Email to a Poet

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