The latest book of poetry by Phoebe MacAdams published by Cahuenga Press, strange grace begins with an Introduction and the piece Sentence:
behind the eyes
it is a path of voices,
the old men murmuring and humming.
…
come to me in the commonplace
in the ordinary come to me.
It is an invocation to the voice of poetry and only asks for the ability to name what is seen. The strength of Phoebe MacAdams’ writing is its stripped-down simplicity. The first section of the book is titled the Angels and MacAdams immediately takes us to his Los Angeles with walking the stream:
Natural: what we can count on to be here,
what loves this difficult place.Fifteen minutes from downtown Los Angeles
it’s a meadow
and sometimes I walk there.
But this work is not just about Los Angeles and its green spaces: it is about learning to live with beauty and the knowledge that beauty is not only rare and hidden, but fleeting. All Saints is most effective in evoking balance:
Amidst the beauty of flowers
blooming in winter,
we get old
Southern California style:
warm november days
cool nightsflowers and death shake hands
in the season of souls;
during Days of the Dead
the arms of death are full of flowers,
each skeleton offers a marigold.
As I read the poetry, I became the poet in his world, moving through his days, shifting consciousness to go out of his own way to name what is seen in the physical world while also opening myself to the idea that she is merely a vessel for the lines that come. hold stainless It’s one of my favorite pieces because it captures the fear and anticipation we feel as writers: fear of not being able to adequately express a moment of transcendence, that is, seeing the whole in brief windows of space and time, and the anticipation of the words we can. receive and then offer to a listening ear:
Not always but sometimes I do despair.
sometimes a deep indignity,
inside there is a stainless waiting
The second section of the book, two poems It takes us out of Los Angeles and into the coastal mountains that are only a few hours’ drive away. The first tells of devastating fires that ripped through Ojai (and other communities) in 1985. These fires are all too common in Southern California and fall rarely passes without leaving its mark. The Wheeler fire, Ojai 1985 it’s a powerful piece but according to what MacAdams is taking us, the following poem Ode to Kirk Creek it gives what coastal campgrounds offer us, the time and ability to reflect on the healing effect of nature, a rejuvenation of hope, the connection we feel in a world without concrete intersections. MacAdams lists all that he leaves behind in an often challenging world of teaching for LAUSD and then sifts through the frustration to find:
…the student’s expression as she looks at the dolphins and the water
around our little boat in Catalina and says:
“Water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink!
I get it, miss!”
She keeps
…the sight of the students happily gliding
in the water of Clear Creek, laughing.
In Ode she’s on her own quiet getaway, but the piece makes it clear that this is a secret she’s willing to share.
Some crazy artist has been here again, doing his
anonymous sculptures
and then disappearing down the coast.Praise to creativity everywhere and to the otters.
playing in the seaweed
In the third section of the book. One day book: 3.13.05 – 7.11.06 MacAdams goes from looking at the outside to what’s inside. Nature appears in memory and in the consolation of individual flowers. She writes about loss, first about the death of poets, especially Robert Creeley, who taught us how to live as poets in the world of family and friends, and then about the personal loss of her mother. These are the most effective pieces in the book. They marry the ability to name what is seen in the first section and what we keep in the second section with our inner dialogue: the mind that claims to want only peace but hums a litany of why and what if. MacAdams stills the mind in short focused verses – she is present, aware and very much in the “now” of this moment in time. March 13, 2005
My husband and I do laundry.
discussed our students,
contemplated sex
and dinner, chicken with artichokes.
These little warm days move on
one poem at a time.
This is the world of routine that death enters, slipping into its slippers of loss and missing things. August 16, 2005
in the dump
it was the heartbreak of mom’s lipsticks
worn with use,
sea shells on gold cords,
pictures of mermaids and relatives…The ghosts are close to me now;
we talk often
in the mysterious tones
of the recently deceased.
I reach them with my ears.
MacAdams allows us to read her poetic journal of going through the usual days, the irritation of making a living as a teacher without the support of a school district, the obligations of being a good neighbor, and all while an orphaned heart beats beneath. March 10, 2006
there is a tree in the middle of winter
Late at night I remember.
there is rain in the branch of my mind,
and the weather is dark and gloomy.
I’m alone with a black sky.
and the memory of a branch
This piece of memory is interspersed among the details of the life lived, recounted in observation and continuous attention. Speaking before poets who had died, MacAdams wrote May 6, 2005
poetry insists on
in itself, in me, is
discipline weaves
me in my life
in the world of
spirit; the voices say
We are not alone,
they whisper from the deep
This is what I take from strange gracea connection with this city and its corners of life, a recognition of its inhabitants (human and not) and their voices that murmur an invocation – “come to me in the commonplace”.
