by Robert “Bob” Bussey
Some poets start writing at an early age, go to college, get a degree in fine arts and keep writing. Other poets take a circuitous path that consumes their becoming what they finally become. That is Carolyn Breedlove.
She first started writing poetry in High School, went to college and obtained a degree with a major in French, and a minor in English. But then life happened. I like poets who have done more than just go to school to study the art of poetry. Carolyn is an example of a poet who has “tasted the many aspects of life.” She has lived in various states, had various jobs, that could only add to her knowledge once she decided to place pen to paper. She currently lives in Natchitoches. But she didn’t just settle down and become a southern belle house wife in Natchitoches. Instead, she went on to get her master’s degree in history with a cultural resource management focus. From there, she worked briefly with the National Park Service (in conjunction with her master’s thesis on Oakland Plantation) and, finally, for the Kent Plantation House in Alexandria from 1998 thru 2003.
Around 2001 thru 2003 she became involved in the Writer’s Guild, a group of writers and poets that was formed at LSU-A with Professor Bernard Gallagher and others. The Writer’s Guild, some would argue, was the first strong thrust at bringing the art of Poetry back into the public domain in Central Louisiana. They would meet on a somewhat regular basis, give encouragement to one another, and perform readings (live performances) at various coffee shops and other venues that existed in Alexandria and surrounding towns back then.
Her poetry has gone through an evolution. But, eventually, she started to set down words for herself, and if others happened to grab something in a poem, that was great. She realizes that as a poet first you write, then you put the poem out into the public domain as a gift. Then the public, those who read the work, interpret the poem for themselves. They put their own personality into the words. Their interpretation might not be at all what the poem was about to Carolyn, but that is fine. If the poem helps the reader make some new or even old connections, that is perfect.
Carolyn also invested her talents and her time in perhaps that most poetic of all places, Paris, France. In Paris, she became published in “The Bastille,” and read at the Spoken Word Paris, an open-mic venue for writers and musicians. Over the years Carolyn’s poems and prose have been published in a long list of journals and magazines: Maple Leaf Rag; The Bastille; Fleur de Lit; Nasty Women Poets; New Millennium Writings; Wisconsin Review; and LSU-A Verbatim, to name a few.
Carolyn is also a “Cat Lady.” That might be trendy today, but it is true. She has indoor cats, outdoor cats and even a feral cat that keeps having kittens. She has been trying to catch the feral cat for some 3 years with no success, and the cat just keeps having litter, after litter, after litter. Carolyn can catch the kittens and then beg people to take them home. If you need a kitten, contact her. I wonder when those cats will end up in her poetry?
Poets don’t like to be classified, but one can often detect if they are what we might call classical poets, grief poets, love poets, nature poets, rhyming poets or some other category. Some people like reading about the inner turmoil of others and can easily relate to lost love, or a lost child, or some other form of emotional event. I don’t get that from Carolyn’s work. Instead, if I were to give Carolyn a classification, a title, a subcategory, it would be a “connections poet.” A poet who is constantly wondering about the world and the multitude of connections between our human existence and worldly, or not so worldly, events. A poet who instinctively, or with great thought, is able to see and express in words various connections that the general public may not initially see. She is able to take individual events and give them a universal spin. Some may call this an ability to make a “cosmic connection” or a “universal connection.” I like to think of it as a “human connection,” … that ability to put down in words for other humans to enjoy various events, ideas, emotions, that we can all connect to. With that, let’s dive into a few of her poems.
The first one, “Waiting For The Plumber,” is from an actual event. It reminded me of the story of the Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe with the constant sound of the leaking pipe which could have been the “beating heart” in the floor in the Tell Tale Heart. How many of us have had a similar connection with one plumbing issue or another. I know that I have a toilet that keeps on singing at night, but I have never written about it. Enter Caroyln with Waiting for the Plumber.
Waiting for the Plumber
It begins with a sigh,
inevitably, though this is pure
conjecture, and only because by the time
I notice, the sound’s like breathing
or the blood in my veins or
ghostly thrum of maybe synapses firing;
I mean to say, it is and it isn’t.
I turn on the fluorescent light: no.
Could it be the computer?
Am I mad? Is it tinnitus?
Or the box fan down the hall?
In the middle of the day it whispers;
the radio, or by now, heater,
drowns it completely. But this is not
true, either: the relentless hum holds a high note
vibrating to a heart’s beat,
burrowing under skin, up arms
to the back of my neck. And it’s growing,
I know it is, no longer beneath
the bathroom alone: from my bed now
through a swelling count of black hours
I listen, laid bare,
to the thin constant flow, the wispy drone
just below. They’d warned me
this could happen soon—old pipes,
you know, corroded and worn;
galvanized! Still, up to one last task:
ignoring valves, doing no one’s bidding,
running and running and running.
Is the “sigh” of the leaking pipes personification or anthropomorphism? Has she given this inanimate item human-like characteristics in a metaphorical and representative way or is this a non-human thing displaying literal human traits, capable of human behavior? Perhaps a little of both. Or, what if this is a poem about human frailty waiting on some higher entity to come and fix things within each of us? We all age, our pipes all age, we make unnecessary sounds as we age, and in many instances, we just can’t stop those sounds. And those aging sounds are often more prevalent in the middle of the night. Carolyn would say it is whatever you, the reader, interpret it to be. The poem contains sufficient metaphors to be interpreted in numerous ways.
Read it again. What do you get out of it? Can you relate?
The next poem, O, Fish, is from another real event that many of us can relate to. Again, that connection of words to human events that Carolyn can set out in poetry. I’m not going to tell you what this one is about. I will say that I completely misinterpreted it and Carolyn got a good chuckle out of my interpretation. Inwardly, I think she was pleased that I could somehow relate to her words … pleased to know that her words could strike different melodies with different people.
O Fish
O fish
we’ve come so far together—
you, so quietly from the start
I never saw, and
only felt you when we rested
after hauling ourselves up a climb,
mowing on a summer day, the primal
surge and flow of coupling.
I could count, then,
our shared rhythm for what it was,
pounding clear and separate from the bathwater,
flicking, flicking from side to side.
O heart
is it all the times I gave you away,
the shattered you I received back,
that I wasn’t careful enough of you?
Is it how I asked you to be big,
needed you to be strong,
tried to keep you open after all that,
“bleeding,” they like to say, if I chose
not to be –less?
Stay yet a while. I promise not to change.
That, you can trust.
Old couple that we are, I know you, too.
O fish
why this flopping,
the thrashing against ribs
as if truly a cage, when
they only ever sheltered?
Is the great salt beckoning, calling time
at a pitch beyond my hearing,
the long inevitable tsunami rising?
Tell me: is it now we go back,
by quiet undertow back to the wild?
How many of us have had to deal with pain? Everyone, I bet. There are different forms of pain. Pain from a burn. Pain from a broken bone. Pain from chemotherapy. Pain from childbirth. Pain from losing someone near and dear. When do we often let whatever pain we are experiencing come to the forefront of our minds? That is what Carolyn discusses in this next poem. What is that time? Does is even have a name? Perhaps “Event Horizon.”
Event Horizon
Pain loves the middle of a winter night;
I learned this long ago.
Or any night, really:
the blackness stretching out, silent,
irresistible, to either side,
the more the better;
and this dead center, gnawing,
its own flame, another long needle
easing in, holding, holding—
that burn. That intimate.
That unshareable. That—
singular.
And all the heads passing
along the periphery: shades.
Memories. Foreshadows, of the children
no longer, the loved not yet,
the bond so lost not even
the obituary could reach me
till its anniversary, dead star still
shining all that time, light traveling
as it does, on and on once made,
oblivious, impartial, obeying time,
transcending gravity,
on and on.
I’ll leave you with one more that makes real connections for many of us or will as you age. But as you read it, ask what is your middle distance?
The Middle Distance
Everyone says it’ll get better, in time,
or I’ll get used to it
(except for the one who says
it will never be the same).
For my part, I’m waiting
and watching—curious, expectant—
to be surprised, for the big reveal.
The long view seems pretty clear:
Bayou Pierre’s flood plain ragged and brown
in winter, tufts of reeds, small pools
of sky, long snarled fences torched
with hawthorn. Distant objects, movement,
just as sharp and comprehensible as ever.
(Though I fear overconfidence,
something fast approaching I’ll miss.)
Close-up is fine, fine; I can read
what’s right before me, the business
at hand, converse with the familiar, at the range
of a cup of tea, wineglass, small talk
at a party; telephone, book, screen.
The arm’s length vision, what
can be touched now; or at murmuring distance,
the first face seen by dim morning.
The revelation’s been the middle distance,
where my eyes don’t yet agree to be in sync,
give any sort of clear picture—
that this is where most of life happens:
those people across the shop I may
or may not know; those others at the party
I’ve not yet greeted; the cat by the hedge
I’m almost certain is mine
(going on intuition, color, faith—a squint).
The not-quite-gone, the almost-here,
the sharpest edge, to be prepared
for anything.
Carolyn Breedlove edited and annotated A Glorious Day: The Journal of a Central Louisiana Governess, 1853-1854. Her poems have appeared in Comstock Review, Wisconsin Review, New Millennium Writings, and Maple Leaf Rag. Finishing Line Press published a chapbook of her poems, Just Following the River.
If you would like to learn more about Carolyn Breedlove, you can find additional information at the following websites:
Meadows Museum hosts poetry reading featuring four North Louisiana poets |
Centenary College of Louisiana
The final reviews for Critical Mass 7 winners from national critics (shreveporttimes.com)
Spitting on Hegel — artspace (artspaceshreveport.com)
Lilies by earthlight
Robert Bussey is a local attorney and poet who has resided in CENLA since 1986. He interviews other poets and then writes these articles to help promote poetry. You can reach him at Rlbussey450@icloud.com if you are a poet and would like to be interviewed.