St. Louis Woman - Notes

The first stanza is really nice and a very solid image. In the second stanza, the images move quickly and become more personal. On the third stanza, the details about Arlene seem to center the poem and where it the poet is at his most confident. Some symbolism is presented to the reader, and life and death seem to be the likely code to decipher. It seems to parallel with the ‘The second Child/He's the reason’. Whatever the case, I feel a balance is trying to be played, between a personal observation and deeper philosophical insight. To thread these concepts together can be difficult I give credit to the poet for trying his hand at such a difficult endeavor. 

—Kent Walker, writing coach

a. Richard upon hearing of her death, suggested that Arlene was ‘a flame of exuberance’.

b. He strongly objected to the ‘stares’ personification of the loose-knit top in ‘Your loose-knit top/Stares me in the face’. I kept it for the rhyme 'face-cage' and because they still are, staring I mean. 

c. ‘Catherine D. Snow’ has been interpreted as cocaine.

d. ‘Child’ is a Tarot card. Arlene died from ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease (Lou Gehrig was his mother’s second child). ‘He’ refers indirectly to Lou Gehrig’s disease. Lou was Arlene’s first husband, father of Arlene’s only child, her daughter Jamie.

e. The horror of thoughts in the last part of the poem becomes Arlene’s impending death. The poem suddenly becomes a horror story.

f. It has Astrology, uncertainty and spirit. She was a numerologist.

g. There are 3 x references to Baseball: St. Louis, ‘cards’, and Lou Gehrig who played with the Yankees in the 1926 WS against STL.

h. ‘Drew’ has two meanings: pull and draw (Arlene was an artist)

i. ‘Morning’ is used instead of mourning to effect a double meaning (read or spoken) and force the reader to stop at the turn of the poem.

j. ‘They’re here’ relates to the scene in Streetcar when they came for Blanche. ALS is coming for Arlene. 

k. Concrete images are mixed with the indefinite. Often a single image in a poem bears more weight than all the others put together. ‘Child’ is a possibility.

l. An earlier version was read Saturday 11/26/2023 at the Kindablue jazz club before the second set, thanks to Larry Fuchs, proprietor. Kindablue she would frequent. A few words from the poem were incorporated in the St. Louis Blues song played immediately afterward by Curt Landes on keys. It was also read at BB's Jazz Blues & Soups.

m. Arlene in an unrelated trailer.