Lisa López Smith
Pine Row Issue No. 5 Summer 2022 - Featured Poet
In the meantime, the poet, whatever
With thanks to Gerald Stern for that line
In the meantime, the poet, whatever
she calls herself today,
has always been free
to forego pen and paper
for an exquisite distraction
of her choice:
three puppies scrabbling underfoot,
in the meantime
the day perfect
for hiding things or foraging for them,
for washing dishes or horses,
or for forgetting herself
in a song. In the meantime, the poet, whatever
inelegant muses she’s mustered up for today,
be it loneliness or liveliness or consoling herself with
word dances, scaffolds and daffodils and sentence fragments,
the poet, whatever
it takes, she’ll probably do it
except excavate success
and whatever
people say about it, there’ll be words
and naps.
In the meantime, the poet, whatever
else she may do,
she’ll make knots out of words
trying to spell out tangles
to whatever freedom might mean,
time after time,
the poet.
* * * * * * * *
My Annual Spring Depression Is Complicated
By Threats Of Losing Our Home
And Other Assorted Messes
Christmas cards arrive in late February, or March,
like always. Glorious jacarandas
blossoming in the desert. Contentment
in one hand. Grief in the other.
The goat kid just stopped breathing
before I could do anything.
How many chest compressions before you give up
and how do you know
if you gave up too soon?
Sudoku
with a hot coffee
and a half-sharp pencil.
A cow skull in the yard that the dogs drag around.
Venus
bright in the morning sky
at 4 am
when I check on the mare,
her newborn foal damp and wide-eyed,
slick with placenta and sweetness and his mother nickering softly.
Sometimes there aren’t words
just a pregnant pause
before the magic,
or before everything falls apart—
there’s a grey bird,
not much bigger than a hummingbird,
hopping branch to branch
in the guava tree, closer and closer to me.
You can trust the impermanence of things: clouds,
the moon, happiness, whims of landlords. Yellow breasted blackbirds
in the back field sing a song
of water and wind.
I think, for monarch butterflies,
neither Canada nor Mexico
is completely home.
I understand that. But those warrior wings
like flower petals,
or steel jets
making cross-continent unity
seem simple,
and I have to remind myself
to see these problems
as invitations
to spaciousness.
I can let things be complicated—
like I’m blindfolded and
navigating the narrow path of grace and limits
with the teenagers I’m not a parent to.
I can complicate things. Sometimes
in the kitchen all day
dicing and julienning
or baking bread, other times,
just coffee in the only clean mug in the cupboard.
Interview with Lisa López Smith
by Pine Row Editorial Board
How did you get started as a poet?
When I started to write poetry, it felt like a home-coming. It was as if I had always been a poet but didn’t realize it as I was so busy being distracted and learning and experimenting with other genres, and then suddenly remembering that when I was young, I always gravitated towards the poetry sections of the library.
Favorite quote:
Keep me away from the wisdom that does not cry, the philosophy that does not laugh, and the greatness which does not bow before children.
--Khalil Gibran
What would you say is your most interesting writing habit?
I doubt any of my habits are particularly interesting, but for me, creativity works better when writing first by hand and only later moving the work to the computer.
What book is currently on your bedside table?
A friend recently sent me a box of literary journals that I ordinarily don’t have access to, so now I have some old copies of THE KENYON REVIEW and HUIZACHE and THE SUN, as well as a huge stack of books including: WILD MERCY by Mirabai Starr, SEVEN STOREY MOUNTAIN by Thomas Merton, a Lucy Rees book on horses in the wild, on the work of a death doula by Fersko-Weiss, and the novel THE LAST BUS TO WISDOM by Ivan Doig.
Advice to someone just starting to write poetry?
Find some teachers who encourage you to keep on writing, and also, make it a practice to be like a duck in a rainstorm by letting those rejections roll off your back like water.
What inspires you to write?
Life in rural Mexico, farming and shepherding which keeps me outdoors a lot, and my children
What challenges have you had to overcome?
I am an English writing island in an ocean of Spanish in rural Mexico, in a town with no libraries or bookstores, so I don’t have too much access to literary communities or classes or books, which can be kind of lonely. But, I also feel so blessed to live where I do, in a mutually life-giving relationship with this place that fills me with its special magic.
Anything else you'd like us to know? (personal website, upcoming reading or new work, etc.)
I have poems forthcoming with HUIZACHE and THE SUNLIGHT PRESS, and recently had work published with LIVE ENCOUNTERS and THE NORMAL SCHOOL.
About Lisa López Smith
Lisa López Smith is a shepherd and mother making her home in central Mexico. When not wrangling kids or rescue dogs or goats, you can probably find her overthinking her life choices. Recent publications include: The Sunlight Press, Box, Jabberwock, Sky Island Journal, Mom Egg Review, and Tiferet, and some of these journals even nominated her work for Best of the Net and the Pushcart prize. Her first chapbook was published by Grayson Books in 2021.