Else You Cannot Be Healed

​Poetry is tribal not material. As such it lights the fire and keeps watch over the flame. Believe me, this is where you get warm again. And naked. This is where you can remember the good times along with the worst; where you are not allowed to forget the worst, else you cannot be healed.

C.D. Wright, Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil




Bracing cold and snow in the mountains means that winter has arrived in Colorado. It felt like winter long before the official date this year. I did not celebrate Christmas, the first one without my husband, and I was in bed for a week with a virus that kept me from social gatherings and a trip I very much wanted to take to California and Oregon.

Between episodes of Spiral, I spent a lot of time with C.D. Wright's words. I already owned Stillcross and checked out several of her other books from two library systems. I was immediately impressed with her experimentation with layout and white space, basically her comfort with writing whatever/however she wanted to write. It is brave for a well-known writer to write in entirely new formats, to reinvent herself with each book. Her series of poems are a favorite, especially the Girlfriend series found in Steal Away. 


When I first saw her a few summers ago I felt.
                               Her photogenic spit.
I was climbing a coruscating staircase.
In my flammable skin. To be so full of.
​Everything. At her age. It is very difficult.


Besides being constantly surprised by Wright, I was taken in by her use of common subject matter, familiar vernacular. She was confident but never off-putting. A Southern humility runs through all of her work. I suspect she wrote for herself as much as for her audience.

Last March, I broke the coming year into what I hoped were manageable quarters. The first quarter was for survival. The last quarter has arrived too quickly, me still without answers. I want to break my sentences up with Wright-like periods to slow things down. What I do know is that I miss writing. I miss community. And although I've imagined trips to Vietnam and Greece, it is too early and I am too raw. I need routine, not distraction. Wright's obvious comfort with herself and her writing has given me permission to remember the good times along with the worst. And to write whatever/however I want.

​
Colette Jonopulos
December  28, 2024