auth o r s
by Charmaine Donovan
Path To The Poetry Tribe
S Joyce Sutphen (left) will be the keynote speaker at the League of MN Poets Fall Conference at The Lodge on October 13. On that date, Joyce will also give a public reading in the evening at Central Lakes College. Charmaine Donovan, an area poet, has been inspired by the Minnesota Poet Laureate.
LOOSE CHANGE for Joyce Sutphen by Charmaine Donovan Beyond the bliss of day when our setting sun pins long shadows into uneven grasses, thoughts like lucky coins shimmer through a wishing well of the mind. I see how my body strays into shadow, thickening away waistline, drying womb; reminder of the flip side of birth. Solar heat wanes. An orange streak bleeds into blue haze of horizon splashing and purpling like a crayon melted from its paper sleeve. As kids, it took us all day to hunt for money. We tore cushions from couches and easy chairs, peered down cold air returns fishing with butter knives for caught coins. Nimble fingers dug between car seat cracks, spooned and heaped soil like prospectors sifting silt beside parking spots. While this gamble was always thrilling, loose change was never enough, burning holes in our pockets like a circling sun spends light-year rays across an impassive sky— as though this flagrant expense made way to buy time. 44
FALL 2012 | her voice
Some years ago I found myself seated in Bookin’ It, an independent bookstore in Little Falls, owned by poet-friend, Laura Hansen. I didn’t know what to expect. I had attended several high-powered readings by various poets while attending college at, and working near, the U of M. Those poets who stand out include Marge Piercy, an anti-Vietnam war and women’s movement activist, and intellectual Adrienne Rich, a feminist lesbian poet. Alan Ginsberg howled his way through a crowded poetry presentation with drums beating and music throbbing in the background. These were nationally-known poets coming to the Heartland to share poetry with Midwesterners. Their performances were stunning. (I still admire Rich’s book “The Dream of a Common Language” which I purchased after her reading and run my fingers over the signature. It saddened me to learn that she had died this year in March.) Hearing these authors made me realize that poets could be well-known and popular. I sat on the edge of my chair in the bookstore waiting to hear a poet, Joyce Sutphen, an alumnus of the University of Minnesota, someone who knew the same poets with whom I had studied. I had heard of her, but had not had the pleasure of listening to her poetry. The only poet I really recalled at public readings by Minnesota poets was well-known Robert Bly. These were in the years before he traded in his serape for gentlemanly vests. Although other men and women poets read at these events, including my college professor Michael Dennis Browne, it was Bly’s forceful delivery accompanied by hand gestures as his shoulder-length white hair went flying that left an indelible impression. When Joyce Sutphen arrived, she was introduced as a poet who had grown up close to the area. A lithe, tallish middle-aged woman with a full head of dark curls, she sidled up to the front of the room. She smiled and talked in a gentle voice. Her clothing looked nice, but not outlandish or eccentric. She shared many poems, but it was her poetry about growing up in St. Joseph, a small community near St. Cloud, that inspired and moved me. Her poetry transported me from that room to her small community, then on to my own childhood community. There I saw the Bookmobile stopping at our little town too. As I wandered those streets of my girlhood, images of a poem materialized. I recall buying Joyce’s book and thanking her for the inspiration. I excitedly told her the title I had chosen for my next poem. Much later, I emailed it to her and asked if she minded that I dedicated the poem to her. She did not. Many years before I submitted poems for contests and publication, I considered myself a poet. In truth, I didn’t think beyond reading and writing poem after poem for a very long time. Sending out poetry took too much time away from writing. Although I dreamed of publishing a poetry book, how seemed remote and foggy. I never quite imagined standing in front of an audience reading like authors did at those University lecture series. When I met Joyce Sutphen, I met a woman poet with whom I could relate. She was close to my age and her public persona was very real and approachable. Although she was well-educated, had won numerous awards, and was a professor, she did not seem overly concerned with impressing the audience with her erudition. It was at this point that I unconsciously began to identify with her as a comrade in poetry. Just as we learn to write through imitation, reading and