Post by idach116 on Jun 1, 2013 12:35:17 GMT -5
Cleopatra Mathis was born and raised in the rural town of Ruston, Louisiana into a Greek family in 1947. She acquired an interest in poetry in the third grade from her teacher Miss Wilson, but became truly inspired to write in the 70’s through the works of early 20th century poets while she was teaching English in high school. Being a member of the minority of her nativist community, “no one expected anything of me, and my family didn't have the means, the educational background, or knowledge of English to introduce me to literature or any of the arts,” but her curiosity and hunger for knowledge later allowed her to attend and receive her BA from Southwest Texas State and her MFA from Columbia University. In 1982, Mathis became a Frederick Sessions Beebe Professor of English at Dartmouth University, where she founded and is currently still directing the Creative Writing Program.
One of the most important influences and themes in her poetry is her identity in family. “I think the most significant thing about my childhood was my Greek family's isolation in north Louisiana. We were set apart in ways that Greeks in large urban centers were not,” implying that having only her family in a land of strangers encouraged the importance of family closeness. Although many would assume her having her father leave at the age of 6 would make her alienate her family, it did quite the opposite; it rather caused her to embrace it even more, and even console in it, due to the isolation from her father.
Mathis’ book What to Tip the Boatman? tells a story of the Greek myth, which extends her insertion of identity in her poems, in which Persephone is carried off into the Underworld to Hades and her mother, Demeter, does everything in her power to return her safely. The “sheer terror of the fact that [she’d] almost lost [her] daughter to depression and suicide after the suicide of her close friend” captures the motherly focus and warmth in her poetry, winning her the Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Book of Poems in 2001. To add on, her grief over the loss in “the body turning to gunshot, the body falling” of her brother is intertwined with reminiscent love in The Bottom Land. In relation to her brother’s death, she writes about what her “grandmother calls shared breath which means our beings reach and mingle, the inspiration of one altered by the other.” Growing up, Mathis had a strong relationship with her maternal grandmother and her strength, hope, and inspiration lies within the relationship. Dependent on her family to persist through isolation, “my response to death initially was one of being abandoned, and so I was left bereft, without a language to give it meaning.”
Imagery and symbolism exemplify Mathis’ child-like creativity, but more in a sophisticated manner. Throughout her life, she had bulwarks set up that blocked her goals, making them hard to reach. However, she accepted the challenge because that is what makes the journey worthwhile. With her use of visions, she creates challenges for herself and readers, thinking “vision is something different, isn't it? It suggests a journey, a reaching that is more than sheer connection, which involves risk.” Instead of plainly observing and stating, Mathis allows herself to get lost in detail and metaphors because that is what makes poetry special and thrilling. “Whatever visionary is, it is not predictable. I read once that art should be a sort of hidden ferocity, like a fox hidden under a shirt. I like that.”
As poet Carol Muske-Dukes stated, Cleopatra Mathis’ poems are “bitter as salt and blinding as the light of revelation—clear, gem-bright, and relentless as waves.”
One of the most important influences and themes in her poetry is her identity in family. “I think the most significant thing about my childhood was my Greek family's isolation in north Louisiana. We were set apart in ways that Greeks in large urban centers were not,” implying that having only her family in a land of strangers encouraged the importance of family closeness. Although many would assume her having her father leave at the age of 6 would make her alienate her family, it did quite the opposite; it rather caused her to embrace it even more, and even console in it, due to the isolation from her father.
Mathis’ book What to Tip the Boatman? tells a story of the Greek myth, which extends her insertion of identity in her poems, in which Persephone is carried off into the Underworld to Hades and her mother, Demeter, does everything in her power to return her safely. The “sheer terror of the fact that [she’d] almost lost [her] daughter to depression and suicide after the suicide of her close friend” captures the motherly focus and warmth in her poetry, winning her the Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Book of Poems in 2001. To add on, her grief over the loss in “the body turning to gunshot, the body falling” of her brother is intertwined with reminiscent love in The Bottom Land. In relation to her brother’s death, she writes about what her “grandmother calls shared breath which means our beings reach and mingle, the inspiration of one altered by the other.” Growing up, Mathis had a strong relationship with her maternal grandmother and her strength, hope, and inspiration lies within the relationship. Dependent on her family to persist through isolation, “my response to death initially was one of being abandoned, and so I was left bereft, without a language to give it meaning.”
Imagery and symbolism exemplify Mathis’ child-like creativity, but more in a sophisticated manner. Throughout her life, she had bulwarks set up that blocked her goals, making them hard to reach. However, she accepted the challenge because that is what makes the journey worthwhile. With her use of visions, she creates challenges for herself and readers, thinking “vision is something different, isn't it? It suggests a journey, a reaching that is more than sheer connection, which involves risk.” Instead of plainly observing and stating, Mathis allows herself to get lost in detail and metaphors because that is what makes poetry special and thrilling. “Whatever visionary is, it is not predictable. I read once that art should be a sort of hidden ferocity, like a fox hidden under a shirt. I like that.”
As poet Carol Muske-Dukes stated, Cleopatra Mathis’ poems are “bitter as salt and blinding as the light of revelation—clear, gem-bright, and relentless as waves.”