Episode 48: Emplumada - Lorna Dee Cervantes

In this episode, Connor and Jack explore an the poem “Emplumada,” by Lorna Dee Cervantes. They discuss the poem’s ending, its ambiguity and beauty; how the poem might fit into a three-act structure; the poem’s negotiation with an oppressive history; the poem’s tonal distance between quiet and intensity; and, finally, hummingbirds and their possible mating practices?

Read the poem below or here: www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50119/emplumada More on Cervantes: www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lorna-dee-cervantes Check out Cervantes’ collection, Emplumada, where this poem comes from: www.upress.pitt.edu/BookDetails.aspx?bookId=34371 Check out the referenced interview with Cervantes: opencourses.uoa.gr/modules/documen…20Cervantes.pdf Find us on facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking
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You can always send us an e-mail with thoughts on this or any of our previous podcasts, as well as suggestions for future shows, at closetalkingpoetry@gmail.com.

Emplumada
by Lorna Dee Cervantes

When summer ended
the leaves of snapdragons withered
taking their shrill-colored mouths with them.
They were still, so quiet. They were
violet where umber now is. She hated
and she hated to see
them go. Flowers

born when the weather was good - this
she thinks of, watching the branch of peaches
daring their ways above the fence, and further,
two hummingbirds, hovering, stuck to each other,
arcing their bodies in grim determination
to find what is good, what is
given them to find. These are warriors

distancing themselves from history.
They find peace
in the way they contain the wind
and are gone.