Dialogue:
Shannon Lise and Megan Wildhood
Megan Wildhood on Shannon Lise’s “So Many Times I Have Kept Moving When I Wanted to Stay"
“So Many Times I Have Kept Moving When I Wanted To Stay” has haunted me with its beauty since the first time I read it. “Rain-green road,” “mossy steps tumbling to the sea,” “sheets of the tide”—be still my heart! These lines are so gorgeous, they’re sharp and light glints off their edges. That is, they cause me to sit up, lean in, peer into openings I didn’t know were there before reading this poem. Lines like these—oh, here’s another!: “sly hinges of the world”—make me wonder about the author, Shannon Lise, too. Who is the woman that could write such a veil-tearing poem? What has life shown her? Where have the little ships of life taken her? Where have they not but she wished—perhaps wishes still—that they would?
And the title nails it. The fact that it’s not clear (to me) who the “I” is makes this wishful maritime world all the more inviting: it might as well be me who is the “I.” In this dream world with silver-lined ships and people who leave light and love everywhere, I would want to stay, too, if I could find such a serious, magical, seriously magical place. Lise’s words provoke me to question what keeps me moving when I’ve wanted to tarry in the few places I’ve been captured by; why is it that I can’t be still? What is it that I’ve been running from and where is this tiny town full of tall houses? Would I, could I, fit in in such a magnificent place? Do those sly hinges open for perpetual weirdos who feel like they’ve landed on the wrong planet like me, too?
This is what I admire most about—no, am grateful for in—”So Many Times I Have Kept Moving When I Wanted To Stay.” This poems leave me with hope when so much writing these days drapes oversized coats of despair onto readers in the name of “waking them up.” It is measured but solid hope that wakes people up, though, and that it was I find in this poem. Lise does not sacrifice skill or craft—”So Many Times I Have Kept Moving When I Wanted To Stay” is not sappy or cheap; it earns our hope. For me, Lise’s little white ships lined with silver are the hope that times gone by, opportunities I may have missed, people I never got to bid farewell, excruciatingly hard seasons in my life, might return to me in the form of strength, lessons learned, improved character. That they may return to take me to the place with light in the windows and kisses in the streets. And, most importantly, that such a place might exist even for someone like me, who has wandered for nearly 40 years looking for a place and a people to finally call home, with a balcony just for me.
Shannon Lise on Megan Wildhood’s “The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You”
In her exquisitely titled poem, “The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You,” Megan Wildhood flings us unsuspectingly up against the raw absurdity of reality, in all its beauty and terror. I love this poem. I love the images – the birds still singing in the smoke, the spray-painted headstone, the disgruntled driver at the cemetery. I love the transformation of Sandy-how-may-I-help-you to Sandy-help-me, of automatized interaction to existential connection.
Megan deftly captures the way that the mere awareness of death puts a face on the faceless bodies all around us, gives meaning to the impersonal fabric of our lives. Because the knowledge that the person across from us is going to die has the power—if we let it—to make that person beautiful, to make that person lovable.
Stop, the poet seems to say. Stop and look at what is happening. Don’t you realize that life—with its hunger and cold, its ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation—is driving us all into the dark, down to the cemetery. There is no reverse option. Don’t you realize? Let us stop and look at each other. Let us be present for every step of the way. Together we can join the birds still singing in the smoke.
And then, the burning question, which is for me the heart of this poem—who would we have to be for this to be a celebration?
For each issue, ballast asks pairs of poets to read each other’s work and respond in some way. We hope these dialogues will sound the resonances contained within the issue as well as serve to foster a sense of interconnection and community among our authors.
If you’ve been published in a previous issue of ballast and would like to participate in a dialogue, please reach out to our editors at ballastjournal@gmail.com.