Dallas Lee is a poet, author and essayist who worked his way into these passions through a career of news reporting and corporate speechwriting.
He is the author of The Cotton Patch Evidence, the Story of Clarence Jordan and the Koinonia Farm Experiment (Harper & Row), and editor of The Substance of Faith (Association Press), a related collection of lectures. Recent essays – including Poetry Matters: Shades of the Eternal, Light Years East of Eden; A Star Called Henry and a Terrible Beauty is Born; and James Dickey at his Best – can be read at LiketheDew.com.
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Dallas Lee Interview, with Nicelle Davis
Your poem “Trillium,” is a lovely and sexy poem that weaves the image of a flower with a woman. This blending of plant life, poetry, and sex is an old tradition of soft voyeurism (even the biblical God watched Eden from his windows in heaven). How do poets benefit from looking at one object (a flower) in order to see something else (a woman) more clearly?
Seductive beauty is all around us, playful and dangerous. Earth is so rich with metaphor. Delicious images splash our faces into sudden little awakenings. The poet has the luck of wrestling with this abundance to produce something fresh and real.
I love your poem “Ben’s New Dictionary.” It puts a familiar joke in the context of a story; it makes me experience the joy of family together with wordplay. What do you think the role of humor is in poetry?
Humor is sound, feeling and surprise – all crucial to the emotional rhythm of our lives, so it emerges naturally in poetry and music. Children keep us tuned to this wonderful reality. They are constantly amazed and say the most remarkable things without guile or irony. The resulting humor is all the more true for its lack of intention. Smiles and laughter, of course, are cleansing forces, both a release and relief – in life and literature.
You obviously love wordplay and the relationship words have with each other. If you could magically turn one word into a person, what word would it be and what type of partnership would the two of you share?
Hmmm. I’ll say “wonder.” As an imperative, it commands me to break out of my little cell and go exploring.
Your poem “Past Perfect Future,” is a great read for the grammar nerds of the world. Tense and time are of great importance to most writers and readers. If you had to choose one tense to live your life by, what would it be and why?
I would have to say present tense, including all pratfalls. And maybe the qualifier that my reveries have present value. Seriously, I believe our favorite poets explore past and future by accepting and responding to impulses of the here and now. That’s what leads to the delightfully odd and edifying connections we see in their work.
What new artistic projects are you working on?
I’m working on a manuscript that collects the late poet William Stafford’s poetry, essays and interviews about the craft of writing. Stafford taught writing as an adventure, a path to self-discovery. I would love to help reintroduce William Stafford to anyone yearning to write but afraid to try – young people, especially.
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Trillium
Any of a genus of herbs of the lily family
with an erect stem bearing a whorl
of lush leaves around a solitary flower.
with an erect stem bearing a whorl
of lush leaves around a solitary flower.
Next to this entry
a photograph of you –
black strapless swimsuit
hands caught high
in quick release
one scarlet tongue of
blossom snaking
out of a brilliant
length of thigh
another from behind
curling up and around
to hold your breasts –
in the bright
of your mouth the delight
of beating my trigger
finger to the draw
tropical-sea eyes
daring the barrel
of the lens again
and again. Forever.
a photograph of you –
black strapless swimsuit
hands caught high
in quick release
one scarlet tongue of
blossom snaking
out of a brilliant
length of thigh
another from behind
curling up and around
to hold your breasts –
in the bright
of your mouth the delight
of beating my trigger
finger to the draw
tropical-sea eyes
daring the barrel
of the lens again
and again. Forever.
Ben’s New Dictionary
Ben’s new dictionary is so heavy
I said it must have a lot of big words in it
but Lindsey said words don’t weigh anything.
I said it must have a lot of big words in it
but Lindsey said words don’t weigh anything.
Hmm. Toss a handful of words down the well,
which splashes bottom ahead – good,
detestable, abominable, bad?
which splashes bottom ahead – good,
detestable, abominable, bad?
From the trip’s backseat when he was 4, Dillon said
“What if my head was as big as China?”
His 6-year-old brother Daniel replied:
“For one thing we wouldn’t be riding in this car, stupid.”
“For one thing we wouldn’t be riding in this car, stupid.”
With or without irony? Exactly.
Moments later, playing with the latch, Daniel asked,
“Why does lock have a ‘c’ in it?”
“Good question,” was the best I could do.
Moments later, playing with the latch, Daniel asked,
“Why does lock have a ‘c’ in it?”
“Good question,” was the best I could do.
Words do play. Take just the S’s, for example.
Slip: slip knot, slip down, slip you a dollar, boat slip,
“slip-slide away….”
“slip-slide away….”
Step: stepladder, step along, big step in life, stepfather.
Still: hold still, whisky still, “Still crazy after all
these years….” (Simon. Paul Simon, Simon please …)
Steal: steal a pencil, steal away, steal a minute of your time,
and best of all steal signs: steal home base!
If we had thyme, we’d go on to the T’s
or up to the W’s to see if the phone will wring.
Can you imagine exploring without
words to tell? That would be a kind of hell.
or up to the W’s to see if the phone will wring.
Can you imagine exploring without
words to tell? That would be a kind of hell.
Lindsey said just the paper weighs something.
Thank goodness or else our heads – and Ben’s
new dictionary – would be as big as China.
Past Perfect Future
Two plungers of Novocain and the shot
to the credit card no doubt did the trick before
the endodontist pronounced my No. 18
the endodontist pronounced my No. 18
“non-restorable!”
But there in the lobby glass I’d seen my dad’s
last face – all ears, nose, jungled brows – before
recognizing me in the comedy, sloping
last face – all ears, nose, jungled brows – before
recognizing me in the comedy, sloping
toward his gargoyle-dom.
Alarmed, yet rewarded when reflected eyes
returned a glimpse of the boy who had spied
returned a glimpse of the boy who had spied
on the bedroom where
his father – bloody, toothless lion in his prime –
had lain with a virile mix of pain and humor
grieving over coming indignities –
had lain with a virile mix of pain and humor
grieving over coming indignities –
false teeth in his 40s!
Who warned that “a partial slip could loose a plosive!”
and for five decades more had allowed only
our mother and our own children and grandchildren
and for five decades more had allowed only
our mother and our own children and grandchildren
– small, seeing magic –
to witness removal and care of those gnashers
before going to his grave with a fresh haircut,
in Sunday suit and tie, dental plates and left-foot
in Sunday suit and tie, dental plates and left-foot
Florsheim shoe in place,
artificial leg and spit-polished other shoe
left back at the house with books, sermons, photographs,
left back at the house with books, sermons, photographs,
battered 50th anniversary watch, that old
yellow screwdriver –
organic refuse for descendants to consume,
worms such as we are, hungry to partake
worms such as we are, hungry to partake
of the eternal.