A native Tar Heel and former teacher of literature, writing & communications at various NC universities and public school systems, Sara Claytor holds two graduate degrees from UNC-CH. Winner of the 2000 Thunder Rain Award in poetry, she was the featured poet for L’Intrigue. Recipient of numerous poetry prizes, two short stories have received first place in Sensations Magazine competition; also first place in short fiction at the Virginia Highlands Festival and first place in The Charlotte Writer’s Club Elizabeth Simpson Smith Award. Fiction and poetry have appeared in over 100 publications, including: New Press Literary Quarterly; Miller’s Pond; California Quarterly; Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies; Spire; The Crucible; The Pedestal Magazine; The Savannah Literary Journal, The Pisgah Review. She worked as fiction editor for a small press specializing in mystery-suspense and as co-editor of the former Internet literary journal The Moonwort Review. Pudding House Publications published her chapbook “Reviving the Damsel Fish” (2007). A full-length poetry book, “Howling on Red Dirt Roads,” was published by Main Street Rag in 2008. Another full-length poetry book “Keeping Company With Ghosts” is under contract with Rock Way Press.
Howling on Red Dirt Roads
poems by
Sara Claytor
MAIN STREET RAG PRESS
ISBN 13: 978-1-59948-148-7, ~78 pages, $14
* * * This book was selected for publication after finishing as a finalist in the 2008 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award * * *
Howling on Red Dirt Roads won second prize in the Poetry Council of NC Oscar Arnold Young Contest for best poetry book in NC for 2008.
from HOWLING ON RED DIRT ROADS
Julia's Invisible Fences
When I smell Clorox, I see your teeth simmering
like bone ash on asphalt, your head cap of pigtails
tinted red, the freckles scattered across your cheeks.
You were my black mother in starched fruit-patterned
aprons, pink velveteen palms flashing as you fluted
piecrusts, ironed white sheets with perfect edges.
You told me haint stories, sewed colorful feed sack
dresses for my dolls, introduced me to radio hymns,
gospel, boogie beats. Together, we sang for Jesus,
clapping our hands, shaking our shoulders.
Once I went to your African-Methodist Church
where we danced in the aisles and shouted Amen's.
I ate three pieces of chocolate cake at the noon lunch.
Stomach aching, I was sick in the outhouse while you held
my head. Afterwards, the church ladies fed me ice cubes
and gushed over my long, blonde curls.
On the screened back porch, the white mother served you
food in a stained tin plate, iced tea in a Mason jar. Your
bathroom was behind the garage. The white mother always
checked to see if you had stolen her dime store jewelry.
You didn't know pain in your belly from me or a stretching
of the thighs; no one told me about invisible fences
separating mother loves.
Part of my heart moved down that red dirt road to your house
with its blue porch rocking chair and yellow birdhouse nailed
above the tin roof. I was your 'baby gal,' even after I graduated
from college, visited you last in a nursing home where you kept
a photo of blonde three-year-old me tacked on the wall above
your bed?right beside the picture of a white Jesus.
-----------------
NEW POEMS
Julia says: "These three poems are part of the “Julia poems.” All of these are new poems, not yet published, but a continuation of the story of Julia in the middle section of the book “Howling on Red Dirt Roads.” Then I am sending a more abstract poem that I rather like for it is not a “downer.”
Cobwebs
Julia was ironing on the screened-in
back porch, her forehead sweat spotting
the white mother’s wrinkled blue-flowered
dress with thin straps, the dress where
her breasts popped into view if she
leaned over slightly. If men were present,
her eyes lowered to the flesh mounds.
I was hanging around, nothing else to do
at the hot noonday, gibbering with Julia
about new kittens under her log smokehouse.
The white mother brought Julia iced tea, served
in a Mason jar kept under the kitchen counter,
boiled in hot soapy water after Julia drank.
It was the first time I saw that, but not the last.
No more than four or five years old then.
I remember embarrassment, shame, anger.
Slammed out the screen door, ran behind
the old gray board garage where spiders dangled
in giant cobwebs. I cried until I felt a spider crawl,
smashed it, yellow glob stuck in my palm
where I spit and spit and spit.
Julia’s Soul Food
When Julia ironed,
aromas of heated cloth,
white sheets faint with Clorox,
towels smelling of sunshine
permeated the back screened porch.
Sometimes she talked
about Jesus, how we needed time
to ponder like Mary,
listen to dream messages like Joseph.
We had to pray, praise, pardon.
The white mother taught me
a Southern woman needs stability,
depends on men, the family King Lears.
My black mother Julia
taught me when the ground turns,
trees cast no shadows,
a young child
can be a gift from God.
A Thin Heartache
I hear you in the backyard, Mother,
talking to Julia,
in tandem as you hang white sheets
on the clothesline; you
squealing at my grey-striped cat
peeing in the garden dirt; you
moaning because I spilled grape soda
on my Easter dress.
In that backyard,
a persimmon tree shed its red fruit
near the gray garage, attracting deer,
eyes blinking like miniature Christmas
lights. I thought magical creatures lived
in our backyard at night; you
warning me that the dark was dangerous.
Many whiskey days, clanking radiators,
pewter nights in that fading Victorian house.
But all things decay. All things must end.
Now hearing on windblown days,
an empty jangling of a chain
in the backyard’s forgotten wreckage.
The Power of Questions
The darkest days on earth never destroy
as much as we think, even though fading
wallpaper and stains in the sink contain
evidence of miserable despair,
even though earth convulses
with underground sobbing and the shrill
of small, wild voices.
Like in film noir, we tramp through shadows,
cynical, hopeless, our footprints lost
in hot sand, struggling for answers.
Still, we look for covered objects,
peel to their centers.
We never give up on revealing
what’s inside, or why, when, where, how?
Cobwebs
Julia was ironing on the screened-in
back porch, her forehead sweat spotting
the white mother’s wrinkled blue-flowered
dress with thin straps, the dress where
her breasts popped into view if she
leaned over slightly. If men were present,
her eyes lowered to the flesh mounds.
I was hanging around, nothing else to do
at the hot noonday, gibbering with Julia
about new kittens under her log smokehouse.
The white mother brought Julia iced tea, served
in a Mason jar kept under the kitchen counter,
boiled in hot soapy water after Julia drank.
It was the first time I saw that, but not the last.
No more than four or five years old then.
I remember embarrassment, shame, anger.
Slammed out the screen door, ran behind
the old gray board garage where spiders dangled
in giant cobwebs. I cried until I felt a spider crawl,
smashed it, yellow glob stuck in my palm
where I spit and spit and spit.
Julia’s Soul Food
When Julia ironed,
aromas of heated cloth,
white sheets faint with Clorox,
towels smelling of sunshine
permeated the back screened porch.
Sometimes she talked
about Jesus, how we needed time
to ponder like Mary,
listen to dream messages like Joseph.
We had to pray, praise, pardon.
The white mother taught me
a Southern woman needs stability,
depends on men, the family King Lears.
My black mother Julia
taught me when the ground turns,
trees cast no shadows,
a young child
can be a gift from God.
A Thin Heartache
I hear you in the backyard, Mother,
talking to Julia,
in tandem as you hang white sheets
on the clothesline; you
squealing at my grey-striped cat
peeing in the garden dirt; you
moaning because I spilled grape soda
on my Easter dress.
In that backyard,
a persimmon tree shed its red fruit
near the gray garage, attracting deer,
eyes blinking like miniature Christmas
lights. I thought magical creatures lived
in our backyard at night; you
warning me that the dark was dangerous.
Many whiskey days, clanking radiators,
pewter nights in that fading Victorian house.
But all things decay. All things must end.
Now hearing on windblown days,
an empty jangling of a chain
in the backyard’s forgotten wreckage.
The Power of Questions
The darkest days on earth never destroy
as much as we think, even though fading
wallpaper and stains in the sink contain
evidence of miserable despair,
even though earth convulses
with underground sobbing and the shrill
of small, wild voices.
Like in film noir, we tramp through shadows,
cynical, hopeless, our footprints lost
in hot sand, struggling for answers.
Still, we look for covered objects,
peel to their centers.
We never give up on revealing
what’s inside, or why, when, where, how?
6 comments:
Sara gave a fantastic reading at Poetry Hickory :)
Jessie's right. I enjoyed her visit to Hickory.
Jessie's right! We enjoyed her visit to Hickory.
Sara Claytor was my eighth grade teacher at Aycock School in Cedar Grove (I won't tell you the year), and I certainly enjoyed that year! Not only did I learn a lot, but I found a friend later in life I didn't know I had, and have spent many hours "catching up" with her when I visited Grandma (we live in Washington state), on the phone, and on the internet.
I must admit, as much as I "loved" Sara then (she was twenty something and I was, well, in the eighth grade!), my admiration for her and what she does has certainly grown by leaps and bounds.
Sara has a lot to teach us, both in her poetry and in the way she lives her life that inspires others to go out and "do", not just sit on the porch.
She's a great lady.
Thanks, ma'am!!
"Robin" B.
Sara has marvelous ability to paint a scene complete with scent, sound, sight, and feel with razor precision. Her stories need the air; she serves them up with courage, heart, and grace.
I met Sara a few years ago and have meant to buy this book, but never got around to it. I'm so pleased you shared these poems with us. I know I need to get that book.
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