things best left unsaid...
from my anthology of must read (a)merican poems
Jo Carson
Storyteller
a First Amendment poem
Meaning what I say
is not saying what
I mean and yet I
do not always know
the difference.
I cannot speak
the unspeakable,
I say instead
those things
best left unsaid.
Life is short,
love is unrequited,
the dead do not
take questions.
I can tell this:
there is enough
of truth to offend
everybody.
*
Carson is a wonderful Appalachian writer with a voice that is more than real. Her poems and stories rumble in my deepest regions – like a growl in the belly telling the body of its hunger. Her writing always makes me reach for pen and paper to tell life, my way.
A poem is certainly greater than its form or its limitations, and “Storyteller” is sufficient proof for me. The soul of this work needs no explanation – in fact, it defies comment. But it’s all there. Just listen. You’ll hear it.
7 comments:
Jo deserves wider readerhip.
She gets a lot of leverage behind the deceptively plain-spoken language here, doesn't she? And of course that's the point, the giddy deeps that hide in the plain-spoken.
"Life is short,
love is unrequited,
the dead do not
take questions."
How much potential for grief....
Sam - Is there a particular collection of Jo Carson you favor? What would you recommend to someone unfamiliar with her work?
James, you're absolutely right that she should have a greater readership. The deception of her langauge makes me think of Frost or Stafford.
And Dennis, the collection I'm most drawn to would be Stories I Ain't Told Nobody Yet (Orchard Books, 1989). The last two lines in the volume:
"When I am dead, it will not matter
how hard you press your ear to the ground."
oh man, what a remedy. i must seek her out now.
Nice ending. Good to see a contemporary, deductive, closed poem.
Thanks to h&a and CE for the read.
Post a Comment