Norah Pollard
Norah Pollard, who earned her M.A. in English at URI, has been a folk singer, waitress, nanny, teacher, solderer, and print shop calligrapher. She works at a Bridgeport steel company and lives in Stratford, Conn. In 1983 she received the Academy of American Poets prize from the University of Bridgeport, and for several years was editor of The Connecticut River Review.
Norah is the daughter of Red Pollard, the jockey of the great Seabiscuit. (The movie Seabiscuit was released in July with Toby Maguire in the role of Red Pollard.) She played a key role in the PBS documentary American Experience: Seabiscuit, which was first shown nationally on April 21, 2003.
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I think this is a beautiful poem about Pollard’s brother. It made me feel very sad…
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The Sum of A Man
In autumn,
facing the end of his life,
he moved in with me.
We piled his belongings—
his army-issue boots, knife magazines,
Steely Dan tapes, his grinder, drill press,
sanders, belts and hacksaws—
in a heap all over the living room floor.
For two weeks he walked around the mess.
One night he stood looking down at it all
and said: “The sum total of my existence.”
Emptiness in his voice.
Soon after, as if the sum total
needed to be expanded, he began to place
things around in the closets and spaces I’d
cleared for him, and when he’d finished
setting up his workshop in the cellar, he said,
“I should make as many knives as I can,”
and he began to work.
The months plowed on through a cold winter.
In the evenings, we’d share supper, some tale
of family, some laughs, perhaps a walk in the snow.
Then he’d nip back down into the cellar’s keep
To saw and grind and polish,
creating his beautiful knives
until he grew too weak to work.
But still he’d slip down to stand at his workbench
and touch his woods
and run his hand over his lathe.
One night he came up from the cellar
and stood in the kitchen’s warmth
and, shifting his weight
from one foot to the other, said,
“I love my workshop.”
Then he went up to bed.
He’s gone now.
It’s spring. It’s been raining for weeks.
I go down to his shop and stand in the dust
of ground steel and shavings of wood.
I think on how he’d speak of his dying, so
easily, offhandedly, as if it were
a coming anniversary or
an appointment with the moon.
I touch his leather apron, folded for all time,
and his glasses set upon his work gloves.
I take up an unfinished knife and test its heft,
and feel as well the heft of my grief for
this man, this brother I loved,
the whole of him so much greater
than the sum of his existence.
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Picture Credit: www.ctpost.com
Last paragraph so moving.
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What a powerful last line. You can feel the weight of her loss and at the same time gain a sense of who her brother was. A lifetime’s experience so succinctly and beautifully shared. Great addition to your Friday Favs.
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I’d be fibbing if I said this poem didn’t make me think about my own life in those terms. If I had to move in with one of the kids, for example, what would I take with me? What WOULD be the sum of my life…
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That’s an interesting question to think about indeed. Would it necessarily be something materialistic?
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I think for me, it might be more my words. My journals, poems, stories, etc. They are my currency. (Except I AM a book addict!) How about you?
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What a poignant, moving poem. You have great choices – Cheryl
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It’s interesting trying to settled on poems you think others might connect with. I’ve spotlighted 56 authors so far. Have pert near exhausted all my favorites. I’m going to have to start reading new poems! (Though that’s hardly a chore. 🙂 )
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Wow, indeed – a very moving poem. So stark and unflinching, the images so very clear and visible, and the minimal words she quotes from her brother too…just, so real. This poem really breathes. Thanks for sharing…H xxx
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You know, I read what Safar said and now your words and my mouth just sort of hangs open. I don’t know how to critique a poem. Where in the world do you go to learn that? It’s like paintings. I just know if something resonates with me and often can’t say why.
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