To the Trade
Through the driver’s side window comes sun
to burn my thighs as I look for new fire out there:
the many tongues of trees, that cardinal plumage,
those things that turn over and over and over.
Most people get about eighty autumns.
But, when put that way, it seems
a scam, the rest held below the counter,
the merchant awaiting a collector.
So, can I bargain with this sack of spices,
this seashell? Or offer my length of braid,
my cheek’s watercolor wash? Palms up,
here: the unwanted summers.
Construct
Alone, I beam
at the ceiling.
Within the ceiling: beams.
Above the ceiling: roof
and sky and
beams reaching back
to the moon.
Mini-interview with Arden Levine
HFR: Can you share a moment that has shaped you as a writer (or continues to)?
AL: Elizabeth Bishop’s collection Geography III begins with “From ‘First Lessons in Geography,’ Monteith’s Geographical Series, A.S. Barnes & Co., 1884.” A found poem, lifted verbatim from the text cited in the title, it presents a decoy Socratic exchange about how the physical features of the Earth are identified and mapped. It’s immediately followed by “In the Waiting Room,” a poem about a child standing on the precipice of herself and shouting across her own landscape. Frankly, the juxtaposition of these two poems probably shaped me as a writer, as an urban planner, and as a girl-in-the-(round, turning)-world.
HFR: What are you reading?
AL: Three recent (re-)reads …
Unbought and Unbossed, Shirley Chisolm: U.S. Representative Chisolm’s insights have guided me for as long as I’ve studied or engaged in public service. Fifty years ago, when she wrote this memoir, she already foresaw where the juggernaut of America’s behavior would crash-land (and how much would be destroyed by its scattered, burning debris). It’s distressingly easy to replay her 1972 Nixon/McGovern election premonition through a modern amplifier: “We look to [it] with anxiety. Will part of this nation rejoice at seeing the rest oppressed, and reward a leader who has cunningly manipulated its fears and prejudices?”
Cairns, Philip Memmer: In this set of one-breath-length poems, Sisyphus (yep, that guy) and his stone (yep, she talks) engage in a Beckettian dialogue about the (un)bearing/baring of burdens. It’s an utterly compelling crossbreed of doomscroll-in-stanzas and daily affirmations that I come back to on the regular lately. Take this exchange: “There are so many things I would tell you, / I tell the stone, / if stones could listen. // Go ahead, replies the stone, / I hear you. // So I do. For years. I tell and tell. // With that new weight / what else could it do but fall?”
Durable Goods, James Pollock: Humans infuse objects with symbolism or utility, so Roland Barthes and his ilk first informed undergrad me. But there are no people to be found in Pollock’s little volume of poetry, only the secret identities of stuff, decanted with anthropologist’s scrutiny and artist’s delight. Example, the “Lawn Mower,” shrewd as a ubiquitous neighbor who borrows or steals it: “Keep clear of this single-minded editor / laying the damp-cut blades in long green rows. / It keeps the grass down. It’s a leveler. Its mission is the only thing it knows.”
While writing this answer, I also happened to watch a passing TikTok in which Brian May (of Queen) responded to an interview question about staying centered thus: “I’m telling the truth as far as I can in my life.” I’ll count reading his closed captions as “reading” and include it here as an apt summary of the responsibility of writers and citizens under this historical point of pressure (that brings a building down / splits a family in two / puts people on streets).
HFR: Can you tell us what prompted “To the Trade” and “Construct”?
AL: Regarding “Construct”: I suppose I’m always thinking about how to joist one load-bearing thing to another (literally or linguistically); in this poem, I just stripped away all of the sheetrock and siding so that I/we could take a longer/wider view.
Regarding “To the Trade”: It’s an older poem, and everyone seems to get something else from it (aging, or attempting to reverse it; climate change, or attempting to reverse it; disappointment, or attempting to reverse it). Because I can’t clearly recall the original impetus, I encourage this readers’-choice approach. Vote now with your phones!
HFR: What’s next? What are you working on?
AL: Not much substantive writing since last year, when I finished a full-length poetry manuscript. These days, I generally divide my time between 1) vigorously eschewing the inclination to catastrophize and 2) enjoying delicious baked goods (preference for flaky pastries and cookies with a decent chew).
I’m also working to address the ongoing crisis of housing affordability/scarcity in New York City … but for the past two-plus decades of my career I’ve almost never not been doing that. So, it isn’t the following chapter so much as the Table of Contents.
HFR: Take the floor. Be political. Be fanatical. Be anything. What do you want to share?
AL: [ positions crowbar // removes floorboards // places under arm // pauses ]
I only now realize I should have read your whole prompt and not just that first sentence before I did anything. I can put those back if you want.
[ walks off to get nails and wood glue ]
Arden Levine is a writer and municipal worker living in New York City. She is the author of Ladies’ Abecedary (Harbor Editions, 2021), and her poems have appeared in The Offing, Cream City Review, River Styx, Washington Square Review, and elsewhere.
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