BLOG OF THE WEEK ~ FIREBLOSSOM

The end of April marks the end of an era at our sister site, Imaginary Garden With Real Toads. Another founding member, Shay Simmons, is retiring from the Garden, though thankfully she will still be around, and writing her amazing poems. I thought, this week, that it is fitting to feature her, and to thank her for her work in the Garden, as well as for her amazing poetry, which is like no one else's. Shay shows us the sky's the limit, when it comes to poetry. She demonstrates how sky-high and far-reaching a poem can be. Let's read one of her recent works; this poem took my breath away.

BLUE HORSES

Blue horses came out of the sea last night.

Their hooves made shapes in the sand which spoke 

in Arabian symbols and scents.

They wandered into town on the

cobbled streets and stood

under lanterns lit by nuns made of fog.

You came close, then,

having approached for a million years.

You came close enough to dance

and we danced

like mayflies caught in a globe of disappearing dreams.

Blue horses came out of the sea last night,

muscular and graceful, uncaring

whether I loved you, though I did.

I have a refracted vase

where I saved what I saw in your eyes

that made me love you,

that made the sea roll sleepily

and the stars play wooden flutes, then go silent.

Blue horses came out of the sea last night, and though

it has happened often before,

we made them forget their way,

become lost,

and cry for the pastures they carry in their minds.

Forever now, we will follow their symbols and scents,

each of us separately,

blindly, carrying bridles we made from sand.

source

Sherry: No one writes love poems like you do, Shay. This is gorgeous! Those blue horses, coming out of the sea, crying for the pastures they carry in their minds. Sigh. That actually hurts my heart with its beauty. 

Shay: I had been listening to Leonard Cohen's second album, and particularly a song called "It Seems So Long Ago, Nancy". It made me want to stop what I was doing and write something, though "Blue Horses" owes more to Lorca than to Cohen. Someday I may develop my own style;-)

Sherry: Right. You need to work on that! LOL. When did you begin writing, Shay?

Shay: I started writing as a child, little short stories. I started with poetry in high school and had my first glossy publication at eighteen. But I went twenty years and never wrote any poetry, before coming back to it in 2006.

Sherry: We are so glad you came back to it! What do you love about poetry?

Shay: I love that it takes me where I couldn't otherwise go. I also love the sheer beauty of the words, and the sort of sideways way that poetry approaches its subject. Poetry is so much richer than prose -- that's why I am always barking about what is poetry and what isn't. Poetry is images, word ballet, emotion, truth. I love it.

Sherry: So well said. I love it, too. Another recent poem I'd like us to take a look at is "Triolet on Parting". Let's check it out.

source

TRIOLET ON PARTING

The earth in motion, turns sun high, turns sun west.

We love, we leave, the blackbird and the marshland reed.

What is stone, what is wind? What is burned, what is blessed?

The earth in motion, turns sun high, turns sun west.

The bed and window, street and station, all our palimpsest.

Each in skin, each in summer; each in plenty, each in need.

The earth in motion, turns sun high, turns sun west.

We love, we leave, the blackbird and the marshland reed. 

Sherry: Sigh. "We love, we leave......" It hurts! 

Shay: With "Triolet on Parting", I wanted to write something really special, because it was my last time hosting at Toads. Someone else had posted a triolet, a form I love, and so I did also. I wanted to write something both global and personal. When I was done, I was unusually satisfied with it. In fact, I love it. Put it on my gravestone. It contains all I have learned about anything.

Sherry: Wow. How wonderful is that?! When you posted it on facebook, you said "I don't think I know how to write any better than this." As one who reads you daily and finds every poem of yours written at the top of your game, what is it about a poem like this that tells you it is one of your best?

Shay: I usually know. I get in a zone when I write, and when I snap out of it - OR, after I've made 50,000 revisions - I kind of go, Woww, did I just write that? I know when it's unusually good. And also when I haven't quite gotten it. Though there are a few times when I don't know, and I have to see what people think.

Shay with a young friend

Sherry: Thank you, Shay, for this visit, and for the almost-decade of all you have given to Real Toads, to the online poetry community, and to your readers, since 2010. I am glad you will still be around, and writing. We will still be reading. You can run, but you can't hide. We will find you!

Do come back, friends, and see who we talk to next. Next Monday will be Telling Tales with Magaly. After that, we have some special poems and poets lined up for you.
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