Mr. Dunn
Last summer I bought Richard Jones’ Poetry East
Origins issue and found there your poem “Sacred.”
I read the poem and your brief accompanying essay in the
bookstore of the College of William and Mary, where it was purchased, and then
put the book away for months. At the beginning of February 2014 I was
taking a writing class the my local college. Our text The Crafty Poet
by Diane Lockward contained writing prompts exploring syntax. I pulled
out your poem and read it again, enjoying its use of inverted syntax.
What happened next is difficult to explain. I am
attaching my brief poem describing it.
Valentine for a Poem
After you appeared in
this kitchen’s dim,
under- counter light and
I remembered us flirting last spring,
cloistered by a
sweet Virginia rain,
your spare
beauty
slim lines
sliding, it was
precisely that
moment when
your iridescent
becoming
transfixed,
transformed,
translated
me.
LFM
As I read the poem several times, the words of it fell away
and the poem became a living thing. It was for me, in that moment,
Poetry. Further, because it had a life and mind of its own that looked
out at me, I felt as if the poem knew me rather more completely than I knew the
poem.
I struggled to put that into words for a week, using first
religious language (“Sacred” suggested that.) Eventually, although it did seem
an experience of something sacred, I moved to the sister language of love, and
addressed the poem above to your poem, with gratitude.
When I shared this experience with my class, they suggested
I write to tell you. What I really want to do is simply to express
appreciation for a fabulous poetic experience.
Appreciatively,
Lowell Murphree
Ellensburg, Washington
