I puzzle over Sandra Lynn. Her poetry is marvelous. Since 1976, when I first discovered her work, I have been in awe of her skill, her command of imagery and metaphor, her themes. Yet all we have of her body of work today are the poems found in two books: I Must Hold These Strangers, published in 1980 by Dave Oliphant’s Prickly Pear Press in Fort Worth, and Where Rainbows Wait for Rain, published in 1989 by Jerry Reddan’s Tangram Press in Berkeley.
I Must Hold These Strangers was published after Lynn had established herself as one of Austin’s most refined and polished poets of the 1970s. She taught creative writing classes at the O. Henry Museum, where I was her student. Her poems were critically acclaimed in Texas Monthly magazine. She conducted a poetry workshop at the Laguna Gloria Art Museum with the greats: Besmilr Brigham and Joanie Whitebird. She was highly thought of, yet, after an auspicious career start, her life’s output is small. She moved to New Mexico in 1988 where she taught and pursued other interests, those of native plants and history. She may have expected to live longer, to return to poetry in old age with an even stronger command of language and musicality. But that didn’t happen. What we have of hers is impressive in its quality. She continues to teach me how to write a poem.
“The Glass Eye,” featured in Texas Monthly in November 1976, was my introduction to Sandra Lynn, poet. It was taken from a dream and was one of those poems, she told a group of us sitting in O. Henry’s dining room, that wrote itself. Its movement from realism to surrealism as well as its emotional content stunned me. The poem tells the story of a country funeral in which the daughter notices signs of life and literally raises her dead father with a song. The poem ends with the daughter’s mortification about her father’s woundedness, also resurrected.
Another poem I remember well is, “Answer to the Often-Pondered Question of Why Bring a Child Into This Cruel World.” I attended a lecture by Dave Oliphant at the O.Henry on the use of cliches in poetry. He surprised Lynn by using this poem as an example. The poem is full of beautiful, figurative language, such as a child “like an asteroid / in the space between the planets.” She advises him to “stay where you are…on the air-conditioned megajewel catwalks.” After a push-pull between them, it ends with “Come on in / the water’s fine.” Lynn contrasts rich descriptions of “that cinematic world beatific” with her own vernacular, “You oughta stay where you are,” “I wanta get in.” The poem’s emotional content almost broke my heart at the time. In order to ease my own longing for a child, I could have patterned a free-write after this poem and tried to communicate with the unknown child waiting for conception.
Tonight, my favorite poem in this volume is, “Hymn of the Bordello Novices.” Written as a chant, it relies on anaphora to pull us through the exultant voices that brag, “Let our lovers be as numerous as sand…Let them shout in the streets to come to us.” Their exuberance reminds me of the whores in Garcia Marquez’ Macondo, the lovers in the Bible’s Song of Solomon. These novices revel in their power. All they know is “a boat rocking…a train clacking…the clustering grapes…the dry slope” And then the turn, so kindly done. There is no disillusionment here, just truth.
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I’d like to add that the design of this book has special significance for me. The cream cover, the thick pages, the use of both black ink and red ink on the title page, all these remind me of Harry and Caresse Crosby’s Black Sun Press (Paris), which I studied at the University of Texas at the Harry Ransom Center. I also find the name of the press, Prickly Pear, and its colophon to be humorous, rooted in place, and beautiful, everything that a small press can hope to be. It’s a fitting vehicle for Lynn’s carefully wrought, captivating poems.
I just ordered Lynn’s second book of poetry, Where Rainbows Wait for Rain, which, thankfully, I was able to find at an affordable price. Another quality of small press books is how their value increases after poets and editors die. The last time I looked, Rainbows cost $450. Tonight I found a copy for $30. It won’t be the first edition, but it will be readable at least, I hope.
