Cathy Colman on Poets Cafe

The following interview of Cathy Colman by Lois P. Jones originally aired on KPFK Los Angeles (reproduced with permission).

Music: Goldberg Variations by Glenn Gould

Biographical Information—Cathy Colman

Cathy Colman’s first book, Borrowed Dress, won the Felix Pollak Prize for Poetry from The University of Wisconsin Press and was on the The Los Angeles Times Bestseller List the first week of its release. Her second collection, Beauty’s Tattoo, was published by Tebot Bach Publications (2009). Her third collection, Time Crunch, was published by What Books Press (2019). Her poetry has appeared in The Colorado Review, Ploughshares, The Huffington Post, The Gettysburg Review, Prairie Schooner, The Journal, The Southern Review, Barrow Street, The Los Angeles Review, Pool, Chance of a Ghost Anthology (Putnam/Tarcher), Writers on Writing (Putnam), LE Poetry, Pratik and elsewhere. She has won The Browning Award for Poetry, The Ascher Montandon Award, judged by Campbell McGrath, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize eight times. She has been a free-lance reviewer for The New York Times Book Review. She has also been a free-lance lecturer/reader at St. Stephens College, Cambridge University, UK, The University of Southern California, The Oakland College of Arts and Crafts, The Oakland Museum, University of California, Los Angeles, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art, The Getty Museum and many other venues. Her poetry has been translated into Italian, Croatian and Russian.

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THE LAST TIME I SAW RAINIER MARIA RILKE

You go back there when you can.

To the field struck bright as if born from fire.

The restive trees, grass, sky, still and cool

as a finished puzzle.

The secret self not yet ravaged.

This is where you find him.

But mostly, you have lived like an eternal expatriate

from the country of belonging.

To put aside one’s own name like a broken toy.

There’s a vertigo that passes for illumination––

electromagnetic addiction.

He never knew this.

The bridle that keeps you from straying

all the way to the errancy, flight, and the coming on of clouds,

the clear air that should be your birthright.

But after you lift your fingers from the most unmusical

of keys, you know you need him more than ever.

You go back there as soon as you can.

To the field where the rain ticks on the lucent grass

like the strings’ pizzicato.

Part of you wanting to stay.

Part of you called back to this reckless world.

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