On Match by Lori Brack
by Traci Brimhall
Hi, I’m Traci Brimhall, Poet Laureate of Kansas, here for Poets on the Plains. Today, I’m delighted to explore a poem by the wonderful western Kansas poet, Lori Brack.
Lori Brack is a poet, essayist, and arts journalist who lives in Lucas, KS. She is the author of A Case for the Dead Letter Detective, Kelsay Press 2021, and Museum Made of Breath, Spartan Press 2018. Her 2010 chapbook, A Fine Place to See the Sky, is a poetic script for a work of performance art by Ernesto Pujol. Lori's work with artists in all genres informs her public work in Kansas and beyond.
In the poem I’m about to read for you, there’s mention of the name Eshelman. It refers to Clayton Eshelman, a poet, translator, educator, publisher, and cave art authority. Here is Lori Brack’s wonderful poem, “Match.”
Match
Out in the shelterbelt you give me the underfeather
of a cardinal – gray softness at the root and flame
at the tip – a fingernail-sized gift. I look up into bare
tree tangle – cedar and elm – for a nest and find sky
crossed by branches. Here is the parlor, you say,
and here an exit, but what do you call the stacked cord
of limbs between trees, their circle cuts repeating
like birds singing all at once, or words lined up in rows,
the hand of a writer saying O O O O O ?
Eshleman describes a Siberian cave where birds
carved into rock mark the road to heaven,
birds being auxiliary spirits without whom the shaman
could not undertake his aerial journey.
I tuck the feather inside my shirt between breast
and cloth, an incubation spot for safekeeping,
but when I undress, no matter how hard I look,
what creases and curves I explore, it is gone.
Before reading about the caves, I would have
deduced the feather flown, fluttered back
to the world. But tonight, I know instead that I
have absorbed the bird-match, the small fire
required for flight. It seems we have been here
before, pinfeather sized holes in our sides,
something rough stuck in the throat. I want
to chirp but I am not ready yet for heaven.
| "Match" is used with permission. |
One of my favorite things about this poem is how it seems to leap away from the main subject of the poem but it all weaves back in. It reminds me of French braiding, and how the original strands carry through, but you’re also picking up new strands as you go. Birds, of course, fly through the whole piece, but we begin with the gift of a single curl of down from a cardinal. We can see two people exchanging this feather and having a conversation. But then the poem seems to leap away to this Siberian cave full of paintings. We do recognize that thread of birds reappearing, but it also still surprises how we moved in time and space to this new place. We were in a narrative and an image, what I always think of as the realm of the heart in a poem, and then we go to this fact, this long history of cave art, and–for me– we are in the realm of the mind.
When many people think of poetry, they think first of feeling. And this is how many of us were taught—poetry is often full of feeling and metaphor. This poem definitely is definitely delivering on metaphor as it rotates its images and ideas about birds, but I think that the mind is often overlooked as a core pleasure of poetry. There’s emotion here, but also thoughtfulness and a meditative quality. I like it when a poem makes me both feel and think, and Lori Brack’s poem does that for me. I’m feeling alongside it, but also questioning, puzzling, and considering. One of the poem’s greatest emotional moments, when the writer’s hand keeps calling out “O O O O O” is also a question. That’s such a great blend of thought and feeling, and I always adore it when a poem is willing to ask questions and not just give the reader conclusions.
Another wonderful way that Lori Brack combines things that seem to be at odds with one another is within her title—“Match.” When we first read it, we don’t know if it’s a match like a matching set of things that go together or something used to start a fire. And it’s not a mystery Brack resolves for us right away. Even though she gives us clear and direct facts in the poem, like the stanza with Eshelman, she also keeps her mystery about the title until almost the end when she says “I have absorbed the bird-match” the small fire required for flight.” And it does seem that it is both a bird that matches the spirit of the speaker in the poem, and also the thing that lights a fire. Truths are often this surprising and strange, and I often wonder if poets are as surprised by the lines they write as I am to read them. Robert Frost said no surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader. Regardless of the writer’s initial plan for the poem, I love all the delights and surprises a poem can bring us, as mysterious as a feather that is also a gift, and a match, and a question of heaven.
Thank you for being with us for Poets on the Plains. I’m Traci Brimhall, Poet Laureate of Kansas coming to you from Manhattan, Kansas, “the Little Apple.”
POETS ON THE PLAINS HOST
Traci Brimhall is the current Poet Laureate of Kansas. She's an avid reader of many genres, but her latest obsession has been reading retellings of Greek myths by authors like Natalie Haynes and Jennifer Saint. Those books help her talk to her 10-year-old son about myths, monsters, and demigods while he reads Percy Jackson. She's a professor of creative writing at Kansas State University and lives in Manhattan, KS.
https://tracibrimhallpoet.com/ . Her books can be ordered at https://tracibrimhallpoet.com/works/ .
FEATURED POET
Lori Brack is the author of A Case for the Dead Letter Detective, Kelsay Press 2021, and Museum Made of Breath, Spartan Press 2018. Her 2010 chapbook, A Fine Place to See the Sky, is a poetic script for a work of performance art by Ernesto Pujol. In 2017, her essay "Pineward" was included in Rooted: Best New Arboreal Nonfiction published by Outpost 19 and edited by Josh MacIvor-Andersen. Lori's work with artists in all genres, as well as serving in art centers and in colleges informs her public work in Kansas and beyond. https://www.loribrack.com/
