Posted on Sun, Dec. 02, 2007

-- It is not often that a poet is available to walk us through her poem. Angela Ball is kind enough to do just that.

"What to Wear for Divorce," one of several poems collected in "Night Clerk at the Hotel of Both Worlds," is personal and whimsical. "I am speaking from experience," Ball said with a laugh. "Yes, writing it was cathartic for me, but my concern is the effect on the readers." She selected this poem as it is more accessible than several of the other poems in the collection and lends itself to a brief discussion. This collection was awarded the 2006 Donald Hall Prize in Poetry.

"A divorce is a time when you feel exposed, so I turned it around to a bit of nonsense."

"Bats in your hair,/But only if they hang upside down/Properly," sets the stage for a Gothic rendition of a day in divorce court. "I put out a nightmare version of what to wear," explains Ball, "gruesome, messy, and frightening."

"Putty on your hands,/Butter in your mouth" juxtaposes a woman's hands, metaphorically, against the sensuous image of the mouth. "I find an element of nonsense can add an interesting sense, and these phrases have an interesting rhythm."

"Be the feather in someone's cap," celebrates cliché as the "way we often summarize reality."

And jumping to the final line, "Wear something worn first/By a wolf." The wolf "is there to camouflage, as something to be fierce," she said. "Every emotion has imagery attached." The wolf illustrates a desire to fight back and to frighten. "How we package reality leads to misunderstanding and stereotyping."

Ball agreed with my comment that writing is editing, "Yes, as does a sculptor, I start with a big block of words. I keep cutting back." She may take as little as an hour to compose a poem, or five years.

Ball is a professor of English at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. "I gain so much energy from my students. I learn from them and they make me want to write. I am in collaboration with my students in a labor of love. We must have a feel for language in order to understand one another and communicate. It is so important to underscore this process while in school."

Ball will disappoint in one area. If the stereotypical poet is morose and foreboding, Ball is the antithesis of intellectual gloom. She is very willing to share, to debate and consider, and she laughs frequently and unself-consciously. Her joy for poetry flows through and into most everything she says.

Angela Ball is an oxymoron, a happy poet.