Terry Blackhawk
Terry Blackhawk, Poems
Terry Blackhawk’s life as a poet began in her mid-forties when she was teaching high school English and Creative Writing (1987-1996) for Detroit Public Schools. She received the Foley Poetry Prize in 1990; and her first book, body & field (Michigan State University Press, 1999), was a finalist for a number of first book awards, including the Larry Levis, Four Way Books, New Issues Press, and Brittingham Prizes. Blackhawk received awards for teaching from Scholastic, Inc., United Black Artists, and the Michigan Youth Arts Festival, which twice named her Michigan Creative Writing Teacher of the year. She also received grants from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 1995 she founded InsideOut Literary Arts Project (iO), a 501©3 that extended her experiences as a classroom teacher of poetry to Detroit teens and continues to serve thousands of young Detroit writers every year. iO has received widespread recognition including a “Coming Up Taller” National Humanities and the Arts Youth Programming Award presented by Michelle Obama in a White House ceremony in 2009. Blackhawk’s essays have appeared in An Emily Dickinson Encyclopedia (Greenwood Press), three pedagogical anthologies from Teachers & Writers Collaborative, and on line at Detroit Huffington Post. In 2015, Wayne State University Press published To Light a Fire: Twenty Years with the InsideOut Literary Arts Project – a collection of essays by iO writers that she co-edited with iO Senior Writer Peter Markus. Terry Blackhawk retired from InsideOut in 2015 and now lives in Connecticut near her son and grandchildren. Her second book, Escape Artist (BkMk Press), was selected for the 2003 John Ciardi Prize by Molly Peacock who also chose Blackhawk’s poems for the 2010 Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize from Nimrod International. Blackhawk’s other poetry collections include three chapbooks as well as The Dropped Hand (2007), The Light Between (2012) and One Less River, which was named a Best Indie 2019 Poetry title by Kirkus Reviews. Dr. Terry Blackhawk holds a PhD in Language Arts Education from Oakland University, which granted her an honorary doctorate in 2014. She was named a Kresge Arts in Detroit Literary Fellow in 2013 and was inducted in 2019 into HERstory: the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame.
Early Elegy
Of course I know: it’s time
to come to terms. You are ash, memory,
the grit and grain we scattered
from your painting spot onto the surface
of the river, your beloved Maumee,
not far from that small historic house
we came close to buying. Where I live now
I sit and look out from a three-season porch,
much like the one you admired in Maumee.
You saw yourself making art there, grateful
for northern light from the uncurtained windows,
and sometimes I see you here, busy or laughing,
doing crosswords or finding new angles to sketch
among the rooftops and flower pots—
making ordinary days as ordinary people
who love one another are wont to do,
speculating about the birds or the sky.
Between Living and Leaving
My walls are made of glass. Warblers come to the tops
of the trees, the envy of fellow birders, but I am leaving,
nonetheless, this perfection. After the perishables, my larder
will outlast me. Goodbye spices in your jars, goodbye
canisters of flour and pasta, bottles of oil. Goodbye owl
in your washtub nailed to its tree, decades you and your family
have nested high above the path, generations passing below you,
the modest folk of Michigan, singing and unsung, in youth or age
looking up at you in wonder.
There was never any more inception than there is now, Detroit
in full moonlight, stage-lit last night after sunset, or this morning
sun rising over my shoulder as crows racket through the branches.
Goodbye to the island and its bridge, its bell tower and lagoon,
tern decoys behind their fence placed to urge and urge and urge
the real birds to nest and land and inhabit the habitat that maintains.
Italicized phrases from Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself, iii”
“Yellow Tornado Tree”
Not Monet, with his lilies and cool surfaces,
but your agate eyes staring into mine.
M. watched his wife’s skin change color as breath left her body.
Close to the end now, you tell me “don’t make too much”
of your agate eyes staring into mine,
but I yearn regardless for nuance and touch.
Close to the end now, you tell me “don’t make too much”
of how much of life has passed us by,
but I yearn regardless for nuance and touch.
I recall your joy at your “Yellow Tornado Tree,”
not how much of life has passed us by.
“All I ever wanted” you told me: our lives lived as one.
How you laughed when you named it, “Yellow Tornado Tree”
with colors like swallows cascading up.
“All I ever wanted” you told me: our lives lived as one.
I will never forget your surprise
at how the yellows like swallows came cascading up.
Monet inspected Camille’s skin as breath left her body.
I hold it close still, your stormy surprise,
not like Monet, with his lilies and cool surfaces.