What I’m Reading Now

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THE OCEAN CANNOT BE BLUE, POEMS by Kirsten Hampton. Turning Point, 2019, www.turningpointbooks.com.

Detail from “One Drop” Rule

If there is         one

emerald         anchovy

darting in         the water

the ocean        cannot be blue

— Kirsten Hampton, The Ocean Cannot Be Blue

In truth, I read this book a while back — within days of a lovely afternoon tea when the author signed a copy and gifted it to me. This morning I’m rereading and appreciating the poems again for their agile wisdom, complexity, and artistry.

The Ocean Cannot Be Blue is comprised of 49 poems, some of which are in numbered parts that could stand alone, some of which are letters from the historic court case, Loving v. Virginia (1967), in which the Supreme Court ruled that laws banning interracial marriage violate the 14th amendment. With this story as its spine, the book offers a lens into history, but also into the poet’s own marriage, and to all the ways families weave themselves together. One poem is about a whale displayed in the Caroline County Visitor Center (“Excavated 1991, 14 million years old”), and, later, these lines: “She is a case closed, / then reopened, / in a quarry — / of chance find” where excavating a whale suddenly speaks to the precedent found to reopen the Loving case. One poem is a 2-page lexicon delineating the 1960s. How does it all work together? One word that comes to mind is an artist’s word: chiaroscuro. Dark and light dance together throughout this compelling collection. On a beach walk, “the sleeve of sunset” leads to these lines, running down the center of the page, like vertebrae:

Then darkness

then darkness

reveals

how seeing

outward

becomes the same

as looking

within

The poems and the stories unfold in layers. Water is another theme running all the way through the book, from the gorgeous cover art and the title of the collection to beaches, rivers, the Chesapeake bay, blood, watercolor paintings. In one poem, “Portrait” — “Backwash, sea rise, tidal range, / groundwater” — the poem overflows with salt water that reshape a continent as human events reshape a country.

And this poem:

Women of the Chesapeake

for Mildred Loving

Each heart
an estuary
aorta and vein
riverine channels
cells and platelets
circulate
as though drum
and stripers
saltwater churns with fresh
in beat with the inlet sea

Now the chambers
of my heart
fill more slowly
rise
with systolic tide
your body
lies low
in the aquifer
memory of you
runs in the watershed

— Kirsten Hampton, The Ocean Cannot Be Blue

If I hadn’t already pushed toward violating copyright laws, I would include “Letter To My Daughters” which makes crystal clear the ways the Loving story and other threads — particularly her artist mother — illuminate the poet’s life.

By the way, you can find five more poems by Kirsten Hampton at Beltway Poetry Quarterly.

I don’t feel I have done the book justice, so I’ll end by saying simply that I wasn’t merely impressed by it, didn’t merely marvel at its amazing composition, I really loved it, and recommend it to you.

photo by B Reid

Breaking and Entering

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After such a long dry spell, it’s a bit like breaking and entering to write here.

my writing cabin, around the time of my last post

On September 1, Bruce’s and my 40th anniversary, I tried to write a post to update you about my journey, but after I drafted it, I couldn’t bring myself to hit “publish.” Today, though I have some announcements or could write a review, it doesn’t seem fair to not share what’s been going on. Especially after taking a look at earlier posts, and your generous and encouraging comments.

So, here goes.

After three EMS (emergency services) visits to our house in two days, on the evening of August 4 my husband was admitted to the hospital for observation. From there it was decided that he was not safe at our house and must move to a care home. (Not quite that simple, as a return to the hospital for a second full week became necessary.) He does not believe there is anything wrong with him, mentally or physically, so the transfers from place to place were…rocky. I’ve had other hard times, but those were times when I had a partner to weather them with me. These past six weeks have been the most emotionally tumultuous of my life.

What precipitated them was my husband’s decision in mid-July to install a new toilet in the small bathroom adjoining the master bedroom. My efforts to dissuade him came to nothing.

He found a toilet for $15 at the Habitat for Humanity store. When he brought it home, I tried to tell him he couldn’t do it, but we could hire a plumber. He insisted that it’s a job he’s done many times in the past, and of course he could do it easily. One of our daughters said, “Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll help him.” Mid-way through, she had no idea how to proceed (and could see that he hadn’t either), and a family friend was called. He came over immediately and helped set the toilet in place. My husband, however, wasn’t satisfied. It didn’t “look right.” For the next two weeks he proceeded to destroy the bathroom. Complicated to explain, but one result was a serious leak. The other result was that he fell apart, hence the 911 calls. I’m pretty sure that this year I have met every EMT in South Snohomish County.

Lynndale Park trail

On September 1, the aforementioned anniversary, a mitigation company crew spent two hours tearing up the flooring in the bathroom. The next day they returned to pull out the flange, wallboard, and shower. Also the ceiling and some wallboard downstairs. We were referred to a local contractor, and they helped us with an insurance claim, which was successful. Every step of this has been new territory for me, on a steep, uphill path. If I hadn’t had good friends calling me morning and night, “This is a welfare check,” I’m not sure I would have survived.

What seems clear is that this is a new chapter, for my husband and for me. Frankly, I’m still not sure what the book is about.  Whatever our marriage was these past five or six years of decline—and sometimes it was good—this has been freakishly hard.

The big task ahead of me is, well, to grieve, but also to let go of the guilt and shame I’ve been feeling. My husband, who did not want me to take care of him, not even small things like helping with medications, is now receiving an appropriate level of care; he is in a clean, orderly place with activities and walking paths and a private bedroom with 1/2 bath (and no tools).

Side note: If you are young enough, invest in long-term care insurance now; I wish we had.

Bruce, on move-in day (his three daughters and two of their boyfriends moved furniture and decorated for him, and two were there to greet him)

I am happy to report that, after three weeks of being in one place, Bruce is acting somewhat settled. Our daughters, his older brother, and I have visited him. Things are feeling a little more doable.

Yes, I am still writing. Maybe not “finishing” work, but scribbling plenty. In fact, I have a new review posted at Escape Into Life. (Click on the link to go there.)

Also, I have a new freedom to get out of the house and do readings (no “dad-sitters” to negotiate). Thus I have a reading on October 9 at Eagle Harbor Books on Bainbridge Island, and would of course love to see you there.

I’ll share one title I’ve been reading: Art Heals. (Shaun McNiff). 

Thank you for hanging in there with me.

What I’m Reading

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I’ve had a mighty struggle this past few weeks to do even a minimum of writing (determined to catch up this week…we will see, and, after that, to begin blogging again). Reading obsessively about dementia, getting lost in political news…these things do not seem especially helpful to me.

On the other hand, reading poetry, and reading and listening to poets and creatives about their work is one of my go-to solaces. So here are three things. The first was shared by my good friend Francine, and I’m amazed at the prescience of this 2011 interview with Bill Moyers, who died last week at age 91. Though the news is dire, it’s good to know that such people have been walking this trail before us. It gives me hope.

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/6/27/rip_bill_moyers

I’m also reading When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön — given to me by my friend Therese — and I highly recommend it.

When things fall apart and we’re on the verge of we know not what, the test of each of us is to stay on that brink and not concretize. The spiritual journey is not about heaven and finally getting to a place that’s really swell. (p. 7)

By “concretize,” I think the author means, don’t grasp, don’t turn it into thoughts or anything you can hold on to. Let it be as amorphous as it is. Just be with all of it.

The third source is the incomparable PÁDRAIG Ó TUAMA from Poetry Unbound. Clicking on his name should take you straight to his most recent substack. Here are a few lines toward the end of Dunya Mikhail’s poem, which Padraig shares in full:

I don’t know why the birds
sing
during their crossings
over our ruins.
Their songs will not save us,
although, in the chilliest times,
they keep us warm…

I don’t know why either, but when I’m outside, walking, at 6 a.m., I listen for them just the same.

Sleeping Lessons, a chapbook by J. I. Kleinberg

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SLEEPING LESSONS: A POEM IN PARTS, J. I. Kleinberg. Milk & Cake Press, 2025.

If you find yourself awake in the night, fretting over political mayhem, have I got a book for you.

Twenty numbered parts. Twenty first lines: She taught me how to sleep –

A Dickinsonian cascade of variations on a theme.

Instructions for falling asleep: “string  / the stars hung overhead,” “listen for the sea,” “name the gemstones  / in the sky behind my lids,”  “memorize a poem of breath / each molecule of air a wing / upon my tongue.”

Descriptions of a “she” who is part mother; part ghost; part earth, our home hung spinning in space: “her sweater pressed against / my cheek, the blanket satin / frayed by dreams.”

Kleinberg is also an artist (see her blog featuring her word art, chocolate is a verb). Each line is compressed, every word weighed and weighted, and the effect overall – hypnotic.

iv.

She taught me how to sleep –
explained that I could savor
slumber’s flavor as it settled
on my tongue, each grain
of sweet a recipe devised
by bees, who understand
the dance of flight, the taste
of work, the tidy hexagram
of night.

– J. I. Kleinberg

Sleeping Lessons is a delight. Ideas for dreams, and maybe for your next chapbook on a theme.

You can find the book at Milk & Cake, and via either of Kleinberg’s websites, chocolate is a verb or The Poetry Department.