Steady

The poems in Steady are narratives, persona poems and portraits, and lyrics. In writing them, I have tried to hold steady, so steadiness might connect them like a bridge. Steadiness is a quality most appreciated in old age when it becomes more elusive. My narrative poems about Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, Lee Miller, Iris Origo, Ruth Asawa, and Imogen Cunningham are the result of years of engagement with their lives and their works. The separate events of “An Art Story” coalesced into a narrative with overlapping voices. Ideas may come from my own backyard or half a world away; from snatches of stories recounted, read, or observed; people known or glimpsed in passing; events of the past resurfacing into the present. I continue to find inspiration in cycles of the seasons; the lives of plants and animals; our beloved, fragile earth. The arrow of time moves in one direction. Poetry finds in the music of words and shaded meanings a space for contemplation, with windows and mirrors looking outward and inward, inviting us back.
   
   LADY BIRD
   
   In my day, women had their sphere,
   and men had theirs. I became an observer,
   concealing myself behind public duties.
   Some people mocked me for my devotion
   to wildflowers. Let her occupy herself,
   they said, with a cause of little importance,
   leaving us free for matters of consequence.
   
   There is a damaged place in each of us.
   With me, Lyndon never had to be ashamed
   of the gawky farm boy yoked to poverty
   as a result of his father’s foolish dreams.
   
   I come from a long line of women
   who learned to look the other way.
   They lived with what they couldn’t change.
   It didn’t mean they liked it. I knew
   he’d never risk his career to leave me.
   He was a disappointing husband,
   but I would never leave him.
   
   There’s a reason I love wildflowers.
   They’re not glamorous or flashy.
   They have a modest prettiness
   that’s worth a second look.
   The seeds may lie dormant for years,
   settled or buried, blown by the wind,
   but one day they will take hold and bloom.
   Then they will be everywhere.
   
   PRAISE FOR ANNE WHITEHOUSE’S POETRY
   
   “If form and language are metered, the intensity is not. It’s precisely this mature passion that ignites Whitehouse’s work, echoing a lifetime of experience and observation…Now, more than ever, we need poetry for strength and solace. Whitehouse’s contemplative talismans transport the reader to a place where, hopefully, ‘Your mistakes will force you/beyond imagination/to something new.’”
    -Ilka Scobie, American Book Review
   
   “Whitehouse’s poetry serves as a meditation and act of praise for all the various subjects that color our collective world. She chronicles the experience of being present on this earth…Through exploring the waves of life– the way we are often lifted up emotionally then quickly lowered back down– there is a growing gratitude for the constant back and forth of joy and grief and the way that inevitably occupies our life.”
    -Laura Salvatore, Open: Journal of Arts & Letters”
   
   “It takes a lifetime to write such poems.”
    -Hilary Sideris, American Book Review
   

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