Janice Lynch Schuster, a poet and mother who has experienced grief, depression, and hospitalization, performs four original poems at SYT Annapolis 2024. Her readings weave together loss, embodiment, love, and the act of writing itself as a means of processing what cannot be left behind.
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Transcript
[00:47:35] Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
[00:47:37] Thank you so much, Kelsey.
[00:47:38] We really appreciate you being here.
[00:47:40] Please, guys, if you can donate to the GEO Fund,
[00:47:42] GEO Fund, she’s back there for you, OK?
[00:47:46] You got this one.
[00:47:51] Coming to the stage.
[00:47:52] You would give me the long name.
[00:47:54] But coming to the stage first, this first artist coming up,
[00:47:58] her name is Janice Lynch Schuster.
[00:48:02] Did I get that right?
[00:48:04] Schuster.
[00:48:07] Oh, Janice.
[00:48:08] Give it up for Janice, y’all.
[00:48:09] Woo!
[00:48:12] I didn’t know I was going first.
[00:48:30] I’m really uncoordinated.
[00:48:32] I can’t read from my iPhone, so I have a big binder.
[00:48:37] So bear with me while I shake and try to find my page.
[00:48:42] I’m 61 years old, I raised six children, one of them died in 2017.
[00:48:55] I’ve been hospitalized many times for depression.
[00:48:58] I’m not going to read you any of those poems, because somewhere it’s like keep it light.
[00:49:04] So what the heck?
[00:49:09] What this poem will do.
[00:49:12] Is not what you expect, no clearing of the air, no lifting of stars,
[00:49:20] no scent of earth after rain, no opening of your son’s eyes,
[00:49:26] who has been gone so long, he has turned to dust.
[00:49:31] This poem will not free you from who you have become.
[00:49:35] It will not recount the day you were five and screamed at the bus stop, anxious as you were,
[00:49:42] not to leave your mother, the big yellow bus, bright as the sun, it scorched you.
[00:49:49] This poem will not dry your tears.
[00:49:52] It will not pull you together.
[00:49:54] It will not decide what you should remember, or help you to forget.
[00:49:59] This poem will graze the roof of your mouth, and make you wish again you were a storyteller,
[00:50:06] that your guitar had not gathered dust in an attic bedroom.
[00:50:10] This poem will keep you awake at night, wondering if you broke the lines in the right places,
[00:50:17] if you broke the boy’s heart when you were 16, if he remembers your name,
[00:50:23] and how he took you in your red flowered sun dress, and thought it signified you were his.
[00:50:30] This poem is your own.
[00:50:33] Outside, spring struggles to come in through the heavy gray clouds of winter.
[00:50:37] Recipia has burst their golden curls across the yard, and Lenten roses purple the brown leaves.
[00:50:46] Everything is in motion, except you, because you are still writing a poem that will keep you from moving.
[00:50:54] Only across the page, blank sections fillering with your shaking hand, this poem is how you fill what cannot be left behind.
[00:51:04] Thank you.
[00:51:05] Thank you.
[00:51:06] Thank you.
[00:51:07] That was kind of light.
[00:51:13] It was a little light.
[00:51:16] I like to dance alone, because all my kids are grown, and they don’t like to dance with me anyway, even if I’m not alone, so what the heck?
[00:51:25] Dancing alone, I remember to love the body that carries me from room to room, on tiptoes and twirls, on shuffles and swirls.
[00:51:35] My constant companion.
[00:51:37] as i walk one hour to the next and clap my joyful hands because i can’t
[00:51:44] while dust notes in the morning light settle on my arms
[00:51:50] i’m very disorganized as you see but that’s what happens um
[00:51:58] i have this one i have some love poems i figure they’re light this is an old love poem
[00:52:04] um you fit me like the dress i wore that summer i turned 18 and my curves were slight
[00:52:12] and bare in the glinting afternoon light when i just rode at the sight of you
[00:52:25] in this one the honor of poem the poet hanif abdul rakib
[00:52:34] you have to
[00:52:34] know him because he’s like extraordinary and he’ll just move you in ways you haven’t been moved
[00:52:39] and someone asked him how could a black man write about flowers in times like these
[00:52:45] and um so i wrote this poem called the gardener in times like these who writes the flowers
[00:52:52] perhaps those have emerged from the weight of dirt or born it sent roots and shoots
[00:52:57] against gravity felt the heat unknown movement with hope against the winter of isolation
[00:53:05] those who persisted in opening their weary beautiful heads
[00:53:09] and daring fruits who lured pollinators back indeed he said come feast with me for i stand
[00:53:16] in this field this pot this roadway this street this desert this mountainside and long only