For Arizona poet Alfred Fournier, grief touches many of his works. Whether he is writing about family, the environment or spiritual concerns, a feeling of loss is never far from the surface.
“My family poems initially arose out of a need to explore my memories surrounding my mother’s illness and death when I was a child. It expanded from there to poems about my siblings and our relationships.” These family poems allow him to reimagine his past. “I feel I am mythologizing our family story in these poems, which are fact-based, but seen through the lens of poetic imagination.”
His poems about the environment reflect a similar emphasis. “These poems are really an exploration of ecological grief. . . . So much has been put at risk by the lifestyle we’ve pursued for centuries now. Through imagery, personification and wild flights of imagination, poetry invites the reader to look at these issues in a new way.”
Questions of spirituality also infuse much of his writing. “It works as a subtext through many of the poems. I suppose it is because I’m always searching for some kind of higher meaning behind things.”
Alfred’s poems and short essays have been published extensively in noted journals. It took about five years for him to collect and assess the poems included in his book A Summons on the Wind. “I knew from the start I would have two sections, one more focused on the outer world (environmental and social issues) and one highlighting primarily family poems. For each section, the trick was what to include, what to leave out, and how to sequence them. I spent a lot of time on this, and it was great fun. Quite a few poems I really love were left out of the book because they just couldn’t find a place to sit comfortably with the other poems. I think the book is better for what I left out.”
Alfred’s essays are primarily short nonfiction, with much stylistic overlap with his poetry. “Whether I go with poetry or prose, the most important element for me in developing a final piece is the sound. I tend to use off-time internal rhyme and assonance to help the flow of a piece, much as I would with poetry. It has to sound good when read aloud.”
Alfred began writing as a teenager, but did not return to writing seriously till seven or eight years ago. “I connected with other writers locally and started reading contemporary poets. That was life-changing.” Now he writes every morning. He lives in Ahwatukee, in the southernmost portion of Phoenix, with his wife and daughter. “I rise to write before the others get up. This is My time, and I try to honor it no matter how hectic the workday ahead. It grounds me.”
He doesn’t have expectations of an end result when he writes. “I generally approach the empty page with no plan at all. Sometimes I journal, sometimes I start right off with a poem. I might reflect on something I’ve been reading, and those reflections can lead to a piece. A high percentage of what I write is not geared toward a final product.”
Alfred volunteers with Connect and Heal, a Chandler-based nonprofit that runs poetry workshops and readings. “They're dedicated to the idea that when people plug into the power of artistic self-expression and cultural exposure, it can result in therapeutic healing, personal enrichment, and positive social support.” These workshops and other local readings allow him to share his work and help motivate him creatively. “As much as I love poetry on the page, it’s great to be heard and to respond to the work of others. I always do some of my most inspired writing the morning after a good poetry reading or open mic. Just hearing the work of others gets the juices flowing.”
In “Warning!” Alfred employs exaggerated imagery to emphasize the threat of ecological disasters. “A baby in the crib sprouts mandibles and wings and flies out the window with a restless desire to reconnect with the natural world.” In “Drywall” he reminds us that sadness is constant in our lives, often right next door. “We have to experience these lows, the dips, so that ultimately we can rise, becoming the best of ourselves. Grief, in part, makes us who we are.”
More at alfredfournier.com.
Do not feed honey to infants under one year.
They may give up the breast.
They might sprout mandibles and gnaw
the crib rail restlessly, fly from the window
with a craving for wildflowers
and forsake human form.
And who can blame them?
Distillation of floral nectar gathered
in a million flights of drones, passed
mouth to mouth — whole societies
ordered around this purpose — to hover,
to taste, to fly, pollen-laden legs
dusting the air, trailing back to the hive.
And isn’t this how humans began?
Community and kin. Returning with food
to nourish our young. Stories ‘round
the firelight. Cherished home among
rivers and plains, before we got the taste
for nature as commerce.
A memory this deep becomes a danger.
Do not feed honey to your infant.
They may become famished
for a world long gone, waking up hungry
in a place where nothing is sweet.
(First published in Gyroscope Review)
If you knew your long-dead mother was sleeping
in the hotel room adjacent to yours,
not in the wind-swept hills of her girlhood,
nor some grim castle tower gnawed by rain
into a state of decay, but just beyond thin layers
of drywall where every sound you make
reverberates,
would you step more tenderly
across creaking floorboards, lower the volume
on that 360 speaker you take everywhere,
keep the TV news to a whisper? When you wake
in the famine of night, residue of childhood fears
brooding like a dark forest inside you,
place your palm flat against the wall. Listen
for the bounty that lives within silence.
Let sorrow dip and rise like a nighthawk inside you.
(First published by Poppy Road Review)
Dee Cohen is a Prescott poet and photographer. deecohen@cox.net.
