The latest collection of poems from North Carolina's past Poet Laureate Kathryn Stripling Byer is a delight to savor. Rather than go on at length about the luminosity and emotional impact of her verse, not to mention its sly wit, I'm going to give you a sample (with Kay's kind permission.) These two excerpts hint at the struggle some of us Southerners of a certain age still have in coming to terms with our beautiful/terrible/flawed heritage. from Gone Again . . . after sixty-two years, Scarlett makes me feel tired -- all those hours I wasted, enraptured by someone whose skin was sheer celluloid, whose voice, when the reel came loose, gibbered like mine when I tried to pretend I lived just down the road from that movie set, cotton fields painted on canvas, the loyal slaves hoisting up sacks full of nothing but chaff for the wind, that old Hollywood hack, to keep blowing away. from Shadow Sister . . . Sometimes I still want what you want, The keys to a red-hot convertible, top down, and who the hell cares if a hard rain comes, we're headed north, east, west, we are out of here, girl. . . . I had the devil of a time deciding which complete poem to share here, but this one is just perfect for mid-May. Big Tease Little by little, the earth sheds her veils. Lets her white blossoms tremble. The river shakes out her blue shimmy and scrubs it to smithereens over the singing rocks, leaving her sunny side up, such a tease that I sway to her music as if I am Salome's sister, and not an old woman who knows that the inkblot of sky on this page of my daybook will soon begin fading, because how can anyone, even Great Grandaddy Death stay asleep amid so much awakening? If you want more, look for Descent HERE. (I think that the lovely picture of KSB was taken by her daughter.)
meti
