#17: "Recovery" by Kathy Fagan

~This poem previously appeared in TriQuarterly and in The Charm (Zoo Press, 2002)

RECOVERY

            Remember. Resurrect. A river

Taken under the rain’s

            Right arm. Enter an R and everything rises,

Like cream, to the surface.

            It’s the ornamental nature of the peacock

Letter. From its azure

            Crest to its emerald

Throat to the Roman grandeur of its mirrored

            Train—iridescence runneth over!

Red rover, red rover. And look! Regarde!

            Our laureates rush over—

To write us a rhyme, a romance, or retraction,

            To write an Rx for our grieving

Hearts: Turn words every morning like a bride

            In your arms and repeat after me:

Resh. Ra. Roar. Rabbi. I am

            Wronged. I am wrong. Dark.

Sorrow. Rare. Miracle. Adorable. Reaper. Raison

            D’etre. We are

Irreparable. But what of it?

            Therefore shall we labor

In the service of the R.

            Therefore shall we practice

Such random acts of artifice as

            The topiary, curlicue of orange

Rind, and other ethereal arrangements of the sort

            Featured in Martha Stewart’s

Marathon pre-Christmas broadcast,

            “An Undecorated Life is Not Worth Living.”

Pre-recorded in the recently renovated

            Rooms of her rustic 18^th century Vermont,

Paris, Prague, and Ozark farmhouses,

            She credits Ezra Pound and his celebrated Modern

Maxim, “Make It New,”

            For her own mantra: “Make It Yourself,

Make It Pretty, and Keep the Glue-gun Loaded.”

            Despair prepared for is despair

Averted. The R knows that. As do charm,

            Conjury, and all rarefied matters of inconsequence

I was formerly

            Forever railing against. No longer.

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THE STORY BEHIND THE POEM

“Recovery” is the "R" poem in a series of alphabet poems I wrote over the course of two books, both MOVING & ST RAGE and The Charm. I thought of these alphabet poems as illuminated letter texts—as one sees in medieval bibles and other medieval manuscripts. They differ one to another, but often the poems are informed by the linguistic and cultural origins and evolutions of the actual letters. “Recovery” also plays very overtly with alliterative devices.  In terms of its composition, I began by thinking about how many US poet laureates had Rs in their names—not true at the moment, but R is a recurring letter in many of the poets' names—and that somehow led to a meditation on Martha Stewart.

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ABOUT KATHY FAGAN

Kathy Fagan is the author of four collections of poems, most recently Lip (2009). New work has appeared in Willow Springs, theawl.com, and The Laurel Review, and in the anthology, A Broken Thing: Poets on the Line (University of Iowa Press). She is the recipient of fellowships from the NEA, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Ingram Merrill Foundation. Fagan currently teaches in the MFA Program at Ohio State, where she co-edits the OSU Press/The Journal poetry series. Further information may be found at http://www.kathyfagan.net/.