My Education, and: Simile, and: Villanelle

Abstract

My Education, and: Simile, and: Villanelle Diane Seuss (bio) Keywords Diane Seuss, poetry, poverty, John Keats, Emily Dickinson, Joseph Conrad, death, villanelle, simile, education My Education Not just what I feel but what I knowand how I know it, my unscholarliness,my rawness, all rise out of the cobbledlandscape I was born to. Those of youraised similarly, I want to say: this is nota detriment and it is not a benefit. It only is,it is, like a cobbled house is, fieldstonesand mortar, slipshod, spare parts weldedcrookedly, crudely but cleverly, skinnyiron winding staircase leading to the atticbolted on both ends, and up there, a gapin the window where the snow comes inand architects a little drift on the bed.And meals were cobbled. Kernels on the cobhaphazardly arranged, not lined up in militaryrows, and sometimes a row was not filled inat all, and your teeth, when biting down,met an emptiness. And shotgun pelletsin the rabbit meat. Stray hobnail dishes, studded,rescued from an abandoned house on fire,in an array of jewel tones, would appearwithout warning on the table. A blood-coloredbutter dish, yellow perch on a cobalt blue platterencircled in fried egg sacs. Or ducks or a pheasantthrown erratic on the back porch, paymentfor something given or not taken.When I’d been away and returned, I could see,freshly, the cobbled lushness of the trees,and the arbitrary drift of brown spotson the white cows in the meadows,and the wireworm-filled tunnels in the morelsat the base of dead cherry trees. The cemeteryis unsystematic, as is the library, graves scattered [End Page 273] like chicken feed, books strewn on old tablesfrom canceled Sunday school classrooms. I lovedbooks but learned very little in school. I could read,so the reading instruction drove me nearly mad,and I plugged my ears, first with my handsuntil I was caught, then with something I could doinside my head that muffled the teacher’s voicelike she was speaking into a canning jar.What I know of literature, of history, is spotty.I was a poor student, disengaged from the thingsI didn’t need, and I knew what I needed,and that the time to get it was now.When I needed Keats, I got him. I read enoughto get the point, then tuned in to his ghost.I read most of Joseph Conrad, having figured outthat I could find some things repulsive and stillrequire them for my project. My projectwas my life. There was no vision or overarchingplan. There was only foraging for supplies,many of which were full of worms or coveredin dust, like apples on the orchard floor,and furniture junked on the side of the road.Have you ever seen a pie cooling on the silland found yourself hungry enough to steal it?Or does that only happen in picture books?If you are like me, to learn of the gods you mustbeg, borrow, or steal. Eavesdrop, as gossipis sagacity, a word I learned from EmilyDickinson. Don’t underestimate directexperience. Ants know earth. Dragonfliesknow air. A cobbled mind is not fatal.You have to be willing to self-educateat a moment’s notice, and to be caughtin your ignorance by people who willuse it against you. You will mispronouncewords in front of a crowd. It cannot beavoided. But your poems, with all of theirdeficiencies, products of lifelong observationand asymmetric knowledge, will be your own. [End Page 274] Built on the edge of tradition, they willrarely be anthologized. I have campedat this outpost my whole life, as did my mother,who slept on sugar sacks in the basementor on the front porch, in early spring,when snow still clumped around fugitivecrocuses, just to keep herself forsaken. [End Page 275] Simile You can’t be simile.Deep down evenmud is notcomparable. I had a friendwhose smile was a frown.My last paramour, my verylast, wore...