Sher’s Comments (group member since Nov 23, 2020)

Sher’s comments from the Nonfiction Reading - Only the Best group.

Hey all--it's been well over a year since I have shared anything here from Sher Poetry, but this a lovely tribute to a passed friend--beautifully voiced by the poet Lana Hechtman Ayers-- as always you hear the poem, a very brief commentary, and then listen to the poem again. I think it's hard to write a skillful tribute for your dog --but Ayers does a great job. Can you imagine a greyhound named Rainy Day-- I love this. Link is a 7 minute listen. I hope it works. :)

https://sherpoetry.com/2025/04/12/for...

Thanks John. Do you read the Best American Poetry Series?

p.s. I just started A E Stallings's Hapax
I'm with you on Stallings -- her work is a favorite for me. So clever and I love how she brings in the mythic-- Archaic Smile is brilliant for this- a feminist slant.

I'm writing a series of poetry book reviews in 2024. Here is the most recent, if you are interested.
www.sherpoetry.com
Retranslating Silence
by
Sher Schwartz


Listening in the Dark
by Suzy Harris.
The Poetry Box, 35 pp.
$14.00


Retired special education attorney, Suzy Harris's chapbook, Listening in the Dark explores a theme not often examined in poetry. Deafness. Harris asks: "but what of those who grow up with two languages / one that is silence?" This silence went unrecognized into adulthood, because Harris "developed speech normally, and hearing loss wasn't suspected." But one morning in her twenties, Harris awoke to complete silence. Her profound deafness was assuaged for some years by hearing aids, but eventually she moved to cochlear implants, a new technology, which helped Harris hear again.

Her childhood was spent in Indiana with six siblings and parents who supported "language as play--language as sound." Her mother was a poet and an artist, and she introduced the children to poets such as James Whitcomb Riley a popular Hoosier poet who wrote in dialect and African American poet Frank Marshall Davis who wrote in vernacular. One can imagine much laughter and pantomime in the living room while Harris and her six siblings read these poems aloud to each other. Because Harris's hearing loss was gradual, she was able to use clues of sound and lip reading to catch most of the words. "How to be Deaf" reminds the speaker "when you feel exhausted by the work / of hearing, bathe in quietness." And in a later poem "there is silence waiting for you on the doorstep / invite her in." Silence in this chapbook is both a balm and an experience of uncertainty.

One of the most remarkable poems in the collection for me is "Language Lessons." It investigates the unsettling experience of trying to use a cochlear implant to hear again. The cochlear implant uses a sound processor that's worn behind the ear. Harris explains: "cochlear implants do not work like hearing aids; they don't amplify sounds." The "implants transmit electronic signals that go to the auditory nerve. The auditory nerve transmits signals to the brain, and the brain converts these signals to language." Capturing this process is one of the goals of this lyric poetic memoir.

The poem "Language Lessons" entreats the brain in five lessons to allow the "dings and ticks and beeps recede," and to "let the singer's voice rise above" alien noise. Harris says: "when a cochlear implant recipient is first turned on, voices sound like you are in the bottom of a well." Harris, at first, couldn't "tell the difference between male and female voices." The brain must resurrect its ability to hear words and make sense of them. In sparse, yet powerful verse "Language Lessons" conveys the physical and emotional advice needed to give a brain on the border of confusion the roadmap for coping with new auditory sensations. Harris's poetic choice gives the reader a unique inside view of how the brain reacts when it is first presented with this new way to hear.

Besides what the increasingly deaf speaker experiences, the reader gets glimpses into how hearing loss affects romantic relationships and friendships. In the title poem "Listening in the Dark" I feel how sweet friendship is when friends "lean into the light" so the speaker of the poem can see their lips move and they can catch some of the conversation. In a later poem, I note a twinge of heartache between young lovers when "whispers" can no longer be heard. This collection has made me aware of so many nuances related to this "invisible disability." Harris shares the "silence around" deafness and the myriad ways deafness makes daily life challenging and different. She gives voice for those who don't hear the voice and for those who spend their lives with people with hearing loss. But, I don't fall into either of these categories, and I found the collection engrossing for its ability to show, through poetic evocation, a world of quiet and sound I know little about.

The chapbook doesn't attempt to define deafness. This is not a journalistic account. Listening in the Dark paints loss and resurrection and prompts the reader to sing again–– to hear again. Her final poem "What is Possible," is a generous call. I imagine a speaker who asks writers, artists, and seekers to remember your voice is still there, don't forget it, and go hopeful:

my voice travels, unseen
seeking other voices. Together,
our voices travel like clouds,
cross borders easily,
falling like rain on dry lands.

In the end Listening in the Dark invites us to recall our own silences and to consider those spaces we need to retranslate into new ways of going forth in this world, whether in our relationship to the past or in relationships with others.

Thanks John! I will take a look.

Larry wrote: "John wrote: "This comes from poet Dana Gioia’s YouTube Channel. It is a 40 minute talk about Wallace Stevens. Gioia is an excellent teacher and guide to poets and poetry.

https://youtu.be/f2Djdm_..."

Oh my! That says something... :)

Thanks John! I had almost forgotten this thread.

p.s. I received the collection of Bly's prose poems...check out the turtle poem for what ai mean by twist of humor or sarcasm... prevalent today in many prose poems. page 19

John, I am not sure you will like James Tate. Over the years --seeing the poets you really like, Tate might not be to your taste. I was curious. But, maybe you will see a collection at the library you can sample. A twisted sense of humor. An edge.

John wrote: "Larry wrote: "I love the imagery of this one, John. I find it deeply moving. Carol's comments are good, too."

Carol wrote: "I have never heard of a prose poem before so was interested to read Robe..."

John:
Thanks for sharing that prose poem from Robert Bly. I ordered a used copy of this volume. I just dipped into prose poetry, but much of it today seems to have a comic or impossible twist to it as though that seems to identify the genre now.

Have you read much James Tate?

Anyway, I'm interested in how Bly handled the form way back in the 1970s. :)

John wrote: "Wow. I just read Patti Smith’s introduction to the book in which she selected the William Blake’s poems: Poems.

It is one of the best introductions to a poet I have ever read. Movi..."

John:
I ordered this book yesterday. Thank you for bringing it to attention. I am still fascinated by Blake.

I am currently reading Letters to a Young Poet. so far great. and doing some deep dives into a variety of contemporary poets through a 9 week summer course.

John wrote: "Sher wrote: "John/Larry-- either of you deep readers of W.B. Yeats? Have you read A Vision"

For some reason, I never took to Yeats."

Gotcha John--- thanks... one of my colleagues at U of Ak is giving me some good information. He';s a 19th C American Lit scholar, but he took a big side tour into Yeats and even teaches him some semesters..

John/Larry-- either of you deep readers of W.B. Yeats? Have you read A Vision

John,
This is perfect--thanks so much.

John, would you by chance have a link to the interview?

Haven't read that one John-- read another about him in the American Presidency Series... it has been some years

Thanks for the link John...good to know.

I LOVED that book about old poets that Hall published-- rather life changing-- fascinating bio on Frost and Dylan in particular.

I read five of the titles... I voted for Limon though Ocean's work is pretty amazing... I just wondered is Gorman the most high profile other than Collins. But, Collins of course is older and well , well published. Gorman read at Biden's or Obama's inauguration... I think Biden.... We saw it as many did... on TV.

Does anyone have any thoughts about the winner of the poetry category in the GR reads awards for 2022?

Here's my list...
2022
Shakespeare's Sonnets
Elizabeth Barret Browning
Derek Walcott's Collected Poems
vol 1 and 2 Twentieth Century Poems by Library of America

That's what I think I would bring -- if I were going to be on the island in 2023! Ha... could change in the future..

I've been thinking about what I want with me on the desert island--sorry haven't posted yet....

Carol wrote: "Hopefully, Sher, the non arrival of the juncos means, as you say, that it is due to warmer conditions up north, and not that there has been a cataclysmic reduction in their numbers."

Thanks Carol-- I hope that they will still arrive but later. I have been out walking the farm for the past 6 days and I have only seen one male. We have some weather coming in the next two weeks, so we will see if they arrive.