Friday, June 12, 2015

Anne Tibbitts writes



 Ironing William’s Shirts (setting—in  memory, an  upstairs apartment in ”Haebongchong”  Seoul, Korea) 1996


Winter wind whipped down from Siberia
While she stood ironing 100% cotton
Shirts for her friend William
To wear to his job as a “field rep”
In an office with too many
Uptights who made him feel
Uncomfortable.


They didn’t like his style. He was a poet,
An artist who could not always fill out
The necessary papers and forms to suit their
Sneering looks. They’d wait for him to mess up
So they could get on the phone to “the Boss” --
A lesser man who believed, in spite of his education,
That poets were dead white men printed
On the whites of thin-leafed anthologies—
Not living breathing walking people


Ironing his clean shirts one winter cold evening
She could smell the washed out old sweat, feel
The longings rise up with each pop of steam
Escaping the iron’s pointed grid
See his warm body inside the empty cloth—
Know how he yearned to escape that clean
Cotton made brighter under the office fluorescents
That pinned him
Always wriggling to get loose of that
Clean pressed cotton shirt kind of life
To go into a poet’s daylight and air--
To just run—
Run face first into the cold Siberian wind
Look for snow flurries
Sniff the heavy thick of kerosene
Fuming out from houses with warm floors—
To end up at the Dunkin Donuts in Itaewon
To read Yeats, drink coffee, write—just to think


Years later, ironing for a Grandma
In a Missouri November,
That recollection arose out of the steam,
Every crease heated straight out
Until the memory of William’s shirts hung
Pressed against her mind’s eyes
This time light and crisp
As the decision she’d heard he made
To leave his office job,
Catapulting him free into
Into wind and daylight
So he could finally breathe—again

Oh Williams of this worn out woe filled world,
Oh how much longer will you all wait?
You who long to tear into the woods,
Feed off of words—
When you set yourselves free
We all of us, all of us,
Are shown your truths—

Your Freedom sown into us.

3 comments:

  1. There's very little "poetry" in the conventional sense here, no rhymes or regular rhythm, mostly just simple, straightforward American English. And yet the poetry pervades the entire piece, from its subject matter to its careful exposition and sharp verbal imagery that rises up "with each pop of steam"! But notice how she contrasts the steam with the cold Siberian wind and how she weaves a memory from Korea with another from Missouri to reach an epiphany of universal yearning.

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  2. Every time I found a favorite line, I soon found another: "Winter wind whipped down from Siberia," followed by "So they could get on the phone to “the Boss” --
    A lesser man who believed, in spite of his education." Much truth in these words.

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  3. Like you, SeoulDave, I think this one keeps giving with each rereading. At first sight it seems rather insubstantial, doesn't it? "I could write this." But it unfolds gracefully, with lots of nice touches along the way.

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