About Hannah Stephenson
Hannah Stephenson is a poet and instructor based in Columbus, Ohio. Recently, her work has appeared in Contrary, Huffington Post, The Nervous Breakdown, MAYDAY, qarrtsiluni, Spoonful, and Fiddleblack. For more of her work, visit her daily poetry site, The Storialist (www.thestorialist.com).
About the poem
I first
encountered Robin Robertson’s “New Gravity” in what is arguably the best way to
discover new poems we come to fall in love with: in books we select from
shelves in bookstores for no reason, when we aren’t looking for anything. I
didn’t recognize the poet’s name, but I liked the sound of it, and the look and
feel of his narrow, sparse book A
Painted Field (and
its dark cover showing an enormous expanse of dark sky, and a very thin strip
of water).
This poem is
the first in the book, and the first that I read. When I bought the book, I put
two little dots around the title of this poem in pen, maybe to preemptively
help me fish it from my mind.
I’ve
returned to it often in the decade since I first read it. It’s only ten lines
(and two sentences!), yet I admire how much story and scene Robertson gives us.
We know the season (fall, I assume, based on the fallen leaves), the cemetery
setting, and the people present.
More than
that, the simple earnestness of this poem is staggering. Robertson’s voice is
so un-self-conscious and calm here--when I read this poem, I think, “This is
the only way the poem could be.” He shows restraint, too--gives us just the
right amount of detail. I admire how trusting he was of his own voice in
writing this, how certain that this moment mattered and he wanted to give it to
us. Sincerity and clarity are powerful tools. I need this reminder.
The poem
New Gravity
Treading through
the half-light of ivy
and headstone, I
see you in the distance
as I’m telling our
daughter
about this place,
this whole business:
a sister about to
be born,
how a life’s new
gravity suspends in water.
Under the oak, the
fallen leaves
are pieces of the
tree’s jigsaw;
by your father’s
grave you are pressing acorns
into the shadows to
seed.Note from Marly: I have failed in getting in touch with Robin Robertson for a permission, so this one could be temporary--however, I hope that if he finds his way here, he will like finding his words with Hannah's comments about discovering wideness and clarity in ten lines.
