{"id":4228,"date":"2020-12-27T16:14:49","date_gmt":"2020-12-27T23:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/?p=4228"},"modified":"2021-04-25T16:58:48","modified_gmt":"2021-04-25T23:58:48","slug":"after-rosalind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/archives\/4228","title":{"rendered":"After Rosalind"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is a story about Desdemona Peoples, known to her friends and those who read her poetry as Dez Peoples. She works at Oberon\u2019s, the only stationery store in town, and used to be married to Larry Peoples who is now married to Penny Peoples. Given that they all live in Ophelia, Washington, a small town, you may wonder why Dez doesn\u2019t drop Peoples<\/em> and go back to using her maiden name Persons<\/em> to make things less confusing for everyone. And the reason she doesn\u2019t go back to Persons<\/em> is poetry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A striking brunette, Dez was born in Ophelia, the youngest of three kids with two older brothers. Her father Skip was a logger, her mother Ernestine a housewife who took in sewing work to supplement the family income, and both Dez\u2019s brothers became loggers, too. By the age of twelve, Dez was determined to get out of Ophelia and never come back. Blazingly smart, she thought everybody in town was an idiot. Now she knows everybody in Ophelia is not<\/em> an idiot, but when she was twelve that\u2019s what she thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dez graduated from high school at sixteen and went to college at San Francisco State where she majored in Dance. Upon graduating with honors, she moved to Portland and joined a modern dance company called Epiphany, had parts in several plays, and wrote poetry. She worked as a waitress, had a series of musician boyfriends, wrote hundreds of poems, and tried to get them published with little success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Dez was thirty-seven her father died and she went back to Ophelia to take care of her grieving mother. After she\u2019d been home for a month, she had a fling with Larry Peoples who had briefly been her boyfriend in high school, and because her birth control implant gave up the ghost six months early, she got pregnant, married Larry, and took his last name to make things less confusing for everyone in Ophelia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much to her surprise, Dez enjoyed\nbeing married to Larry who was sweet to her during her pregnancy and sweet to\ntheir child Rosalind until Lindy, as Larry called Rosalind, was three. Then\nLarry got together with Penny and had little to do with Dez or Rosalind ever\nagain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But during Larry\u2019s initial sweetness\nto her and their child, Dez stopped signing her poems Desdemona Persons<\/em> and started signing them Dez<\/em> Peoples<\/em>, and the\nminute she made that change, literary magazines started publishing her poems,\nwhich led to Seven Painted Elephants Press publishing her first volume of poems\nBefore Rosalind<\/em>, which was subsequently\npublished in a German-English edition by the Swiss publisher Werner Schaffen. And\nwhen Before Rosalind<\/em> proved\nsuccessful, Seven Painted Elephants Press published Dez\u2019s second volume of\npoems Now She Is Two<\/em> and Werner\nSchaffen published a German-English edition of that collection, too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which is not to say Dez became\nfamous, but as poets in America fare, she was faring quite well, which is why\nwhen she and Larry divorced, she kept on being Dez Peoples<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a muggy Saturday in August\u2014Rosalind\neight, Dez forty-six, and Dez\u2019s mother Ernestine seventy-two\u2014Dez and Rosalind\nare working in the vegetable garden in back of the two-story house where Dez\ngrew up, digging horse manure into the soil for planting pole beans and\npotatoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ernestine comes out on the back\nporch and says, \u201cPhone for you Dez. Somebody named Lulu.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rosalind laughs. \u201cYou mean Zulu,\nGrandma.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLulu, Zulu,\u201d says Ernestine,\nlaughing, too. \u201cSome sort of ulu.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDig on, Roz,\u201d says Dez, hurrying to\nthe house. \u201cI won\u2019t be long.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zulu Manhattan is Dez\u2019s editor at\nArticulate Dinosaur Press in Seattle, publisher of Dez\u2019s last three volumes of\npoetry. Dez\u2019s latest volume, her seventh, Controversial\nRecipes,<\/em> just came out in America and Europe and is getting stellar\nreviews. Werner Schaffen has published German-English editions of all seven of\nDez\u2019s books and she now has a small following in Germany and Switzerland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHey Dez,\u201d says Zulu, her accent southern, \u201cwe just got a call from James Billings. Well\u2026 from his people. Do you know<\/em> him?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo,\u201d says Dez, sitting at the\nkitchen table and using the same wall-mounted telephone she grew up with. \u201cSomebody\nsent me the book he won the Pulitzer for. Can\u2019t think of the title. Haven\u2019t\nread it yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell you better read it, honey,\u201d\nsays Zulu, emphatically, \u201cbecause he apparently loves<\/em> your work and wants you to open for him at a big show in\nSeattle on October fifth, PBS taping the show for a national Christmas special.\nWants you to do about twenty minutes. They\u2019ll pay you two grand and put you up at\nthe Four Seasons and interview you for the special, too. Yes?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll need to check with my mother,\u201d\nsays Dez, terrified. \u201cMake sure she\u2019s available to take care of Roz. Can I call\nyou back tomorrow? Or Monday?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMonday at the latest, darling,\u201d says Zulu, hearing the fear in Dez\u2019s voice. \u201cBillings is<\/em> going to be the next poet laureate, you know. Or the one after that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI probably can do it,\u201d says Dez,\nbreathlessly. \u201cI\u2019ll call you back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dez hangs up the phone and bows her\nhead. This is her dream come true and her worst nightmare. She wants to be\nsuccessful and wants to be anonymous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ernestine comes in from the garden cradling\nzucchinis and cucumbers in her apron, dumps the produce on the kitchen counter\nand says, \u201cYou okay, Dez?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey want me to read with James Billings in Seattle,\u201d says Dez, anguished. \u201cIn October. For a PBS Christmas show.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor your new book?\u201d asks Ernestine,\ngetting Dez a glass of water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dez smiles at her mother who knows\nnothing about poetry except that Dez is a poet and Psalms<\/em> in The Bible<\/em> are\npoems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJames Billings is very famous,\u201d Dez explains, \u201cand it certainly would help my new book if I read with him and a million people watched the show, but I\u2019m not sure I want to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy not?\u201d asks Ernestine, frowning\nat her daughter. \u201cWouldn\u2019t take long. Three-hour drive to Seattle, read your\npoems, come on home. We\u2019ll hardly know you were gone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou make it sound so wonderfully\nsimple,\u201d says Dez, giving her mother a hug. \u201cBut it isn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As they plant the bean seeds, Dez\ntells Rosalind about the reading in Seattle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan I come?\u201d asks Rosalind, nodding\nhopefully. \u201cI love<\/em> Seattle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll do it,\u201d says\nDez, sinking her hands in the soil and closing her eyes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy not?\u201d asks Rosalind, frowning\nat her mother. \u201cWe could go to Pike Street Market and get fish and chips and\nsalt water taffy and go on a ferry boat ride.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s complicated,\u201d says Dez,\nthinking Maxine is the only person I know\nwho will understand what I\u2019m up against.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Ernestine and Rosalind take the\nmutts Portia and Petruchio for a walk, Dez sits at the kitchen table and calls Maxine\nin Portland. Maxine is an artist ten years older than Dez who makes her living\nstaging houses for real estate agents. She and Dez shared a flat and were waitresses\ntogether when Dez lived in Portland. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHey baby girl,\u201d says Maxine when\nshe hears Dez\u2019s voice. \u201cI\u2019ve been meaning to call you and tell you how much I\nlove the new poems. The one about the old lady buying whiskey in the Pakistani\nliquor store? I laughed until I cried. You just get better and better. And who\ntook the picture of you on the jacket? You look like Kate Winslet with dark brown\nhair.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRoz took it,\u201d says Dez, smiling as\nshe recalls standing in the vegetable garden, her hair still wet from her\nshower, Rosalind snapping pictures with a tiny camera. \u201cYou got a minute?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor you, baby girl, all day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dez tells Maxine about the gig with\nNathan Grayson and her mixed feeling about saying Yes<\/em>, and Maxine says, \u201cSelf-sabotage or self-preservation? That is\nthe question.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m not unhappy,\u201d says Dez, as if that might be a good enough reason not to read with James Billings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat are you afraid of?\u201d asks\nMaxine, getting out her notebook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI write poetry,\u201d says Dez with\nanger in her voice. \u201cI don\u2019t want to be mistaken for Kate Winslet with dark brown\nhair.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019d be sensational,\u201d says Maxine, writing Sensational<\/em> at the top of a blank page. \u201cAnd that would open a Pandora\u2019s Box of interest in you. Tell me why that\u2019s bad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI like not being famous,\u201d says Dez,\nhearing how false she sounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd what will happen if you don\u2019t\ndo it?\u201d asks Maxine, writing Pandora\u2019s\nBox<\/em> under Sensational<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf I don\u2019t<\/em> do it,\u201d says Dez, knowing how the world works, \u201cmy publisher will drop me and I will ever after be known as the uppity bitch who wouldn\u2019t read with James Billings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maxine laughs. \u201cYou are so<\/em> not an uppity bitch, baby girl.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m stuck,\u201d says Dez, quoting\nRosalind who often says I\u2019m stuck<\/em>\nwhen seeking help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet\u2019s go back to the beginning,\u201d\nsays Maxine, writing The Beginning<\/em> under\nPandora\u2019s Box<\/em>. \u201cWhy do you write\npoems?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo capture moments,\u201d says Dez, thinking\nof Rosalind on her knees in the garden placing big white beans in the little\ntrench snaking through the dark brown soil. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy capture moments?\u201d asks Maxine,\nwriting Moments<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo share them with others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy do you want to do that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo connect. Maybe help.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHelp?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know\u2026 maybe awaken someone a\nlittle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo it, Dez,\u201d says Maxine, writing Awaken!<\/em> \u201cPandora won\u2019t bother you much\nin Ophelia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Dez takes the gig.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of Dez\u2019s sound check a few hours before the big show, James Billings and his entourage enter the vast theatre and Grayson strides down the center aisle to meet Dez coming off the stage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A movie-star handsome fellow in his fifties, his hair a flawless gray pompadour, James takes Dez\u2019s hand in both of his and says, \u201cYour author photos don\u2019t lie. Why no videos?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m low tech,\u201d says Dez, who got\nher hair cut stylishly short for the reading. \u201cJust write.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo you\u2019ll do about ten minutes,\u201d says James, winking at Dez. \u201cSound good?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was told twenty,\u201d says Dez,\nhaving memorized six poems that take her seventeen minutes to recite without\nhaste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLess is more,\u201d says James, winking at her again. \u201cAim for ten. They always take fifteen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWill do,\u201d says Dez, wanting to like James but finding him repulsive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPerfecto,\u201d says James, winking at her a third time. \u201cJust be yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first poem Dez recites is called\nCaf\u00e9 Idyll<\/em>, about a day in her life\nas a waitress\u2014the seventeen hundred people in the audience entranced from the\nfirst line and roaring with laughter throughout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aiming to finish under fifteen\nminutes, Dez skips her second and third poems and performs A Tale of Two Bass Players<\/em>, a funny poignant imagining of her\nlong-ago bass player boyfriends showing up in Ophelia to take her back to the\nlife she had in Portland before the coming of Rosalind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The audience goes bonkers when she\nfinishes the poem, cheering and whistling and applauding thunderously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now something in the wings catches Dez\u2019s attention and she glances to her right and sees James Billings gesturing wildly for her to stop, to be done, though she\u2019s only been on for nine minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when the stage manager and the show\u2019s director fail to calm James down and he\u2019s about to walk onto the stage and do God knows what to get Dez off<\/em> the stage, Dez leans close to the microphone and says, \u201cI\u2019ll close now with a poem inspired by James Billings who so graciously asked me to read with him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which simple speech quells the beast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Rosalind<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was a child my older brothers\nwould say to boys <\/p>\n\n\n\n

questioning the little girl playing\nball with them, \u201cShe\u2019s tough <\/p>\n\n\n\n

as nails. Not afraid of anything.\u201d Which\nwas true for all my <\/p>\n\n\n\n

life until at thirty-seven I swelled\nwith child, my Rosalind, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and in a second-trimester dream I drew\nmy sword to fight <\/p>\n\n\n\n

a man who would slay me before my\nbabe was born. And <\/p>\n\n\n\n

in that bloody duel was born my fear\nand the prayer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh\nlet me live until my babe is born and weaned and strong. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when my babe was four-years-old\nmy prayer became <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh\nlet me live until she can make her way without me.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now Rosalind is eight and as fearless\nas I<\/p>\n\n\n\n

before she came to be, and in a\ndream <\/p>\n\n\n\n

two nights ago that same man came to\nslay me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this time when I drew my sword I\nfelt no fear, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

for Rosalind was beside me, her\nsword drawn, too, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

a cunning smile on her\nsoon-to-be-a-woman\u2019s face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A gorgeous day in October\u2014Rosalind thirteen, Dez fifty-one, Ernestine seventy-seven\u2014they are having breakfast in a caf\u00e9 in Zurich, Switzerland with Dirk Rosenfeld, Dez\u2019s translator at Werner Schaffen, publisher of all ten volumes of Dez\u2019s poetry in beautiful German-English editions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSoon,\u201d says Dirk, watching Rosalind take a sip of coffee from her mother\u2019s cup, \u201cyou will be having your own<\/em> cups of coffee, Roz.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI prefer sipping from my mother\u2019s\ncup,\u201d says Rosalind, smiling at Dez. \u201cI suppose I might move away some day and\nthen I\u2019ll have my own cups of coffee, though I only ever want a few sips.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt begins with a few sips,\u201d says Dirk, nodding sagely. \u201cThen one day we want a little more and a little more, and soon one cup is not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s me,\u201d says Ernestine, never\nhaving imagined she would ever go to Europe as she has now twice with Dez and\nRosalind. \u201cTwo cups every morning and sometimes three, and another two in the\nafternoon. But not Dez. She finishes the one with breakfast and that\u2019s it for\nthe day. Been that way since she was twelve.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot counting the twenty years I\nlived away from home,\u201d says Dez, remembering the cozy flat she shared with Maxine\nin Portland, purple paisley curtains, big pillows on the living room floor, Othello\nthe cat snoozing on the windowsill, the air rich with the scent of coffee\nbrewing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

fin<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morning Coffee<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a story about Desdemona Peoples, known to her friends and those who read her poetry as Dez Peoples. She works at Oberon\u2019s, the only stationery store in town, and used to be married to Larry Peoples who is now married to Penny Peoples. Given that they all live in Ophelia, Washington, a small […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6367,6360,6370,6361,6362,6368,6366,6372,6374,4781,76,6364,51,6371,6363,6373,9,33,6365,6369],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4228"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4228"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4458,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4228\/revisions\/4458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}