Kim Fahner : A Possible Trust: The Poetry of Ronna Bloom, ed. Phil Hall

A Possible Trust: The Poetry of Ronna Bloom, ed. Phil Hall
Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2023

 

 

 

 

In A Possible Trust, Bloom writes of everyday things, with a keen, empathetic awareness of how to observe human behaviour and suffering, and a careful eye to transforming that universal and specific pain into something extraordinary. Her work reminds me, in style and content, of Bronwen Wallace’s poetry, especially in terms of how she takes note of the details of a routine day. In her afterword, titled “To Connect is a Circular Thing,” Bloom reflects on how poetry has walked alongside her through her life, and how photography and meditation have opened new doors within her poems. She reflects on the shift that took place in her work, over time, when she began to write what she calls “service poetry,” moving into health care settings to give comfort and poetry to patients and staff at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. Bloom is also someone who writes poetry in public spaces, writing spontaneously and offering passersby the gift of personally written poems in her Spontaneous Poetry Booth. Aware of perception, and perspective, and of the importance of close observation, Bloom talks about how connecting is a circular thing: “When I write a poem that works, you and I are in relation.” The poem becomes a living thing, a bridge between poet and reader, with the possibility of it holding space for meaning and healing within its lines and stanzas.

In “The Job of an Apple,” Bloom speaks to the variety of ways in which a simple apple can shapeshift. Here is something that is an apple, meant “to be pie,/to be given to the teacher, to be rotten,” and “to pose for painters/roll behind fridges, behind grocery aisles,/to be hidden, wrapped in paper,/stored for months.” The poem ends with the simple apple’s transformation: “The job of an apple is to be a different poem in the mouth/of every eater. The job an apple is to be juice.” Here is a list poem that sails off into something other, letting the apple become something bigger and more metaphorical than just a piece of fruit.

In “What Works,” Bloom divides the poem into two parts: “Index” and “Demographics.” Using an abecedarian form, she lists things that work—from air, bicycles, chocolate, and a solid house because “all our houses are imaginary.” In the second half of the poem, she lists those who are affected by the things that work, including “men and women, teachers, hospital workers, politicians, people who shop at Loblaws, cake bakers, people who are retired” right down to “people who want attention without saying so, whose bodies/fill with anxiety like a liquid, who love something that won’t leave them,/something that will.” In her close observation, in listing a rich inventory of images, Bloom creates the necessary connective bridge between poet and reader—between seer and documentarian and the reader as a receiver.

The “service poems” are what makes Bloom’s work especially unique. Her ability to enter the health care sector with the gift of poetry is a special one. As Phil Hall writes in his introduction, “In Bloom’s case, craft is almost—dare I say it—love./ She wants us not to observe her skill, but to participate in her discoveries./She wants us with her, not appraising her—love.” Hall also notes Bloom’s “desire to be useful,” to move into difficult spaces that are ones people tend to want to avoid. Having an Rx Poetry Pad and a lab coat as tools for poetic creation, in hospitals, offers people a way to find a poetry “that is willing to know pain, loss, and death may be able to give, if not/cessation, at least company—by words.”

The poem, “Appointment in Samarra,” reflects on observations made in a chemotherapy ward. It begins with a couplet that won’t let the reader turn their eyes away: “30 people in chemo today multiplied by/x hospitals in y countries and z universes.” Here, a patient named only as H “smiles through 4 syringes of chemicals, 2 bags of saline,/and a flush of life-giving killer liquid.” Bloom ends the poem with a reminder: “Slap me good and hard with mortality while I’m strong./My body wants to run as though it’s seen a ghost.” Turning away to avoid seeing the pain, as well as the loss and grief that comes with losing good health, is not the answer.

In the prose poem, “Walking the Hospital,” Bloom documents what it feels like to be a poet in a place that is never comfortable. She writes about how being a poet-in-residence is a new way in which to view hospitals. “Sick people here,” she notes, may just as interchangeably be named as “vulnerable people.” Her motto is: “Everyone who is/alive could use a poem. Whether they want one is a different matter.” A three-page reflection on what it means to walk through sacred spaces of coming and going, Bloom ends the poem with a question, and a small prayer: “If each one poem, person, experience, identity, thought, bone, body—like a point of light—is just itself, does it need a story to connect it to the next one? Awareness, carry me.”

There is always more to say, when you’ve encountered a poetry collection that resonates. Anyone who’s been in a hospital—whether as a staff member, patient, or family member—will find ripples of recognition. What Bloom does, in A Possible Trust, is ask her readers to be in the moment, in an observational and meditative way, even if that means feeling discomfort and pain. In that moment of mindfulness, her poems suggest, we might find something that is made more of light than of dark.

 

 

 

 

 

Kim Fahner lives and writes in Sudbury, Ontario. Her latest full collection of poems is Emptying the Ocean (Frontenac House, 2022) and she's just published a poetry chapbook, Fault Lines and Shatter Cones (Emergency Flash Mob Press, 2023). She is the First Vice-Chair for The Writers' Union of Canada (2023-25), a member of the League of Canadian Poets, and a supporting member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada. Kim's first novel, The Donoghue Girl, will be published by Latitude 46 Publishing in Fall 2024. She may be reached via her author website at www.kimfahner.com

Peg Cherrin-Myers : Ronna Bloom : My First Real Poet

 

 

 

Our first email exchange was in March of 2021. I sent her a poem and wanted to know if she thought my writing had potential. She responded I do not ever want to set myself up as a person to tell another their writing has potential or doesn’t. Potential for what? For whom? The answer could only be either a poem resonates for me, or it doesn’t. Or I like a line. But that’s only one person and one poem. I’d be worried if you felt it was worth/not worth pursuing because of a single opinion or poem. If you feel as you describe—“I want to share my experiences, both the locked and unlocked ones, with my family through writing”—this is the reason to write.

That was when I knew I had found my writing coach.

In 2012, Ronna created the first-ever Poet-in-Residence program at Mount Sinai Hospital, where she facilitated writing workshops for health care professionals. She is the Poet-in-Community at the University of Toronto, running several online workshops for students throughout the year. And as I write this, she is in residency at the Al Purdy A-Frame, where she will host an outdoor spontaneous poetry booth at the Picton library.

Ronna hears poems where others do not. She sees the poet in a person who doesn’t quite see it in themselves. She brings an awareness of poetry into me. In return, my poetry trickles down to my family—to my husband, who is not the least bit interested in poetry nor necessarily gets it but texts me two haikus while nervously sitting on the examination table waiting for the dermatologist to check his skin for a possible melanoma. And to my sixteen-year-old son, who, when he finds out that I am writing poems says, “Oh my G-d! My mom is writing poetry?” but

that same week, he purchases school supplies and comes home with a brand-new journal. Sometimes he’ll say the most peculiar phrases, and I tell him that’s the start of a poem, and after he’s done rolling his eyes, I’ll catch a glimpse of wonder on his face.

Over the last year and a half, Ronna and I have swapped hundreds of emails, phone calls, and, most recently, Zoom sessions. She has introduced me to poets such as Rilke, Phil Hall, Jericho Brown, Jane Hirshfield, C.D. Wright, Jim Harrison, Ocean Vuong, CAConrad, and Natalie Goldberg. She told me the first poem I sent her was narrative and that I should try and write into the feelings, but I had no idea what she meant by that. I wanted her to give me a step-by-step instructional guide like assembling an IKEA desk or even just some good old-fashioned Cliffs Notes.

Four months later, I had a piece of writing but was nervous about sharing it. Testing the waters, I asked her, “How will sharing my writing with you help my writing? Am I the words I write? Or are these words and thoughts writing me? It’s like I don’t want to bring life to them, but they are bringing life to me.” She replied, The paragraph above IS the writing. To answer or attempt to answer feels not the point. And I’m not sure there is an answer. That would take away from the fact that, as a reader, I am entering into that experience with you which is what I, as a writer, hope my reader will do. I don’t mean to be glib. If you want some help with a particular piece, send it and let me know where you are stuck or struggling. If you’d like to know if something resonates with me or if you are wondering something about it, send the work and let me know what you’re wondering.

She called that piece of writing a prose poem.

What I didn’t know was that I was writing from that place where unspoken words drift in my head and nestle inside my heart, sometimes in a hypnotic way. I gave myself permission to listen and write from that part: I now realize it was/is a place you could not possibly give someone else directions to. I needed to see, hear, and feel it on my own. I no longer force or manufacture poems. If it’s not flowing, I’m not going to keep hacking at it, but I will leave the door open. There’s always a poem lingering. Will I have the courage to let it in?

At the end of September, Ronna and I will finally meet in person. She is still very cautious with Covid-19, so we will sit outside in her backyard with masks on and review my work. I’ll tell her how much I love discovering the end line to my poems. And that sometimes endings end at a place of opening. When our time together is over, I imagine she’ll ask if I have any more questions, and I will ask the question at least ten times in my head before the words spill out of my mouth: If I hold my breath, can I hug you?

 

 

 

 

 

Peg Cherrin-Myers is an emerging haiku and haibun poet living in southeast Michigan. Her work has appeared in: Haiku Dialogue - The Haiku Foundation, Failed Haiku - a Journal of English Senryu, Haiku in Action - Nick Virgilio Haiku Association, Frogpond - The Journal of the Haiku Society of America, and forthcoming in Kingfisher Journal and Stanchion. She was a finalist for the First Annual Trailblazer Contest in 2021. Find her on Twitter: @pegcherrinmyers

Ronna Bloom : Two poems

 

 

 

Death leaves you so alone.
Your hand goes through a mime's glass.
Hello? Anybody there?

 

 

 

The Buddha Prepares for a Triple Bypass

Thanks the nurses for the antiseptic soap.
Whispers, smiling: Don't worry.
Have you seen my chest? Not a hair on it.
Nowhere for the germs to hide.

Carries the bar to the shower, lathers. Hums to himself
a song. Not from the palace of his youth, nor the temples.
It's a sea shanty! The Buddha begins to sing with gusto
and after a scrub, emerges glistening as the waves.

Climbs back into bed, sees the attendant 
with the furrowed brow and says, It's ok, friend
there's room for suffering in love. And you know,
I didn't die of a broken heart. Let's go.

 

7AM ET/8:30AM NDT, April 6, 2022
For Stan and Beth
with love, Ronna

 

 

 

 

 

Ronna Bloom is the author of six books of poetry, and the recent chapbook Who is your mercy contact? (Espresso-Chapbooks.) Her poems have been recorded by the CNIB, and translated into Bangla, Chinese and Spanish. Ronna developed the first Poet in Residence program at Mount Sinai Hospital/Sinai Health and collaborates with filmmakers, academics, spiritual leaders, and architects. In 2023, The Laurier Poetry Series at Wilfred Laurier University Press will publish A Possible Trust: The Poetry of Ronna Bloom, selected with an introduction by Phil Hall.  www.ronnabloom.com