"Time with Stevie Wonder in It": The Poem That Did It

So already, today's been blue and white since early this morning, but I've been blue and bluer since early this afternoon. Not for any particular reason: I think it's the pandemic blahs or blues, a periodic affliction of many. And it's also a little bit of self-recrimination for having tried to attach my car's new registration sticker to my license plate without first removing my adhesive-seeking vinyl disposable gloves. It was ugly, I felt stupid, and wind blew colder than it ever should in May.

But my state of mind makes this the perfect moment to write about the first poem read during the American Academy of Poet's "Shelter in Poems" virtual reading event on Thursday night, April 30. That night I was feeling similarly discouraged, resentful, and alienated when I promised myself I'd "attend" that event--at which I encountered "Time with Stevie Wonder* in It" by Christopher Gilbert, a poem I'd never heard of by a poet I'd never heard of.

Christopher Gilbert**

So will it engage me again on this blue Tuesday? We'll see. We're talking real-time right now. I'm about to read that poem, and tell you what lines, words, and phrases grab me, move me. I'm going to tell you what I love, not what anything means. So before I begin, perhaps you should read the poem using the link in the preceding paragraph. Better yet, listen to Elizabeth Alexander read it at minute 4:00 of the YouTube video.

Here goes! First of all, there's the title--"Time with Stevie Wonder in It"--what could be bad about time infused with Stevie Wonder's music? There aren't too many moments that music doesn't help. And given that there are so many moments these days when we're not as busy as usual, it's just a good time to be reading poems about time. Like Elizabeth Alexander says: it's just a great title.

On to the first stanza, which offers lots to love. 

• I always love poems about heading home, but I especially love them during our current moment that has been and continues to be so much about heading home, trying to stay at home, wishing we could be at home more, wishing we could be at home less, trying to be at home somehow, needing to stay at home if possible. And frequently our cars, if we have them, are one of the few places that we feel almost as safe as we feel at home.
• I love the physical force suggested by cold's being "like something stone,/ spit out, which is still a story/ and a voice to be embraced"--as well as the way the cold is recognized and respected as a story and a voice; 
• I also love "Januaried"--the poet is taking language into his own hands for the sake of his own voice and story. Plus, it's a pretty word;
• Finally, I love the power of a familiar tune to transport the speaker home, whether his Lansing address is current or not.

The middle stanzas tell the story of the speaker's family, who relied on "Black stations/ blasting out of Memphis, Nashville/ still playing what was played down south" to battle Michigan's unrelenting cold--and other "tribal families driven north/ to neighborhoods stacked like boxes," the families of the Great Migration who came north for "the Dream" that really didn't really materialize exactly as they'd hoped--and that threatened to suffocate them.***

Gilbert describes the problem in terms of language that separated the newcomers from their neighbors, the  "perfectly European language/ in which we could not touch, hear/ or be alive." The poem's existence, then, is a triumph of language that permits the poet to touch, hear, be alive, tell, and share life and literature. Things can get better: an important thing to remember during our current time that, filled with darkness and unknowns, calls for a remarkable amount of patience and hope.

Finally, I love the statement, "The beauty of the word,/ though, is the difference between language/ and the telling made through use." I wish I understood it, and I might someday. I also love that right after it, we're back on the snowy road with Stevie and Motown, en route to "a future happening with you in it." With all of us in it, I think.

"Oncoming Blue and White"****

A poem that tells the story of one family and many families; a poem that helps me to imagine where and how they lived and how they felt about it; a poem that asserts that it's not "just a poem"--and that has a happy ending, even if the cold is harsh: I was drawn in, to say the least. And I definitely wanted to go and listen to old Stevie Wonder and the next poems.

* https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8hFNP0isRqaz2cgFdCfZenVKNNxq1kUH4pSXZ8cY2FYcSyP3LZJTV6niNszWEMmvrT40tCMZmXhFFw1r2WcCozJbvkkanI5YpYbNSsVElyXZctQQT-inZcFV5Jju87GNFuYwdG_biwbo/s1600/Stevie+Wonder--Fingertips+45.jpg
** Photo on the Los Angeles Review of Books web site: https://lareviewofbooks.org/author-page/christopher-gilbert
*** https://usercontent1.hubstatic.com/3539966.jpg **** "Oncoming Blue and White" by Scott Ketcham: https://www.scottketcham.com/image/96304637992