[/caption]Ernest Dempsey- Linda Benninghoff is a poet of nature. Sit back a moment and imagine her world, as I did recently.
Benninghoff loves to depict natural scenes and moments in words, the beauty and life of animals, and the silent sense of belonging among all life forms. Her latest poetry book Whose Cries are Not Music (Lummox Press, 2011) weaves the fragility of life and the beauty of nature in a string of poetic expression with a distinct sense of spirituality. Having previously reviewed Linda’s work and interviewed her, I wrote to her again for a chat about her poetry after reading her new book. Linda tends to be concise in expressing herself as we may see from the following interview. Like a true poet, she makes her point in a sentence.
Ernest: Linda, thanks for responding to my interview call. I’d like to ask you what writing poetry personally means to you, particularly today?
Linda: Most recently I was writing a series of poems for my close friend, Mary, who died of cancer at age 56. The poems do not use the word cancer and cancer is just implied and unstated—this ambiguous poetry is the type of poetry I like to write and read. I wrote the last section of the book “After Dying” recently, in which I wonder about the nature of death. When I was younger, my themes weren’t so unified, and I didn’t deal so much with death.
Ernest: In addition to some poems common to both books, Whose Cries are Not Music shares the same nostalgia and love of nature, animals in particular, with Departures. How do these elements in your poetry relate to life?
Linda: I always found that animals were something more than just animals when I wrote about them. I think they became imbued with spirit. Some of them were beautiful. The natural world contained beauty and I wanted to record it.
Ernest: When you remember people, you often describe the painful moments while also including poetic imagery showing animals, like deer and bird. What’s the attraction in this style?
Linda: I wrote a lot of elegies—but I think I conveyed that these people were missed and loved. When I wrote about Deer, I thought particularly of a poem by Kenneth Patchen, that began (I think), “The deer is lovely/beautiful as God made her./Then assassins come”… In this case it is not hunters that assassinate the deer but a snake. There is something fragile about beauty.
Ernest: The poem Milk Crates is particularly interesting and overtly philosophical wherein a friend sitting on a crate and observing people tells that it’s a more real way of life than sitting on lawn and talking about God. Would you like to tell a little about it?
Linda: I think that friend could not find God at the religious retreat we both went to and turned to living on the streets. In the poem, the rain fills the streets and makes them appealing. I think we all have a side to us that could give up and live on the streets like that friend, and find something appealing in them.
Ernest: Sickness and dying are also important topics in your poems in Whose Cries are Not Music. What exactly do we get from the line “Don’t we reveal in dying who we are?” in the poem In Dying?
Linda: Well, this was a poem for a friend of mine who died and was misunderstood in life. He committed suicide. In the poem, I describe the movements of his dance, which were artistic and beautiful. His death seemed to reveal his true self, just like his dance.
Ernest: Let me ask also how often have you written poetry to express feelings of joy or deep satisfaction?
Linda: I wrote elegies for my pets and I think I brought in some of the deep joy they gave me. Some of my poems in the section St. Paul Street describe the joy I felt living in a city—the crowded urban scene in which people often stood close together and there is an unspoken sense of community.
Ernest: From Whose Cries are Not Music¸ your poetry exudes a characteristic spiritual element, like those rabbits from the spiritual realm in the poem Emissaries. Would you say that writing poetry is like sending a message of peace in the broader term?
Linda: To me, poetry helps connect with my spiritual side. I think other people’s reactions to my poetry will vary.
Ernest: Coming to an end of this chat Linda, tell me what form of literature or writing you like to read most beside poetry?
Linda: I love novels. When I was younger, my favorite writers were Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. I also liked Knut Hamson and some of Paar Lagergvist. Today I read a lot of Margaret Atwood.
Ernest: Linda, I am so thankful to you for sparing me your time and talking literature. I’ll surely be following your work in the coming days.
