Tobi Alfier - Not Every Subject Is Up For Grabs

I’m sure we’ve all heard that you should never date a poet, because your life can become a poem for everyone to read about. I don’t agree. I think we all have things we don’t want to write about, or feel we shouldn’t write about, and that’s okay. My husband Jeff inspires my poetry all the time, and I write about him all the time. Many of his books have poems written to me. We’re fine with that.

Listen, Tobi

by Jeffrey Alfier

We came to watch more than trawlers

drift stony miles north of our island—

all those slow clocks of commerce.

On the ferry over, nerves ran tight

when tall waves scaled the sheerline,

lustering us cold at the railing. We laugh

at it now, in this late light dimming

out of sky, trusting night birds to circle

back and hunt low—their gothic plunge

of wings, sudden wind to lift them,

like your hair, through this paling Irish

light. So let the white scrim of gulls loiter

above us. Let them screech like Cromwell’s

ghost. We’ll learn the Gaelic word for kiss

and glare at sea and sky till they dissolve

like remote music. Here, we need the stone

junctions of cemetery walls, rutted tracks

that flank them into darkened arbors of trees.

All the wildflowers that find our fists.

All the roads our maps find no name for.

from The Storm Petrel by Jeff Alfier

For me, there are four things I don’t write about, or rarely do. The first is if something is told to me in confidence, my lips are sealed. There is no way you can change something enough so that it’s unrecognizable. Either be a trustworthy person, or write a memoir. I would like to be trusted.

I also rarely write about my divorce (2006), work, or my health. I’ll admit it, I have a poem that’s funny as hell about my divorce. It has been published, but you’re not going to read it here. It got laughs when I read it, but it is hurtful. I don’t want to be that kind of person. Maybe if I were a standup comic I’d riff on it for a while, but I’m not. I’m a poet. And that’s a subject I don’t consider poetic. The end.

Work? In forty years I’ve written probably five poems about work. And they are very well disguised. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what “Hostage Negotiation in Negative-Land” is about, but on the whole, it’s not poetic.

You’ve heard me talk from time-to-time about walking challenges, not traveling anymore, getting inspiration from Jeff when he travels and sends me photos and texts, and so on. If it ends in “-osis”, I probably have it.  Read the fiction book If Not For This by Pete Fromm. It’s a gorgeous, gorgeous love story with an element of illness that says it more beautifully than I can ever say.

But that’s just me. I rarely write about it. I’ll tell you anything you want to know, but not in a poem. Other poets do write about health challenges as a way of exorcising them, or explaining them. Maybe while they’re writing, they’re not experiencing them. If you are a submitting poet, there are lots of anthologies looking for your work. There are lots of journals as well.

A wonderful journal to submit to is Kaleidoscope Magazine. It’s published by United Disability Services in Akron, Ohio. The magazine “creatively focuses on the experiences of disability through literature and the fine arts. Unique to the field of disability studies, this award-winning publication expresses the experience of disability from the perspective of individuals, families, friends, healthcare professionals, educators and others”.

(Under guidelines): “The material chosen for Kaleidoscope challenges and overcomes stereotypical, patronizing, and sentimental attitudes about disability. We accept the work of writers with and without disabilities; however the work of a writer without a disability must focus on some aspect of disability. The criteria for good writing apply: effective technique, thought-provoking subject matter, and in general, a mature grasp of the art of story-telling. Writers should avoid using offensive language and always put the person before the disability.”

They accept previously published work, and they pay.

I really do believe everybody has something challenging. Not everyone writes about it. If you do, and you’d like to see it in print, Kaleidoscope may be an opportunity for you.

Under the Bridge

Sometimes she doesn’t have enough skin to cover her knees.

She can’t really explain it but they nod and say

“Yes, I know”, jotting notes to remember for next time

so she doesn’t feel so alone.  They always ask about her son,

and now they will ask about her knees.

Her legs hallucinate—static charges blossom

up her feet; they jump like marionettes.

She thinks she wears the “scarlet letters”

by the way she walks, but they are only

on the inside.  No one knows.

She holds her breath in the tunnel under the covered bridge,

wishes for good fortune for those who surround her.

The bridge is long, she passes out, wakes up in an ambulance.

The nurse recognizes the pendant she is wearing

from the last time. She is identified and given an ultrasound

before fully alert. She nods and says “Oh no, not this again”.

There are berries at home, she must eat the berries.

There is a whole quart of milk, and messages to return.

The gardener waits for his check, shirt unbuttoned

to the belt, the cowboy hat shading his eyes and smile.

Mundane trivialities do not want to wait,

but the IV means she will be here for a while.

Could someone please turn up the light

and bring her some books?

Previously published in Pilgrimage, and Kaleidoscope: Exploring the Experience of Disability through Literature and the Fine Arts

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Tobi Alfier's most recent collection of poetry is Slices Of Alice. She is also co-editor with Jeff Alfier of the San Pedro River Review. Don't miss Tobi's columns on the craft of poetry: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.