16th with Maria Gitin who, if you heard her, was very, very impressive, both as a speaker and as a poet, and the registration fee is $125 and to reserve your space, since it is

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a limited enrollment, send $25 which is non-refundable to Maria Gitin, that's Gitin, 287 Lavida Road, 287 Lavida Road, Aptos, California 9503 or for further information, call 722-8535, 722-8535 area code 408. Let us now get back to Carol Staudacher

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and listen to some of these amazing poems, which she wrote after not having written for eight months, and then just wrote a series of them for- just right off the bat. And I was particularly very interested because they reminded me of

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those old English ballads, like "The Three Ravens," or "Sir Patrick Spens," or "Lord Randal, My Son," just they have a wonderful mysterious quality and implied narrative quality, and the imagery and the way that people are talking to each other

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share that same quality of ballad to me, you know. Carol has never heard this before, never even had it in mind, so be aware of that. Carol. Carol Staudacher: Well, since I think you used the word strange,

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I'm going to read the strangest of that section, and then I'll go on to something a little less strange. This is still the charwoman speaking. LIKE THE HAWK, begins with the epigraph by Emily Dickinson: "It

00:34:03.540 - 00:34:18.550

is true that the unknown is the largest need of the intellect, though for it, no one thinks to thank God." The rag man pulled away in his cart, still shaking his head at my questions. His black shoulders hunched into his

00:34:18.550 - 00:34:37.450

heart, my hope rattled away over the ruts. Slowly pieces of breath collected themselves. Slowly, the unknown circled like a hawk. A boat of shade slipped down low and cool over the eucalyptus, lines of light like translucent earthworms threaded

00:34:37.450 - 00:34:59.950

the soil. Suddenly, the whole valley was an inverted cup, smelling of ripe melon. Me, a clapper, running the radius. [Pardon me] My gates, swinging me easily through center, I yelled out, "bell, bell bell!" I hear that voice now in this bare

00:34:59.950 - 00:35:20.420

building. When I switch off the last light, it carries me home. Morton Marcus: Hm, again very haunting, very, very haunting stuff. I could go into a huge exegesis, but I won't. I'll do it after the show. I will let the mystery suffuse the

00:35:20.420 - 00:35:35.960

imagination of the reader. But again, this quality is very definitely there. And it's not only the ballad form, it's those crazy Jane poems of Yeates', "Crazy Jane, Crazy Jane meets th bishop" and all that. There, th y share this quality; of cour

00:35:35.960 - 00:35:50.150

e Yeates is sharing the old ball d form right there. But they ne d to share something with tha . They're precious little thing . I mean, they came out that wa , in a rush, for a reason. Y u know, and they obviously wou d just sort of, it's like mag

00:35:50.150 - 00:36:04.730

a just finding its way out of t e earth and its way towards t e light. And that' Carol Staudacher: I think that if they were also propelled by that degree of fear that, not an enormous degree of fear, but

00:36:04.730 - 00:36:17.960

there was that little bit that wondered if I would write another poem. And I thought, well, since it's here, I better really make the best of it. Usually, I want to say that a poem is a very long process for me and I don't sit down and

00:36:17.960 - 00:36:37.790

rattle them off at stoplights, and in diners and things. It takes a long time for me to feel that a poem is finished. And I always know how one's going to begin, but I'm never quite sure how it's going to end up. I think I'll read one more from

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that section and then go on to the last section of the manuscript. THIS IS THE LONG WAY HOME This is the long way home, the place where the cold shrinks

00:36:49.670 - 00:37:09.320

your heart, and your skin tenses as if to take a photograph of misery. This is where earth reduces to one brilliant blade of grass and sky loops down onc on a simple pond. Beyond th marsh, the tide becomes one wa , and ragweed removes all sen

00:37:09.320 - 00:37:28.820

e from air. Those missing thin s surface in a place where t e swan belongs to a flock, t e grass to a meadow, and the sky is cluttered with rain or clouds or leaves. But now you must d al with a singular business. Y ur story differing only sligh

00:37:29.000 - 00:37:45.860

ly from the tale of your 90 y ar old mother who walks into he village for bread each morni g, then back again for fish, nd later still back again for sa t. This keeps her strong, t is getting, and using, and gett ng again. What does she care ab

00:37:45.860 - 00:38:03.050

ut those who behave as if there is a space between the sun nd sunlight? Who reassem le themselves each morning think ng they are faced with a fut re which will actually arrive on time like a train? When y ur mother walks to the village,

00:38:03.050 - 00:38:18.290

go with her, study her as he selects bread from the bak r. Look at the way the loaf co es home to her hands, learn how it is the only loaf in the wor Morton Marcus: Now, let me just say one more thing about these

00:38:18.360 - 00:38:35.390

poems. One of the things that gives them this aura of being in the old ballad tradition is the imagery is all non-industrial, non technological. And the mother here who goes into the village, and who is obviously buying bread, the rag man, the

00:38:35.460 - 00:38:52.350

charwoman, though even the words selected give us a sense that we're talking about another century, a century, as I said, pre-industrial. And it's extremely interesting to see what you're weaving because what you're weaving are almost mythic

00:38:52.420 - 00:39:41.310

themes here about life and time, again loss, but in a totally different way than I'm sure we're gonna hear in, let's say this last section, where the imagery is going to be very Carol Staudacher: That's true.

00:39:04.890 - 00:39:21.640

contemporary and very industrial and technological. So again, just to put the listeners mind in there, just remember the cars abd the semis, and the chain-link fence of the poor little dog who of all things has got his head stuck in a milk

00:39:21.710 - 00:39:38.600

carton, you see? I mean, I'm sure a mother, if she goes to this village in this section of these poems would get milk in pails, warm from a cow, not pasteurized, not homogenized. And it's very interesting what you've tapped into here because

00:39:38.670 - 00:39:52.550

of course, most of your poems do talk about the contemporary world. In fact, just about every one of yours I've heard. So- Morton Marcus: So it's very, ery interesting. They're Carol Staudacher: I didn't know quite how the placement should

00:39:52.550 - 00:40:05.450

be in the book for that reason. It's always difficult to know if IF I COULD NAME YOU you- if anyone gave me their book of poems, I'll be able to put it in order to know it was exactly right. Doing my own is

00:40:05.450 - 00:41:00.080

something else again so I wasn't quite sure what to do with, "The Charwoman's Journal," so it's section three in the manuscript. And the last section is probably the longest, and it deals mor It was hard to determine which of the rooms you had died in.

00:40:20.540 - 00:40:48.800

with relationships, and it do s come back to this contempora y world to a greater degree. I m going to start with a po m called, "If I Could Name You " The name of this section, I should say first is, "Calli g For the Tenderness In Men."

00:40:51.380 - 00:41:13.490

And the poem within the section: Each of them had its own particular depth, shadows sprawled horizontally on unmade beds, unknowing moved from room to room as light that was not light enough. The air was a

00:41:13.490 - 00:41:31.100

testament to absence, which part to breathe, which part to leave alone, that was the first decision. The yards beyond the cliff, white houses clenched to each other like teeth, the whole town a landscape that receded just as I was about to reach it.

00:41:31.280 - 00:41:51.050

No, I could not tell which room, which town even you had died in. Perhaps you hadn't. There are various kinds of living and unliving. The woman living by knowing where the edges are, by following them in the dark with her tongue, the tidal wave

00:41:51.080 - 00:42:12.050

unliving the mile of pier that testifies to sea. You saw me as a widow, a woman forever wearing black, circling the high walk in rhythm with the lighthouse. But I am not a woman who awaits the arrival of anything, men, flowers, death. You assume that

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I would find you by looking where you last were, seeing all the fallen things, the small surrendered crimes. You were mistaken. Your given name is gone. And if I lived within a realm where each was called by essence, I would name you

00:42:28.490 - 00:42:49.820

"Missing as the Crow." For when night forms in the trees, the wings of the crow are imperceptible. At daybreak, the hungry, predictable crow is utterly incapable of song. Morton Marcus: Very nice all throughout, the beautiful

00:42:49.820 - 00:43:09.930

phrasing and images. Now, how does that relate to tenderness, "Calling For the Tenderness In Men?" Carol Staudacher: Yes, the title poem of this section is, "Calling Forth the Tenderness In Men." These poems sort of serve

00:43:09.930 - 00:43:26.700

as an evolution of a series of friendships and relationships and the bulk of them are positive. That was obviously not one of the positive ones. Morton Marcus: Now, okay, the person is not really dead, but

00:43:26.700 - 00:43:39.330

is dead as far as- in terms of relationship, yeah? Carol Staudacher: Or might as well be. Morton Marcus: Okay, let's hear another one. Carol Staudacher: All right, I'll go from the negative to the

00:43:39.330 - 00:43:54.720

positive. TO LEAN AGAINST THE GOODNESS OF YOU To feel the distance diminish between us is a quiet euphoria even when I am in the next state crossing your border in one town

00:43:54.780 - 00:44:12.750

approaching another. It is impossible for you to know why I turn here tonight, come to you with such certainty when there is barely moon enough to light your door, savoring each step I move toward the room where you are, move toward you. The reason

00:44:12.750 - 00:44:33.030

I come is too simple really, for anyone to know. I need to lean, if only for a moment, against the goodness of you. The one who, in an effort to be alert to any hurt I might feel, asked me to teach him to distinguish the sounds of my pleasure from those

00:44:33.030 - 00:44:51.180

of possible pain. Tonight, I will try to explain this perfect act, telling you you are the only man I have ever known I did not need to protect myself from. Telling you and telling you, because I like to be able to say it after all these careful

00:44:51.180 - 00:45:14.820

years. As I pass under this familiar vine, this dark-scented arch, I know who awaits me. No pitiful magician or steaming lawyer, not someone aloof and biding time before seduction. In this small circle of light I enter it will be just you, there

00:45:15.510 - 00:45:44.470

like you always are. Those same two questions, steadying themselves as I ease toward you and you rise Are you all right? And then again, are you all right? Morton Marcus: I don't feel I can make any comment so I won't

00:45:44.470 - 00:45:59.430

have to come in with one but I'll fill the space while you look for your next poem . Carol Staudacher: This next one is my most recent poem and I don't know if you're this way or if most people are, but I always

00:45:59.430 - 00:46:13.240

have a fondness for the latest, it's almost like the youngest child or something. We're still in that- that relationship section, "Calling Forth the Tenderness In Men." STEAM RISING is the name of this one.

00:46:15.490 - 00:46:34.570

My grandmother boiled men's work clothes in a backyard oil drum, coveralls bubbling, scaly sides of the cauldron rusting, steam rising in the closed Coalinga air. Afraid of witches and afraid of fire, I still could not pull myself away. He didn't

00:46:34.570 - 00:46:52.390

say much, my grandfather. One word today maybe, one word half a day. But once he let me watch him lift the homing pigeons from their cages, fasten messages to their legs, told me how the birds set free on the desert would head directly home. The

00:46:52.390 - 00:47:12.910

two of us held hands, watch the white wing span faithfully into the heated sky. Small spurts of steam rising. Summers later, I stood on the paperwhite ferry, watched watery v's ripple from the stern. The single letter formed a mesmerizing alphabet of

00:47:12.910 - 00:47:31.090

solitude. Across the strait, the mist delivered itself to air and the perfect hollow of sunlight was a sweet tunnel we would pass into. Waiting, I held the rail of the vessel, witnessed sea tumbling as if hundreds of whales were attempting to

00:47:31.090 - 00:47:52.180

surface. My back straight, eyes clear, ready, my own steam rose in collaboration with all merging things. With you I know this need for sturdy tests that living makes the magic that propels small birds to sail surely home. Know this sweet

00:47:52.210 - 00:48:11.920

internal ache each time you enter watching me, between us a familiar mist ascends and our histories slip into slow, selective cycles. We have what we need circling as we will it through these lives. And we know with a finality that can outlive

00:48:11.920 - 00:48:30.100

both fear and fascination. The steam of ours is what we give away returning, it holds the small, but steady prisons of the heart, which rise. Morton Marcus: These are lovely love poems, very domestic love

00:48:30.100 - 00:48:45.160

poems. So, that one had a very interesting way of moving into again, the idea of relationships, you know, from the youth in the sense of the grandfather and the clothes and then everything rising from the bird and then suddenly bringing

00:48:45.160 - 00:48:59.770

us back to you know, where all of those images would be used and finally, come to a conclusion, very interesting development. These are very, very sensitive senses of relationships and this is what I really call a love poem. Not you

00:48:59.770 - 00:49:10.000

know, your eyes are like stars and things like that- Carol Staudacher: Oh, I have one of those. Morton Marcus: Well read it, but I'm sure it won't be like that at all. I mean, there's just so much insight into each one of

00:49:10.000 - 00:49:22.930

these, such a delicacy, sensitivity. Carol Staudacher: Thank you. That was another one that was a little difficult to try to bring this theme all the way through from the very beginning of my earliest memory, which was the

00:49:22.930 - 00:49:31.780

cauldron bubbling in the backyard to- Morton Marcus: And the description of those birds as being like, like steam, it is exactly the way they look. Carol Staudacher: Especially on the desert.

00:49:31.840 - 00:49:41.650

Morton Marcus: Right, right; that's beautiful. Carol Staudacher: Oh, do we have time for about one more then? Morton Marcus: Look at- Time goes. Yes, we have more than time for one more.

00:49:41.690 - 00:50:06.710

Carol Staudacher: Okay, I'm trying to- there's a certain one I'd like to read last so I will skip around here. Well, I guess it's time to be negative again. I don't want to be-

00:50:06.710 - 00:50:18.160

Morton Marcus: Balance. Balance is the best thing. Carol Staudacher: This is a poem that I think I've never read in public. Maybe once, I don't remember- Morton Marcus: I know there's only 150,000 people out there,

00:50:18.160 - 00:50:27.790

Carol. Carol Staudacher: Here we go. A TEACUP FOR THE FINEST CEREMONY Neither of us had ever worked with such delicate clay. We

00:50:27.790 - 00:50:45.280

began as cautiously as hummingbirds approaching nectar. We dipped our fingers in, shaped, fired, and painted a pale blue porcelain teacup, a fragile shell turned perfectly to our touch. When tapped, it issued a slight ring, a clear

00:50:45.280 - 00:51:04.600

blue chime in the heavy air. An elegant teacup finished with cornflowers, silken threads and silver from antique wedding cakes. It was for the finest ceremony, but we never drank from it. We dusted it, polished it, it rested on the break

00:51:04.600 - 00:51:27.310

front, a small shrine year after year. Now and then it mirrored one or both of us who paused to gaze at it. And it shone, oh, it shoned. Then one day we decided to use the teacup, put it on our table, taste from it. It was your turn first but instead of

00:51:27.310 - 00:51:44.400

sipping, you ate it, handle and all, only the jagged edges stuck in your lips. Morton Marcus: Wow. Well, I tell you what we'll do, Carol. I will say everything I have to say and then we will sign off by having

00:51:44.400 - 00:52:01.020

you read the final poem and then we'll pick up the the Mozart quartets, okay? I just want to say that you have been listening to the Poetry Show on KUSP, the community sponsored radio station in Santa Cruz and we, of course, serve Monterey, Salinas

00:52:01.020 - 00:52:15.150

Valley, West Santa Clara Valley, and Big Sur. I should have said before, but I was looking for the list, that this program has been presented in part by a very generous donation by Plaza Books on Pacific Avenue. Thank you every week, Plaza Books, and

00:52:15.150 - 00:52:36.210

also thank you out there for listening to the Poetry Show. Next week, we will not be here. Instead, you will hear a solid week of music from the Bach Festival down in Monterey. And we will be back with you on August 4th. I would just like to

00:52:36.210 - 00:52:49.410

say in closing, we've been talking tonight with Carol Staudacher. And while we're on break, we got a phone call. And I would sort of like to echo what that phone call said, the person said, "We love the Poetry Show and we want you to tell Ms.

00:52:49.410 - 00:53:05.100

Staudacher that her poems are just elegant and beautiful." And I just want to repeat that because I feel the same way. They're beautiful poems, and you should really be happy with what you've created, and therefore with that, and to tell you to

00:53:05.100 - 00:53:16.340

stay tuned for "Things Ain't What They Used To Be" with Tim Folger. Carol, we'll sign off the show with your final poem. Carol Staudacher: This is the title poem, CALLING FORTH THE TENDERNESS IN MEN

00:53:18.460 - 00:53:37.030

I know you exist. For fourteen nights you appeared in the black fusion of roots from which dreams grow, entered that sleeping alchemy of wish and need and pain and pulse, while alternative futures floated off shore, small abandoned rowboats,

00:53:37.210 - 00:53:57.160

their oars mislaid somewhere in the seagrass. That is the scenario if you need one. The reason for calling you up into this moonlight, for summoning you into this real world, something tells me it is time. I do not come to you because there

00:53:57.160 - 00:54:16.150

is only this way and no other. I can shove a knife in my booth top and track bear with the best of them. I can curse the winch and shuck off my heart like a dock hand. For years I have thrived on this raw island. I set forth this offer only

00:54:16.360 - 00:54:35.650

because I know you are the one who is possible in a place I have always known how to find. This is simply a chance for us both. I have noticed your history, witnessed you wearing the ruthless meat of your bones, wedding whatever is destructible

00:54:35.650 - 00:54:53.080

to whatever is hopeless. You have come to believe you are nothing more than the con, the wrestle, the frontal attack not clearly defined and never completed. You are wrong. You are the man who was caressing the Strait of Juan de Fuca with

00:54:53.080 - 00:55:13.390

your midnight trawler, your rough hands in your pockets. Pine-covered islands growing smaller and dimmer behind you, so it is worth this try, believe me, this long steady tow of the heart, this intoning in the dark, miles from any lighthouse.

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I'll tell you how we'll begin. Listen closely. Bring me the bones of your enemies and I will bless them saying tibia, fibula, saying femur as if they were the names of lovers. Next, you will discover but slowly that this is more than any small geography of

00:55:35.050 - 00:55:54.460

bodies we can hold in our hands, more than any flesh, more than the unguarded curve of thigh, the warm surrendered slope of neck, the loveliness of hair, or a bare forgotten shoulders. So we will turn them over, all, all. Give them up and we will

00:55:54.460 - 00:56:15.250

dance the glowing whole of us down to a place surpassing any commonness called love. "Down and down, all the way down" you will say soft, say reverential. I will say, "Yes and yes." Sinking past simple gravity into this swarm, this music, this

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voice, this listener, this place of oracle, origin, orifice, you need bring nothing, wear nothing, kill nothing. All unessentials will die a natural death. Come now, come into, come down, down, glide your tongue over the song of your name, your

00:56:36.040 - 00:56:57.010

whole luminous name over my name. Suck on the sweet syllables, then give me your mouth, remembering that we do not have our mouths to give. The lie of lips and arms and breaths. The lie of hips and hands, the lie of conscious

00:56:57.010 - 00:57:10.300

minds, the lie of time ends here. Only the lie of birth remains and it will be more than enough to ordain us.