Death Threats From British Petroleum
& Life Beyond The Grave
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
THE TURTLES “As of Wednesday, 322 sea turtles have been collected along the Gulf Coast since the oil spill began. A breakdown: 50 alive, 272 dead, 3 released.” The Times-Picayune, 06/09/2010. She always passed on turtle soup in New Orleans, Although one said the snapping turtles raised Inland, on freshwater farms, were not a risk To turtles in the Gulf. And though one praised The flavor of the meat – with mustard greens –, She still refused and chose the lobster bisque. She loved live snapping turtles at the Zoo Inside the confines of her Swamp Exhibit. As volunteer, in khaki uniform, She learned to give the lightning heads a tidbit Without them biting off sliced fingers too With massive sharp-edged jaws in cheliform. Gillian loved to ramble in the park Named for the buccaneer Frenchman Jean Lafitte, Showing me snakes amid the cypress swamp, Tall beards of Spanish moss on oak replete, Massed, gaudy yellow sunflowers, peeling bark Of tupelo, where flying squirrels romp. And by the shallow water’s basking-edge She pointed out the damp protruding logs Where little turtles, motionless, would sun Themselves in rows, or piled in threes, near frogs That all dove quickly if you stirred the sedge: Cooters, sliders ... red-eared or a yellow-bellied one. I grew to love the little turtles too And asked her every winter for a tank Indoors – with gravel bottom, fronds and sunning-stones Where sliders might bask beneath a reptile lamp. Each year at Lake Achafalaya I’d bid ... adieu! As Gillian drove and manumitted them ... qua loans. “Tess” was a stray box-turtle on the streets Of New Orleans, hobbling without a home, And consigned to Audubon for safety. Jill took her in and built a garden drome Of green lattice, boards and tightened cleats, With sunken bricks so Tess could not dig free. And when we moved to face New England’s cold, Tess drove with us, laying an odd-shaped egg. Indoors, she had full-spectrum heat UV, Outside, a pen. Little Lyla would always beg To play with Tess. As the cancer spread its hold, Gillian bequeathed the tortoise to her fief. Jill did not live to see her Gulf turned brown And most all its big sea turtles killed by oil. But – in an inner ear – I guessed her plea: “Come home. Here’s sanctuary from your dazed turmoil.... Let me caress you gently as you drown.... Come, poor dear turtles and come unto me!” * * * New Orleans, LA June 17, 2010
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
There cannot be a family in America which has not been touched at some point by a spouse’s death from the disease of cancer. And the first principle of certainty people learn in dealing with cancer is there is no principle of certainty. The silent killer comes upon us mysteriously and unbidden – at any age – and oftentimes can never be stopped in its tracks. The poet’s wife Gillian Richardson died of breast cancer in September of 2009. They had fallen in love at Oxford in 1961, were long separated in mid-life, and finally reunited in 1995 and married in 1999. Feverishly inspired in April of 2010 by the disaster of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill – and in the context of his late wife’s lifelong crusade to preserve Earth’s environment from pollution and degradation – the poet saw the double tragedy of death in his marriage and the death of human and marine life in the Gulf of Mexico as triggers for a cosmic lamentation which have here become uniquely intertwined in verse. Understandably, therefore – although verse no longer survives as a commercial medium in the United States – Sullivan views English poetry as a still vital and powerful medium for communicating the anguish and pity of contemporary life on the one hand, and for condemning lawless corporate abuses in twenty-first-century America on the other. The poet aims his satire at the oil industry (Book I), the mining industry (Book II), Wall Street banking (Book III) and at public indifference toward its own predatory exploitation (Book IV). But the poems end in a triumphant mood of eternal love, and an affectionate, sometimes whimsical celebration of his beloved wife’s memory, her circle of friends, close family and loved ones (Book V).
About the Author
Henry Wells Sullivan was educated at Oxford and Harvard. He now teaches at Tulane University in New Orleans. His books of poetry include a bilingual edition of The Poems of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (2002) and further translations from the Spanish in The New Laurel Review (2005). Currently he is preparing for publication a major retrospective anthology The Collected Poems of Henry Wells Sullivan, 1960-2010. While Sullivan is known to the public as a scholar of literature (Cervantes, Calderón, Tirso, Juan del Encina), popular music (The Beatles), as a practicing playwright and Board Director of the Southern Repertory Theater, he has written poetry all his life, regarding it as the most important genre he exercises. He believes that inspiration comes from the unconscious and is another form of processing our good and bad experience in a manner akin to dream work. The poet has often woken in the night, scribbled rapidly on a notepad, and found a new poem by his bedside the next morning. Writing verses may also be compared to prayer, where the poet addresses a larger and more transcendental Other than the others of human conversation. These theories explain the origins of the present book. Sullivan’s collection of original poems Death Threats from British Petroleum was conceived suddenly and written in tragic invocation. It will appeal to any husband who has lost a dearly beloved to cancer and is still in the process of grieving her. As a mixture of elegy and requiem, the verses give unique voice to the lingering emotions of loss and devastation, while at the same time vividly summoning up the loved one’s presence and haunting memory, albeit beyond the grave. Indeed, in these poems the living and the dead continue to converse with one another and to debate life’s mysteries.