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Strange Grace by Phoebe MacAdams
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In Strange Grace Phoebe MacAdams
Whispers an Invocation and We Find Connection in the Commonplace
by
Sanora Bartels
Phoebe MacAdams’
latest book of poetry released by Cahuenga Press, Strange Grace
begins with an Introduction and the piece Prayer:
Behind the eyes
is a pathway of voices,
the old ones murmuring and humming.
….
come to me in the commonplace
in the ordinary come to me.
It is an
invocation to the voice of poetry and it asks only for the ability to
name what is seen. The strength of Phoebe MacAdams’ writing is the
stripped down simplicity. The first section of the book is titled Los
Angeles and MacAdams immediately takes us into her Los Angeles with
Walking the Arroyo:
Natural: what we
can count on to be here,
what loves this difficult place.
Fifteen minutes from downtown Los Angeles
is a meadow
and sometimes I walk there.
But this work
isn’t just about Los Angeles and its pockets of green – it’s about
learning to live with both the beauty and the knowledge that the beauty
is not only rare and hidden, but ephemeral.
All Hallows is most effective in evoking the balance:
Amid the beauty
of flowers
blooming in winter,
we get older
in the Southern California way:
warm November days,
cool nights.
Flowers and death hold hands
in the season of souls;
during Dias de los Muertos
the arms of death are full of flowers,
every skeleton offers a marigold.
As I read the
poetry, I became the poet in her world – moving through her days –
shifting consciousness in order to step out of her own way to name what
is seen in the physical world and at the same moment opening to the idea
that she is merely a vessel for the lines that come. Stainless
Waiting is one of my favorite pieces because it captures the fear
and anticipation we feel as writers – fear that we won’t be able to
adequately express a moment of transcendence, that is, seeing totality
in brief windows of space and time and anticipation of the words we may
receive and then hold out to a listening ear:
not always but
sometimes I do despair.
sometimes a deep unworthiness,
inside is a stainless waiting.
The second section
of the book, Two Poems takes us out of Los Angeles and into the
coastal mountains that are only a few hours drive away. The first tells
of devastating fires that swept through Ojai (and other communities) in
1985. These fires are too common in Southern California and autumn
rarely passes without their mark. The Wheeler Fire, Ojai 1985 is
a powerful piece but in keeping with where MacAdams is leading us, the
following poem Ode to Kirk Creek gives what the coastal camp
sites offer us, the time and ability to reflect on the healing effect of
nature, a rejuvenation of hope, the connection we feel in a world
without concrete intersections. MacAdams lists all that she leaves
behind in an often challenging world of teaching for LAUSD and then
sifts through the frustration to find the:
student’s
expression as she looks at the dolphins and the water
around our small boat in Catalina and says:
”Water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink!
I get it, Miss!”
She keeps
the sight of
students sliding happily
into the water of Clear Creek, laughing.
In Ode she
is on her own quiet getaway but the piece makes it obvious that this is
a secret she is willing to share.
Some mad artist
has been here again, making his
anonymous sculptures
and then disappearing up the Coast.
…
Praises for creativity everywhere and for the otters
playing in the kelp.
In the third
section of the book A Day Book: 3.13.05 – 7.11.06 MacAdams moves
from noting exterior to what lies within. Nature appears in memory and
in the solace of single blooms. She writes of loss – first of poets
passing, most notably Robert Creeley, who taught us how to live as a
poet in the world of family and friends and then the personal loss of
her mother.
These are the most effective pieces in the book. They marry the ability
to name what is seen in the first section and what we keep in the second
section with our interior dialogue – the mind that claims to want only
peace but hums in a litany of whys and what ifs. MacAdams quiets the
mind in small focused stanzas – she is present, aware and very much in
the “now” of this moment in March 13, 2005
My husband and I
did laundry,
discussed our students,
contemplated sex
and dinner, chicken with artichokes.
These small warm days move forward
a poem at a time.
This is the world
of routine that death enters, sliding in its slippers of loss and things
gone missing. August 16, 2005
Into the
dumpster
went the heartbreak of mom’s lipsticks
worn flat with use,
sea shells on gold cords,
pictures of mermaids and relatives…
Ghosts are close to me now;
we speak often
in the mysterious tones
of the recently deceased.
I reach for them with my ears.
MacAdams allows us
to read her poetic journal of moving through the usual days, the
irritation of making a living as a teacher unsupported by a school
district, the obligations of being a good neighbor and all the while
underneath beats an orphaned heart. March 10, 2006
there is a tree
in midwinter
late at night I remember it.
there is rain on the branch of my mind,
and the weather is dark and bleak.
I am alone with a black sky.
and the memory of a branch.
This piece of
memory is sandwiched between the details of life lived, counted in
observation and continued attention. When speaking earlier of the poets
who had passed away MacAdams wrote May 6, 2005
poetry insists
on
itself, on me, its
discipline weaves
me into my life
into the world of
spirit; the voices say
we are not alone, they
whisper from the deep
This is what
I take from Strange Grace, a connection to this city and
its pockets of life, a recognition of its inhabitants (human and
otherwise) and their voices that murmur an invocation – ”come to me
in the commonplace”.
You can purchase Strange Grace at
http://www. CahuengaPress.com.
If you purchase the book, I would love to
know what you think, so please send an email to
sanora@lawritersgroup.com.
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