I don’t really understand the publishing world, but I especially don’t understand the poetry publishing world. You would think that after a poet publishes, say, 10 books, that they wouldn’t have to scramble for publication, that that poetry publishing world would just give the poet time and space and money to write and then welcome the result. Dougherty, who I believe is close to publishing 20 books, still has to scramble. And his ‘day’ job (though he often seems to work third shift) definitely has a huge impact on his work, so, in a way, I’m glad he has it.
That said, the character that stood out the most in this collection, was not those under Dougherty’s care or even his family, but Dougherty himself. He seems to be contemplating his own mortality here and given that he works at taking care of those who seem to be suffering from ailments they cannot escape, I wondered if the job was wearing on him.
As usual, Dougherty treats life and language with such gentleness that I gotswept away by the beauty of the moments he observes. Words in his hands are like newborn animals, struggling to find their feet and their voice. With Dougherty’s seemingly effortless care, though, they end up speaking volumes.
In “Death Letter #2” (see what I mean?) he writes, “The simple human truth is that we are tougher than we think we are even when we aren’t. After we receive a word, we receive another, a set, or series of words like pieces to a puzzle we arrange. We send the words out into the world of strangers who pick up those words and place each one into a hole in their body. Each of goes through life with these holes in our bodies until the right words find them.” Here, he seems to be talking about his writing process, the healing process and the reading process. His words have certainly filled me many times.
In “The Shape of a Pill,” he reminds who is he is writing for and sounds like Dylan in “Chimes of Freedom.” He’s writing for “the woman in pain on a thin mattress, the man coughing in a mine, the barefoot child wheezing, the one who cannot sit up straight, the one lisping, the one going blind, the palsied.” These are Dougherty’s people. Later in this same poem, he speaks of medicine that is “Placed on the tongue. Like the eucharist.” Another kind of healing. And later he asks, “what is prescribed in this life? What is taken and what is given?” I spent a lot of time thinking about those questions.
In “I used to date a woman after high school whose teacher had been Christa McAuliffe,” he again merges spirituality, caretaking, and language in a beautiful way: “What is sacred is as ordinary as hearing an old man cough to tell me he isn’t dead. The light that makes the leaves change.” More of the sacred comes up in “Poem Woven with Birds and Grass After Long Hospital Stay”: The names of things alive. Joy: the smell of broth filling a house after a long absence.”
As much as he finds beauty in the seemingly simple, Dougherty doesn’t suggest things are simple. “Lately,” he writes later in the same poem, “I try to slow down time, the way a photographer slow motions every wing of a hummingbird.” (Dougherty conjures the beauty of the hummingbird and the picture of it and the art of photgraphy and the very human act of wanting to slow down time – all in one image – and makes ‘slow motions’ a verb. Amazing.) “I write,” Dougherty says, “to tell the world, survival is more than love, it is labor.” For Dougherty, the two are seemingly intertwined; there is love in his labor. There is also love in his poetry.
So carry on, sir. Your people (patients, readers) need your words to fill their holes.
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