Marilyn Nelson on Her Beautiful and Powerful Poetry

We hope you'll enjoy this episode with Marylyn Nelson. Our lives are so filled up with noise now we have to take a real effort to find a place that's quiet, welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,

or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Marilyn Nelson, an American poet, translator,

and children's book author. Marylyn is a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut and the former Poet Laureate of Connecticut. On this episode, Marylyn and Eric discussed several poems he has written, as well as the meaning behind them. Hi, Marylyn, Welcome to the show. Thanks. I'm so happy to have you on. You and I have just fought a long and grueling audio battle, but hopefully we are past that and things go well from here. So again, thank you

for your patients with that. And I thought we'd start off by just talking about the parable for a minute and then get right to your poetry because it's so beautiful. So there's a grandmother who's talking with her granddaughter and she says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like

greed and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter stops and thanks for a second looks up at her grandmother and she says, well, grandmother, which one wins, And the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. But it means to me, I suppose hoping that the choices

I'm making our choices which feed the good wolf. I don't particularly think of it in those terms when I make choices, but I think that probably in the back of my mind is the question of whether this is goodwill, whether I'm willing the right thing, whether I'm making a contribution toward a better future. And I suppose those are decisions that have to do with choosing to feed the good wolf. Wonderful, Well, I'd like to get you to do a reading from your most recent book called How

I Discovered Poetry. And one of the things about this book I found so great is you so wonderfully capture what it's like to be a child. I remember being a child, and I would hear these things in the adult world. You know, when I was younger, it was Watergate and you know, the end of Vietnam and different things. So I would hear these things happening in the world, and hear them on the news, I hear my parents talk about them, and they kind of filtered into my consciousness,

but I still was mostly a child. And I found your book so fascinating because it chronicles you from I think the age of seven to you know, mid teens, and from four to four four to fourteen to fourteen. Yeah, so early on these things are just barely filtering into your consciousness, but they're there, and then as you grow in age, these outside world things filter in more and more. And I just thought it was so wonderful the way you did that, because it was so much my experience

of being a child. I'm glad it spoke to you. I'm hoping that it will help other grown ups remember the time when they're understanding was deepening. Well, what is it now? We see through glass darkly? Yeah. So the poem that you and I talked about having you read is called Mississippi. A little bit of background. My father was in the Air Force, so we moved around a lot.

So a lot of my strongest childhood memories take place in the car, and this poem is the family in the car driving to Omahaw from Kansas from an Air Force base in Kansas to my aunt's house in Nebraska for Thanksgiving. So it's the Thanksgiving drive in its nine and I should say that, um, the Emmett here is Emmett Till, Mississippi. Over the river and through the woods for mys of four lane highways slowed by blowing snow, through towns named for long vanquished Indians, to Aunt Charlie's

house in Omaha. We go, hypnotized by the rhythm of tire chains. I eat a sandwich passed from the front seat where Mama and Daddy are talking about a boy named Emmett. Jennifer whispering to her doll crosses the line between her side and mine. And when I poker just a little bit, she howls as if it hurts out of sheer spite. Behave lost again in the inwardness of thought and my five senses I add to my list, thank you for not stationing us in Mississippi. Thank you.

That's such a great poem, and it really leads to the next play I'd like to go. And one of your books is called A Wreath for Emmett Till, and it's a series of poems about the lynching of Emmett Till, and I was wondering if you could, before we get into the poems, tell me about how you wrote the book, the structure of the book, because it's so unique, and I'd like you to just share that with the listeners

before we get to the poems themselves. I had agreed with the publisher to write a poem for young adults, and I wanted a poem that would move them both not only with the story with the horrible story, but also um with poetry that I created as a tribute to Emmett Till. And the form I used is called a heroic crown of sonnets. A crown of sonnets is a sequel. It's of poems and of sonnets in which the last line of each sonnet becomes the first line

in the next one, so they're kind of braided. And the heroic crown of sonnets uses that same kind of braided form, but it's a sequence of fifteen sonnets. A sonnet is a fourteen line poem, and the heroic crown of sonnets is a sequence of fifteen sonnets in which the last sonnet is made up of the first lines of the previous fourteen sonnets. So it's a it's a very tight form and mine because I really wanted to offer young people a poem that kind of blew off

the top of their conscious nest um. And so mind does another trick by um making the last one um. I think it's called an across stick, in which the first letters of each line spell out something if you read them vertically. In my poem, that's across stick spells out the name emmett l till. Wow. I didn't even realize that last bit. Yeah, it's so impressive the way it's all strung together. And I'm going to ask you

to do some readings from it. And the readings I've asked you to do are going to sort of butcher your form in that we're not going to do them in order, but I think they give a good cross section of different emotions that came to me from the poem. So let's start with Rosemary for remembrance. Please let me ask you, Eric Rosner for Remembrance is the first one, so I can just read it as it is, but maybe in the next one I could read the last line of the previous one so that listeners can understand

the interwoven nous. Okay ah, this is rosemary for remembrance. Rosemary for remembrance. Shakespeare wrote a speech for poor Ophelia, who went mad when her love killed her father. Flowers had a language, then rose petals in a note said I love you. A sheaf of bearded oat said your music and chants me golden rod, be careful, weeping willow twigs. I'm sad. What should my wreath for emmett till denote?

First heliotrope for justice shall be done, daisies and white lilacs for innocence, then man drake horror wearing a white hood or bare faced laughing for grief more than one for one is not enough, rue you cypress forget me not, though if I could, I would wonderful. And now let's go on to the next one that you would like to read from that book I should read, Let me gather spring flowers for a wreath. That would be great. I won't read the last line of the previous one

because it's just the same as this line. Okay, let me gather spring flowers for a wreath. Not lilacs from the dooryard, but wild flowers I'd search for in the greening woods for hours of solitude, meditating on death. Let me wander through pathless woods, beneath the choirs of small birds, trumpeting their powers at the intruder trampling through their bowers, disturbing their peace. I cling to the faith that innocence lives on, that a blind soul can see again, that

miracles do exist in my house. There is still something called grace, which melts ice shards of hate and makes hearts whole. I bear armloads of flowers home to twist into a circle trillium Queen Anne's lace. That's beautiful. And then maybe let's do like his gouged eye as our last one from this book, Like his gouged eye which watched boots kick his face. We must bear witness to atrocity, but we our whole. We can speak what we see. People may disappear, leaving no trace unless we stand before

the populace orators denouncing the slavery to fear. For the lynchers feared the lynch e what he might do, being of another race, a great unknown. They feared because they saw their own inner shadows, their vicious dreams. The far are the horizons of their own thought, their jungles, immune to the rule of law. We can speak now or bear unforgettable shame, Rosemary for remembrance, Shakespeare wrote. All three

of those are so powerful. The book is so powerful, And what I didn't mention is it is illustrated in a beautiful, beautiful way, so I highly encourage listeners to pick it up. It is such a powerful piece of work. Thank you very much, and thanks for mentioning the illustrations. I will give out a shout to the illustrator, Philippe Larabie, who is a French illustrator and who had never heard of the lynching of Emmett till before he was asked

to do this book, and his illustrations are really wrenching. Yes, and as amazing as this is to say, it's my second favorite illustrated book of yours. We'll get to my favorite here in a little bit, but it is so well done. I want to ask you for a second about poetry, because I've heard you say that poetry is out of silence and leads us back to silence. Talk to me a little bit about from your perspective, how that works and what the value is you think of

silence and a life well lived? Oh wow, those big questions. I think poetry comes out of silence because it comes from at least capital P poetry, let's put it that way, comes out of the deepest struggles of the poet too come to terms with some basic realities, difficult realities of our existence on the planet. And that confrontation with those realities is I think confrontation that has to occur in silence.

You can't just knock off capital P poems when you're sitting I don't know Starbucks, And I don't have a better answer to that, and and and I I realized that there is poets in the country now who have very different definitions of the sources of poetry. So I can only say that this one is mine. This is a personal definition. And you asked three questions. I I think I was responding to the first one. Yeah, I think The other one was, just what role you think

silence plays in a life well lived? I think a life well lived requires some kind of contemplation and self knowledge, and that the only ways one arrives at both the gifts of contemplation and the gifts of self knowledge is by reaching towards the quiet center. And there are many ways of doing that, and all of them I think are good, and I think that we need to learn them.

I think our lives are so filled up with noise now we have to take a real effort to find a place that's quiet other than I don't know the last time you you listened to crickets for an hour in the evening, nothing but crickets, not talking to anybody, not with the radio on, not watching television, not listen in to the news, not reading, but just listening to the silence of it's not exactly silence, but listening to

the quiet of the natural world. Uh. And I feel that sitting and just listening is a way of connecting with something central in our humanity and our existence. What you just said there makes me think of another poem that you and I talked about reading, and it's from a book called Carver, and it's basically a biography, I guess of George Washington. Carver told in poems, and there is one called Professor Carver's Bible Class. And I think it's a good to go there now because it references

the value of nature. And you just were talking about nature so it may we think of this poem, So why don't we do this one next? I learned so much about the important things of life by writing this book about Carver. I set out to write a spiritual biography of Carver. Carver was in I think he was a saint, and I learned so much from him as his attitudes toward quiet and towards solitude and towards service. Um,

he was an extraordinarily wise man, great teacher. So he taught for most of his adult life as as a professor of science, uh agricultural science at Tuskegee Institute. And when he first started there, I don't remember when he started teaching there. It must have been about must have been nine, at oh five, something like that. When he first started teaching at Tuskegee, he offered a brief Bible study class in a small classroom, just an informal Bible study class one. I think it was maybe one half

hour a week. UM. Doctor Carver would just read a passage from the Bible and discuss it. And this class became so popular that as he became older, it had to be held in a largest lecture hall on campus. Students thronged to hear Carver talk about the Bible as people do for Jimmy Carter and some of Carver's um students took a little sketches of outlines of what Carver

talk about, and there's a collection of these published. And uh, my poem is based on a recollection written by a man named Alvin Smith who was a student at Tuskegee. So that's a long introduction to the class Professor Carver's Bible class. I'd always pictured God as a big, old, long bearded white man throned up in the sky, watching and keeping score. I had been told we get harps or pitchfork brimstone when we die. Superstitiously, I watched for signs,

living in fear of a great master's wrath. Professor Carver's class gave me the means to liberation from that slavish faith. He taught us that our creator lives within, yearning to speak to us through silent prayer. That all of nature, if we'll just tune in, is a vast broadcasting system that the air carries a current we can plug into. Your Creator, he said, is itching to contact you. I

love that one, and I love the whole book. I agree with you, and that I had no idea what George Washington Carver was all about and how profound he was in so many different ways, in so many different fields. And so this book was a real eye opener for me. For sure. I'm glad. I'm glad it's a real saints life. And the more deeply I studied his life, the more clearly I I'm convinced if he had been born in

a different religious tradition, he would have been canonized. And uh yeah, I mean, there's no question in my mind about this. We have been on the subject of nature and prayer, and that's going to lead us to the next book. And my girlfriend is tired of hearing about this little dog named Snook. The book is called Snook Alone. We're going to do a reading from it here in a minute. But when you and I were talking last you said something that we didn't get to explore, and

so I want to explore. You said that this book it's a parable for contemplative prayer, and that in this book, Snook is learning to pray. So maybe share a little bit about that before we go into the reading. I'll stay within the context of the book. There's a larger context in my life, which would take forever to describe. But yes, uh, Snook is a dog who belongs to hermit monk, and the book begins with the dogs place

in the life of this hermit monk. The hermit's job is to ray and work all day, and Snook lives with this man. In the life of the hermit monk, we we get an image of what it's like to

live a life of prayer. And then Snook is is um shipwrecked on this island, and essentially his life while he's alone on the island, Um comes more and more to imitate the life of the hermit monk, and the climax of his life alone is that he discovers two empathize, feel compassion for other creatures and for the for the world, which is the goal of contemplative prayer, should be the goal of all prayer. So yes, it's a kind of a parable of that. And at the beginning, I'm looking

at it right now. In the um across from the title page there is a quote I came across from the great film director Ingmar Bergmann Um in which Bergmann says faith is like loving someone who is out there in the darkness but never appears, no matter how loudly you call faith. It's like loving someone, a God, a creator, a returning love that's out there in the darkness and that you never see, but you don't stop loving because of that, you continue anyway. That's what it is to

have faith. And um, that's what the the shipwrecked period of snooks life is about. He's on this island and he spends his whole time yearning for his master. Yeah. I think that that's true. And one of the things that struck me about the book. First, I just am crazy about dogs and this book is so well illustrated in every way, and Snook is so dogue. Oh, it's

just it. I can hardly take it. And Um, the thing that I love about this and it's similar to what we talked about with your earlier book where we talked about how what it's like to be a child. Because what I found so fascinating was Snook is missing his master, he wants him, and yet he's also just being a dog like he's still doing his thing, like he misses him, but he's not curled up in a ball. He's out doing dog things. He's exploring his work is his work is being a dog. Yeah, And I just

loved that. It was like it gave this you know. Of course it's sad, you're like, oh, Snook, when's your you know, when's your master coming back? But at the same time he's just he's just out there doing his thing. So the one I thought you could read was the page that starts with the butt Avocare Island. I'm probably not even saying that right. How do you say if you want to take us through, maybe just that page.

But Abacare Island was the center of a vast circle of longing, and from one unknown direction, snooks longing came back to him, mirrored in a fractal of moving sealight,

one flicker of which was Abba Jacob's prayer. Wind, breathing, breath waves, good dog love went in Snook now, from one end of Avacare to the other, from east to west, south to north, Whether the noon sun blazed overhead or the southern cross blinked down at night, whether he was working or eating or dozing, Snook was always waiting now in his friend's silence. Aba Jakob's silence was the wind, It was the sea, It was the love in Snook compassionate and wise as the turtles. I I just love that.

And like I said, I loved the whole book. And for those of you who like happy endings, there's a happy ending too. So I don't need to be worried that Snoop dies alone. No, really hurt that it went out of print. It really is out of print. Oh my goodness. Well I got my copy from a library. So listeners, there's your shot. This is going to go in the monthly newsletter, perhaps from my book month because

it's just I'm crazy about. May I shout out to the illustrator of this one, please do because it's stunning. Timothy Basil Airing E R I n G. Very talented illustrator. He's done a lot of picture books and I loved the pictures he did of this. Couldn't help. But as I was reading, think where is Snooks Master? He got he got stranded there. But the weather seems like it's

been fine for days. Well it's something like a hurricane came up and they were outgoing they were doing a survey that we're doing a survey of the fauna on these small uninhabited islands, and big storm came up and they and the they had to get to a safe harbor until the storm passed. And then no, it's not easy to go from island to island. Um, so the master had to wait until until you could catch another another boat. That's what happens. That's why he's left on

the island for some time. That makes me feel better. Yes, well, we are at the end of time, but you and I in the post show conversation are going to have you read yet another poem of yours to share with listeners. Listeners, if you'd like to hear the post show conversations, get ad free episodes and a free weekly mini episode, go to one you feed, dot net slash support. You can listen to all of those right in your podcast player. Well, Mary Llan, thank you so much for taking the time

to come on and share your poetry with us. And again, I apologize for the difficulty with our audio, but we got through it. We got through it, We got through it. Thanks very much. Eric. I appreciate you're having me and I appreciate your giving me the opportunity to read my bombs. Yeah, all right, thank you, and I will be in touch when we release the episode. Okay, all right, thanks so much, Okay, thanks,

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