THE LANCE, OCTOBER 23,1975
Marion Cannon:
Poet In Residence f
With Her Poetry An
ON RHYMING
All my life I tiiought poetry had to rhyme. Then I
tonk a creative writing course at Queens College in
Charlotte taught by Charleen Whisnant. I strug
gled along for a while, and then I got back a paper
on ^ich Charleen had written, “Marion, you
don’t have to rhyme.” I thought to myself ‘‘Per
haps not,” and I’ve enjoyed writing much more
since.
When I was younger I loved all growing things.
Trees, flowers in the cycle of each year.
But now I look upon them with dislike... they’ll last.
The little maple will grow on and on and give its shade
To people I will never see.
The roots I’ve nourished in my flower bed
Will go on living when I lie dead
And I begrudge them life.
Next year I think I’ll only plant
The fragile annuals.
ON HER POETRY
One needs so little to create
If bridges, planes and towers
Are not the goal:
A scrap of linen, strands of wool, a needle;
A pot of dirt, a seed, a bulb
Or just a pencil and a piece of paper.
ON GRANDCHILDREN
Ireally like grandchildren. You can enjoy them
without being responsible for them. You don’t
have to worry about whether or not they say
“please” or “may I” or if they washed their hands
before dinner or if they go to bed at the right hour.
And when you’re tired of them you can call their
parents and say, “Take them away now.”
When they started the Church in Chartres
Everyone worked. If you could carve, you;arved.
Or you carried Stones.
The Church should grow out of that plain
Visible across fields of grain,
Lifting its towers to the sky.
It still stands high.
And round about the town now grow
The worker’s houses, row on row,
Pre-fabs of concrete, all alike.
And in the live the ones who work
On swift, assembly lines.
Hands turning out a product uniform and cheap.
I lit a candle for them.
When my book came out (Another Light) I was
immediately labelled ‘The Poet of Old Age and
Death.’ One reviewer in Chapel HiU even used
that as his headline: all the way across the top -
THE POET OF OLD AGE AND DEATH.
I think I have grown up.
And others think so, too.
see me walk along the street
A little stooped, my grey hair blowing in the wind.
And steps uncertain. ’
yet I know that if a yellow leaf
CmeMdttering in my path and acorns fall
**»em crack
^d chaw that leaf to catch and hold
A little of the year’s end gold...
I am not old!