Arts Cafe Mystic hosts outdoor poetry Sunday with Margaret Gibson and Friends

October 08, 2020 12:00 am • Last Updated: October 09, 2020 10:25 pm

By Rick Koster
Day Arts/Features writer

Poet Margaret Gibson at her home in Preston. (Mara Lavitt)

On Sunday, the Arts Cafe Mystic hosts 'A Green Poetry Cafe with Margaret Gibson and Friends'

One of the most iconic taglines of the 1970s came from a television commercial for Chiffon margarine, which advised, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature."

Hardly the stuff of Sylvia Plath, but, as far as prescient sentiments go, it's pretty spot-on.

As for as the more literary aspect of such things, the Green Poetry Café series — an initiative conceptualized by Connecticut State Poet Laureate Margaret Gibson but long-postponed by coronavirus concerns — debuts at 2 p.m. Sunday as an outdoor presentation by the Arts Café Mystic on the Mystic Museum of Art patio. All mask and social distancing protocols will be in place.

The afternoon features readings by Preston resident Gibson, author of 12 poetry collections. Her most recent title is 2018's "Not Hearing the Wood Thrush," and a new book, "The Glass Globe," will be out from her longtime publisher, LSU Press, in 2021.

Gibson's book "The Body" won the Connecticut Book Award in 2008; "The Vigil" was a finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry in 1993; "Broken Cup" was a finalist for 2016 Poets' Prize; and the title poem from that collection won a Pushcart Prize for that year.

Also reading are two other fine Connecticut poets: Former Canton poet laureate Joan Hofmann and Manchester Community College English professor and director of the school's poetry program Steve Straight.

Rhode Island cellist Theodore Mook will provide an commiserative musical component to the program.

The Green Poetry Cafés are part of an initiative by Gibson to explore and celebrate "green poetry" in Connecticut and are made possible by a $50,000 State Poet Laureate Grant from the Academy of American Poets. Last week, Gibson answered a series of questions about the Green Poetry Café series, her work, and the Arts Café Mystic. Answers have been edited for space and clarity.

The Day: It's hard to imagine a collection of Margaret Gibson poems that doesn't incorporate themes of nature and the environment. Talk about that theme as it applies to your work.

Gibson: My poems have always incorporated imagery from the earth. It's part of my writing-nature, who knows why? I could say, "My grandfather was a farmer." (He was). I could say, "My mother loved mockingbirds." (She did.) I could say, "Zen practice teaches how to pay attention to the least thing." (It does.) I could say, "I live in the woods." (I do.)

Poets have always gone to the natural world as a source of insight, and for metaphor.

But in 1997 I began to write about the natural world as a subject in and of itself. I became more aware of the political or social side of being on earth, how human choices are impacting and degrading the earth, endangering all of us — all living beings. But first I listen to the earth. It's often silent, but it also speaks in tornado or bird call or coyote yowl or sea rise. I don't feel separate from the earth, so I can (we all can) speak for the earth as we gather ourselves to making changes in the way we live.

The Day: Is there in fact a body of work and poets associated with "green poetry?" Who are some of the premiere writers working conscientiously in that genre — either globally or locally?

Gibson: Way back in the late 1950s, Richard Wilbur's poem "Advice to a Prophet" warned about losing the earth to nuclear devastation. Other poetic forebears? Robinson Jeffers, Gary Snyder. Theodore Roetke. Mary Oliver, more recently. Right now, a number of poets who rarely, before now, wrote about nature are doing so because of climate crisis — or at least in part. Joy Harjo, Chase Twichell, Jane Hirshfield, Camille T. Dungy, Arthur Sze and many others come to mind. In Connecticut: Edwina Trehtham, David Leff, Steve Straight, Jon Anderson.

Soon you'll be able to read more Connecticut poets writing about the earth. With some of the grant money I was awarded by the Academy of American Poets for projects during my time as Poet Laureate, I'm putting together an anthology of Connecticut poets writing about the earth in a time of global climate crisis. It'll come out in April of 2021. In it you can read poems by Connecticut poets speaking to and for and about the earth.

I'll put in a plug for an essay I wrote, just published in The Georgia Review. Fall 2020 issue. It's titled: "Listening to the Thrush: Notes toward the Greening of Poetry in a Time of Global Climate Crisis."

The Day: Your next book is "The Glass Globe." Does it reflect any of these concerns?

Gibson: "The Glass Globe" weaves together poems I wrote after the death of my husband, David McKain — those poems of elegy and of bereavement are entwined with poems written about climate change and its tangible impacts. At LSU Press, one reader of the manuscript said this: "The two elegies, one for the beloved and for the earth rhyme throughout 'The Glass Globe.' What makes the rhyme especially effective is the way it personalizes the vastness of climate catastrophe at the same time as it enlarges personal bereavement beyond the limits of self-absorption. The two kinds of mourning interlock and reflect each other."

The poems for that book were mostly completed a couple of years ago; I continue to write poems about the earth and climate crisis — as well as poems about "old love." Stay tuned!

The Day: The idea of Green Poetry Cafés has obviously been affected by the pandemic. I'm sure you're delighted by this opportunity to move forward with the project. At the same time, in an odd sort of way, I'm wondering if the restrictions and isolation required by the COVID virus may have heightened both awareness and creativity as they apply to the earth and climate crisis.

Gibson: There are four Green Poetry Cafés in the works; the Mystic Arts Café is the first to offer a live reading. The Green Cafés are funded in part by the grant from the Academy of American Poets — and over the last six months, so many readings have been cancelled or postponed. But because creativity will not be stopped, there are new ways of presenting readings and workshops, by Zoom or by video and then posting these. This is happening in theater, also.

The deeper answer to your question is that enforced isolation can be welcomed as creative solitude, the seedbed of poems. Staying home, going deeper into oneself and one's values — so many poets are writing, reading, taking the time to investigate climate crisis, taking walks in nature preserves — becoming in touch with themselves and the earth in a deeper way.

As Poet Laureate, I have in the works a video of three poets reading in three nature preserves owned by Avalonia Land Conservancy. The video's called "CT Poets Out in the Open." Coming soon — to local library sites and schools, I hope.

The Day: You have a strong and natural association with the Arts Café Mystic. Without meaning to slight any other events or organizations, do you feel a special connection with ACM?

Gibson: Over the course of 20 years, I've probably read at the Arts Café Mystic four times — or more. During my late husband's illness, when I couldn't travel far away from home, my involvement with ACM increased. When my last two books of poems were published, I gave the inaugural reading of each at the Arts Café Mystic, and hopefully I will again next fall when "The Glass Globe" comes out.

I have tremendous respect for Melanie Greenhouse, Christie Max Williams their entire supporting staff, and now its new director Lisa Starr. More than respect — let's talk about a love for friends.

I hope our community realizes how lucky it is to have an organization that has been putting on stirring programs of poetry and music for years and years — Connecticut poets and a long list of nationally and internationally recognized poets. It (seemed) "only natural" for the Arts Café Mystic to (serve) as a possible host for a "Green Poetry Café." Lisa Starr has welcomed the idea enthusiastically. Aside from the upcoming reading, the Arts Café Mystic also will be turning the traditionally spring workshop "Youth Shall Be Served" into a green event.

Mystic Arts Café is a great place to act locally and think globally. Poetry opens the heart and stretches the mind. And, as Christie used to say in every introduction to music and poetry, "...and if we have a little fun on the way, so much the better."