Cathryn Shea: Backpack Full of Leaves

In Cathryn Shea's Backpack Full of Leaves the poet is not sure about the location of her voice in relation to others, but it doesn't matter, she still hears "the rendering voice of the storm." And even though she inhabits a world of powerful sensate experience, she is given only clues as to its nature.

A Poet I Read at Night

I'm in there somewhere, not lost
but no map and no cell,
exact location not important
because I'm in a different century
anyway, and there's a blizzard
cloaking Arizona before Advent
was invented. The sky in its azure
vestment hides from the whiteout,
a choir of mute dromedaries
beds down away from Siberian
hunters drunk on potato vodka.
(One is the ancestor of a czar.)
Venison turns on a spit
in a hirsute shrine,
the rendering voice of the storm
all hallowed in the interstice
between whiskers.

Sifting through Shea's backpack of leaves--I love the reference to Whitman and Larry Levis--the reader is struck with the inventiveness with which the poet creates an explanation for her world. Illusions and reflections of reality are given poetic priority over "plain clouds" and "still trees." Instead of a representation of the world, Shea's art creates a narrative, not of understanding, but of a blessing on what is pieced together, the "seeds of thought, / ...from bird feeders" by the mind. She does not attempt to transform "the deceit" or "the illusion of a perch / look[ing] safe at twilight," but in order to "know the self," she "look[s] to the oak" to construct an explanation that may, or may not, be accurate. The reader infers again, that it doesn't matter, it's the inventiveness of constructing that explanation, and its consistency that makes it a valid world, parallel to the reality from which it grows.

Hush

How plain the clouds
this evening. How still
the trees.
The mind pecks
at seeds of thought,
scattered
from bird feeders
clipped to the clothesline.

Let the deceit
of the kitchen window's
shiny glass
continue its reflection
of branches.
The illusion of a perch
looks safe at twilight.

When I want to know
the self, I look to the oak,
study its bark,
toothed leaves, and galls.
I pretend to understand
growth rings.

In her title poem, the poet perhaps gives her readers the most insight into what she has collected on her quest, a language pilfered from innumerable sources, as disparate as the literary canon she identifies elsewhere and the oft referred to magazines and newspapers, used to call out the pervasive falseness in the world. As in all of Shea's poems, the poet's lens assists the reader's peripheral vision to brighten the dim light on the edges, "like the 4:00 o'clock splash / in the backyard bird bath," or the "button noes and lilliputian nails / just born to a distant cousin,"--important because "something there seems real," more real than a center that may not hold.

Here's My Backpack Full of Leaves

I steal words from magazines and newspapers
like a magpie falsely accused
by the BBC of stealing shiny baubles.
I stole the word "backpack"
and then packed it full
of pilfered "leaves"
instead of troubles.

Nothing that happens in California is real.
I stole "California" so I could feel
something's real in this state. Loving
sneaks into my limbic monkey plumage
and makes me wonder more.
Like the 4:00 o'clock splash
in the backyard bird bath.
Something there seems real.

And something good that would
cheer up anyone: a baby girl
just born to a distant cousin.
Her button nose and lilliputian nails.
And my cat
is why I have a cat.

That final stanza is emblematic of what is found in Shea's backpack: details from a world "that would / cheer up anyone," rendered in a musical language that causes readers to "feel something[ ] real." And we are better readers and better poets for having sifted through the "leaves" of her book.

Cathryn Shea resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and is the author of the chapbooks "The Secrets Hidden in a Pear Tree" and "It's Raining Lullabies," both from dancing girl press. [Thank you, Kristy Bowen!] Cathryn's poetry has appeared in Poet Lore, New Orleans Review, Gargoyle, Tar River Review, Tinderbox, Permafrost, Rust + Moth, and other journals. Her poetry has been nominated for Sundress Publication's Best of the Net. Cathryn served as editor for Marin Poetry Center Anthology and volunteers there. See www.cathrynshea.com and @cathy_shea on Twitter.