In Strange Grace Phoebe MacAdams Whispers an Invocation and We Find Connection in the Commonplace

Phoebe MacAdams' latest book of poetry released by Cahuenga Press, Strange Grace begins with an Introduction and the piece Prayer:Behind the eyesis a pathway of voices, the old ones murmuring and humming....come to me in the commonplace in the ordinary come to me.It is an invocation to the voice of poetry and it asks only for the ability to name what is seen. The strength of Phoebe MacAdams' writing is the stripped down simplicity. The first section of the book is titled Los Angeles and MacAdams immediately takes us into her Los Angeles with Walking the Arroyo:Natural: what we can count on to be here, what loves this difficult place.Fifteen minutes from downtown Los Angelesis a meadow and sometimes I walk there.But this work isn't just about Los Angeles and its pockets of green - it's about learning to live with both the beauty and the knowledge that the beauty is not only rare and hidden, but ephemeral. All Hallows is most effective in evoking the balance:Amid the beauty of
flowersblooming in winter, we get older in the Southern California way: warm November days, cool nights.Flowers and death hold handsin the season of souls; during Dias de los Muertosthe arms of death are full of flowers, every skeleton offers a marigold.As I read the poetry, I became the poet in her world - moving through her days - shifting consciousness in order to step out of her own way to name what is seen in the physical world and at the same moment opening to the idea that she is merely a vessel for the lines that come. Stainless Waiting is one of my favorite pieces because it captures the fear and anticipation we feel as writers - fear that we won't be able to adequately express a moment of transcendence, that is, seeing totality in brief windows of space and time and anticipation of the words we may receive and then hold out to a listening ear:not always but sometimes I do despair. sometimes a deep unworthiness, inside is a stainless waitingThe second section of the
book, Two Poems takes us out of Los Angeles and into the coastal mountains that are only a few hours drive away. The first tells of devastating fires that swept through Ojai (and other communities) in 1985. These fires are too common in Southern California and autumn rarely passes without their mark. The Wheeler Fire, Ojai 1985 is a powerful piece but in keeping with where MacAdams is leading us, the following poem Ode to Kirk Creek gives what the coastal camp sites offer us, the time and ability to reflect on the healing effect of nature, a rejuvenation of hope, the connection we feel in a world without concrete intersections. MacAdams lists all that she leaves behind in an often challenging world of teaching for LAUSD and then sifts through the frustration to find the:...student's expression as she looks at the dolphins and the water around our small boat in Catalina and says: "Water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink! I get it, Miss!"She keeps...the sight of stud
ents sliding happily into the water of Clear Creek, laughing.In Ode she is on her own quiet getaway but the piece makes it obvious that this is a secret she is willing to share.Some mad artist has been here again, making hisanonymous sculptures and then disappearing up the Coast.Praises for creativity everywhere and for the ottersplaying in the kelp.In the third section of the book A Day Book: 3.13.05 - 7.11.06 MacAdams moves from noting exterior to what lies within. Nature appears in memory and in the solace of single blooms. She writes of loss - first of poets passing, most notably Robert Creeley, who taught us how to live as a poet in the world of family and friends and then the personal loss of her mother. These are the most effective pieces in the book. They marry the ability to name what is seen in the first section and what we keep in the second section with our interior dialogue - the mind that claims to want only peace but hums in a litany of whys and what ifs. MacA
dams quiets the mind in small focused stanzas - she is present, aware and very much in the "now" of this moment in March 13, 2005My husband and I did laundry, discussed our students, contemplated sex and dinner, chicken with artichokes. These small warm days move forward a poem at a time.This is the world of routine that death enters, sliding in its slippers of loss and things gone missing. August 16, 2005Into the dumpster went the heartbreak of mom's lipsticks worn flat with use, sea shells on gold cords, pictures of mermaids and relatives...Ghosts are close to me now; we speak oftenin the mysterious tones of the recently deceased. I reach for them with my ears.MacAdams allows us to read her poetic journal of moving through the usual days, the irritation of making a living as a teacher unsupported by a school district, the obligations of being a good neighbor and all the while underneath beats an orphaned heart. March 10, 2006there is a tree in midwinter late at night I rem
ember it. there is rain on the branch of my mind, and the weather is dark and bleak.I am alone with a black sky. and the memory of a branchThis piece of memory is sandwiched between the details of life lived, counted in observation and continued attention. When speaking earlier of the poets who had passed away MacAdams wrote May 6, 2005poetry insists on itself, on me, its discipline weaves me into my life, into the world of spirit; the voices say we are not alone, they whisper from the deepThis is what I take from Strange Grace, a connection to this city and its pockets of life, a recognition of its inhabitants (human and otherwise) and their voices that murmur an invocation - "come to me in the commonplace".

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