By Thomas Davis
Ethel Mortenson Davis is a poet that has published eight books of poetry and been published in literary journals and anthologies. The Wisconsin Library Association named her book, Under the Tail of the Milky Way Galaxy, a significant book of poetry by a Wisconsin poet. She has also been a poet laureate for Door County, Wisconsin.
Ever since I have known Ethel, and realized that she is a better poet than I will ever be, I have been fascinated by how she can condense power and meaning into so few lines they are almost, though not quite, haiku. What brought this to the top of my mind was a poem she presented to the poetry group we attend once a month:
Pain
She pulls me from
my deepest sleep.
I tell her leave me alone
where I am happy and safe.
But she gets her way and
stretches me to the top of
of some canyon wall
and tells me,
this is your reality now.
The power of this poem is, at least to me, undeniable. It expressed in 9 lines what so many people, especially as they get older and face the ravages of arthritis or other ailments, have to confront as they struggle to deal with what they cannot escape. It also contains the yearning within the complex of pain for the happiness and safety that is still in the deepest memory of the poet inside "deepest sleep."
When Ethel first showed me what she had written, it reminded me of another powerful small poem, "blackness"
blackness
seeps
in my room.
he crawls up
onto my lap
like the uninvited guest
he always is.
i keep hoping
he’ll leave
before dinner.
originally published in her collection, A Letter on the Horizon's Poem, published by Kelsay Books.
This poem is more metaphorical, of course. Blackness is a metaphor, but the poem again expresses what so much of humanity faces at different times in their lives and, with a touch of humor, in ten lines explores and expresses a dilemma and experience that is at the heart of all of our lives as we journey toward the inevitability central to our existence as human beings.
One of Ethel's early poems that I first read before I had met her in Grand Junction, Colorado when she drove with her sister Pat to visit her sister Lorraine helped to make me aware of what an extraordinary poet the person I was about to meet really was
White Delirium
Oh,
how the white delirium
has set in me.
Memories ache in my throat.
Sweetness stains my mouth.
I cannot forget
your eyes
that cried out to me,
the end of us!
In many ways, Ethel is an imagist poet. Certainly the images she paints can be almost overwhelmingly powerful. "Memories ache in my throat.". The creative force of that image is then paired with "Sweetness stains my mouth." Then the last four lines that makes us construct the meaning out of the poem, as does the blackness poem, by giving us an image that is startling and powerful as it communicates separation and the delirium accompanying a separation that is, what? The creator of delirium or the result of a relationship that was delirious in its substance. We have to create the meaning of the poem as it relates to our own experiences and lives, all in nine lines. This was originally published in A Letter on the Horizon's Poem.
The truth is that Ethel's poetry of ten lines and under could fill an entire volume itself, and the resulting collection would be amazing. One of my favorites of all her small poems is "Night Sky", originally published in Rimrock Poets Magazine that Richard Brenneman and I put together when we were young in Grand Junction, and I was just getting to know Ethel.
Night Sky
The stars laugh and laugh,
laughing in an ocean of laughter,
moving-water laughter,
until the sky can hold no more
and joins in laughing
with black face and shining teeth.
Just the joy and the power of the image and the expression of support for the naturalness and importance of blackness during a time of racial injustice has delighted me ever since I first saw it in Ethel's handwriting on a brown piece of newsprint.
As I said, Ethel's small poems would fill an important volume of poetry. I have always wondered why she isn't among the most famous poets in the country, although I am her husband and that maybe makes me prejudiced. Still, I also have an academic background in English and American literature and am also a poet, so I have the right to think what I think.
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