{"id":6440,"date":"2018-04-28T14:42:16","date_gmt":"2018-04-28T14:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/?p=6440"},"modified":"2019-02-11T07:58:23","modified_gmt":"2019-02-11T07:58:23","slug":"life-story-a-poem-by-david-chorlton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/life-story-a-poem-by-david-chorlton\/","title":{"rendered":"Life Story. A Poem by David Chorlton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: the following are the the author’s notes – this poem is about the time I taught writing classes at a senior center in Scottsdale.The Life Story class was an extra for me, and I struggled to make sense of other people’s lives I think. Photograph (from a night reading outdoors at a gathering one summer in Idaho). <\/em>
\n  <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The war begins each Friday
\nafter noon
\nwhen Joseph sits down and the bombs
\nfall again on Pearl Harbor.
\n <\/p>\n

I ask the class who they are writing for.
\nSusan has three children
\nand needs to tell them she feared
\nfor her life at the hand
\nof their father.
\n 
\nEdna wants a record of the cold
\nfor her grandchildren
\nand how she left it behind
\nin California.
\nLorraine was a dancer;
\n 
\nshe writes for herself.
\nTake it scene by scene, I say,
\nenter the minutes until
\nthey are hours, then make days.
\n 
\nDorothy is glamorous
\nin a lakeside camp
\nand the sunlight all around her
\nfills the page
\nuntil the edges burn.
\n <\/p>\n

I grew up in the rain
\nand it drained, leaving a gloss
\non the pavements
\nand the trains I rode away on.
\n 
\nDescribe the places
\nwhere you lived. Denise
\nbuilds red rock Utah on the table,
\nEdna spreads a prairie beside it
\nwhile I try to assemble
\nan England that used to exist
\nbut I only have the pieces
\nof a single room
\nwith a photograph of mountains on the wall.
\n 
\nErnest recently returned
\nto his home town. No regrets,
\nthere isn\u2019t much left.
\nMake it live with the music
\nyou heard back then, I say.
\n 
\nErnest answers with:
\nThere isn\u2019t any music in my life.
\nI keep hearing one concerto
\nwith a cello
\nplaying the grief of the hills
\nas they recede.
\n 
\nThink about the future
\nin which your stories will be read.
\nBetty shakes her head;
\nher son does not want children
\nin an unjust world. Imagine how I feel,
\nshe says, when the bible guides us
\nto be concerned for what is close
\nand to leave the distance
\nwhere it is, but the family
\nis ending with him.
\n <\/p>\n

And I, who value art over children
\nand poetry over scripture,
\ndeclare the lesson over.
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDavid Chorlton<\/strong> is a transplanted European, who has lived in Phoenix since 1978. His poems have appeared in many publications online and in print, and reflect his affection for the natural world, as well as occasional bewilderment at aspects of human behavior. His newest collection of poems is Bird on a Wire<\/em> from Presa Press, and The Bitter Oleander Press published Shatter the Bell in my Ear<\/em>, his translations of poems by Austrian poet Christine Lavant. http:\/\/www.davidchorlton.mysite.com<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nRobin Ouzman Hislop<\/strong> is Editor of Poetry Life and Times<\/a> his publications include All the Babble of the Souk<\/em> <\/a>and Cartoon Molecules<\/em> <\/em><\/a>collected poems and Key of Mist<\/em> <\/em><\/a>the recently published Tesserae<\/em> <\/em><\/a>translations from Spanish poets Guadalupe Grande <\/a>and Carmen Crespo visit Aquillrelle.com\/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop <\/a>about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (Leeds University)<\/a> .<\/p>\n

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Editor’s note: the following are the the author’s notes – this poem is about the time I taught writing classes at a senior center in Scottsdale.The Life Story class was an extra for me, and I struggled to make sense of other people’s lives I think. Photograph (from a night reading outdoors at a gathering … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[632,796,366,401,43],"tags":[18,136,3],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6440"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6440"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6856,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6440\/revisions\/6856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}