Poetry Exchange by Sarah Webb and Melanie Alberts
September 4, 2021
About the Poets
Sarah Webb co-edits the Zen magazine Just This. Her collection Black (Virtual Artists Collective, 2013) was named a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award and for the Writers' League of Texas Book Award. Her Red Riding Hood's Sister (Purple Flag, 2018) was also short-listed for the Oklahoma Book Award. She posts at bluebirdsw.blogspot.com
Writer and psychic artist Melanie Alberts works at the University of Texas at Austin. Her non-fiction and poetry have appeared in the Ransom Center Magazine, Just This, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Wisteria: A Journal of Haiku, Senryu, and Tanka, and other journals. Follow Melanie on Instagram @clair.circles.spirit.art.
The Exchange
Melanie met Sarah through the virtual Just This Zen writing circle held on Thursday evenings. Sarah is a founding member of the writing circle, and Melanie discovered The Texas Poetry Assignment website through Sarah’s comments on a poem she wrote during her first sitting with the group. Melanie invited Sarah to join her with this particular assignment and the pair began a correspondence. Sarah’s poem is “Time Lapse” (Assignment 11: Time) and Melanie’s poem is “Brown Recluse” (Assignment 13: The Texas Onesie).
Below this exchange is a video of Sarah and Melanie reading and discussing their poems and their exchange.
First Drafts of the Poems
Time Lapse by Sarah Webb
Clouds slide over the lake, flat-bottomed cumulus
that puff custard at the top and presage storm. They shadow
white-capped water; they lift past the hills and travel on.
If we were to set a camera to catch them for the day,
we'd see them speed past, dissipate, then edge back in,
lines of cloud following the currents of the sky,
and if we kept on filming, a week, a month, a year,
the air would flicker—white gray blue, rain sun fog—
clouds blinking into being and passing on.
Decades would show us winter, dim, wind from the north,
summer glare slapping from waves—a perpetual pattern,
days lengthening and shortening in their season.
A hundred years might pass, morse code of light and dark,
and then more, a blur like a stream photographed at twilight,
whose current turns to hair, pouring between forest stones.
Beneath the ever-changing torrent of the sky, windows
gleam on the far shore. Their lamps pulse the dark,
flashes and shadows on a quiver of water.
In centuries, lights outline the growing sand, cluster high
and haze the night. They fade, give way to a necklace of light
faint through heavy trees along a twist of canyon.
Now, gaps in the string, and now a single lamp under the stars.
A firefly on a river bank, dark and bright, dark and light,
it lasts its moment, before the trees close round it, black.
Night comes and then day, mist and then sun, the years stream,
and all the long passing, the clouds sweep over.
Brown Recluse by Melanie Alberts
Please don’t hate me,
a spiderling suddenly born
homeless during a summer of rain,
poured out of silk with fifty
sisters, fighting for space
as your hand hit me—yes, I fanged
your flesh not because I hate you—
(I have nothing but this precious salve
to slow down a clumsy great
body like yours, cutting through everything,
crushing life in a single step) simply put,
my fear is a reflex, like how
now I must hide—I must
leave this restless weed born
essentially alone as I was, hatched
during a season of prayed-for rain,
between a Hill Country highway
and a service road lined with tents,
luscious cardboard hiding places, breathtaking beauty!
Reflections on Each Other’s Poems
Sarah sent in “Time Lapse” first and Melanie spent several days sitting with it, reading it aloud, thinking about what it meant to her. She wrote her reflections on each stanza and at first, had many questions, but felt better to winnow it down to what she felt was her most pressing question. Melanie emailed her comments along with, accidentally, two drafts of “Brown Recluse,” to Sarah who sent her impressions back. Melanie gratefully used them in rewriting of the draft. It turned out that both writers will be attending Laurene Musgrove’s workshop on writing a “onesie” and Melanie may continue to make edits to “Brown Recluse” after that class.
Melanie’s comments (in italics)
Time Lapse
Your title gives me the sense that there will be a play of words with lapse or perhaps a comment on loss, or shifting of memory? Looking forward to what unfolds!
Clouds slide over the lake, flat-bottomed cumulus
that puff custard at the top and presage storm. They shadow
white-capped water; they lift past the hills and travel on.
Such delicious opening imagery, I am reminded of being served a puff pastry and the passing feeling of guilt that comes after eating one.
If we were to set a camera to catch them for the day,
we'd see them speed past, dissipate, then edge back in,
lines of cloud following the currents of the sky,
Yes, I can imagine that.
and if we kept on filming, a week, a month, a year,
the air would flicker—white gray blue, rain sun fog—
clouds blinking into being and passing on.
Yes, I can imagine that. A time lapse can be jarring that way.
Decades would show us winter, dim, wind from the north,
summer glare slapping from waves—a perpetual pattern,
days lengthening and shortening in their season.
I love the music in this stanza, and wonder how spring and fall would appear. I’d like more of this as it’s engaging my senses.
A hundred years might pass, morse code of light and dark,
and then more, a blur like a stream photographed at twilight,
whose current turns to hair, pouring between forest stones.
Very pretty imagery along with a sense of cool detachment as you increase the length of time of your magical time lapse. Time is a blur, indeed
Beneath the ever-changing torrent of the sky, windows
gleam on the far shore. Their lamps pulse the dark,
flashes and shadows on a quiver of water.
Lyrical use of language! I’d like to be moved or emotionally involved with what is happening, but you are keeping the reader at a distance...the distance of a camera.
In centuries, lights outline the growing sand, cluster high
and haze the night. They fade, give way to a necklace of light
faint through heavy trees along a twist of canyon.
There is growth in the number of habitations, and the geography is shifting, apparently. I’m not sure if that’s what you mean here, but that’s what I think you’re expressing.
Now, gaps in the string, and now a single lamp under the stars.
A firefly on a river bank, dark and bright, dark and light,
it lasts its moment, before the trees close round it, black.
Now humanity has disappeared completely. I imagine that the firefly is a symbol of our very short lives, how life is over just like that...
Night comes and then day, mist and then sun, the years stream,
and all the long passing, the clouds sweep over.
Sarah, I find your language really delightful to read. Your words capture the surface tension of time lapse photography. So much appears to be happening but nothing is happening, time is pretty much the same throughout the centuries, life comes and goes as the clouds come and go. Your poem is like a static landscape, it’s comfortable but passive. I keep wanting the poem to challenge me emotionally or engage me beyond asking me to imagine a frame of the now swiftly being replaced by another frame. As a mood piece, I think your poem succeeds! I wonder what it would be like to be left with something more that relates to the human element: what are we trying to capture as time passes? And what isn’t being captured? Would you consider inserting a person, the time lapse photographer, into the poem?
Sarah’s response
Melanie,
I think you caught what the poem was trying to do, portraying the long view of a place over time. It is a thought experiment, like your recluse poem is. You took your reader into a new perception, what if we changed the emotional labelling on a feared creature. In my case, it is, what if we took the view of Long Time, rather than focussing on immediate changes. What would it mean to look at the lake where I live from that vantage point. What will be there as the years pass, as the dam breaks and the river returns, as civilization changes with populations that swell and shrink and maybe even cease (although I didn't mean that people died out everywhere, I wanted that to be ambiguous).
It might be possible to get across that perception with a person or people involved, but I think that would have to be an entirely different poem. Perhaps something in a city or with a person immune to time. I see the passivity in the poem as it is, but it may be a consequence of the long view itself. Long time may necessarily be detached. It is an alternative to our usual state of passionate involvement, worry, despair at how things are going wrong. That detachment may seem wrong —don't we care? aren't we going to act to make things better? And it doesn't stir the emotions. But it is useful in another way, a different way of approaching reality, one less jerked around by our hopes and fears.
Still, it might be possible to have a more dynamic way of getting the idea across. Perhaps clouds and water and lights and houses are too indirect. I'm remembering a poem that is not about long time but is about change and things passing. I don't remember where to find it, but it is very short and it presents an image of children playing on a beach and building an elaborate sand castle and then they go home for supper and the tide comes in and washes the sand clear. That has more poignancy and emotional resonance. For a Long Time poem with people, it might be possible to take a lake house with its people and show how it might change over centuries-- people, house, and land. I'll think about that.
Sarah’s Reflections on “Brown Recluse” (in italics)
Brown Recluse
Please don’t hate me,
a spiderling suddenly born
homeless during a summer of rain,
poured out of silk with fifty
sisters, fighting for space
as your hand hit me—yes, I fanged
your flesh not because I hate you—
(I have nothing but this precious
salve to slow down a clumsy great
body like yours, cutting through everything,
crushing life in a single step) simply put, consider but, simply put, because
my fear is a reflex, like how
now I must hide—I must
leave this restless weed born maybe a comma between weed and born?
essentially alone as I was, hatched
during a season of prayed-for rain,
between a Hill Country highway
and a service road lined with tents, luscious
cardboard hiding places, breathtaking beauty!
You've made the recluse very sympathetic--asking for understanding, a spiderling, homeless and alone, defending herself from a great clumsy giant and following instincts. And then when the little spider has won our sympathy, we see the side of the highway through her eyes as a place of beautiful hiding.
I love that switch in perception and how you have made something fearful into something to be loved and appreciated. There's a lightness of tone to it, not quite comedy but I would imagine it with lyrical music.
My question: since it's a Onesie, have you drawn/diagrammed the relationships that hook it together grammatically?
I see you've used lots of tactics to put that long sentence together, an excellent job of putting it all together in one spider line :).
Melanie’s Response and Rewritten Draft
Sarah,
I really appreciate your kind comments, especially that you feel I succeeded in stringing together this spiderling’s tumbled thoughts. I considered your question to diagram the poem but I’d pull out my hair doing so! (I guess Laurence could’ve made diagramming the poem a part of the assignment, I’m so glad he didn’t.) I just now realize that I sent you two versions of the poem, the one in the body of the email was the more recent draft than what I attached, but no matter. I agree with your suggestion of the comma, so thank you very much.
Brown Recluse
Please don’t hate me,
a spiderling born suddenly
homeless during a summer of rain,
poured out of silk with fifty
sisters, fighting for space on a branch
as your hand hit me—yes, I fanged
your flesh not because I hate you—
(I have nothing but this precious
salve to slow down a clumsy great
body like yours, cutting through everything,
crushing life in a single step) simply put, fear
is born into us, how we turn aside,
how we must hide—I must leave
this restless weed, born
essentially alone as I was, hatched
during a season of prayed-for rain,
between a hill country highway
and a service road lined with tents, luscious
cardboard hiding places, breathtaking beauty!
Sarah’s Reply
Yes, I like what you've done very much. I can follow the structure through it readily now (and diagramming was drilled into me as I went through school but I didn't teach it later because for so many people it's just an additional barrier, not a helpful tool). I also follow the twists and turns of your thoughts much better now. I suspect more than a little of that is because I'm reading your later version. Anyway, I like it, and I find the little spider charming (even if she can be lethal)
And I was thinking about your feedback and have a couple of fixes to my poem after all, not big changes but clarifying some meanings (sometimes it takes a while for my unconscious to work on these things). I may be able to get to it today but it will probably be over the weekend.
The following Tuesday…
Well, I did get the poem revised. I revised it and wasn't satisfied with the changes, sat on it, showed it to a friend, and walked some of the changes back (they did remove some ambiguities but made it flatter). I reread it this morning and am good with it.
Sarah’s Revised Poem
Time Lapse
Clouds slide above the lake, flat-bottomed cumulus
that puff custard at the top and presage storm. They shadow
the white-capped water; they lift past the hills and travel on.
If we were to set a camera to catch them for the day,
we'd see them speed past, dissipate, then edge back in,
lines of white following the currents of the sky,
and if we kept on filming, a week, a month, a year,
the air would flicker—white gray blue, rain sun fog—
clouds blinking into being and passing on.
Decades would show us winter, dim, wind from the north,
summer glare slapping from waves—a perpetual pattern,
days lengthening and shortening in their season.
A hundred years might pass, morse code of light and dark,
and then more, a blur like a stream photographed at twilight,
whose current turns to mist flowing between forest stones.
Beneath the ever-changing torrent of the sky, windows
glisten on the far shore. Their lamps pulse the dark,
flashes and shadows on a quiver of water.
In centuries, lights outline the growing sand, then cluster high
and haze the night. They fade, give way to a necklace of light
faint through heavy trees along a twist of canyon.
Now, gaps in the string, and now a single gleam under the stars.
A firefly on a river bank, dark and bright, dark and light,
it lasts its moment, before the trees close round it, black.
Night comes and then day, storm and then sun, the years stream,
and all the long passing, the clouds sweep over.
