Prelude

Like a living organism, a poem breathes, evolves over time, reflecting both its inner and outer landscapes.  And I think that growth occurs for both the poet’s understanding of what he or she has created as well as the reader’s.  I’m not referring to those poets who, late in life, see fit to return to the work of their youth, giving the pieces a new makeover (a practice that seems to me both perfectly understandable and extremely problematic).  I’m saying the work of art itself—without a syllable being altered—seems to emanate a different energy as the years pass, to reveal new dimensions.  Isn’t that why we return many times to a book, a movie, a work of art that has held deep meaning for us?  As we see that emotional terrain newly revealed, we discover that we, too, are not the same people who first sat in rapt attention as the vision unfolded.  And so it is with Charles Coe’s “Prelude.”  I’ve known Charles for several decades and was proud to have featured several of his poems in the Red Letters.  He sent me this piece, and I told him I’d save it for the right time.  Saying that now, I can’t quite remember what sort of rightness I was anticipating—only that I wanted to maximize the poem’s effect for this readership.  But on November 21, Charles passed away unexpectedly.  And it’s been something of a revelation to see how many different communities (not only our literary clan) were heartbroken by his death. Perhaps this is certainly one measure of a life—the magnitude of its absence.

Of course, now rereading “Prelude,” we find everything utterly changed, viewing Charles and his work through the translucence of memory.  The time for spotlighting this spectral poem is, of course, overdue.  A year or so ago, Charles read for the annual Red Letter LIVE event, and he used this piece to open his reading.  “Before we begin,” the poem starts out in his oh-so-casual tone of voice (a common feature in Charles’ poetry—never stentorian or charged with literary affectation), “may I ask you a question?”  And now that intimacy has been established, he confides his deepest sense of wonder: “Would it bother you if at some point/ I forgot to remember the illusion that we/ are made of solid matter?” Troubling, indeed—that our understanding of the physical world is often little more than a comforting illusion.  That our separateness, our alienation from one another, might comprise the real misapprehension.  And before we dismiss this as either “a parlor trick” or some New Age spiritual effusion, the poet slips into the heart of the matter: “It’s just that when I think about broken children/ lying in the rubble of bombed-out buildings/ I sometimes find it difficult to remain tied to this world.”  Since I first heard this poem read aloud, the scene with those broken children has shifted locales numerous times—and the challenge to our humanity has only increased exponentially.  As for the poet? Perhaps we now have to concoct new ways to risk that “palm-to-palm” feeling of commonality, “to keep ourselves connected to this terrible and beautiful place”—and to reaffirm that we are, as Charles declares, much more than flesh and blood, than ideology and stubborn habit.  We “are made of the same stuff as the stars.”

If perhaps you were not fortunate enough to know Charles, let me simply say that he was a poet, educator, exuberant baritone, avid blogger, big-hearted individual. He’s the author of five poetry collections including All Sins Forgiven: Poems for my Parents, and Charles Coe: New and Selected Works —all available from Leapfrog Press.  In addition to being a fine poet, he was a deeply-humane individual; the latter is a good deal harder to achieve than the former, especially in this day and age—and the achievement of both is a piece of good fortune for all the rest of us.  Charles paid as much attention to the lives of his fellow human beings as he did to his own—and somehow he accomplished this with the kind of ease we often term grace.  In this time, when wars seem to be instigated on a cruel whim, I recall the brief text of one of Kenneth Patchen’s poem-paintings (yet another poet-pacifist).  Depicting two of his fanciful creatures beneath a wobbly crescent moon, the poem reads in its entirety: “My program?  Let us all weep together.”  I believe Charles would approve—as long as he could interweave the weeping with a few of his resounding belly laughs.