Snow Is Falling in Manhattan
There was a woman named Tanya in the poetry writing class. She was the only Black woman in the class. I say woman because we called each other men and women, but I don't think any of us were older than 20. So yes, technically women and men, but we were young.
Gregory Orr was our professor. We called him Mr. Orr. We called each other men and women, but professors were never called professor: It was Mr. or Ms. I guess it was a matter of being more egalitarian.
The poetry class was on Wednesday afternoons, I think. I recognized some people in the class. One I had been in a poetry writing class with the year before, a cool guy who smoked weed and always wore a fedora or western style hat of some sort. The second was a tall, skinny, man named Robert who was very quiet and serious. The third was another tall, skinny man named David. David and Robert lived on the same street as me in Charlottesville, and I had seen them around the old dorms the year before when we were both first year.
It was the first class, maybe it was the second, but Tanya's poem was up. She had written a poem called "Snow." She read the poem aloud.
The poem was broken up into short numbered verses, 5 or 6 of them. One was obviously about snow falling from the sky. Another seemed to be about an asshole of a person. I wasn't sure, but one of them seemed to be about cocaine.
The class was structured in such a way that the professor--Mr Orr--stayed quiet until every one else had spoken. After the writer read their poem, other students would comment on it. Mr. Orr would give his remarks at the end of the sequence. Mr. Orr's comments obviously had more weight, but he was always good about folding in student comments into his own.
There was a bit of silence after Tanya read her poem. There was a heaviness in the room. There always was. Some of it was nervousness about criticizing or being critiqued; some was from the presence of Mr. Orr. We all knew his story: When he was 12, he had accidentally shot and killed his younger brother during a hunting trip. The tragedy had formed him, and had fed his poetry in obvious as well as subtle ways. We felt the weight of Mr. Orr's presence somehow.
Tanya finished her poem. It was beautiful, but I think I didn't understand it. The first few comments were complimentary, and I may have been one of those who were vaguely positive. The poem was meditative. It had a great rhythm to it. There was a reference to Rilke somewhere. I don't remember exactly what anyone said.
What I do remember is that it wasn't until the third or forth comment that someone pointed out that the poem was a series of definitions of the word snow. Snow can mean what it usually means, the stuff falling from the sky in winter. It was a slang term for cocaine. It can be a description of how you feel about the lies your asshole boyfriend told you: "I was snowed."
The class ended.
Of the three people I knew and still remember from the class, one went on to become famous. David Berman, the tall young man who lived on my street, went on to start a band called Silver Jews. He wrote a book of poetry. It's cliche to say you knew someone would be famous, and truth is, I never really thought he would be, but his poems were the only poems I saved after the class ended.
He died last year, committed suicide. He was a brilliant, complicated man. Before he died he released one of the most perfectly painful albums I've ever heard, Purple Mountains. One song on the album makes me think of the class with Gregory Orr, and of that poem by Tanya. I hope you enjoy it.
posted by E-word @ 8:35 PM
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