I remember standing on the second floor of the University of Oregon library and pulling a seldom dusted Snyder copy off the shelves, reading axe handle or Japanese pastoral backwoods, or Big Sur with an unreasonable arc of transcendence, and about that point (though earlier, I imagine) I decided that good poems are as important as the mulling of seasons, quiet discussions of the almost arrived, rumination of where and how. Good poems are that, at least. Huddel is a good poet.
--
"She and My Granddad" by David Huddel
My grandfather—who died in 1970—
the year Sexual Politics was published—
called objects—screwdrivers, blow torches, trucks
—and sometimes even abstractions—winter,
pain, time—by the singular feminine
pronoun—she or her. For instance he would say,
I reckon she's coming up on quitting time,
or (of a favorite hammer), I guess
she ain't nowhere to be found. Kate Millett,
asked about the future of the woman's movement,
said, How in the hell do I know? I don't run it,
to which Granddad—at war with Gradmama all
my life but drawn to women, always polite—
would have said, Yes ma'am, can't nobody run her.
"She and My Granddad" by David Huddle. Reprinted with permission of the author
