Maureen Seaton (1947-2023) was a force of love, poetry, and collaboration for so many poets and artists in the world, and Chicago in particular.
To honor her love of collaboration and collage, Chicago poet cin salach put out a call for poets to send a favorite line from one of Maureen’s poems and, if they wanted, a line of their own.
The result is “For Example: You’re Allergic to Bees.”
All italic lines, with the exception of “Today/I will see you in paradise” were written by the contributing poets. All non-italic lines were written by Maureen Seaton from the following books: Furious Cooking, Fear of Subways, Venus Examines Her Breast, Genetics, Little Ice Age, The Sky is an Elephant.
For Example: You’re Allergic to Bees
A community poem for Maureen Seaton
For this moment only, I am the light.
Swing me into tomorrow like a lantern.
I’d like to write a song for the beginning of life, it’s true, or for the end, I’m not sure – maybe both. Maybe they are simultaneous, after all, and when the mind pauses after its wild ride, whatever it was that made the body move moves on.
The way the end wraps around the beginning
____
Chamomile for healing calm, rosemary for remembrance.
I’m supposed to be the witch in this scenario.
I’ll tell you about magic: go into the darkness singing as though someone planted birdsongs in your throat.
This happened to me for years after I met you, the birdsong part.
That’s when I knew birds were really the first poets.
That’s when I knew I had to keep trying to teach the cat how to talk.
___
Triptych, 3. Ainslee, Employed
She loses her body on a corner
in Soho–black shorts, shoes, white socks.
People leaving people drives me crazy
as Jesus on the cross saying Today
I will see you in paradise to only one thief.
O goddess and provocateur, you sit next to me these winter mornings, still present, still ripe.
I threw my secrets at you just to see you nod.
____
It’s quite possible my doctor has never been in a poem before.
____
I am its host and dearest friend. And it is powerfully quiet inside me
air is gravid with life,
the cloudless sky swells
the water is sweeter than anything you will ever hold in your mouth.
Your neck stretches out, chest
expands, everything about your body begins to bud and sing, hair
billowing gorgeously.
I could look straight ahead and tremble
with my own adrenaline
the way stars hiss and twinkle, dying being born.
Whoosh.
At this very moment my organs are replacing themselves—I am no more
why, my old heart is probably fodder for lungfish and sponge,
my lovers planted at sea like treasure, their tiny eyes blinking light.
written by Maureen, cin, Alice, Eileen, Susen, Tony, Virginia, Patricia, Linda, S.L., Maureen C. & the love of the poetry community in Chicago, November 2023
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Oyl
This is a recording of Maureen Seaton reading the poem “Oyl,” which she wrote with Denise Duhamel. It was recorded by Kurt Heinz at the Pride 2000 reading in Chicago. You can listen to more of the readings on e-poets network: the Book of Voices: Pride 2000.
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Poet of page and stage, cin salach can often be found collaborating (musicians,dancers, photographers, and recently, healers, chefs, and scientists). Inaugural Poet Laureate of Covenant Farm in Sawyer, Michigan, her two books of poetry are housed in the Porch Swing Poetry Box. cin leads circles of writers in monthly workshops inspired by the quote, “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.” (Muriel Rukeyser). She also creates poetry experiences for seniors (Why I Wake Early) and those with dementia (Remembering Ourselves). Her business, poemgrown, helps people mark the most important occasions in their life with commissioned poetry.
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Denise Duhamel’s most recent books of poetry are Second Story and Scald. Blowout was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. A proponent of collaboration, she and Maureen Seaton co-authored six collections, the most recent of which is CAPRICE (Collaborations: Collected, Uncollected, and New). She is a distinguished university professor in the MFA program at Florida International University in Miami.
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