This is poetry moment on WPSU – a weekly program featuring the work of contemporary Pennsylvania poets. Your host is poet and author Marjorie Maddox, a 2023 Monson Arts Fellow, author of 20 books, and professor of English and creative writing at the Lock Haven campus of Commonwealth University.
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On a frigid, winter morning, it’s tempting to roll over and stay in bed. Yet, despite the cold, most of us get up to face the day.
But what if your brisk January included working on section gangs for the Lehigh Valley Railroad?
In today’s poem, “Turning Over,” a stalled car engine reminds Paul Martin of his father: his morning cough, the difficult work that awaited him, the small pleasures that warmed him.
Paul Martin grew up in small towns along the Lehigh River in Eastern, Pa. Paul’s poems have appeared in America, Boulevard, Commonweal, New Letters, Poetry East, Southern Poetry Review, and elsewhere. He has published two books of poetry: Closing Distances (The Backwaters Press, 2009) and River Scar (Grayson Books, 2019), as well as three prize-winning chapbooks: Rooms of the Living (Autumn House Press, 2013), Floating on the Lehigh (Grayson Books, 2015) and Mourning Dove (Comstock Review’s Jessica Bryce Niles Prize, 2017 ).
Sometimes it’s winter air—the chill of it—that shakes awake a memory. Sometimes it’s a sound, harsh or melodious, that conjures up our past. Whatever the trigger, suddenly we’re back in time, reliving moments, even with those we’ve lost.
In this somber but tender poem, Paul Martin remembers his father.
Here’s “Turning Over” by Paul Martin.
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In zero cold the engine’s slow
to turn over, coughing
awake like my father sitting on the edge
of the bed staring at the blue linoleum floor,
coughing again, lifting his heavy body
into another day on the railroad section gang,
the icy wind through Lehigh Gap blasting
down on him as he raises the spike hammer
and strains against the crowbar.
But now he’s drinking coffee,
looking toward the dark window,
thinking of what?
Maybe watching Friday Night Fights.
or ordering tomato seeds,
maybe the ghostly face in the window
staring back at him.
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“Turning Over” appeared in the chapbook Mourning Dove, winner of The Jessie Bryce Niles Chapbook Award, and in Ted Kooser’s newspaper column, American Life in Poetry.
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That was “Turning Over” by Paul Martin. Thanks for listening.
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Listen for Poetry Moment with Marjorie Maddox Mondays during Morning Edition and All Things Considered on WPSU. You can more episodes at wpsu.org/poetrymoment.
Our theme music is by Eric Ian Farmer.
