Apprenticed to Poetry: Part Two

Where I’m From
by Mendy Knott

I am from Dick and Madelyn
Jethro and Jewel
Lillian and John (Jake to his buddies).
I am from deep beneath the tarnished buckle
of the Bible Belt.
Southern states have left traces
all over me like lint:
sweet dark molasses of Big Muddy in my accent
orange dusting of Texas hill country across my cheeks
the wild of a barefoot, small-town Louisiana child.
I’m from a long line of preacher men,
mostly Presbyterian, some Methodist,
all absolutely fundamental to:
my love of language
my tendency to tell a story
the long, lost lonely nights of young lesbians and liars.
I’m from my Mamaw’s front porch swattin’ flies,
Camden street lamps jarring junebugs,
farm ponds catching bream, bass, catfish, carp.
I am from every night a home-cooked meal,
hand-cranked ice cream in the summer
roastbeefriceandgravy on most Sundays.
As I was made once from my Momma’s garden,
I’m now grown up in Leigh’s greenbeans and red tomatoes.
I own the drunk I’m from, the addict born to bear
the brokenness of a woman soldier and big-city cop.
I am living proof there’s a kind of universal grace:
born once, then
born again in AA
born again in creativity
born again in true love
born again each time I open up to hope.
I am from, as much as all of these,
black ink and blank white paper
the will to write, to change, to be.

I was born into a Southern preacher’s family a misfit. But I recognized beauty when I saw it, read it, heard it. I loved poetry from before the time I was able to read it. Mother Goose spoke to me in a sweet enchanting voice. I memorized hymns whose meaning I did not understand and sang them lustfully from my place in the middle pew. I loved early mornings looking out my window at patterns of sun and shade made by the leaves of the backyard fig. I worked hard at learning to read so I could choose books and travel places far away from the restrictions of a religious home.

For a long time, it looked like I would fail. I was a terribly unhappy teen with a tendency to addiction and depression. But I kept reading and writing. I rebelled against everything that smelled even slightly of authority. Much of the time I felt lost, unacceptable and alone. I did not know it then, but I was getting an education. I was learning, as I would for years, the hard way.

Yet, somehow I knew I had a clarity of vision that allowed me to see beyond the surface of ordinary things. But it was painful to me, and lonely, so I blurred the images as much as possible with alcohol and drugs. Because I did not want, with my “tough girl” persona, to appear weak or overly sensitive, I did my best to go against my nature. In my early 30’s I realized that I must get sober or life would soon be over for me. I could no longer stand what I’d become. I joined the police department and stayed until I realized that the job was not helping with my “sensitivity” problem. I had to harden myself or die. For years I didn’t realize there was a third choice: I could quit.

The last year I policed, I began writing a novel, for no other “conscious” reason than to pursue a personal challenge. Once I put pen to paper, some desire long-buried, to be a writer, even a poet, was finally freed. I walked away from my life as a cop and started over again at 37. It was not too late. In fact, the longer I live, the more I realize that it is never too late to begin again. We are surrounded by second chances if we only raise our heads and remember… remember what we loved from the beginning.

When I started writing, I immediately recalled two unfulfilled longings from childhood: I had always wanted to be a writer and to live in the mountains. My first real act of creativity, writing that crazy novel, set these memories free and I was empowered to act. The decision to do what not only seemed improbable, but impossible to my peers, to write that wild first book full of beauty, violence, and sex, set me free. I began, and the answers to those scary questions, like where and how I would live, fell into place. Surely, it’s suppose to be some come-to-Jesus type conversion, but for me it was “Silverwaters: Amazon Adventures for the Stout-Hearted Lesbian.”

We all must face decisions that either free us to follow our forgotten dreams, or bind us to unfulfilled lives of frustration. We know we are called to do more, to do something other than what we are up to at present, to immerse ourselves in a passion that demands the best of us. I think we understand that we could live in an exciting world full of amazing surprises, brought about not only by what we can do, but by what the world will do on our behalf once we have chosen to live by our hearts and creative wits. In this world, the measuring stick has very few markers. Does it bring you joy and does it empower you to share your gift with others?

(Continued in the next post...)

—Mendy Knott is a writer, poet and author of the poetry collection A Little Lazarus (Half Acre Press, 2010). To order your copy of A Little Lazarus directly from the author, please click here. Or, if cookbooks are more your style, get a copy of Mendy's family cookbook Across the Arklatex at www.twopoets.us.