David Holper: California Poets Part 8, Five Poems
January 8th, 2025
California Poets: Part VIII
David Holper
Five Poems
Dear Past,
I am sorry I set you down. I had dragged you such great distances away
from those gray rooms & my father’s glass eye still sitting on the table. Away
from the portrait of my mother’s absence hanging there
like the echo of the sea in an alphabet cone, missing the letter M.
I am sorry I could not bear the tangled forest of your sorrows
and stranded you there just outside of the town where the hero had left
to find his father—or perhaps appeared elsewhere as a dark-eyed stranger.
Either way, I cannot remember. That memory too rests on the roadside gravel,
where you sit listening to the moan of traffic heading into now.
I tell you I am sorry, but of course you understand I am lying. I am lying
about the house, I am lying about my parents. I am lying about you.
I could not wait to abandon you. I had long had in mind to reinvent myself,
like a wheel or a mechanical bird or the wind, but all I became was this same self,
staring into the glass, where the future awaits. I suspect the future
is your doppelgänger. No one seems to know or will offer me the truth.
Still, I am not afraid to step beyond the future’s open door. I am certain it is nothing more
than a ticket for a train ride to a country where neither of you can reside. I will go
bearing nothing into that strange land, as is the custom, but what need is there
for this body in a house where only soul bears the invitation to the dance?
Goodbye, Ancient Friends
Sorry to say, but you’ll never get to drink
at the Sunland Tree bar in South Africa: someone had carved out its center, so it seated 15. The ancient baobab died
just a few years back. All over Africa,
the same story is being told: the ancient baobabs
follow Sunland to the grave. On the island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean the dragon blood trees,
battered by increasingly strong storms,
become scraps, eaten by goats.
In the White Mountains of eastern California, a bristlecone pine tree named Methuselah, perhaps
the oldest living tree on the planet, offers no match for two degrees of warming: a reality
coming whether we slow our emissions or not.
In that near future, all the bristlecones will die.
Say goodbye to these ancient friends—and while you’re at it,
see if you can explain
the nothing we have done
for so long
to save them,
to save ourselves.
The Secret of Poetry
Early fall couples with the ash and smoke from the east. High
in the Trinities and Sierras,
the fires erupt, walk across
granite peaks with fire tornadoes for legs.
Here the ash settles on us as if ready
to bury us. A friend sends an email saying
his group of poets has met and discovered the secret of poetry.
I go for a long walk until I leave everything behind, until the big leaf maple leaves
line the path, umbering their reminders of a cold that can’t come
soon enough. Much later at home I reread the email, almost asking. Then I craft my reply. Even if they have discovered this truth, I tell him, I am better off
not knowing. I am better off walking these empty woods, uncovering
the layers of duff with my imagination, feeling
where the mycelium is threading the roots deep into the earth. Let the fires burn
until they burn themselves out. The heart,
after all, bears its secrets too.
And some truths, though they rage white hot,
burn better left unknown.
Invitation
This summer I unravel like an old sweater, dithering, asking questions
that pile up unanswered. Finally, I go sulk in my chair like a boy in a timeout
under the silken light of the cherry tree, missing any peace the afternoon offers.
Under that emerald canopy, I sit, deaf, mute, wordless. Yet, somehow, I hear it: the faint
whirr and buzz before I see her: this blur of motion streaking across the yard,
disappearing like river water in the leaves above my head. She chirps down
to me, saying something like a long-distance call punctuated by static,
but I listen, nonetheless. Later, while I am grumbling through the dishes,
she returns, perching on the back side of the feeder where she plays
hide and seek, sipping the nectar. Between drinks, she peers out at me,
flashing her iridescent fuchsia cowl and emerald body,
as if in some code I cannot decipher. Then, when certain
I am hooked, she leaps into the air, fast, faster almost than my eye
can follow—only my imagination keeping her pace, yet I am reeled in,
finally opening myself to possibility—and when I do,
I hear it like a struck bell, ringing, echoing: the whole world
whispering, come now: everything, everyone is waiting,
and all the earth sings welcome.
Interview
March 24th, 2025
California Poets Interview Series:
David Holper, Poet, Novelist, Teacher
interviewed by David Garyan
DG: Let’s start with your activity as poet laureate of Eureka. You held the role from 2019 to 2021. Could you talk about this period along with how the environment of this wonderful city has influenced your writing?
DH: I was honored to serve as the Inaugural Poet Laureate for the City of Eureka. It was an interesting experience, in part because my tenure occurred during the pandemic, and all the events I had planned to host were cancelled when people began to shelter in place. One thing that was really important to me during this period is that I wanted to write about the return of Tuluwat Island to the Wiyot Tribe. On Feb. 26, 1860, a small group of white men murdered between 80-250 Wiyot who had gathered there to celebrate their World Renewal Ceremony. Whites then stole the land from the Wiyot, and eventually, the bulk of the island became city property. However, in In 1998, the Wiyot Tribe began raising funds to repurchase the land in order to perform their annual World Renewal Ceremony. They bought the first parcel in 2000. They remediated the land, and in 2018 the Eureka City Council voted to return all the city's remaining holdings on the island to the tribe free of charge. It was the first gift of land to Native Americans from any city in the US. I wrote a poem called “Tuluwat Island” to describe the genocide and its aftermath, as well as the city’s return of the land to the Wiyot.
DG: You’ve recently published your first novel called The Church of the Very Last Chance. Without giving too much away, what compelled you to write the book and to what extent did your writing habits to change to accommodate the different genre?
DH: My nephew and his wife had encouraged me to read Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel The Ministry for the Future, which I would describe as a hope punk novel about global warming. I had been teaching about global warming for about 20 years at that point, but never from such an optimistic approach. The novel inspired me to think about how faith and social activism had been such an effective tool for social change in the 1960s. That kernel of an idea led to me writing this novel, which explores a similar paradigm in the present day. I feel such an approach is sorely needed in the dark period of American and world history that we find ourselves in. For those who find themselves despairing at this particular time, I think the novel is a breath of fresh air.
DG: You studied creative writing at UMass Amherst. How radically did your writing change as a result of going through the program?
DH: I would say that the three years I spent studying at UMass Amherst helped me to become a much more professional author than I had been when I entered the program. My thesis advisor, John Edgar Wideman, encouraged me to read and study outside of the normal track that most MFA students chose, and as a result, I wound up taking courses in global literatures, particularly those writings by women. That reading helped a great deal in broadening my understanding of what it meant to be an author. As a result, by the time I was finishing the program, I was publishing short fiction and being paid for my work. I consider that an enormous step forward in my journey as an author.
DG: Teaching has been a big part of your life and you spent over 23 years working as an English professor at the College of the Redwoods. What were your favorite classes to teach, how often did you change the curriculum, and how much of your writing was inspired by these activities?
DH: Altogether, I taught English, both in high school and college, for 33 years. At College of the Redwoods, besides the composition classes I regularly taught, I also rotated between teaching a poetry class and a fiction class every semester. I often changed the stories and assignments I was teaching and tried to stay current with what was being published, and many of my students went on to publish their stories, poems, and novels. Their successes were an inspiration to me to keep writing and publishing myself.
DG: You served as a Russian linguist in the US Army during the Cold War and the paternal side of your family is actually from Russia. What prompted the decision to enlist and what fascinates you most about the language?
DH: To be honest, I was prompted to join the US Army by necessity. My family didn’t support me in paying for my education. When I graduated with my BA, I owed money on my college loans. I could see no way of paying for those, not to mention paying for my graduate education. I joined the military to pay off those undergraduate loans and to have money for graduate school. I chose to become a Russian linguist, so I could communicate with my father, brother, and aunt in Russian. I suppose what most fascinates me about Russian, unlike English, is that it has case structure, and having to learn those seven cases and their grammatical function helped me to better understand English grammar. Up until I studied Russian, I didn’t really understand how English functioned as a language.
DG: Is translation in the genre of poetry something you have or will ever consider?
DH: I did some translation from Russian into English when I was in graduate school, but I haven’t used my Russian much since then, and my fluency has largely evaporated from disuse. However, I am now learning Spanish, and I hope to do some translation work once I attain a higher level of fluency in Spanish.
DG: In addition to teaching, you’ve done a wide variety of other jobs. Would you say they’ve taught you an equal amount about writing as the university has?
DH: Indeed, they have. They’ve helped me to understand the daily grind of what it means to do physical labor, and they’ve helped me have empathy and understanding for the working class, particularly those who are struggling with poverty. It’s helped for me to rub elbows with ordinary people and to better understand them.
DG: Your book Language Lessons: A Linguistic Hejira contains 109 untranslatable words from other languages. Do you have a particular favorite and why?
DH: One word I particularly love introducing people to is the German word, “Backpfeifengesicht.” This is a German language compound word meaning “a face that needs a slap.” I think this is an idea that everyone instantly understands–and I love hearing people laugh when they learn it.
DG: If you had to write in any other language besides English, which would you choose and why?
DH: I think I would love to learn Japanese. I am a great admirer of both Haruki Murakami’s and Kazuo Ishiguro’s writings. I would love to master the language that has influenced both them and their culture.
DG: What are you reading or working on these days?
DH: Most recently, I have been learning how to write a screenplay. My wife and I were watching Christmas movies over the holidays, and I commented that most of what we’d seen was both insipid and saccharine. Our conversation got me to thinking about what would make a good Christmas film. As a result of that conversation, I started writing a screenplay, and several friends who are familiar with the form have helped me better understand not only how to properly format my draft but also what a spec screenplay should and should not include. It’s been a fun process of discovery. Even if this screenplay never sees the light of day, I feel like I’ve learned a form I had always wanted to master.
In terms of reading, I just finished the novel American Dirt by Jeanine Cummings. It was a book that several critics sought to cancel because the author is white and was writing about Mexican characters and culture. After reading about the controversy and some of the criticism, I decided I wanted to read the book and see if it failed in the various ways the critics had outlined. After finishing the book and reading the acknowledgments, I think the author made a significant effort to understand the Mexican people, their culture, and the geography of Mexico. I understand that ultimately all questions related to the idea of cancelling a book involve a power differential between those who have power and privilege, like Cummings, and those who do not. However, I also think an author’s job is to use their imagination in ways to help us see beyond what we know and are familiar with, and I think this novel did an admirable job of that, despite the author using her power and privilege in ways that others object to.
Author Bio:
David Holper has done a little bit of everything: taxi driver, fisherman, dishwasher, bus driver, soldier, house painter, bike mechanic, bike courier, and teacher. He has published three collections of poetry, Language Lesson: A Linguistic Hejira (Deeper Magic Press, 2023), The Bridge (Sequoia Song Publications) and 64 Questions (March Street Press). His poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, and he has recently won several poetry competitions, in spite of his contention that he never wins anything. He is an emeritus professor at College of the Redwoods and lives in Eureka, California, where his is the city’s first Poet Laureate. He thinks Eureka is far enough the madness of civilization that he can still see the stars at night and hear the Canada geese calling.
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