Ingrid Wendt--Poet/Teacher/Editor

Newer, Uncollected Poems
"After a Class in Seaweed," "On the Nature of Touch," "Benediction"



On the Nature of Touch


My daughter's cat in the morning, before he'll eat,
needs to be picked up and petted, cradled (as I used to
carry my daughter) on one hip from pantry to counter
and back to the dish of food that was fresh the first
time he sniffed it, but not good enough.

This cat can be roaming all night, returning ravenous.
This cat can be let outside at first light and stand, moon-
patient, at the door, in rain, until we rise again. His fur
can be six soggy layers of needles and moss on the floor of the Oregon
coast range and still the Salmon Supreme we spoon into his dish
holds that scrupulous tongue only an instant before his voice
stalks our slippers, our wonder again at such
hunger for touch that goes beyond all bodily need.

So we stroke him between the ears, stirring up the same food.
And we rub his nose just over the spot where the whiskers sprout,
run our hands repeatedly down the long rapids of his spine
until dander and fur rise like spume, drift in the imperceptible
breath of the furnace, saying Good cat, Good Pillow, Eat.

And my daughter, who hardly could wait to be out on her own,
phones from her student apartment once, maybe twice a day, to ask for my
stroganoff recipe, or if vinegar will, in the absence of cleanser,
clean a greasy sink. She reads me the funnies.
Will I give her a ride to the store? Each day, this

delicate sniffing the ground called home; the words we speak
a ritual independent of meaning: thin fingers sifting the rich
humus of memory: bright
splashes of hair dye she left behind
on the downstairs hall carpet, each color a different
year of her life: stones scattered by Gretel to find the way back.
There is no returning to where she has been. How can I
not cradle her; each time she calls, one more blessed

delay on the long, slow road from touching each of us took
for granted those years I held her in my arms at least once a day
and she held me in a gaze that knew nothing but trust: water
disappearing through cracks in my fingers I myself tried, as a child,
over and over to cup and drink clear in my small, close hands.

Published in Ms. magazine


After a Class in Seaweed


These names like exotic diseases – Alaria, Porphyra,
Fucus – or terms transmitted from darkrooms (try
Iridia, try Laminaria), Still, it’s hard to
imagine our world’s future food supply
blessed with names like Bull Whip Kelp, though
that’s what it looks like, and history shows

Maiden’s Hair is poisonous, leaving us
(if we stick with the representational) Sea
Palm and Lettuce – high in iron, potassium,
iodine, protein, you name it – and once you see
how good they can taste, who knows, you might
impress your friends with your daring, you might

start a new trend. Believe me, these new scientist
cooks know what they’re up to. Last week I stir-fried
some kind of algae with onions, green peppers, garlic
and soy sauce. Forgot it wasn’t spinach. Tried
Porphyra chips with salsa, disguising an aftertaste
clinging like limpets, like shriveled up slug trails

that don’t wash off. Anything’s possible. Like
tonight, the casserole I took to the potluck
full of Sea Palms everyone took to be diced
black olives (smothered with hamburger, tucked
into a sauce of tomato and cheddar). Like finding
good intentions not only tricking the tongue, but blinding.

First published in No More Masks! An Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Women Poets, Florence Howe, ed. NY: HarperCollins


Benediction

As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be.


Because I’d once been told what women always had done – though never
how, or why – after you died, the last tube taken out and gone,
and they offered to leave us alone, I asked if I could wash you.

The soapy water was warm, as you were, still, and soft. The basin was round.
The towels and wash cloths thick and white. And there was no strangeness in it,
really. And I didn’t cry, and that, too, was part of the wonder.

I began with one smooth, pliant arm. As once you daily must have done with me,
as once you must have done at your own mother’s death, I carefully dipped one cloth,
and carefully wrung it, and carefully bathed the whole freckled length of your arm,

your docile hand, each finger light in its yielding.
And though you had no choice in acquiescing to my love, I did not
revel in my power, but slowly lifted, washed and patted dry each limb, in turn,

your crooked toes and in between the toes; your shoulders, breasts,
the secret folds between your legs, thin pubic hairs, and with a different cloth,
which would have been your way, your face.

I took my time. I lingered in this unexpected absence of condition or demand.
And when at last with nothing more to do, I sat beside your bed and took
the hand I’d long since lost the need to hold, and laid my grown-up hand inside:

Oh, familiar shape my fingers knew by heart and had forgotten
that they’d ever known. How long this total rightness had been gone.
And, as leisurely as once I must have done, when simple being was enough

to please you, I let my eyes, without distraction, wander every
tiny detail of your face, its astonishing calm. I saw again your chin,
unguarded; saw your knuckles worn, arthritic; sang a tune that came

from who knows where: This is the hand that fed me,
Hand that held me, Hand that punished me, Hand that led me.
For hours, sunlight was the only thing that moved. And soon

would be gone. And your hand in mine, still warm!
I stood to kiss your forehead. It was cold. But I had been
in the presence of holiness. World without end. And was done.

First published in Prairie Schooner

Surgeonfish
Winner of the 2004 Editions Prize. Wanderings through the world, through history, through the heart: these are the travels undertaken by Ingrid Wendt in her newest collection, Surgeonfish. As always, Wendt's ambitions and formal range are large, and her poems are equal to the task.

"Ingrid Wendt's new book is gypsy music of the most adventurous kind. At times yearning, at times intense and joyful, at times grieving, these poems move from locale to locale -- Oregon, Northern Europe, Italy, the Middle East -- exploring and celebrating in clear language -- the poet's personal and spiritual roots, singing along the nexus where the human and the natural world kiss and collide." -- Robert Dana

The Angle of Sharpest Ascending
Winner of the 2003 Yellowglen Award. A haunting suite of poetic sequences about the German dimension of World War II and the ways it touches our modern experience. These masterful poems -- a number of which take the form of artistic collaborations with visual artists -- touch on essential questions of memory, responsibility, and healing.

"The lyric power of these poems leaves the reader swimming with resonance, lost in the amphitheater between thought and image, identification and word. The poems capture vividly what it is to exist between languages, and yet in language. I read it in one draught, throbbed by its vigor." -Olga Broumas

Blow the Candle Out
Blow the Candle Out comprises two poetic sequences – "Learning the Mother Tongue," which first appeared in Prairie Schooner, and "Questions of Mercy," which first appeared in Nimrod International Journal – and explores what it means to have a German heritage in the United States.

"The universal meaning of ‘family’ merges with this particular family in these powerful poems, but they also engage the hard questions of guilt and innocence in World War II. I would say if you're buying one poetry collection this year, make it this one-you won't be sorry.

Singing the Mozart Requiem
Winner, Oregon Book Award for Poetry.

"An exploration of memory and desire, time and place, things lost and found again in the layered and linked worlds of art, nature, and family."
“To read this book is to be reminded that even though we and all those around us are most certainly an endangered species, our only salvation is... ‘to mourn/ and rejoice at once and for the same reason’.”

Moving the House
"Ingrid Wendt’s poems are eventful in a special way. The language holds the reader steady with a wide, clear gaze toward realizations about change in the conditions of the individual life. These realizations are not just announced. They are demonstrated through bold images that come around as if by magic to enforce what the poet sees."

Starting with Little Things: A Guide to Writing Poetry in the Classroom
Different from other writing texts, these 46 poetry activities invite writers of all ages to play with language and new ways of seeing the world, while discovering ways to use poetry’s basic elements and building blocks.

Just as painters learn to mix colors and learn about texture, shading and pattern, without the pressure to complete the whole painting right away, this book encourages experimentation in Free Association, Figurative Language, Rewriting Clichés, Musical Language, Patterns of Repetition, Varying Line Lengths, and other tools of the writer’s trade.

Fifteen short chapters begin with “model” poems by adult poets, suggest two or three writing activities based on elements in these models, and conclude with delightful student poems.

“I really like how accessible these exercises are for both teachers to teach and students to learn. ... Maybe we can all be poets after all.”

In Her Own Image: Women Working in the Arts (co-edited with Elaine Hedges)
In Her Own Image brings together the work of Western women artists, past and present, in a stunning array of forms: poetry, fiction, autobiography, essay, journal and letter writing, sculpture, painting, graphics, photography, ceramics, needlework, music, dance.

Through these selections, which include 57 illustrations, we learn about the unique experience of the woman artist, not as others have seen her, but from the viewpoint of women artists themselves, from diverse ethnic, racial, and economic backgrounds.

The four sections – Household Work and Women’s Art, Obstacles and Challenges, Definitions and Discoveries, Women’s Art and Social Change – trace important relationships between women’s art and women’s social conditions.

From Here We Speak: An Anthology of Oregon Poetry (co-edited with Primus St. John)
The first Oregonians were also the first Oregon poets. Native American lullabies, songs, and incantations introduce this remarkable anthology of the best Oregon poetry. From Here We Speak gathers poets known and unknown, celebrated and forgotten. It traces the transition of Oregon poetry from a colonial literature to one that increasingly achieves regional and national recognition. The volume’s concluding section contains a broad sampling of contemporary poets and demonstrates the confident vitality of Oregon poetry today.

From Here We Speak is one of six volumes of the Oregon Literature Series, commissioned by the Oregon Council of Teachers of English and published by Oregon State University Press.