The Crack in a Voice: A Memoir in Verse

By Doug Jennette

It may be that his rural and small-town NC roots leak out in the poetry of Doug Jennette. Certainly, his attention to subtle aspects of nature, contradictions inherent in human relationships, the tender connections possible among men who search for deeper meaning in life, and the grief that is part of lif

• Language: English
• Publisher: WillowSong Press
• Release date: Mar 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9780578814414

Book preview

Copyright © 2020 by Douglas Jennette

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

WillowSong Press

618 Stacy Street

Raleigh, North Carolina 27607

The Crack in a Voice: A Memoir in Verse / Douglas Jennette — 1st ed.

ISBN 978-0-578-81440-7

The Crack in a Voice: A Memoir in Verse / Douglas Jennette — E-Pub

ISBN 978-0-578-81441-4

Cover and author photographs by Marsha Presnell-Jennette

Design and publishing services by Carol Majors

PUBLICATIONS UNLTD • Raleigh NC

To my mother, Alice Deans Jennette,

who taught me the value of reading

and of listening to the imagination

and the wealth

of beauty and inspiration

to be found in the natural world.

To my wife, Marsha Anne Presnell-Jennette,

who taught me to take notice and celebrate life

in the seen and unseen world around us.

She teaches me each day about friendship,

determination, beauty, and the magic

that makes life miraculous.

For this, I am eternally grateful.

~

Poetry is language against which you have no defenses.

DAVID WHYTE

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

THE HUMAN CONDITION

Silence

The Crack in a Voice

What Would Rumi Say?

Time

The Dark

The Children

The Child Grown Old

Stan

Shadowman

Rifle

Refugee

Profanity / The Curse

Pretty Kitty

Falling Down

Dead Santas

White Privilege

Consequences

A Decent Burial

RELATIONSHIP

Desire

Metamorphosis

Michael

Hand in Hand

Fourteen Silent Friends

Favorite

Burro

Banquet of the Heart

Mister Lindberg’s House

Something Bad

Thanksgiving Day, 2012

Train Ninety-One

You Didn’t Tell Me Everything

FAMILY

Mother’s Day, 1999

Dad

Prodigal

Amen

Pants

NATURE

Winter’s Song

Morning at Chestnut Ridge

Afternoon Poem

Alone

December 28

Flight 270

Patience

Salt

Surf

Visitors

Cloud Trees

Virus

LOSS AND LETTING GO

Remembering Gregory

Remembering Gregory, Again

Out of Nowhere

Ray

Memorial Day, 2000

Not Just Any Saturday

Due Date

When Is Daddy Coming Home

Southern Speech

Circling the Drain

Chestnut Ridge, 1863

Bearing the Truth

A Thousand Years

Aging or Ageing

Friends

When It’s Time for Me to Go

EARLY TIMES

Rush to Oblivion

Sky

Midnight Rain

Back From Beyond

Earth

Sea

From Inside

A Christmas Prayer

What Is Christmas

Why The Lonely

LYRICS

Give Her a Chance to Dance

Nowhere Left to Fall

Mean Job Blues

When You Walked Out

Odd Goods

The Beginning of Better

Ode to Dallas

Security

Memories

Down to Nobody

Late Show

La Gare (The Train)

Territory of the Heart

WILLIAM W’S POEMS

If We Knew

Sail to Paradise

Snowflake

Like Sunshine

PREAMBLES TO POEMS

"What does it mean, then, to love one’s country, and

what does it mean to be a patriot? If a poet is busy all his life fighting prejudices, removing narrow views, enlightening the mind of his people, purifying their taste, and ennobling their opinions and thoughts, how could he do better or be more patriotic?"

J. W. VON GOETHE

Preface

I come from a long line of eastern North Carolina farmers, who never accumulated much money or property, but prided themselves on their self-sufficiency. The rural area which was my home until my eighth birthday was near my paternal grandparents, but was remote from peers and the activities that small-town America offered in the 1950s. My parents’ move to small-town Garner, NC in December 1955 was a pivotal point in their lives and that of our family. It allowed my father some distance from the drudgery of farming and events surrounding his involuntary psychiatric hospital admissions, my parents a measure of freedom from family entanglements, and allowed my sister and me the opportunity to grow up among other children and families different from ours. I will always be grateful to them for that decision.

The poems in this book span many decades and most of the developmental phases in my life thus far. They began to appear in the late 1960s in response to the upheaval around the Vietnam War, civil rights, and my growing relationship with my future wife, Marsha. Poems from that time reflect intense emotions and imagery and grew out of a somewhat solitary and depressed early college experience. As with most of my work, they were inspirational — meaning they were inspired by an image, phrase, emotion, or longing and flowed out without much editing or crafting involved. As presented here, these Early Times poems are in the state they were in when I left them following my graduation from college in 1970.

The 1970s and much of the 1980s were poetically quiet for me, with only an occasional reading of others’ poetry to remind me of the power in that form. Life’s energy and focus were on creating a good marriage, learning how to become a competent clinical social worker, and redefining/expanding my spiritual life through the practice of Quakerism. Reading Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s harrowing accounts of life in the Soviet gulag system gave me an invaluable perspective on the capacity of human beings to inflict horrors on others in the name of political goals. Occasional letters to the Editor of our local newspaper helped exercise and focus my writing skills.

The late 1980s began the next phase of my creativity, largely spurred by a desire to discover, define, and enhance my sense of myself as a man by developing meaningful connections with other men. My involvement in the Mythopoetic branch of the Men’s Movement was the vehicle for this journey. Robert Bly, poet and men’s conference leader, was both inspirational and invitational — he inspired me to pay attention to my life as a man and invited a creative response from which poems again began to flow.

Attending men’s retreats, getting to know, value and find deep affection for other men, and working with other men to create the Raleigh Men’s Center (now The Men’s Council) supported the reemergence of my poetic expression. Poems from this period are reflective and attuned to the details of life, nature, and relationships. And they honor, both directly and indirectly, the men who helped me soften what Bruce Springsteen calls the pathological urge toward isolation that is a specter in the lives of many men.

It has been noted that many of my poems carry a sense of loss, grief, or wistful melancholy. I think this is in part due to my nature and in part due to my understanding that, particularly for men, being able to recognize, acknowledge, and express grief is a healthy skill and a sometime antidote to depression. Robert Bly articulated this premise, and I have found it to be true in my life.

The next phase of my poetry began in early 2010 when a friend, Ed Lyons, offered to play music with me as a Christmas gift. I had been away from my guitar for many years and found the offer immediately appealing. Ed is a talented multi-instrumentalist who composes and arranges music. Quickly, song lyrics began to flow whose themes can be generally described as country. Again, these lyrics were inspired by an off-hand phrase, image, or concept — usually relating to some aspect of the relationship between women and men. My rusty and rudimentary guitar skills meant that the songs developed as stories, rather than musical compositions. This period produced several completed songs and some worthy fragments.

Interestingly, another musician friend, Chris Royce who, like Ed, is a gifted guitarist and composer, provided my next nudge into lyric composition. Chris was my guitar teacher for a time in the early 1980s, and we had remained friends over the years. I retired at the end of 2018, and Chris invited me to write lyrics for a couple of his compositions in early 2019. Thus began a fun and fruitful collaboration that continues to the present.