Jeanne Marie Beaumont
Among Vegetables
Song of the Shy Anemones
Artist Statement: Talking & Listening to Plants
At the risk of stating the obvious, all that are alive on earth are, elementally, made of the same stuff, so there’s bound to be a web of correspondences to discover if we remain alert. There is, in other words, intelligence everywhere to be gleaned in what grows alongside us, and over our heads, and under our feet. Whitman asked, What is the grass?, but it can also be asked What is the beet?, for beets, in their hard-won sturdiness and somewhat improbable profusion of color and flavor, are a bounty worth pausing to ponder. I grew up saying a grace before meals, and this poem in part could be read as a playful secular version arising from a similar impulse toward gratitude.
The bright anemones, on the other hand, became a more disquieting presence in the household. With their folding and unfolding, there was a performative aspect to them, along with the enticement that’s at the essence of all flowering. I connected them to a powerful flamenco performance I attended around that time, so they too required a “song.” Flamenco and flowers made similar plangent calls for my attention, drawing me close to that revelatory edge where fascination becomes both thrilling and dangerous.
JEANNE MARIE BEAUMONT is the author of four collections of poetry including Burning of the Three Fires (BOA Editions) and Letters from Limbo (CavanKerry Press). Her verse play, Asylum Song, had its premiere production at HERE Theater in spring of 2019. She has taught at Rutgers University, the Stonecoast MFA Program, and at the 92nd Street Y in New York, where she resides. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Image, The Manhattan Review, Barrow Street, Southern Poetry Review, and Laurel Review. More can be found at www.jeannemariebeaumont.com.