HEART BEAT: Poetry Is as Poetry Does

Thursday I drove to Radford to participate in a poetry reading in honor of Rita Riddle, who taught at Radford University for many years until she died two years ago.  Jim Minick, a writer and farmer who lives in Wythe County, had finished editing a collection of her poems that was in the works at the end of her life.
“All There Is to Keep” is a beautiful collection grounded in far southwestern Virginia, even when Riddle’s words take us up north, across the ocean, or back in time into the pages of the Bible.  The poems are rich with humor and very wise. 
Hearing Rita’s words coming out of the mouths of so many people made me want to come home and open up a folder of my father’s poems.  I did, but not before I went to Floyd with a group of writers from the Appalachian Writers’ Collective to read with another collective of writers from Floyd.
“Always there is the forest,” my father once wrote.  And more. He loved poetry.  I grew up reading an anthology he bought in 1948, “Anthology of the World’s Best Poems.” He couldn’t afford children’s books, not the kind I filled my house with for my son, but an early introduction to poetry was a fair trade.
When I was a little girl and wrote my own poems in spiral notebooks, I would give them to my father to read.  He put stars and checks by each poem to let me know what he thought.  I got stars on everything except one poem that questioned war.  Even that one, though, he checked.
While poetry may seem like such a solitary ritual at times, it has its roots in people sitting around in a circle telling stories in verse because it is easier to remember stories and pass them down orally when poetic language is involved.  I guess that’s what we were doing Thursday night in Radford, Friday afternoon in Floyd, and Sunday afternoon in Abingdon.
Sunday afternoon, Ben Jennings read two of Rita Quillen’s poems at the Washington County Public Library since Rita, who lives not so far down the road from us, wasn’t able to come to the reading in honor of her new book, “Her Secret Dream.” A few of the other poets who read talked about this other Rita and her special influence as a teacher and poet. 
Again, here I was, seated in a semi-circle with a group of poets in front of a group of people who listened to our words with so much respect.  “This is why we celebrate National Poetry Month,” I thought.  “To remind each other why people need poetry as much as they need assurance that lilacs will continue to bloom this time of year.”
Edward Thomas wrote about this time of year in “Sowing,” a poem printed in my father’s anthology.  It’s about how “early seeds” are “all safely sown.” Seeds like words plant themselves in hearts and minds and keep growing.