Margaret DeRitter
Losing Di to the Poetry Gods
—for Diane Seuss
You had a mentor and we had you
till you whooshed away
on a midlife ride to the heights
of poetry stardom, imagination
your fuel, mad skills your lift,
sky-writing skills, sky-riding talent,
raging rants and lurid images—
a two-headed lamb, a four-legged girl
who boosted you into the ozone.
But, God, how we wanted you back,
back on this patch of Michigan earth,
back in a class on Academy Hill,
where we had you once in Humphrey House,
again in an Upjohn Library room,
Tuesday evenings, a dozen middle-aged
writers lapping up your poetry prompts,
your warrior makeup, your jet-black hair,
your tee-hee laugh and tender advice
that gave the lie to that tough-girl look.
Now you’re in demand, in command,
queen of the college workshop, tsar
of the teaching gig, taking you far
online from Kalamazoo. But you haven’t
lost that trademark laugh, those raven
locks, those inky eyes. We saw you tonight
on Zoom, as close as a touchpad,
as far as the moon.
_____
Statement of Homage
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Diane Seuss was a very inspiring teacher to me. In her community poetry-writing classes in Kalamazoo, Michigan, she provided insightful discussion of other poets, a wealth of writing prompts that helped spark our creativity, and generous feedback, all done with her marvelous sense of humor. She has now won much-deserved acclaim for her poetry, which is filled with insight, humor, and amazingly original imagery.
Diane Seuss
Diane Seuss was raised in rural Southwest Michigan and lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where she taught creative writing for many years at Kalamazoo College. Her most recent poetry collection, frank: sonnets, won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry. Her other books include Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl (2018), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry, and Four-Legged Girl (2015), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
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Margaret DeRitter is the author of the full-length poetry collection Singing Back to the Sirens (Unsolicited Press, 2020). She also won the 2018 Celery City Chapbook Contest for Fly Me to Heaven By Way of New Jersey. Her poetry has appeared in a number of literary journals, including Amsterdam Quarterly, New Verse News, Third Wednesday, Blue Heron Review, and The 3288 Review, where one of her poems received a Pushcart Prize nomination. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where she was a newspaper journalist for 22 years and currently serves as copy editor for Encore magazine.