Local poets show us beauty and pain in January's poetry roundup
Editor's Note: The Cape Cod Times does not edit any poetry received for its monthly poetry contest. The correct name for the Lady of the Dunes is Ruth Marie Terry.
With a new year comes new poetry. For January, our chosen poets ran the gamut of subject matter.
In “Good Morning, Shoppers” Liz Cabot depicts a trip to the grocery store, blinded by the fluorescent lights and throwing items into the metal cart only to find salvation on the outside of the store.
Maddy Holden, an MFA poetry candidate at Queens College, shows off her talent in “From Me, the Moon,” a poem playing on Lav’s song of the same name to describe the ebb and flow of the Cape Cod flats.
Kate Grozier reminds us of the tragedy of the Lady of the Dunes, penning a poem about the day Ruth Marie Terry’s body was identified after decades.
Each poem connects to the Cape — bar Tiffany McDonnell's "Where I Am From," an ode to her Boston Proper roots — but resonates with a different aspect of its identity, showing the beauty and tragedy within the sand and waves.
***
Kate Grozier is a retired postmaster from Wellfleet. She said she doesn't consider herself a poet, focusing on creating artworks such as white line block prints and watercolors, but always reads the Cape Cod Times's monthly poetry roundup.
After reading about the first anniversary of the "Lady of the Dunes" being identified in November 2023, Grozier said she was inspired to write her poem.
Woman in the Dunes Identified, Kate Grozier
Now we can say her name,
"Rita Marie Terry"
For forty-seven years she wasn't lost,
Just not found yet.
St. Peters Church gave her a resting place.
The people of Provincetown and others
Did not forget her,
Leaving flowers and mementos over the years.
What actually happened to her is still in doubt.
She will always be thirty-seven.
But now we can say her name.
"Rita Marie Terry".
***
Liz Cabot, originally from Indiana, has been a visitor of the Cape for over 60 years. She currently teaches English and American literature — especially poetry — and tutors in ESL for Boston area adults. Prior to retiring, she taught at local libraries, universities and biotech companies for decades.
Cabot says her roommate and best friend, Dianne James of Hyannisport, inspired this poem with her email.
Good Morning, Shoppers, Liz Cabot
in the white
too-brite
unreal lite
I stop & shop
selecting
rejecting
TEAM for TOTAL
Olde Tyme for Nu-Form
Regular Joy for Giant Dynamo
Hi-Ho
Luvs
All
of the above--
or none?
Wham! Bam! Alakazam!
boxes, jars, cans
fly off the shelves
crowding into my cart
Blinded
bombarded
I blaze out of there
like a New Improved Comet
fleeing for my
Original
Life
***
Maddy Holden is an MFA candidate in poetry at Queens College. She received her BA from the University of Vermont where she studied English with a concentration in writing. Maddy grew up in a historic farmhouse (circa 1740) in Hopkinton but has spent every summer on Cape Cod since she was a little girl. She currently resides in Brooklyn, N.Y., but has plans to return to the Cape again this summer.
Maddy says she wrote this poem for an assignment during her senior year at UVM. When asked to write about a natural phenomenon, she immediately thought of the Cape Cod flats, and how the moon’s gravitational pull can explain the daily ebb and flow of the tides, yet something about it still feels so surreal. Inspired by summers spent at her parents' home on Skaket Beach in Orleans, and the contemplative and reflective song “From Me, the Moon” by Lav about lost love and longing, Maddy positions herself between the real and surreal in this poem about the human instinct to look toward nature to answer the larger questions in life.
From Me, the Moon1, Maddy Holden
The June breeze off the bay tickles my arms
and the six-o’clock sun illuminates my already-golden skin,
now covered in shiny scales,
and warms the parts of me people say don’t exist.
The Cape Cod flats go on for miles
and the strain in my calves is subtle
but everpresent.
My pace is brisk.
It’s 20 minutes to dead low and I want to find the perfect spot.
I don’t know where I’m going,
only the direction:
Out.
I tiptoe through tide pools teeming with sea life,
avoiding the burrowing Jonah crab and the belching Wellfleet oyster.
I lay down on a sandbar
and feel the grooves in the small of my back.
I soften to them.
Time passes.
The water rises.
The waves lapping on the shore tell an age-old love story
between the Sun and the Moon.
The creatures acknowledge me and go about their business.
They always will.
I’ve watched this place erode and reinvent every year since I was five.
Perhaps I learned it from them.
Soon enough, I am floating toward the fleeting creamsicle sun,
becoming short of breath with each inch it disappears below the horizon line
and into the sea.
Night falls and white light dances on the ocean floor
and I am still here
lying on my back,
ears submerged,
deaf to the world above,
listening for an answer to a question asked long ago:
Is the Moon still in love with the Sun?2
1 Song by Lav
***
On the Morning Path, Hans Stahlschmidt
On the morning path branches and leaves
the storm took down last night;
we climb over an old oak
its roots ripped from the earth.
Two firs missed our house
and powerlines lie on the asphalt
like thin lifeless snakes,
now everything slowed
after the winds relentless ripping.
At Hawksnest pond gentle waves
move towards the Eastern shore,
as last night is not even a memory,
catching light and releasing it
like fly-fishers tossing back
rainbow trout into white water.
Are we living on the edge of a great
storm that will come while we sleep-
walk through the days? I know you
see my blindness so I rely on you;
my forehead pressed against a great thing,
I feel your hand in mine,
our backs against the dense woods,
some new light spills in us
and washes our blood.
***
Peter Laird Sr. is an 80-year-old, retired mutual fund manager and international marketing executive living in Falmouth. He is an inveterate theatergoer and reader and has been married for 58 years and has three children and eight grandchildren.
He writes: “Machinations” was inspired by people’s incredible capability of achievement when free contrasted against man’s darker need sometimes to control.
Machinations, Peter Laird Sr.
A recorded symphony fills the air.
The world slows down.
The newborn coos.
Her mother runs her finger tips down the baby’s nose.
The parents’ hearts are full, expand.
Dreams are dreamed.
Love abounds.
The rains wash clean, restore.
The farmer plows.
In the adjoining field, plant shoots sprout. Birds swoop, oblivious to man’s machinations.
But the eugenicist plans, forewarns of X, of billions’ deaths.
Gain of function research proceeds.
Lockdown plans are hatched.
Man goes against God, acts as God, thinks as God.
Man is God.
The pregnant quietude foretells.
***
Tiffany Mc Donnell is a resident of West Dennis.
She writes: My poem is based off the piece created by George Ella Ryan (http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html). It is a part of the poetry unit I taught at Barnstable Intermediate School. I taught 6th ELA at Barnstable Intermediate 22-23, third grade at BCIS and currently Digital Literacy at Dennis-Yarmouth Middle School.
Where I Am From, Tiffany McDonnell
I am from Dr. Pepper.
From Fiji Water and Smart.
I am from the hustle and bustle of Boston Proper.
Fast, wild, and serious; heart palpitations are frequent.
I am from hyacinths, lilac bushes, and cherry trees.
Their intense perfume scent rests inside my nose.
I am from Waglia and strength. St. Patty’s Day and stubbornness.
I am from Jennie and Cynthia, with flashes of Mark.
I am from the relentlessness and propensity to succeed and survive.
I am from “Don’t start it, but finish it!” and “What does not kill you, makes you stronger.”
I am from the Unnamed Arts and Elemental Spiritualism. My Jesus, My Buddha, My Quan Yin and Kali Ma, Lakshmi. Mary, Mother of God. St. Bridget, St. Anthony; Noah, David. Aho.
I am from Middlesex and Suffolk Counties
Perogies and Potatoes, Corn Beef and Cabbage.
From Kitty’s affair with Rudolph Valentino.
The Boston Girlfriend of Lucky Luciano.
From my Mother’s hope chest to every single property we owned and lived in. From soil to basements to attics and closets. From storage facilities to boxes and flames in between.
How to submit poetry to the Cape Cod Times
Here’s how to send us your work:
Submit one poem single-spaced, of 35 lines or fewer per month.
Poems cannot be previously published (in print or online).
Deadline for submission is March 1, 2024.
Submit by email to cctpoetry12@gmail.com.
Poems should be free of hate speech and expletives (profanity, vulgarity, obscenity).
In the body of the e-mail, send your contact information: name, address, phone number and title of poem; then, in a Word Doc attachment, include poem without name or any other personal info, so that the poem can be judged anonymously.
Poets not previously published in the Cape Cod Times are welcome to submit a new poem each month.
Frankie Rowley covers entertainment and things to do. Contact her at frowley@capecodonline.com.
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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: January poets give glimpses into their lives through words
