Hi, I’m Traci Brimhall, Poet Laureate of Kansas, here for Poets on the Plains. Today, I’m delighted to share a poem by the Poet Laureate before me, Huascar Medina.
Huascar Medina is poet laureate emeritus of Kansas and served in that role from 2019-2022. He’s the author of two collections of poetry: Un Mango Grows in Kansas and How to Hang the Moon. He’s the literary editor of seveneightfive magazine and an op-ed writer for Kansas Recflector. He’s the founder of WordsSaveLives.org and co-founder of latinidad.us. He works for Mid-America Arts Alliance and serves on the National Council on the Arts.
The poem by Medina I would like to share with you is “Per aspera ad astra,” which is the state motto of Kansas. I’m sure Kansas listeners recognize this phrase, but for other High Plains listeners, this Latin phrase is usually translated to “through adversity to the stars.”
Per aspera ad astra
We were lost in the plains,
beautiful and ordinary.
Sunflowers in the fields,
seeds of fallen stars,
standing tall; deeply
rooted in this land.
I’ve admired how our flowers
shine, grasping towards the sky,
beyond the prairie grass, anchored
down to earth; mimicking the sun.
When a gardener plants the
seeds of Helianthus, they are
performing magic. Raising
stars out of the dust where
buzzing planets circle, half
red moons set, and swarming
comets float in orange commas.
I’ve always felt that late at night,
in the bed of a truck, in a Kansas field,
we were at the center of this universe.
And I was exactly where I should be,
amongst the flowers, not below.
Used with permission.
One of the things I love about this poem is how seamlessly Medina moves between the sense of a collective belonging and a personal one. He begins the poem “We are lost in the plains” and I feel a part of that “we” that is lost here amongst the bluestem and switchgrass of the Tallgrass prairie that I walk so often. Although we next stanza we get Medina alone admiring the flowers, I love that Medina opens with the collective. I know the we could simply be two people in the truck bed, or it could be everyone out in the field that night, or even everyone in the world. We so often think of poems as individual thoughts and feelings, but I love how that opening invites me into the beautiful and ordinary night.
Later in the poem, we get the solitary speaker again in a field at night, lying in the bed of the truck, but then Medina says, “we were at the center of this universe.” The poem quietly explodes for me at this moment. The images have been comparing the flowers in the field in these astronomical terms—stars of dust, buzzing planets, the comma of a comet—so when the speaker of the poem say “we”, I once again feel included in a way that feels intimate and universal at once. And it’s a universal that includes the universe, a connection that feels boundless and expanding.
I am also deeply surprised by the ending, even though it also felt inevitable. The first stanza of the poem ends with the speaker saying they feel rooted to this land, and the center of the poem discusses planting—another reference to being within the earth. And yet, when the poem ends “I was exactly where I should be/amongst the flowers, not below,” I’m astonished at this suggestion of death. It ripples back up through the poem. It’s also not a grieving or despairing suggestion of death, but death as the smallest of shadows, the reminder of how terrifyingly alive we can feel sometimes when we look at the fields around us, the stars above us, the flower pollen orbiting us as we breathe in everything we can, here at the center of our lives.
There at the ending we do conclude with the solitary single “I”, not the collective. But it is that movement between that “I” and “we” throughout the poem that really captivates me. I think about those experiences we share, the ones we have alone—and also the ones we share but still feel alone inside them, even with someone next to us, even with the whole world awake with us, staring at the sky.
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:
Huascar Medina was born in Killeen, Texas. He is the author of Un Mango Grows in Kansas (Spartan Press, 2020) and How to Hang the Moon (Spartan Press, 2017).
Medina is the literary editor for seveneightfive magazine, a Sunday columnist for the Kansas Reflector, and a staff editor at South Broadway Press. He currently resides in Lawrence, Kansas, and serves as the seventh poet laureate of Kansas. In 2022, Medina received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship.
Find more at huascarmedina.com
