Dancing with Poets by Ellen Bryant Voight

Dancing with Poets

by Ellen Bryant Voight

"The accident" is what he calls the time

he threw himself from a window four floors up,

breaking his back and both ankles, so that walking

became the direst labor for this man

who takes my hand, invites me to the empty strip of floor

that fronts the instruments, a length of polished wood

the shape of a grave. Unsuited for this world--

his body bears the marks of it, his hand

is tense with effort and with shame, and I shy away

from any audience, but I love to dance, and soon

we find a way to move, drifting apart as each

effects a different ripple across the floor,

a plaid and a stripe to match the solid navy of the band.

And suddenly the band is getting better, so pleased

to have this pair of dancers, since we make evident

the music in the noise--and the dull pulse

leaps with unexpected riffs and turns, we can hear

how good the keyboard really is, the bright cresting

of another major key as others join us: a strict

block of a man, a formidable cliff of mind, dancing

as if melted, as if unhinged; his partner a gift of brave

elegance to those who watch her dance; and at her elbow,

Berryman back from the bridge, and Frost, relieved

of grievances, Dickinson waltzing there with lavish Keats,

who coughs into a borrowed handkerchief--all the poets of exile

and despair, unfit for this life, all those who cannot speak

but only sing, all those who cannot walk

who strut and spin until the waiting citizens at the bar,

aloof, judgmental, begin to sway or drum their straws

or hum, leave their seats to crowd the narrow floor

and now we are one body, sweating and foolish,

one body with its clear pathetic grace, not

lifted out of grief but dancing it, transforming

for one night this local bar, before we're turned back out

to our separate selves, to the dangerous streets and houses,

to the overwhelming drone of the living world.

Ellen Bryant Voight died last month. Among her many awards wwere NEA and Guggenheim grants, a MacArthur Fellowship, and her serving as the Vermont Poet laureate. She wrote many books of poetry, edited books, and wrote (and co-wrote) about poetry and writing. She trained as a pianist, and music makes many appearances in her poems. The poem above is from her 1987 book, The Lotus Flowers, published by Norton. It is, in fact, the last poem in the collection, and it seems to me to be the perfect poem with which to end a book of poetry.

This is one of those poems in which the beginning is impossible to resist. We don't yet know where we are, but we learn about a man who tried to commit suicide, and ended up hurt "so that walking/became the direst labor." Then we learn where the speaker is speaking from--a club with live music, and this man has asked her to dance.

We learn more about the speaker: "I shy away/from any audience, but I love to dance." Within this scene, this is discord, but it all is, simultaneously, blending, coming together as other dancers join this couple on the dance floor, and (and I love this observation), "the band is getting better."

Suddenly--although the title has clued us in to this--we are given some poets. But not just any poets, poets who were, like the people in this club, "unsuited for this world." John Berryman, who, after deacdes of depression, alcoholism, and 4 marriages, committed suicide by jumping from the Washington Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis. Robert Frost, cantankerous, arrogant, pessimistic, and bitter about so much. Emily Dickinson, who most likely suffered from Bright's disease, and spent her life secreting her true self away--at least here she is dancing. And John Keats, who died at 25 from tuberculosis, hence the coughing into a handkerchief in this poem.

The speaker calls these 4 poets "of exile and despair," and pans out from the 4 of them to the people in the club, and then beyond. At first judgmental, the club's patrons get up to dance with a "pathetic grace" (ah, more discord):

and now we are one body, sweating and foolish,

one body with its clear pathetic grace, not

lifted out of grief but dancing it, transforming

for one night this local bar . . .

There are few places anymore where a group of strangers become one, but dancing to live music is one of those places. The speaker assumes everyone there is grieving, but it is true; everyone is grieving something all the time. It may not be foremost in our minds, but it's there. Having a drink and dancing with a stranger is a time-honored way of dealing with this type of grief, and the poet here gives this simple act the gravitas it deserves.

But line 16's "the music in the noise" has to end and these people must go back "to our separate selves, to the dangerous streets and houses, to the overwhelming drone of the living world." The music becomes a droning. The safety of this crowd, moving together, becomes the dangerous world outside. The night must come to an end.

And so the poem, and this book, ends. If the poets were not in this poem, it would still be powerful and deeply moving. But their inclusion adds a bit of surprise. Like the man in the poem who dances with the speaker, and the rest of the club crowd, those 4 poets had issues with life. We all do. Some people, however, have more troubles, or cannot handle their troubles, or have no one to share their troubles with, or who live in a time (or place) where societal norms create their troubles.

I hope that whatever is troubling you, whatever grief you are dealing with, can be remedied or at least lessened by cranking up a song and dancing around in your space (if you cannot get to a club). I suggest "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" by Scissor Sisters, "Dance to the Music" by Sly and the Family Stone, "Shame, Shame, Shame" by Shirley and Company, or "Hello Stranger" by Emmylou Harris.