Notes from the Red Zone, by Christina Pacosz

Notes from the Red Zone

It’s been “re-bound,” the first in a series of chapbook reprints from Seven Kitchens Press: saddle-stitched with red thread and knotted in the middle. Notes from the Red Zone, say the red letters, but in the cover photo, the air around the cooling tower is green, and I can’t help translating into the lingo of the aughts: Notes from the Green Zone, with depleted uranium the link between the Hanford nuclear plant in Pacosz’ long poem, set in the early 80s, and our invasion and occupation of Iraq. We were searching, we said, for weapons of mass destruction, as if there were any other kind, as if we were not the chief authors and publishers of that story, tying the red knot at the center ourselves: the dust of vaporized DU shells that will be causing birth defects in Iraqi children for generations.

Why reprint such a book in 2009? Because the Cold War didn’t really end; we are merely in its half-life. “Slogans come easily,/ Life through death/ and they find comfort/ in the promise/ of resurrection,/ rapture in a pure land/ beyond this one.” The poet is a nomad and an interrogator, wondering “where the edge is/ and why there needs to be/ a form, something contained,” wondering about the word enemy. What is the link between domestic violence and war-making (“the woman/ short   indian/ wrinkled face/ purpled with bruises/ not sure she can continue/ paying the price”), between alienation from the natural world and hostility toward the other (“blue whale, Polish Jew, tiger, witch”)?

“How long have you lived here?” she asks the women, but the answer, “all our lives,” rings hollow. No man goes down to the river without a fishing pole, knife, hatchet or chainsaw, and no woman goes there alone at all — except the poet, wearing her alertness to the omnipresence of death like a red wool coat. “The conversation turns abruptly/ to the quality of roads/ leading out of town.” The one thing we all have in common is our desire to escape.

How should we think of a president who works actively to reduce nuclear stockpiles at the same time that he advocates a dramatic increase in nuclear power — and expresses skepticism at an enemy’s ability to make the same distinction between weapon and deadly tool? Who in Washington really speaks for nature now? While I am pondering this, the news comes in that the Environmental Protection Agency has at long last “clarified” the guidelines for coal mining to outlaw most forms of mountaintop removal in the Appalachians. Ah, clarity! That thing we read poetry for.

This is a short book, dangerous as a shiv between the ribs, requiring — in my case, at least — three tries to reach the heart: red zone. Maybe it’s time the poet faced some questions herself. I call her up and she answers on the second ring.

(Click on the thumbnail to go to the book’s page in Open Library. My conversation with Christina Pacosz will be featured on the Woodrat Podcast next week.)

UPDATE: Listen to the podcast.

9 Replies to “Notes from the Red Zone, by Christina Pacosz”

  1. I read it as “green zone” too. It wasn’t until your mention of it that I realized it wasn’t green zone. I’ll be looking forward to that interview.

    1. Interesting that your mind made the same association.

      We ended up shooting the bull for an hour and a half, but probably as usual I’ll end up editing out most of my own remarks to give more space to hers. Christina had a lot of interesting stuff to say. She was actually in a workshop with William Stafford once!

  2. very cool that you had some questions and called her up. or maybe that was planned in advance, but either way, it’s one of the things i love about networking with other poets … generosity in access to one another. a person’s time and attention is quite a gift.

    1. Absolutely. Yeah, this had been planned — Christina and I had traded chapbooks — but knowing I was going to talk to her certainly made me read more attentively.

      By the way, don’t think you guys aren’t all on my podcast interview list, too! I figure by the time I talk to everyone I know through qarrtsiluni, Facebook, Identica/Twitter and RWP, I’ll be ready to go back to the begining of the list and start over with a second round of interviews.

  3. I enjoyed your perspective of Notes from the Red Zone and will be looking forward to the interview. Pacosz is one of a handful of my favorite poets. Everything she writes or says is compelling and thought provoking to me.

  4. Why reprint such a book in 2009? Because the Cold War didn’t really end; we are merely in its half-life

    Amen. I see red myself when folk talk about how Reagan won the Cold War. Nobody won, not even the part that’s done with.

    The book sounds like a must-read.

Leave a Reply to Bluegrass Poet Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.