were such a thing to happen
It
turns out I owe Jill Littlewood an apology, whether she thinks so or not. On
the way to publishing Wild Once and
Captured, I wrote a preface, an author’s introduction to the terrible,
terrible deeds recently committed by the writer, soon to be shared with the
reader. It was not actually a very confessional piece; it was instead a
justification of sorts for publishing my own damn self without good reasons,
beyond vainglory, for the action and the product that resulted.
I
remain, by the way, quite proud of the work that Ella Epton, the book’s
designer and my sister-in-law, and Stacee Kalmanovsky, the book’s illustrator
and my niece, did in making Wild Once
a reality. Happily, I have also grown fonder of some of the poems within.
In
that preface, I sought to frame myself as a poet, coyly beginning the whole
thing with the phrase “if I am a poet” so that I might maintain deniability .
“Oh, no,” I would claim, “I didn’t mean to say I was a poet, only that if there were readers out there who
considered the contents to be poems, and if any of them were to wonder, in a
general way, how I came to write some of them or all, then here, in a general
way, is how that came to pass.”
The
truth, of course, is that I would like for you to consider me a poet, even in
the face of evidence to the contrary. That was the argument beneath the apology
in the preface that begins by crediting Geoffrey Chaucer, Mr. Rast and Jill
Littlewood for their continuing influence on me, up to and including the point
where I thanked them for instigating in me a love of writing in short phrases
and forms.
Jill
and I were in all the same English classes throughout high school. We were
never really friends, but she seemed to be a good student. Knowing myself to be
anything but studious, I respected that apparent characteristic in Jill. In the
original preface I attributed a line from a poem, “mud luscious and puddle
wonderful,” to something she wrote.
This
turns out to be a sort of recovered memory of mine. The phrase is actually from
an e.e. cummings poem, one that I likely encountered later in life, but somehow
conflated with a memory of Jill.
When
I tracked Jill down (after nearly 50 years of no contact) and sent her a copy
of Wild Once and Captured, she
responded quickly, noting with regret that she had plagiarized e.e. cummings in
her youth. She also said very nice things about the book. Unfortunately, I
can’t track down that message, which raises the possibility that sometime in
the future I will misrepresent her, again.
In
any case, the fact that I misattributed a line from cummings to Jill needs to
be clear. It was my bad, notwithstanding her willingness to take the rap.
The
follow-up lesson here is that one can create facts out of memories regardless
of their accuracy, making fraudulent history in the process. This also suggests
to me that writing is almost by definition a kind of Alice-in-Wonderland
experience in which words always mean
either more or less than they were supposed to mean and never define, describe
or depict exactly what I intended them
to mean.
I also have no difficulty imagining myself picking
up a pencil and writing a piece that borrows the words of another writer. Obviously,
I’ve done it already—in the event, stealing words and then framing Jill for the
theft.
One of my poems, The Unfolding, references my
relaxed position on plagiarizing:
I set out line by line
to steal a poem from others
and piece by piece
to build my own.
Nevertheless, writing, sometimes a burdensome process,
is often great fun for me. Sometimes, it is the most liberating thing I do. After
all, humans can imagine just about anything.
This is a capacity that most of us, myself included,
underutilize. Still, I try. I’ve attached another poem here, perhaps one day
also to be included in a reprint of Wild Once and Captured. The poem, titled “The
Transgressive Acts of Men,” may need a little explaining, which I’m not
actually going to do.
But let me say, regarding the title, that the poem
has little to do with multiple transgressions and wrongdoing by men of whatever
description. This may be disappointing to some readers, but then Norman
Mailer’s 1967 novel, Why Are We in
Vietnam?, only mentioned that country once and provoked numerous
discussions about whether the book had actually answered the question it
raised. So it might be with “The Transgressive Acts of Men.”
The transgressions in question here are in reality
singular and limited to me imagining myself to be an earth mother of sorts. Hubris
and delusion, yes?
The
Transgressive Acts of Men
Excluded
from the matrilineal ascent,
I
intrude.
I
am before and beyond
all
my mothers,
all
my daughters,
mothering
the clan;
in
my DNA,
the
Amazonian last daughter
staring
in wonder
at
the brink,
holding
the hand
of
all my sisters,
mindful
of our brothers,
among
whom I once was counted;
all
who we were,
all
who we are gone nova.
The
end
when
it comes,
almost
more than we can bear,
more
for certain than we can know,
memories
on the way,
partners
on the road,
dreams
on the wing,
exploding
outward.
