California Poetry

I suspect poets are enamored with musicians and singers because their artistry — every played note — is physically felt. Writers rarely get to experience that kind of physical sensation while creating. Katie Peterson’s “Opera” dwells on the stunning performance of a particular opera singer, whose body, exquisitely described, becomes a vessel of desire. Peterson builds the poem by stringing together four meditative sentences. The third, beginning with “And so, what I remembered came from a pose,” veers from the singer to the speaker, who experiences her own flashback memory filled with sensations of vulnerability, abandonment and passion. Images of two large birds, the condor and “salt-crusted hawk,” hint at the bewilderment that attends sexual rapture. Katie Peterson was born in Stanford and grew up in Menlo Park. She is the author of four collections of poetry: “This One Tree,” “Permission,” “The Accounts” and “A Piece of Good News.” She lives in Berkeley with her husband and daughter.  Peterson will discuss her new book, “A Piece of Good News,” with poet Louise Glück at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 28, at Mrs. Dalloway’s, 2904 College Ave., Berkeley. www.mrsdalloways.com The next morning, I tried to remember her face, but her dress sailed into the center of my eye, a ship luscious with sail crossing no horizon but stopping where I knew my nose was, that ridiculous mountain only lovers find right ways to compliment. But I then I tried harder to call it back, and my eyes rose to meet her décolletage and her shoulders and the manner in which her clavicle hinged at her neck to sing with such dexterity she could stomach a world of old and rich and earnest admirers.

And so, what I remembered came from a pose

I can recall, though his hands were around me in such a way

I could only watch sideways and still be loved, what I remembered could not be said to appear at once at the top of a tall tree like the endangered condor from a hiding place in some remote part of California, or, likewise, from the ocean like a salt-crusted hawk. She had the most sexual face I had ever seen when she described why she sold her possessions.

Excerpted from “A Piece of Good News: Poems,” by Katie Peterson. Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Copyright © 2019 by Katie Peterson. All rights reserved. David Roderick is the author of the poetry collections “Blue Colonial” and “The Americans.” He is co-founder of Left Margin Lit: A Home for the Literary Arts, in Berkeley.

Young Suh