What, Why, How: Terry Blackhawk

What:

I am one of the lucky children whose parents brought poetry into her life at an early age. The Silver Pennies poetry anthology was a constant companion, and by the time I was ten I was writing poems of my own, sealing them with wax, and hiding them in secret places in the woods behind our house. I edited Manuscript, my high school’s literary magazine, and in 1968 submitted for my final project as a Literature grad at Antioch College a portfolio of experimental writings titled “ex/per/I/frag/mental,” heavily influenced by Gertrude Stein. After 1968, however, poetry went dormant in my life as I moved to Detroit, married, had a child and began a teaching career. It reappeared unexpectedly twenty years later (in what some have called a “muse attack”) and changed the course of my life in myriad ways. My first collection, Trio: Voices from the Myths (1998) a chapbook, was followed by body & field (1999)—finalist for the New Issues, Four Way Books and other first book awards—and Escape Artist, which Molly Peacock selected for the 2003 John Ciardi Prize.

My most recent collection, Maumee, Maumee, a chapbook beautifully produced by Alice Greene & Co. of Ann Arbor, came out this past October and marks an important phase of my life when, not long after the sudden break-up of a thirty-plus year marriage and thanks to an online dating service, I began a relationship with Toledo artist Neil Frankenhauser. I enjoyed getting to know “artseeman,” his handle in our initial emails, so when he told me that he was an artist and his name was Neil, a quick search for “Neil,” “artist” and “Toledo” was in order. It didn’t take long before some of his paintings turned up, from museums and private collections – an intriguing mix of images reminiscent of Edward Hopper and Francis Bacon with beautifully rendered light that let me know I was on to something. Three of my five full-length poetry collections have also been grounded in major life events and losses – marriage and motherhood (body & field); my mother’s death/my father’s stroke (The Dropped Hand); Le Divorce (The Light Between) – and I now add, gratefully and wistfully, this collection of elegies for my late life love.

Why:

Neil was a wholly and 110% committed artist, and my poems pay homage to his art and the dedication that kept him going no matter what troubles came his way. Regardless of where he was in his career or his life, his daily practice of painting en plein air beside his “sacred” Maumee River, or at the site of one of Toledo’s many abandoned industrial structures, kept him grounded and brought him much joy. He had many health challenges and could be cranky, disgruntled, and impatient, but he was also open-hearted, funny, affectionate, and generous in his love for me. Although our relationship went through its ups and downs – we “came close” as my therapist puts it – and some friends couldn’t understand why I was grieving “like a widow” after he died, the difficulties between us ebbed into memories of his warmth, his honesty, and the simple pleasures of being together.

Neil died in September 2019 in a nursing home in southwest Ohio following a stroke the previous October, and like much in life, I didn’t realize what I had until it was gone. It has been both painful and comforting to compile this collection in tribute to what he and I shared, a togetherness that even the most spur-of-the-moment photos, like the one above, leave me with. The silly moment captured here makes me think of Hafiz whose wonderful lines I was able to incorporate in “A Wedding on the Island,” which I read on Belle Isle for the wedding of my dear friends Scott Boberg and Lisa Raschiatore in August, 2017. The poem, collected in One Less River (2019), ends: Scott and Lisa, seven/ years is a good number. You’ve had mountains/and music—and practice, practice—to build on./ Through you we see
life start clapping,
(learn how) whenever love makes itself known
against another body, the jewel in the eye
starts to dance.

These days as I while away too much time on line, I find myself scanning photos of couples, looking for that kind of love, that dancing jewel in the eye. Did we share it, at least for a while? I know we did.

How:

“Of Course,” the first poem I wrote in the collection that became Maumee, Maumee, was inspired by one of Neil’s paintings (“Sanger, California”) that now hangs in my home in Connecticut. I retired from InsideOut and moved from Detroit in 2016 in order to help out with my newly divorced son and grandchildren, but I traveled frequently back to Detroit and spent as much time as I could with Neil, making several trips to the nursing home in Ohio those last months. I wrote “Of Course” in Connecticut one evening when I hosted some fellow writers in my home, knowing Neil was close to the end. The phrase “vanishing point” struck me especially hard as I wrote. I had been in touch with his son Nick and sent the poem right away but it arrived a few hours too late for him to read it to his dad. I’m grateful that Nick had earlier let me say goodbye to Neil via speaker phone. Neil wasn’t saying much by the time he heard my goodbyes, but his last word to me was a good strong yes, and it comforts me to know he could hear how much I loved him.

Neil is now never far from my mind or heart, though only once, as in “Visitation,” the first poem in Maumee, Maumee, did I experience his presence from, as they say, beyond the veil. I write this now from the Andalusian coast of Spain, on a trip organized by Road Scholar, where a visit to the Picasso Museum in Malaga triggered more of Neil. Although Neil left this earthly plane a few months shy of what Stephen Dunn called “f*cking eighty,” learning about Picasso’s last request (at 91) for some drawing paper rang true. Picasso’s wife Jacqueline brought him several sheets in the morning and found him dead by noon, with a number of sketches on his lap. The family will never release them to the public, but oh the story. The guide who told us about it was visibly moved, so I was moved to pull up and share one of my last iPhone photos of Neil, and there he was, lying in a hospital gown with the white board and black marker I gave him “when draw was all (he) could say,” displaying the final sketch that I describe in “Telling Time.” Looking closely, I see again in his eyes the determination and pride of an artist to the very end.

Neil’s paintings that hang in my home or feature in Maumee, Maumee—“Yellow Tornado Tree,” the critters I mention in “Diptych,” two views of Toledo’s “Old Williams Meat Packing Plant” and numerous studies of the Maumee (my bedroom has become my “River Room”)—keep him close in my life and, as his collectors often told him, never get old. I’m grateful that Jill and Colin, the team at Alice Greene & Co, found such a beautiful painting for the cover and the exquisite black and white images that bring his voice into the inside pages of Maumee, Maumee. I also enjoy every day his extraordinary watercolor that hangs in my dining room, “Storm Over the River,” which provided the cover art for One Less River.

Neil left a small house in Toledo crammed with paintings, a challenge for his children who continue to look for good homes for his art. The effort is spearheaded by his daughter Heidi, and a number of pieces were snapped up last fall through a pop-up sale that she organized and advertised via Instagram.

On April 15, 2023, Detroit-area friends can see Neil’s work and join me and Joy Gaines Friedler for a poetry reading during a one-day exhibit at the Hannan Center at 4750 Woodward Avenue, with thanks to Richard Reeves and Michael Madigan who have championed his work. I’m also looking forward to “At Home with Literati: Terry Blackhawk & Scott Boberg” — a Zoom event, February 13, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.

Bio:

Terry Bohnhorst Blackhawk was born in California and grew up in Massachusetts, Georgia, and Indiana. As a student at Antioch College in the 1960s, she spent 18 months in Europe, learning both Swedish and Italian. After earning a BA in Literature, she moved to Detroit where her career as a high school Creative Writing teacher for Detroit Public Schools led to her founding, in 1995, InsideOut Literary Arts Project, a nonprofit writers-in-schools program dedicated to amplifying the voices of Detroit youth. Twice named Michigan Creative Writing Teacher of the Year, she holds a Ph.D. in Reading and Language Arts Education from Oakland University, which granted her an Honorary Doctorate in 2013. She has written essays and poems and frequently presented workshops and readings about her studies into Emily Dickinson and ekphrastic poetry. Blackhawk’s five full-length poetry collections include Escape Artist (BkMk Press), winner of the 2003 John Ciardi Prize, and One Less River (Mayapple Press), named a Top 2019 Poetry Title by Kirkus Reviews. Among her awards are the Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize from Nimrod International, a Kresge Arts in Detroit literary fellowship, a Tennessee Williams Scholarship to the Sewanee Writers Conference, and grants from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is a recent inductee into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame and recipient of the Antioch College Horace Mann Alumni Award for Victories for Humanity. After fifty years as a Detroiter, she moved to Connecticut to be near her son, Yale professor Ned Blackhawk, and grandchildren.

Links:

Terry’s Website
Purchase Maumee, Maumee
Purchase One Less River
Featured Poet on Negative Capability Press
Telling Time: Poetry by Terry Blackhawk
Sanger, California–1979 by Terry Blackhawk

---

Thank you for visiting!

Linda K. Sienkiewicz is a writer, poet, and artist.
Learn more about her multi-award winning novel, In the Context of Love.
Learn more about her picture book, Gordy and the Ghost Crab.
Learn more about her poetry chapbook, Sleepwalker

Visit LinkTree for all Linda’s social media links.