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 more than 20 books, and Professor Emerita of English and creative writing at the Lock Haven campus of Commonwealth University.
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Welcome to Poetry Moment.
March is ready to tip into April, the month that—according to T. S. Eliot’s famous poem “The Wasteland”—is none too kind. Some twenty years ago, Christine Gelineau entered a contest run by the Academy of American Poets. The requirement was to write a poem that incorporated all the individual words from T.S. Eliot’s famous opening: “April is the cruelest month.” The result? Today’s poem, “Bliss.”
Christine Gelineau our final poet for March, Women’s History Month, lives 3 miles north of Pennsylvania, in the Susquehanna River valley. She is the author of three full-length books of poetry: Crave from NYQ Books; Appetite for the Divine, winner of the McGovern Prize from Ashland Poetry Press, and Remorseless Loyalty, winner of the Snyder Prize, also from Ashland. Her work has been widely published in journals and online and she has been recognized with a Pushcart Prize. Retired from Binghamton University, she teaches in the MFA Program at Wilkes University.
In today’s poem, “Bliss,” Christine Gelineau begs to differ with T. S. Eliot, thank you very much. With masterful personification, she portrays April not so much as a cruel taskmaster, but rather a magician transforming the “winter-hardened earth.” But wait: Lulled by April’s springtime spell, are we ignoring winter’s lingering, cruel reminders? Is ignorance truly bliss?
Here’s “Bliss” by Christine Gelineau
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April loves a challenge, choosing to split
the slab of winter-hardened earth with the
silk tongue of a crocus. She casts the stiffened
brooks as her fandango dancers. At first
they crack and groan, call her the cruelest of
taskmasters but April persists, persuades:
the streams ripple, sequined and agile. For
April even forgotten roadsides can
ruffle out in a froth of forsythia,
waving brash wands of membranous stars
that glitter like eternity, then float to
the ground, a wasted galaxy melting
into the land while this uterine
muscle of a month bears down, rousing
the fetuses each from their dark havens,
thrusting them naked and mewling into
the hungry light. The least of April’s exploits
is lulling us: we are so eager to
ignore the hollow echo of the daffodils’
blare and the lithe red tulips’ throats of snow.
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Originally published in Natural Bridge, No. 13 (Spring 2005)
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That was “Bliss” by Christine Gelineau. 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.
