Nancy Dillingham has a new book of poetry out from Catawba Publishers (www.catawbapublishing.com) titled Colloquy in Black and White. The poems are sometimes stark, always accessible. Nancy is a 6th generation Dillinghamm from Big Ivy in western North Carolina. She has published several books of poetry, as well as essays and articles. She lives in Asheville with her cat named Serendipity.
Nancy has been growing by leaps and bounds as a poet, and this new collection shows ample evidence of her growth. She is becoming a fearless poet, taking on subjects that might daunt others. She's a mountain woman who knows her landscape and its dark places well.
She can confront them, all the while singing the light and the love of place. She reads widely, she listens, she challenges herself, without losing the moorings that keep her steady as a poet and an inhabitant of these mountains. She will be at the Great Smoky Mountains Book Fair, and I hope that other festivals and reading series across the state will begin to take notice of her work.
Suite on Love
Sitting here
fifty years later
as you whisper me
happy birthday
and our younguns
sing around us
grown
with children of their own
I want to say
it is you
not the candles
on the cake
that takes my breath away
Too late coming to love
I made the usual blunders
A blush away from a baby
it was a tom-fool thing
for me to do
bringing you
country ham
cured sweet as honey
biscuits and gravy
stack cake
How could
I lie
with you
after you left me
for a roll
in the hay
with the first hussy
that gave you the eye?
Spitfire
you called me later
bleeding
like a stuck pig
where I struck
you with a piece
of stove wood
and you slapped me
Sitting here
as I think of all the pain
yours is the only music I hear
and I want to tell you
everything still seems the same
like the first time
clear as a bell
right as rain
Legacy
My aunt sat on her front porch
in a chair bottomed with strips of tires
slinging her crossed leg, dipping snuff
Your great-grandmother ruled
with an iron hand
and Grandpa was a rounder, she said
Double Dillinghams they were
cousins marrying cousins
Elbert and Mary
Owned land as far as the eye could see
all the way up to the Coleman Boundary
They say he courted her by bringing armfuls of flowers
picked by the roadside or out of other people's yards
traded his mule for a chestnut mare
Carried her around in a hand basket after they married
all the while making time with the hired help
The house stood right over there on the hill
where the graveyard is today--they gave the land
A smile threatened the corners of my aunt's wrinkled mouth
and a small rivulet of snuff ran down one side
After he died
Grandma didn't take to widow's weeds
said they didn't become her
She'd sit on the porch cooling Sunday afternoons in the summer
after cooking cut-off corn and baking soft butter biscuits
She'd throw back her head and cackle
I ought to have taken me a young lover
just to bedevil Elbert, she'd say
But he'd have dragged chains up and down the stairs at night
and, after my laying out, danced on my grave for spite
My aunt's face softened
A long time passed before she spoke again
We grandchildren would play on the porch
run the length of it back and forth
like fighting fire
or stand under the arbor eating pink grapes
clear as glass and sweet as honey
bees buzzing a halo over our heads
Sometimes when I look really hard
I can just see Grandma
coming over the ridge
her bright apron glowing
waving like a flag
calling me home
My aunt sat on her front porch
in a chair bottomed with strips of tires
slinging her crossed leg, dipping snuff
Your great-grandmother ruled
with an iron hand
and Grandpa was a rounder, she said
Double Dillinghams they were
cousins marrying cousins
Elbert and Mary
Owned land as far as the eye could see
all the way up to the Coleman Boundary
They say he courted her by bringing armfuls of flowers
picked by the roadside or out of other people's yards
traded his mule for a chestnut mare
Carried her around in a hand basket after they married
all the while making time with the hired help
The house stood right over there on the hill
where the graveyard is today--they gave the land
A smile threatened the corners of my aunt's wrinkled mouth
and a small rivulet of snuff ran down one side
After he died
Grandma didn't take to widow's weeds
said they didn't become her
She'd sit on the porch cooling Sunday afternoons in the summer
after cooking cut-off corn and baking soft butter biscuits
She'd throw back her head and cackle
I ought to have taken me a young lover
just to bedevil Elbert, she'd say
But he'd have dragged chains up and down the stairs at night
and, after my laying out, danced on my grave for spite
My aunt's face softened
A long time passed before she spoke again
We grandchildren would play on the porch
run the length of it back and forth
like fighting fire
or stand under the arbor eating pink grapes
clear as glass and sweet as honey
bees buzzing a halo over our heads
Sometimes when I look really hard
I can just see Grandma
coming over the ridge
her bright apron glowing
waving like a flag
calling me home
Signs
“Whenever you go looking for what’s lost, everything is a sign.”
Eudora Welty
I have not bled
this month, Mother
and I am afraid
Just yesterday
a bird flew into the living room
losing its way
I didn’t sleep a wink last night
A dog howled outside my window
and the clock didn’t strike
Must have been midnight
I saw Will’s first wife plain as day
standing over my bed
glistening with sweat
crying with no sound
holding her dead baby
all the while
Will sleeping quietly
beside me
I felt the same fear
I saw in her face
this time last year
You remember, don’t you, Mother?
You asked me to help with the birthing
It was my first time
You cut cotton strips
and bound her wrists
to the bedposts
I placed the small, round stick
you handed me
into her mouth
bathed her face
as you commanded her
to bear down
I remember most the silence
as I watched you wrap the baby—stillborn
in the same soft cloth
And I can never forget the look
in Will’s eyes at the funeral
when he finally raised them
and gazed at me
as if seeing me
for the first time
Tiny shivers
ran up and down my spine
and my whole body shook
as he took a sprig of white lilac
from his wife’s casket
and handed it to me
He’s out there now
on the front porch
drinking his coffee
staring over the valley
looking at rows and rows
of newly-planted fields
seeing the cattle
grazing on the hill
below the graveyard
the headstone visible still
in its rising up
and shining in the light
Daddy’s Girl
With a wink and a leer
her daddy holds
the cold open can of beer
tantalizingly near
tickling her nose
Through bow-like lips
eager as a baby bird
she sates her thirst
with a single sip
laughs a giggly
hiccupping laugh
then burps
Putting up one perfect hand
she catches a trickle of froth
as it bursts like broth
from her soft pink mouth
“Whenever you go looking for what’s lost, everything is a sign.”
Eudora Welty
I have not bled
this month, Mother
and I am afraid
Just yesterday
a bird flew into the living room
losing its way
I didn’t sleep a wink last night
A dog howled outside my window
and the clock didn’t strike
Must have been midnight
I saw Will’s first wife plain as day
standing over my bed
glistening with sweat
crying with no sound
holding her dead baby
all the while
Will sleeping quietly
beside me
I felt the same fear
I saw in her face
this time last year
You remember, don’t you, Mother?
You asked me to help with the birthing
It was my first time
You cut cotton strips
and bound her wrists
to the bedposts
I placed the small, round stick
you handed me
into her mouth
bathed her face
as you commanded her
to bear down
I remember most the silence
as I watched you wrap the baby—stillborn
in the same soft cloth
And I can never forget the look
in Will’s eyes at the funeral
when he finally raised them
and gazed at me
as if seeing me
for the first time
Tiny shivers
ran up and down my spine
and my whole body shook
as he took a sprig of white lilac
from his wife’s casket
and handed it to me
He’s out there now
on the front porch
drinking his coffee
staring over the valley
looking at rows and rows
of newly-planted fields
seeing the cattle
grazing on the hill
below the graveyard
the headstone visible still
in its rising up
and shining in the light
Daddy’s Girl
With a wink and a leer
her daddy holds
the cold open can of beer
tantalizingly near
tickling her nose
Through bow-like lips
eager as a baby bird
she sates her thirst
with a single sip
laughs a giggly
hiccupping laugh
then burps
Putting up one perfect hand
she catches a trickle of froth
as it bursts like broth
from her soft pink mouth
