A story of backyard ground hots. Kentucky bluegrass poke weed and
plenty of poetry. Jeffrey Brown meets the nation's new poet laureate
for our arts and Culture series canvas.
I thought it was the neighbor's cat back to clean the clock of the
fledgling Robbins low in their nest stuck in the dense hedge by the
House. But what came was much stranger
liquidity, moving all muscle in bristle ground, slippery and waddle,
thieving, my tomatoes, strangeness and wonder of life, even a ground
hotdog in Italy moans backyard in Lexington, Kentucky.
I watched her mansion stand on her haunches taking such pleasure
in the watery bites.
Why am I not allowed the light?
Come here. Lehman was home recently when she got a surprise call
from Carla Hayden, librarian of Congress, asking her to be the next
poet laureate of the United States. I was at a loss for words, I
you know, as a poet, which we're not supposed to be at a loss for
words
at a loss for words, I really started to think about what it was
to be able to elevate.
And promote the expansiveness of poetry at a time like this
words, and I found some words. And it was, yes,
it is author of six volumes of poetry, including her newest, the
Hurting Kind, which again looks to nature and family history. She
grew up in Sonoma, California of Mexican and European ancestry.
Indeed your passion for poetry to a reading of Elizabeth Bishop's
Palm One art at age 15. I really remember thinking I want to know
how this is possible. I want to know how this is made. How is it
made ach.
So you were thinking right away Like what is a poet Do with words?
Yeah, I was immediately drawn to not just sort of the
Music and meaning of the poem but also the form and the craft of
the mechanics in a sense, 15. I don't know what it was, but it clicked
in, but it also made room for the nuance of human emotions.
It felt like there was no sort of this is life. This is a fact. Right?
This is truth. And yet what I found there felt more true than anything
I'd read. Yet She would go on to get a masters at N y U and at first
work in New York, doing marketing for major magazines. I used to
joke that the saying was always like, you know, do what you love.
And the money will follow. Um
And I always thought unless it's poetry, because then you want to
do what you love, and then also find another job that you don't mind
so much because the money's not typically following follow. Hey,
mama. These days at 46, she's able to make a living from readings
in her books now in Kentucky bluegrass country.
Where her husband, Lucas Marquardt as a video marketing company for
the thoroughbred industry.
I'm Ada Limon. And this is this slowdown. Something we don't often
talk about is the strangeness of poetry.
The daily podcast the slowdown in which he introduces and reads poems
by a wide range of poets, always trying to get connected to nature
walks in nearby parks like McConnell Springs, making sure to learn
the names of all that's growing around her. This is just weed right
here, but I love that. It's called
Poke. We'd right like that's it's a fabulous name, and you've got
birch trees and Black Oaks.
But that to me is that so much more musical right off the bat, then
tree.
Yeah. Now she'll have a much larger public role and wants to build
on two main themes, especially at this moment of pandemic division
and environmental threat really believe in the power of poetry to
help us reclaim our humanity.
You know, to allow us to feel all the feelings if you will, I think
so Often we just compartmentalize and numb ourselves.
To what's going on in the world.
And poetry is a place where you can do that groundwork.
Where you can read a poem and be like. Oh, right.
I am. I am a human being. I have thoughts and feelings on the other
thing is that I really believe in poetry's
Ability to help us repair our relationship with the Earth. I think
that we are so distant from the land from nature.
That we forget that relationship with reciprocal
poetry. Italy Mon often invokes what she calls her ancestors. The
family who have brought her to where she is today. My grandfather
before he died, would have told anyone that could listen that he
was ordinary.
That his life was a good one.
Simple.
He could never understand why anyone would want to write it down.
Beautiful. Long poem. The Hurting kind, she writes of her grandparents.
One gone one Still alive. Here is how it ends.
All of this is a conjuring
I will not stop this reporting of attachments. There is evidence
everywhere.
There's a tree over his grave now.
And soon her grave too.
There. She is tough and says, if I ever die, which is marvelous,
and maybe why she's still alive.
I see the tree above the grave and think
I'm wearing my heart.
On my leaves my heart on my leaves.
Love ends.
But what if it doesn't?
For the PBS news hour. I'm Jeffrey Brown in Lexington, Kentucky.