THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 18, 1996 TAG: 9602160722
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BILL RUEHLMANN
LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines
When the form came out of the blue asking Barbara-Marie Green of Virginia Beach for the right to reprint her poem ``Senior Love'' in an anthology titled A Rock Against the Wind, complete with a monetary amount at the bottom of the page, she said no thanks.
The retired educator but enduring writer did not want to pay anybody to publish her poetry, particularly such heartfelt and hopeful material:
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Easier to be hijacked on a plane
Than for a woman over sixty
To find new love and marriage,
Some say.
But one woman beat the odds,
Her finding game was easy,
As a man and she . . .
Well, they found each other.
They dated a while, became good friends,
Then said, ``I do,'' in church
Where at the altar they promised forever,
To love, honor and cling together
Though the odds be one in a million.
``There are so many flukey groups asking for poems that then want you to buy the book they'll appear in,'' explains Green, 67.
But then editor Lindsay Patterson, professor of special programs at New York's Queens College, wrote back to explain that the amount noted did not represent a fee but a payment.
``I apologized,'' Green says, laughing.
Patterson not only accepted the apology, he purchased another poem. And Green found herself among some powerful company pressed between the pages of the book. Other writers represented in this affecting compilation of ``African-American Poems and Letters of Love and Passion'' include world-class literati such as Langston Hughes, Derek Walcott, Nikki Giovanni, Rita Dove, Maya Angelou and Alice Walker.
A Rock Against the Wind (Perigee Books, 194 pp., $12) is an expanded second edition of the acclaimed collection that first appeared in 1973, a response to the social turmoil of the 1960s when, according to Patterson, ``black poets began to examine in specific detail the peculiar stresses and strains that had developed between black men and women from centuries of bondage and abuse.''
Adds the editor, ``In the original, many of the poems were concerned about the damage a hostile society had inflicted upon the emotional relationships between black men and women. But in this present edition most of the poems are far more personal, introspective and instructive about love. Even those poems which reflect on love lost supply advice about `getting on with your life,' rather than becoming mired in tears, self-pity and defeat.''
Patterson, choosing verse for content and wisdom rather than sudden recognition, sought exemplary entries not only from the famous but from individuals ``known only in poetic circles.''
That was how he came upon Green, formerly assistant principal of Benjamin Schlesinger Junior High School in Queens, N.Y., formerly editor of The Creative Record, a national arts newsletter, and currently Poet Laureate at First Lynnhaven Baptist Church. She has been nominated for membership in the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca, N.Y.
The second poem Patterson acquired for A Rock Against the Wind, ``Before the Act,'' was Green's meditation on the need for mutual respect in a relationship.
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Before we become intimate
You must show me
That you really know
How to love me,
Spiritually.
You can show this love
With your smile,
Your touch, your gaze,
Your hushed words,
Your caring and sharing,
Your respect, trust
And loyal friendship.
Only then, and in due time,
And, after you have declared
Your God-given love for me
And I have declared mine for you,
Only then, can we truly,
Truly love each other.
Green grew up in lower Harlem and the Bronx in a professional household full of books. One of them contained a poem that galvanized her into creativity at the age of 8, Percy Shelley's ``Ode to a Skylark.''
Green's latest locally published volume of verse, Dreams and Memories, is just out, and she will read from it at Barnes & Noble of Virginia Beach, Saturday, from 2 to 5 p.m. MEMO: Bill Ruehlmann is a mass communication professor at Virginia Wesleyan
College. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Barbara-Marie Green
by CNB