Brenda Hillman was born in Tucson, Arizona and spent part of her early childhood in Brazil. After receiving her BA from Pomona College, she attended the University of Iowa, where she received her MFA. Wesleyan University Press has published nine collections of Hillman’s poetry, including Practical Water (2009), for which she was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Poetry and Seasonal Works With Letters on Fire which was longlisted for the National Book Award. In 2010, Hillman co-translated Jeongrye Choi’s book of poems, Instances. Hillman has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, two Pushcart Prizes, a Holloway Fellowship from the University of California at Berkeley and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award for Poetry. Hillman serves as a professor and poet-in-residence at St. Mary’s College in Morago, California. She is also on the poetry staff at Community of Writers and Napa Valley Writers’ Conference.
Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire 2014 International Winner
Judges’ Citation
Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire concludes Brenda Hillman’s tetralogy on the four elements of classical thought.
Selected poems
by Brenda Hillman
Our lord of literature
visits my love,
they have gone below,
they have lost their way
among the tablets
of the dead –;
preeeee — dark energy — woodrat
in the pine, furred thing
& the fine,
a suffering among syllables, stops
winter drops from cold, cold,
miracle night (a fox
deep in its hole under yellow
thumbs of the chanterelles,
(no: gold. Gold thumbs, Goldman Sachs
pays no tax … (baby goats
in the pen, nor blaming God,
not blaming them —
(alias: buried egg of the shallow-helmet turtle
[Actinemys marmorata]
alias: thanks for calling the White House
comment line))))
For your life had stamina
from a childhood among priests
& far in the night,
beyond the human realm, a cry
released from the density of nature —
Copyright © 2013 by Brenda Hillman
At the Solstice, a Yellow Fragment
— so we said to the somewhat: Be born —
& the shadow kept arriving in segments,
cold currents pushed minerals
up from the sea floor, up through
coral & labels of Diet Coke blame shame
bottles down there —
it is so much work to appear!
unreadable zeroes drop lamps
as mustard fields [Brassica rapa]
gold without hinges, a vital
echo of caring … On the census,
just write: it exists! Blue Wednesday
bells strike the air like forks
on a thrift store plate,
& the shadow moves off to the side …
In the woods, loved ones tramp through
the high grass; they wait in a circle
for the fire to begin;
they throw paper dreams & sins upon
the pyre & kiss, stocking the first
hesitant flame after touching a match
to the bad news — branches are thrust back
across myths before the flame catches –;
ravens lurch through double-knuckled
pines & oaks & the otherwise;
a snake slithers over serpentine
then down to the first
dark where every cry has size —
FOR EK & MS
Copyright © 2013 by Brenda Hillman
Equinox Ritual with Ravens & Pines
— so we said to the somewhat: Be born —
& the shadow kept arriving in segments,
cold currents pushed minerals
up from the sea floor, up through
coral & labels of Diet Coke blame shame
bottles down there —
it is so much work to appear!
unreadable zeroes drop lamps
as mustard fields [Brassica rapa]
gold without hinges, a vital
echo of caring . . . On the census,
just write: it exists! Blue Wednesday
bells strike the air like forks
on a thrift store plate,
& the shadow moves off to the side . . .
In the woods, loved ones tramp through
the high grass; they wait in a circle
for the fire to begin;
they throw paper dreams & sins upon
the pyre & kiss, stoking the first
hesitant flame after touching a match
to the bad news — branches are thrust back
across myths before the flame catches —;
ravens lurch through double-knuckled
pines & the oaks & the otherwise;
a snake slithers over serpentine
then down to the first
dark where every cry has size —
FOR EK & MS
Copyright © 2013, Brenda Hillman, Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire, Wesleyan University Press
Equinox Ritual with Ravens & Pines
Vastness of dusk, after a day –
what is a person? Too late
to ask this now. The court has ruled
a corporation is a person.
Persons used to be called souls.
On the avenue, a lucky person
stands in a convenience store
scratching powder from his ticket –
silver flecks fall from his thumbs
to galaxies below.
Deep in the night
a trough of chaos forms;
your lover’s body stops it every time.
Meteors of the season over minnows
in the creek with two kinds of crayfish,
tiny mouths & claws
– nervous, perfect, perfect
life – the flesh of a dreamer,
facing the wall –
Around each word you’re reading
there spins the unknowable flame.
When you wake, a style
of world shakes free
from the dream. It doesn’t stop
when you go out;
it doesn’t stop when you come back
as you were meant to-
Copyright © 2013 by Brenda Hillman
In the Evening of the Search
Rublev, the great painter of icons,
is buried under one of his own churches;
infinity stretches in all directions. Under
the bricks, he hears the carriages move.
Visitors from countries stand in the square;
below their feet, the demons pass
back & forth between the worlds . . .
The icon watches as they are struck dumb
by the brown facility of paint.
Color has lost its innocence.
Russia is an enormous plain
over which wild energy rides.
Christ looks sickly & helpful,
raising two fingers. His eyes have apostrophes,
cloves of garlic. An artist is never your enemy.
How to interpret the painting through
circles of violence that made it. It moves
much more slowly than you do;
it always has something to conceal.
A painting shows you how to breathe.
History is still: it’s the wood horse
burning on its side. A dome
sacrifices itself to a bell; its ringing
swells & falls, a maybe yes
& maybe no that follows you-
Copyright © 2013 by Brenda Hillman