“People come and go so quickly here.” – Dorothy Gale

Today is one month since my Granny passed away. A few nights ago I dreamed about her. She was sitting beside my cousin Nikki, watching Nikki’s daughter and my son play together, something she really did love to do. We were all smiling.

This week I’ve been working on a poem that gives instructions for how to play Yahtzee with my Granny now, after her death. I’m pleased that I’ve been able to write about her still. She’s haunted my poems since I was very young, and I didn’t want to lose that.

Yesterday, I had a chat with a new undergraduate student about poetry and truth. She was so surprised when I told her that poetry doesn’t have to be non-fiction. I explained that poetry is art; it is large and varied. Even when we are writing about something that is “true,” we should craft our poems carefully so that other people can share the experience, and sometimes that means we’re writing fiction. Have I really been playing Yahtzee with my Granny’s ghost? No, but the poem captures something very true about our past and about my present longing for her. In 2009, nine years after my Grandpa’s death, I wrote the following poem about my Granny’s grief. Did this scene actually take place? I don’t recall that morning. I can’t know exactly what Granny was doing and thinking, but I know a whole lot about my grandparents’ lives, and for me this poem captures something true about their relationship.

The Morning After

She pictures him at the kitchen table,
reading the newspaper and sipping coffee
like he did every morning. So ordinary.
She remembers how, when they were first
married, he would tap his mug twice
on the table when he wanted a refill.
She’d hinted at first that this was not
polite, but still he tapped. One day,
she just ignored his knocking. He stopped.
Years later, they would laugh
about the tapping, the 50’s, their first
attempts at sex. Today, she wonders
if she’ll ever laugh again. She sits
in his place at the table and lifts
his mug. She brings it down lightly—
once, twice—then moves herself slowly
across the room, reaching for the coffee pot.

(First published in The Coffee Shop Chronicles, A Word with You Press, 2010.)

We had a frantic morning on Thursday when the Colby Fire got much too close to our condo and we had to evacuate quickly.

Meanwhile, a little ways north of us, my poet friend Nicelle Davis was using The Gospel of the Bleeding Woman in two of her classes. She said, “Today! Katie Manning’s amazing book. We read it start to finish. One student cried.”

I’m so honored! (Also, we’re home now and all is well.)

I’m finding that in the midst of grief, I need to marvel at the wonders of my normal life: this morning I drafted a poem.

I didn’t get to spend much time writing last semester since I was teaching 4 classes with 110 students, but this semester I have half the number of students and 3 classes. I have a couple of mornings free to work in my office, and I intend to spend at least the first hour writing. How miraculous that I ever have the time and inclination to create. I’m working on a project that I’m tentatively calling All That Remains. It uses one chapter from each book of the Bible as a word bank, and the poems end up serving as strange retellings. I think. Part of the excitement is that this project keeps shifting, and I’m not sure where it will end up taking me. I started this project because I was angry with some people for taking biblical language out of context and using it as a weapon. I’m still angry about that, but the poems have turned into something less angry and more playful than I anticipated. I’m thankful that I get to do this work.

After my writing time, a dear friend stopped by my office on her way to work. She bought two of my poetry chapbooks for her cousin, and we chatted for a bit over Earl Grey tea and chocolate pretzel granola bars.

Now I’m going to prepare for tomorrow’s classes. I love teaching college students about poetry and language. I have no doubt that grief will attack me again before the day is over, but what a wonderful morning I’ve had.

“It is difficult / to get the news from poems / yet men die miserably every day / for lack / of what is found there.” – William Carlos Williams, “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower”

When I saw the photos and lines of poetry on this Women Poets Wearing Sweatpants page, I couldn’t resist sending something. Here’s a photo of me (with Elliott!) and the final line from my poem “A Whole Mother Story.”

http://womenpoetswearingsweatpants.tumblr.com/post/71793148031/katie-manning