WHAT IS POETRY?

By Marcia Knapp Krech

I often asked my Dad this question

His answer was another poem

As clear as mud

So I scrubbed the mud away and

Looked with a clearer eye

And this is what I saw

“Watching the flak bursts around

Our flying fortress

So thick you could walk on it

Jumping from burst to burst

At 35,000 feet”

This image took root in me

I kept seeing my WWII navigator father

Jumping across a sky of German flak bursts

My architect/artist father

Was telling me

Poetry is using words as paint

So the reader can see the world

You have created in their own mind

Later in this same poem

I read about my mother running toward my father

In the Harrisburg railroad station

Finally reunited after three years apart

This image of my mother springing 

Into my father’s arms 

Shows me what poetry is

Painting pictures with words

And inviting the reader to feel the emotions

They surely must have felt as they kissed

And kissed and started their life

Finally reunited

I see it all now, Dad

And I feel it too

 

PULLING ROOTS

By  E. John Knapp    May 2011

the lights in the farmhouse are out for now 

grandpa’s tall twin pine trees were cut 

sold for lumber

my girls’ swings have disappeared

my eye searches for the wind vane

that was on top of the barn roof cupola

but the horse and cow barn are gone 

I can’t see the pigpen

someone demolished it 

people buy pork at the supermarket nowadays

I wonder what happened

to the sawdust in the ice house

for the icehouse is a goner

the old windmill is still standing tall

not pumping water by wind

electric motor pumps today

the girls are too mature to climb anymore

the large machine barn is gone

where grandpa built furniture and boats

who inherited his large tool chest

today’s maple tree owners

haven’t discovered

making real maple syrup from their trees 

what a great flavor memory

I look for the large vegetable garden

only finding uncut grass growing

can’t find any carrots or turnips

to pull up by their roots

the apple trees cry for pruning

overgrown small crop

 of wormy spotty apples 

grandpa used to spray the trees

I study a recent family photo taken in the front

what happened to the screened porch

only painted posts remain

I used to sleep there in summer

and watch small animals prowl the night 

the strange family that

turned out the lights in the farmhouse today

have put out more than electric lights

I can’t see my roots today

In Which My Mother Goes Erin Brockovich on Ferndale

You most likely know who Erin Brockovich is. Her story was made famous by Julia Roberts in the film called, "Erin Brockovich."


Erin was a legal clerk and environmental activist who, despite  any legal education, was instrumental in constructing a case against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company in 1993 for pollution of the groundwater and subsequent poisoning of people who lived there.


While chatting with my father this weekend, I learned my mother pulled an Erin Brockovich in about 1950 in Ferndale, Michigan. 








The red asterisk in the Google map screen shot shows where we lived at the time in Ferndale, on Woodland Ave. North of Nine Mile, east of Woodward Ave. What's important to note is the railroad running diagonally northwest-southeast just a block east of our house.

And if you check this photo screen grab, you can see there was (and still is) a big factory in between our house and the railroad. It is THIS factory that started all the fuss in our household.

If you study this photo of my mother and father taken shortly after the end of WWII,  you can see that Maxine was barely 90 pounds at the time and was not even five feet tall!


Even so, she was a feisty, independent woman who had waited her entire life to have a family (she was orphaned early and grew up with her older siblings all over the country). Now the war was over, and all she wanted for the rest of her life was a husband, a home, and children.


And so, about three years after this photo was taken, that's what she had. Dad was graduated from architectural school and working as an architect. They had purchased a home on Woodland Avenue.


I came along and then my sister came along. It was a pretty nice life for her--a dream come true. A cozy little house. A handsome husband who went off to the "office" during the day. A pretty mother who took care of her two cute little girls.


BUT, then, it happened.  One morning my mother discovered during the night the factory's chimneys has thrown something into the air and covered the lawns all around with a fine white powder! To say my mother was alarmed is an under-statement! I can imagine how angry she was! How worried for her children and all the other children in the area. Was it safe for her girls to play outside in the yard anymore? What could she do to protect her daughters from this unknown peril?


Well, here is what she did.


My mother organized all the women in her neighborhood. They marched down to the next city council meeting to confront the mayor and the city council, who I'm quite sure were all men. My dad stayed home to babysit the girls. There was my Momma, all 100 pounds and 4 feet 11 inches of her, bawling out the Mayor of Ferndale, Michigan!

And Dad remembers the Mayor agreed with my mother!


Dad doesn't remember what happened after that. It was over 60 years ago. Not much must have happened. Certainly no permanent resolution to the problem. No scientific tests of the white powder. No Erin Brockovich-type court case or monetary settlement for the injured.


He just remembers my Mom's battle with City Hall and the Mayor of Ferndale. And he remembers that not too long after that Mom found us a new house a few miles away from the factory. It all ended with an anti-climatic whisper and a move across town.

Here is a photo of my mother, father, sister and I taken a couple of years after this story took place. 
Also pictured: my grandparents, Eva and Clifford Knapp.

Until, 60 years later, my Dad told me this story for the very first time!


I now have a different image of my little Momma in my mind's eye. My pretty little Momma, who had her own personal Erin Brockovich moment--confronting the Ferndale City Council and Mayor and subsequently moving her precious family away from the Ferndale factory. 


I'm proud to have this new image in my mind! I didn't know she went to bat for her girls when we were only 3 and 1 years old. Good for you, Momma! I will think of you now as the Erin Brockovich of Ferndale, Michigan! You were quite the Woman!