Esther Altshul Helfgott: Listening to Mozart

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LISTENING TO MOZART: POEMS OF ALZHEIMER’S, Esther Altshul Helfgott. Cave Moon Press,  2014

A more personal blogpost today. Instead of hinting about and writing around what’s going on, I want to simply admit that it has been one catastrophe after another here all year, more and more noticeable since our dog (my emotional support animal, it turns out) died in October.

My husband is not well, and despite all evidence to the contrary, he still wants to be in charge of the world, his and mine. As a result of his attempt to hold onto his independence, we’ve had EMT’s in our backyard, multiple Urgent Care visits, some good days (celebrate those!) and many days crammed overfull with anxiety (for me). The wheels of health care are turning very very slowly, and we don’t have a diagnosis for what’s going on. But now that 1) he’s not driving (and seems to have let that go), and 2) I have gotten our taxes done, I’ve calmed down quite a lot. That helps.

Before the steepest part of the dramatic arc took off, I attended a reading in Seattle and ran into an old friend, Seattle poet Esther Altshul Helfgott. Among many other accomplishments, Esther founded the “It’s About Time Writer’s Reading Series,” which meets monthly in Ballard and is now in its 35th year. I’ve known her for decades. As she has two books navigating Alzheimer’s disease with her husband, Abe, I told her what was going on at my house. She reached into her bag and took out a copy of this book. She also told me I needed a therapist and a support group.

Esther Altshul Helfgott, image from the Two Sylvias website

Listening to Mozart is, in the words of Michael Dylan Welch, “a bouquet of short poems [that radiate] the sharp and sad fragrance of loss.” They were written after Abe’s death, and reading them helped me imagine moving through the stages of grief I’ve been stuck in—anger and denial—and begin to break through to something else.

I don’t agree
with Bishop in One Art—
that loss
is no disaster
she means the opposite—
loss is all disaster

These tanka-like meditations are as much about acceptance as they are about loss, and they helped me to remember that someday this will be over, and I’ll have three daughters who have lost their father. They reminded me that some day I, too, will have to deal with his loss.

when I
awoke this morning
I thought your
funeral was today—
it was three years ago

The poems are about loss, but they are riddled with hope. As time moves on and the poems continue, Helfgott begins to put her life with Abe, and after Abe, into perspective. Cleaning house, going to the bookstore, walking her dog.

a leaf falls
I watch
you pick it up
you disappear

What I’ve been working through is the realization that the man I married has been gone for a while, for long enough that I’ve found it difficult to remember that guy I held hands with, walked on beaches with, adopted three daughters with, stood on sidelines of countless soccer games with…the man who taught college English for 40 years, the man who retiled our kitchen, built a writing cabin for me in our back yard, built tables and beds…took care of every possible home repair. Up until a day or so ago, it seemed impossible to see that man as also this one. Withdrawn from me, secretive, never finishing a project, forgetting ingredients in favorite recipes, getting into one car accident after another…

And there’s also—my own bad attitude. I’ve been so …ticked off, not wanting to do this, that it blinded me. After all, I went through it with my mother (for almost 10 years!). It’s not fair!

But our daughters are still young. Or young-ish. They’re not going to step in and take over for me while I book a flight for elsewhere. If someone is going to pull this experience together and unite our family around it, that someone will have to be me. I think of all the compassion and caring I poured into our old dog. That’s what I’m going to have to summon now, for my husband.

Esther’s poems helped me begin the journey back to my right mind. These poems and many phone conversations with patient friends, and (finally) a therapist.

I have been waiting for my husband to say, “Oh, I see what’s going on, let’s talk about it.” Waiting for him to agree to be looked after, waiting for him to give me permission to pay the bills (which have been going unpaid). Waiting for him to help me—as he always did, back in the day—get through this hard thing. Meanwhile, I’ve had multiple people (including Esther, months ago) tell me that the partnership is over, “your husband is gone,” and now it’s my responsibility to make good choices for both of us. Obviously, I still have a lot to wrap my mind around.

And there’s that persistent part of me that wants to say—you go on ahead, I’ll write a poem about it!

The last poem in Listening to Mozart gives me hope that a much better frame of mind will come. All I have to do is stay on the path.

I didn’t know
I was writing love poems
to you Abe—
I was just writing
and love came out

Esther is also the author of Dear Alzheimer’s: A Caregiver’s Diary & Poems (Cave Moon Press, 2013). You can learn more about her and her journey with Abe at the Jack Straw Cultural site, where she was a fellow in 2010 (be sure to listen to the interview), and, more recently, you can find her at this page at Two Sylvias.

 

NPM #2: Oubliettes of Light

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OUBLIETTES OF LIGHT, Lisa Ashley. MoonPath Press, P.O. Box 445, Tillamook, OR 27142, 2025, 73 pages, $17.99, paper, http://MoonPathPress.com.

What a pleasure for me to begin National Poetry Month with a blog-review of Lisa Ashley’s debut book of poetry, Oubliettes of Light.

An oubliette is a secret dungeon, accessible only through a trapdoor at the top. In these poems, we encounter multiple trapdoors, and we drop through them into dark, painful histories: the Armenian genocide, fragmented stories of violence handed down through the generations (along with family recipes, and a thirst for survival). A father provides for his family, and bullies and abuses his wife and children. A mother escapes into her flower garden, and into a bottle of Scotch. Lisa Ashley, the middle child of seven, escapes the family home in rural New York State, makes her way West, finds love and motherhood, becomes a chaplain working with incarcerated youth.

And, lucky for us, she eventually finds her way to poetry.

In my attempt to capture Ashley’s book in a quick paragraph, I had to ask myself, what makes me love this book? Why would I call it a pleasure? Why will anyone else love these poems? Let me walk you through my thought process. Consider these lines opening the first poem, “Grandmother’s Story Stone”:

I know no Armenian, she no English.
Like a pupil at attention, she sits
in her straight chair by the cookstove,
shuffles pages back to front
in her Armenian Bible. She mutters,
gnarled fingers rowing.

Several lines later we get our first glimpse of the poet: “I whisper behind my hand / scubbity, scubbity, scubbity.” How else to translate an incomprehensible past? What do you hear: scubbity. What do you see: “cotton stockings [as they] sloop / into ankle bracelets.” What do you smell: “garlic, olive oil, mint, her perfume.”

Above all, these are poems of witness. Necessary to the times we live in.

But, importantly, the poems in Oubliettes of Light are not trapdoors one falls through into darkness, they are not about trauma. These poems are about healing from trauma. They are about the solace one finds in a well-lived maturity. Not dungeons, but the unexpected doors opening above us into light. A child and a young adult taking in all that happens around her and processing it; a woman on a spiritual path of awareness and reclamation.

I Went Out to Hear

after Leila Chatti

I went out to hear
birdsong. Layered
in springtime air like icing
on cake sweet
clamor of joy,
praise song to life.
I hear the undertow of bees,
find one dancing
on the poppy’s green ball
in the arms of ivory pistils,
lavender petals ten times the bee’s size
wave a Victorian fan flirtation.
Standing stock still, eyes locked,
knees heavy with pollen, I’m lost,
beat fevered wings
willing to work
this singular moment forever.

—Lisa Ashley

Years of work—personal work on herself, and work on the poetry—went into the making of this book. It shows on every page. Because I know how late she came to poetry, and how seriously she has taken it, I asked Lisa to describe her writing journey. This is what she wrote back (with her permission, I have lightly edited and shortened it) — it’s a blueprint for the later-in-life poet:

I was 60 years old when I crossed the threshold from prose writing (journalism, marketing, academic papers, sermons) to poetry writing. I was an absolute neophyte. My fundamental love of learning was my ally. It was like finding a secret, enormous treasure trove. I had never studied poetry in college. I had never read poetry in any serious way. I was familiar with Mary Oliver’s work because her poems were used so often in Unitarian Universalist services that folks in the congregations referred to themselves as the “Church of Mary Oliver.” I liked her work and the few poets I had come across in the past: Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare. I had no grounding in how to read and appreciate poetry, although I felt drawn to it. In 2014, after a sermon, a congregant invited me to come to her writing group. I knew her to be a kind person so I went. From there I began to take online classes and workshops, taught by excellent poets including Ellen Bass, Jane Hirshfield, Dorianne Laux, James Crews and Danusha Laméris. I joined a newly formed workshop group on Bainbridge and subscribed to on-line poetry venues that delivered a poem daily to my inbox. I was eager to learn as much as I could. I wrote many poems and began to submit to journals. I published my first poem in 2019. In May 2024 I submitted my manuscript to MoonPath Press, to the Sally Albiso Award contest. I was a finalist and was chosen for publication. I continue to read poetry every day, listen to poetry podcasts, and have committed to writing a poem a day for National Poetry Month. You could say I approach poetry as an immersive experience, and write poems to explore who I am, and to heal.

In closing, this is an inspiring book, open-hearted and encouraging.

You can find Oubliettes of Light at MoonPath, or through Bookshop.org. To see Lisa’s brand new (and lovely) web site, follow this link: https://www.lisaashleypoet.com.

Election Day

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I know I have been strangely silent about the U. S. election — in this venue at least. My family of origin used to be decent, working-class Republicans. Something I didn’t even know until I discovered how much my father admired Ronald Reagan. Now they are die-hard MAGA Republicans. It hurts my heart. If I say anything, they think I’m crazy. So I silence myself. In truth, I silenced my little bleeding liberal heart a lot as a child. I’m good at it. Not that they don’t love me, or that I don’t love them.

I remember my brother-in-law once telling me, “If you would only listen to Rush Limbaugh, then you would understand.” Well, if you would read The New Yorker, or The Nation, or freaking Time Magazine, YOU would get it. No, I don’t say that (not out loud). Instead I hang out with my tribe (poets), and watch Kamala’s Tik-Tok channel (or whatever it is) with my daughters.

And I feel really, really anxious. To make matters worse, two weeks ago my old dog died. I really wish he were here.

Pabu in his Halloween costume, a couple years back

How do I deal with election-anxiety? I get up early and sit at my desk, scribbling in a notebook (although he always lay at my feet and I miss having him there), and that makes me feel better. I read poetry, and that makes me feel better. (Though I used to read poems aloud to him.) I go for long, long walks with Pabu’s collar in my pocket, and that makes me feel a little better

I didn’t mean to say all of that. But, for once, I won’t erase what I’m thinking. I’ll just leave it out there.

In the Substack world, several people have today posted this poem by Alison Luterman. I found myself wanting to read it to my friends, and then — aha! — I thought of you. I copied this from Robert Reich, by the way.

I used to tell my students, if we all thought alike, we’d be robots or under some kind of mind control — in movies and novels, that’s always a dystopia. So, read widely, expose yourself to diverse cultures and ideas and voices. Make up your own mind. Be human.

And don’t forget to read poems.

HOLDING VIGIL

My cousin asks if I can describe this moment,
the heaviness of it, like sitting outside
the operating room while someone you love
is in surgery and you’re on those awful plastic chairs
eating flaming Doritos from the vending machine
which is the only thing that seems appealing to you, dinner-wise,
waiting for the moment when the doctor will come out
in her scrubs and face-mask, which she’ll pull down
to tell you whether your beloved will live or not. That’s how it feels
as the hours tick by, and everyone I care about
is texting me with the same cold lump of dread in their throat
asking if I’m okay, telling me how scared they are.
I suppose in that way this is a moment of unity,
the fact that we are all waiting in the same
hospital corridor, for the same patient, who is on life support,
and we’re asking each other, Will he wake up?
Will she be herself? And we’re taking turns holding vigil,
as families do, and bringing each other coffee
from the cafeteria, and some of us think she’s gonna make it
while others are already planning what they’ll wear to the funeral,
which is also what happens at times like these,
and I tell my cousin I don’t think I can describe this moment,
heavier than plutonium, but on the other hand,
in the grand scheme of things, I mean the whole sweep
of human history, a soap bubble, because empires
are always rising and falling, and whole civilizations
die, they do, they get wiped out, this happens
all the time, it’s just a shock when it happens to your civilization,
your country, when it’s someone from your family on the respirator,
and I don’t ask her how she’s sleeping, or what she thinks about
when she wakes at three in the morning,
cause she’s got two daughters, and that’s the thing,
it’s not just us older people, forget about us, we had our day
and we burned right through it, gasoline, fast food,
cheap clothing, but right now I’m talking about the babies,
and not just the human ones, but also the turtles and owls
and white tigers, the Redwoods, the ozone layer,
the icebergs for the love of God—every single
blessed being on the face of this earth
is holding its breath in this moment,
and if you’re asking, can I describe that, Cousin,
then I’ve gotta say no, no one could describe it
we all just have to live through it,
holding each other’s hands.

— Alison Luterman

Sandra Noel, WHAT THE PAIN LEFT

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WHAT THE PAIN LEFT, Sandra Noel. Kelsay Books, 502 South 1040 East, A-119, American Fork, Utah 84003, 2024, 56 pages, $20 paper, Kelsaybooks.com.

Although it is always a pleasure to read poems by Vashon Island poet Sandra Noel, this book felt very different from the two I have previously reviewed, Hawk Land (2022) and The Gypsy in My Kitchen  (2015). Dedicated to her husband, who died in 2022, What the Pain Left is painted from a different palette. Though crafted with Noel’s eye for detail, her heart for nature, here the “commotion / of silver-scaled abundance / falling from nets” in “Love and Marriage,” feels doomed from the start. In “We Speak About Death Over Burgers and Fries.” I was amazed at Noel’s poise in navigating the trajectory of this book, encompassing a 40-year history: courtship to death and out the other side, alone.

I will catch you
or we will fall together
maybe there is another level
in this warren
a way out of the labyrinth.

end lines from “Down the Rabbit Hole”

Of course there is no other way out of life, and perhaps that’s why the poems are often spare, more spare than I’ve noticed in Noel’s previous books. They are tender with feeling, and accessible; for the most part, Noel omits punctuation, placing together lines about a heron abruptly with “tragedies / float noisily by” (“In the Shadows”). Unexpected capital letters intrude, and exclamation marks. All of which seem to be insisting on making sense of what feels senseless, an illness, ineffectual treatment, and untimely death. This praise from the back cover, felt apt:

Part diary, part love letter, Noel’s humor, gratitude, and self-awareness keep these poems honest and truly from the heart. –Katy E. Ellis

The cover art is by Sandra Noel, herself, a watercolor painting of Gaibo Whaling Station, Wadaura, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. In the poem, “Love and Marriage,” the whaling station provides a metaphor—at least, so I thought—for the messiness of life:

Love and Marriage

Every morning
we walked to the whaling station
bought hot sweet coffee in cans
from a machine on the street
too early for the sun but not the market
as vendors shoveled crushed ice
into large blue bins
and elegant fishing boats glided
alongside the dock
their holds full and ready to disgorge.

As we sipped our coffee
arm in arm
I listened to the talk of local women
understanding nothing
and everything as women do.

Then I saw your sea blue eyes
bright with promise
the same way you looked at me
gazing over that commotion
of silver-scaled abundance
falling from nets onto the dock
into the waiting bins of ice
and hopeful buyers with their yen
fish sorted from fish
squid, octopus, sea squirts
and smaller, even stranger creatures.

You pushed me forward
when the crowd thinned out
kneeling, picked up wriggling globs
telling me their scientific names
as my eyes wandered to seabirds
frenzied by the blood and entrails
where women cleaned fish in seawater
then, over your beautiful shoulders
to the sea, bright blue
the great Eastern Sun slowly rising
turning the bay into liquid gold.

“Are you listening to me!?”
“Yes,” I said, “Yes of course!”
and when I think of that first lie
I remember all the others
the kind that make a marriage work
but destroy a love affair.

—Sandra Noel

Notice how the lack of punctuation makes some lines ambiguous. Is it the local women who understand nothing, as women do? or is it the I, listening, who understands nothing? The latter interpretation makes, “Then I saw your sea blue eyes” a kind of homecoming, a moment of pure understanding. That the poem’s ending feels unresolved, or imperfectly resolved (going on a couple beats too long, or cut short?), is a simulacrum of a life ended too soon, and part of what makes this collection of poems so moving.

You can learn more by visiting Noel’s website, Noel Design. Or visit her book page at Kelsay Books.