August 25, 2011
The Portsmouth Poetry Hoot begins its 2011-2012 season at 7 pm Wed., Sept. 7, at Café Espresso, 800 Islington St., Portsmouth. Featured readers are Elizabeth Edwards and Bill Varner. Come early for supper and sign up for the open mike, which begins at 8 pm. For further information check pplp.org.

The audience at the June1 Hoot observed a skilled crafter of poetic structure with Adam Shlager’s “the hazards of love.” The four stanzas each represent a season of the year. In each stanza, the Beloved is represented as a bird that has flown away, leaving the speaker in the poem “far behnd.” Also in each stanza, the poet poses a puzzle to the audience, a puzzle he would probably label an “ambiguity.” Adam says, “I don't think the reader should know more than the players in the poem.”

the hazards of love

she is a crow in a coal mine
sharp and dry in autumn
rustling under blankets
moving into that soft darkness

in winter, she is a crane
flying decembered skies
white wings catching thin air
leaving me far behind

she flies to Capistrano in spring
sings a tremulous chorus
moves on in search
of more recent ruins

she’s adrift by summer
out to sea in warmer currents
I am standing on Dante’s shoulders
looking to the horizon
Adam Shlager

In stanza one, autumn, the beloved is a crow in a coal mine—sharp and dry. But the poet describes the darkness as “soft.” I want to grab my editor’s pen and write “mixed metaphor” in the margin.

In stanza 2, winter, the beloved is a crane leaving her lover far behind. Puzzle: cranes mate for life? (If you can see that “decembered skies” is much stronger than “December skies,” you get a gold star for Poetry Appreciation.)

In spring, the beloved returns to Capistrano with the cliff swallows. “Tremulous” is a word often used to describe the lonely, quavering call of the loon. The courting song of the swallows is twitters and chitters. We are becoming aware of a pattern of puzzles.

In summer the beloved, an unnamed bird, is adrift “out to sea in warmer currents.” The final puzzle makes us ask, “Why Dante?” We poets stand on the shoulders of all poets who have gone before us—even those whose poems have never come out of the desk drawer where they were hidden. Another riddle I can’t solve. Adam knows how to get readers involved in creating their own versions of his poem.

Adam Shlager, Portsmouth, is a consultant to the healthcare industry. Hoot poets know him as the sound system custodian who tries to make sure we are all heard at our best. His poems have been published in Omphalos, Ken*Again, and Sawbuck.
--Pat Parnell, Stratham