Series Author: Heidi Sander

Interview with: Lucia Coppola

Meet Lucia Coppola

For my Writing Through Grief Poetry Series, I wanted to share thoughts with Lucia Coppola. Her book “Talking With Trees” is about grief and the transformative power of nature. She uses trees brilliantly, as a metaphor for ourselves. Rather than a Q&A, I asked Lucia to share her poetry and some of her favourite poems, and to write about how reading and writing poetry is cathartic from a wellness point of view, and especially for grief. I hope some of the shared poems resonates with you as she explores the interconnectedness of nature.

I hope you enjoy reading through Lucia’s thoughts below!

–Heidi

1) LOSS and LONGING

“ Where has the horse gone?

Where are my kindred?

Where is the giver of treasure?

Where are the benches to bear us?

Joys of the hall to bring us together?”

(Excerpt from ‘The Wanderer”, English Anonymous late 10th Century . Translation from the Old English by Dr. Aaron Hostetter)

This is an excerpt from an elegiac poem of the 10th century that speaks of the melancholy in the passing of time. There’s a nostalgic longing for what once seemed golden. This longing for the past also carries with it, the chasing of dreams. We are creatures of time and our emotions reflect this fundamental fact. Less common to us, is the experience of grief or ecstasy, which are out of the ordinary occurrences. But the coping mechanisms in all these cases are anchored in a form of yearning. I think that this is what it means to be alive. We wander about our emotions. We have mourning to do, dragons to slay and princesses to rescue, and sometimes, when we have time to think deeply, we write poems about our experience.This is how we process and share. My poem “The Clearing ” from “Talking With Trees” is about the magic of this journey, particularly when ritualized with song or dance.

The Clearing

Our boots are clumped with mud and on our backs

we carry little wings. We gather for the circle dance  

and sprouting roots we take hands in the round.

But it’s when the dance takes off  that the journey really begins 

with time reeling, thumping, treading towards the taking off 

of us with our wings into the air. Pirouetting with the beat, 

we skip with the glide, the float and the pause as further down 

the earth has become a refrain  –  point of stillness, darker 

with a more introspective vibrancy  –  

then silence, 

briefly pausing 

before the next upbeat and rest.

The great adventure takes place in the air, 

where the song is best sung

with lyrics implying questions about 

what may be the next stopping off.

How long for each moment 

to weave itself like a tale of enchantment

into that thing that laughs, 

and sighs and weeps in the night? 

Rituals of carnage  –  rituals of peace. 

This moment exists despite the possibility

that severed heads may be on maypoles not so far away. 

We choose to be the antidote to the lynching mobs   — 

to the townsfolk that taunt, torture, tease,  

and have the audacity to cast shadows. 

To them we answer stomping down upon the darkness 

as our laughter weaves its way 

past dusk towards dawn, 

echoing between the branle and the gigue. 

Once again we hold hands 

knowing never to forget.

Dearly we pay for decisions we make 

and dearly we pray. We stutter and we kiss. 

Does the realization of who we are now

bring with it the gentleness of grace? Perhaps…. 

At least the sun above and the water below will have touched

as again and again the circle is cast, and again we go round.

How far we are then 

from those coldest of cold winter nights.

Sweet pilgrimage with children, elders 

and songs with truest meanings. 

Sweet legs, feet, fingers that grasp 

this golden rule of our entwinement.

Our sweat glistens like clouds that gather

then stream down with rain. 

For in this place the circle of light beckons 

with each rise and fall.

Quiet like the empyrean echo of a bagpipe  – 

a breath that billows and spirals round a core, 

as rhythm calls to gather, 

rhythm calls to scatter  – 

gather and scatter,

then weaves its way around again

and back to a circular pause.

(Lucia Coppola, from “Talking With Trees”. Plants & Poetry, 2022)

In this poem, the individual and the group harmonize with the natural environment. It’s an idealization of a moment that I think is worth expressing because I’ve come to believe that a big part of the depression and alienation that people feel today is linked to urban dwelling, income inequality and the loss of community. I think we have all observed that in poorly planned urban environments, the green spaces are few and far between. I love the “Kitchenette Building” poem by Gwendolyne Brooks that explains how one of the worst things about living in a slum is that we are deprived of the very thing that helps us to cope; nature. She speaks of color in this poem in a very telling way.

2) COLOUR and LIGHT

 

Kitchenette Building

We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan,

Grayed in, and gray. “Dream” makes a giddy sound, not strong

Like “rent,” “feeding a wife,” “satisfying a man.”

But could a dream send up through onion fumes

Its white and violet, fight with fried potatoes

And yesterday’s garbage ripening in the hall,

Flutter, or sing an aria down these rooms

Even if we were willing to let it in,

Had time to warm it, keep it very clean,

Anticipate a message, let it begin?

We wonder. But not well! not for a minute!

Since Number Five is out of the bathroom now,

We think of lukewarm water, hope to get in it.

(Gwendolyn Brooks, from “Selected Poems”, Harper and Row. 1963)

Brooks speaks of the frustration and sorrow of being deprived of color in ordinary life. To experience grief in such a situation would be particularly difficult because grief is sorrow but to an almost blinding degree. The thing about grief is that when we are in its throws, it’s a little like being caught in a big wave at the ocean. We can only flail our arms and gasp for breath. It’s once we’ve managed to scramble back to shore that we receive the grace of time to reflect, and this is when the healing begins. The objectification that comes with the craft of writing poetry allows us to step back while at the same time building a deeper, more meaningful connection to our own lives. The disparate images assume patterns that we can discern. The colors alone are revealing. By observing natural phenomena we are less centered on ourselves and so the pain inevitably lessens if only by virtue of distraction. It is also overpowered; as when light comes into darkness.

Poetry is therapeutic in that it puts words to express the complex algorithms and alchemy of light and darkness. It processes emotion in direct visceral ways, while establishing form. The language is more or less complex, but there’s always an expression of yearning and grief. I believe that a good poem or song plays with the tension between these states of being. The lyricism magically evolves out of the sense that has been made from the clash of chaos with stillness. We see these rhythms play out in the natural world all the time. We gather, scatter, reap and sew. Basically, I’m fascinated by the power of nature to transform our ways of seeing and I see my work as exploring poetic ways of expressing this question.The words are like precious rocks that I collect during a walk along the existential shore. 

Looking back, I can say that my first book of poetry, “Talking With Trees”, is all about grief at its source, but it quickly became about the transformative power of nature through words. While writing I found myself entranced by the discovery of color within the emotions. Little by little, I realized that sorrow can have a more luminous outcome when we connect outside of ourselves to something greater and more beautiful. In this case trees are a metaphor for ourselves, looking within but also extending outwards to both earth and sky. I had a great deal of fun transforming myself, members of my family and friends into parts of a garden and also the other way around. I began to see the flowers and trees personified as each one of us, or just being there as themselves and bearing witness. Since writing my book, there’s a form of chant that I’ve been able to discern humming out from the woods.

The old folk ballads traditionally capture this song and have always had a strong resonance with me because of the way they bear witness to human experience in a timeless way. They transpose memory and emotion into universal themes, moving them in and out of the wilderness through song. I’ve just finished a second book, “Tempo”, which is inspired by the traditional ballad repertoire. In “Tempo” I revisit many parts of my past as if  listening to them sing. In my poem, “The Fountain”, I write about a place that I remember dearly, and I link this place to the healing power of forgiveness as if witnessing a miracle while walking through the park.

3) HEALING

The Fountain

no way out of a dark road with no one on it but us 

no guidance or help to forgive or apologize — 

no sound from anywhere as the grass is numb to what 

we’ve said or done and makes us want to scramble 

out of the wilderness, down stairs to the town square 

for solace, a path, consolation or just to the fountain

where the angel at Bethesda pours healing water 

into the pool at the park and washes over our reflections 

with waves in the dark that touch us as we crack 

through ice and make oxygen flow once again 

between us and ourselves with no beginning or end 

to these seasons or reasons where sorrow goes 

with frost and fire to blend with hang drum and saxophone 

at the square with clinking coins in the man’s cup that lead us 

to one another as we move with paralytic gestures 

to get more in tune and the fountain spills into the pool 

that makes a clapping sound because now we’re no longer 

in the monotone mode of the darkening road of feeling alone  

but onto a new start with more heart   

tam tams and jazzy voices that let go of what 

needs to be gone and move on — to sing more I’m thinking 

as we look at water that covers cracks at the fountain floor 

and settles into what seems like closure to me 

when it’s all said and done 

and we just let it be

I say I’m sorry too and feel I move more freely now

as you agree there’s a different tune from the one before 

a deeper tonality on wood at the bottom of the steps, more

tawny, with soul, in A Minor perhaps  –   no judgment  

no perfect pitch today when just showing up at the fountain 

is already like singing a whole ‘nother song

(Lucia Coppola, in Songs of Eretz, 2023)

These days, I’m working on a songbook project called “Burrow and Fly” in which I explore songwriting of my own. Here, the poetry has become simpler, less philosophical and more direct. I suppose I’m looking for ways to tell complex stories in more and more basic ways. For example, one of my songs, “Daisyworld”, is a love song to a flower. It is inspired by an environmental theory expressed by the scientist James Lovelock, a scientist who formulated ” The Gaia Principle” in the 1960’s while working for NASA. His theory is about the interconnectedness of all things in nature and how nature herself is a self-sustaining entity. I love this thought. I love to know that we are not alone, but linked to one another and to something much greater than ourselves.Since the publication of “Talking With Trees”, I’m motivated to explore these ideas further and share them. One of the first poems I wrote in “Tempo” is a true story about magic in the moments when reality and the imagination blend into what seems like a greater truth. My poem “Chronicle” speaks of this experience.

Chronicle

There was a storm in my bed last night, so I thought as 

I huddled in at the soggy campground near the seaweed 

the tide brought up this morning with a promise of sun 

a last look at the tall grass, dunes and what’s written in sand

these are the days and the sea levels are rising

today — a visit to the village cafe and a friend 

who collects driftwood, shellfish and wine, telling a tale 

about a dolphin that lures him away like a sea spirit 

captive of the bay, though to me he looks more like 

a drunken sailor or poet, as we too hope to surf a great wave 

as the island drifts farther and farther

today — a poster tells us it’s “The Night of Shooting Stars”

walking home by the shore with phones for flashlights

looking up at the sky one last time before we get on a train 

hoping we’ll return to this bay next year

before all glaciers melt and coastlines disappear

today — there’s a disheveled woman at the station

homeless with bags like seaweed scattered around her 

and a dog that looks tired as she rants about being trapped 

in an automatic lavatory and how she hopes the engineer 

of  the blinking buttons gets stuck in his own shit 

one day with a wake up call

today —  what she says, we confirm is true: this fear of devices 

that turn us into zeros and ones, reduced public spending, 

auctioning off of nature and hopes to inherit the Earth one day 

to get called out at high tide by a drunken sailor on a night 

of shooting stars and a homeless mermaid these days 

where we’ve been and watched the sea levels rising

(Lucia Coppola, in Alluvian, 2022)

While I don’t believe in spending astronomical sums of money on space exploration, I am a believer in scientific research. And I often find myself gazing up at the stars in the night.  I see human beings as forest dwellers for the most part. But within this biosphere of ours, we are curious wanderers and filled with expectancy whether it be in the medieval mead hall, or the forest, or peeling onions at the kitchen sink, or looking at the stars.

The healing is in the poetry of it all. It always reveals something of the mystery and surprises.