Poetry saving America Day 21 #NationalPoetryMonth

We have searched wide and deep on the internet and have not uncovered anything Tony Hoagland has written about C.D. Wright's "Our Dust" that would account for his listing it as the last of Twenty Poems That Could Save America. Furthermore, we have no prior experience with C.D. Wright's poetry, at least none we can recall. We'll have to start with the words on the page--what the poet actually wrote.

Our Dust by C. D. Wright

Our Dust

I am your ancestor. You know next-to-nothing
about me.
There is no reason for you to imagine
the rooms I occupied or my heavy hair.
Not the faint vinegar smell of me. Or
the rubbed damp
of Forrest and I coupling on the landing
en route to our detached day.

You didn’t know my weariness, error, incapacity,
I was the poet
of shadow work and towns with quarter-inch
phone books, of failed
roadside zoos. The poet of yard eggs and
sharpening shops,
jobs at the weapons plant and the Maybelline
factory on the penitentiary road.

A poet of spiderwort and jacks-in-the-pulpit,
hollyhocks against the tool shed.
An unsmiling dark blond.
The one with the trowel in her handbag.
I dug up protected and private things.
That sort, I was.
My graves went undecorated and my churches
abandoned. This wasn’t planned, but practice.

I was the poet of short-tailed cats and yellow
line paint.
Of satellite dishes and Peterbilt trucks. Red Man
Chewing Tobacco, Black Cat Fireworks, Triple Hut
Creme Soda. Also of dirt dobbers, nightcrawlers,
martin houses, honey, and whetstones
from the Novaculite Uplift. What remained
of The Uplift.

I had registered dogs 4 sale; rocks, dung,
and straw.
I was a poet of hummingbird hives along with
redhead stepbrothers.

The poet of good walking shoes—a necessity
in vernacular parts—and push mowers.
The rumor that I was once seen sleeping
in a refrigerator box is false (he was a brother
who hated me).
Nor was I the one lunching at the Governor’s
mansion.

I didn’t work off a grid. Or prime the surface
if I could get off without it. I made
simple music
out of sticks and string. On side B of me,
experimental guitar, night repairs and suppers
such as this.
You could count on me to make a bad situation
worse like putting liquid make-up over
a passion mark.

I never raised your rent. Or anyone else’s by God.
Never said I loved you. The future gave me chills.
I used the medium to say: Arise arise and
come together.
Free your children. Come on everybody. Let’s start
with Baltimore.

Believe me I am not being modest when I
admit my life doesn’t bear repeating. I
agreed to be the poet of one life,
one death alone. I have seen myself
in the black car. I have seen the retreat
of the black car.

whose ancestors lived or worked here?

Photo by J. Harrington

Our first thought is this is a poem of working America, rural America, too often forgotten America, the "wrong side" of both the tracks and the digital divide. Our second thought is that this poem is to rural America what Phillip Levine is to urban American, especially Detroit. Our third thought is "why didn't Tony Hoagland include any of Levine's poems in his list of twenty?

We absolutely agree that America, and Americans, need more poems like this, written by those who have "been there, done that." We should not leave poems and poets like this in our dust. They should be kept alive and part of our own vernacular. As Wendell Berry notes: “If you don't know where you're from, you'll have a hard time saying where you're going.” If you enjoyed this poem, you might want to take a look at William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways and Blue Highways Revisited, a photo journal of Heat-Moon's trip. Each of these, although prose more than poetry, shows us much of what's worth saving about America and Americans.

Thanks for following our thoughts on Tony Hoagland's Twenty Poems That Could Save America. We'll explore some similar themes during the rest of National Poetry Month. We may also get back to some phenology reports as the last of our snow melts and Spring temperatures finally reach our North Country.

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