I received an email today from Lorna Dee Cervantes, associate professor of English at the University of Colorado and critically acclaimed poet. It was in response to the challenge to write a poem about the photo of the amazing mammatus clouds that were taken over Hastings, Nebraska in 2004.
Without further adieu, here is Lorna’s submission:
MAMMATUS
by Lorna Dee Cervantes
Gut roped in the sky,
you and I, an anomaly,
a rarer occurrence. You kick
the wind up to wind the threads.
Your light, a burgeoning there
among the dark filters.
Twisted fist of my making,
you, some squeezing finger,
a trigger of hair sensitive
to what is not there. Where
are your hands in this gripping
of the neck? Where, your charm?
Your cauldron? Ominous in appearance,
your frown, the tornedo
of your forrowed brow. I wait
for your aftermath
like an afterbirth, a thick subsiding.
The sinking air, whisper of crystal—
pouchlike love, a yearning back down
to the earth. I hold you here, suspended
in rain, the descending choir, the anvil
strain. And, I am lost to you
on the underside, still holding
this woven nest of warm passion
and hanging.
Lorna's accomplishments and accolades and awards are numerous. Consider this: Lorna has a PhD in philosophy and aesthetics. She received a Pushcart Prize for Best Poem in 1980; an American Book Award (Before Columbus Foundation) in 1982; Outstanding Chicana Scholar in 1993; two-time National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Grant for Poetry winner in 1978 and 1993; Lila Wallace/Readers Digest Writer’s Award 1995 - 1998; the Paterson Prize for Best Book of Poetry; the Latino Literature Award, guest poet at the Millennium Poetry Event in the White House in 1999, and just recently was a finalist (along with Reg Saner & Mary Crow) for Poet Laureate of Colorado.
Lorna has authored three books of poetry, two of them award-winning books-- Emplumada and From the Cables of Genocide: Poems on Love and Hunger. The third book is released this January-- Drive: The First Quartet.
Her poetry has appeared in 200 highly-recognized anthologies and too-numerous-to-count e-zines and magazines. She has performed her poetry twice at the Library of Congress, & also presented at the Walker Arts Center, The Dodge Poetry Festival, New York YMCA, Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Vassar, Wellesley, and numerous other venues, university & college campuses in the US, Mexico, Spain & Colombia.
To read more of her most impressive bio, visit her blog, Lorna Dee Cervantes.
To read more about Lorna Dee Cervantes, please click here, here, and here.
If you are interested in reading some of Lorna’s poetry on the web, I recommend the following:
After the Wake; Poet’s Progress ; Summer Ends Too Soon ; A Blue Wake for New Orleans (which appears in the same publication as my poem "Out of the Lower 9"), and Freeway 280.
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