Dear M. Bartley Seigel 2022

From Sofia, Grade 11

Dear M. Bartley Seigel,

My name is Sofia, and I’m a junior at iPreparatory Academy in Miami, Florida. As a part of my Creative Writing class, my teacher assigned us the Dear Poet project to celebrate Poetry Month. When I first learned of the project, I thought most of the poems would be cynically political or dramatically philosophical. And though those poems are usually amazing, especially the ones featured this year, they don’t inspire me, too heavy for my immature self. However, upon reading your poem, that idea completely changed my perspective.

Having lived in Miami all my life, I’ve never truly experienced winter. At most, I visited NYC once in January. And I never minded that. I quite like the humid heat; it feels like a comfy blanket. Maybe that’s why I was so drawn to your poem. The way you describe the start of winter is so beautiful, so ethereal: A “hag,” a “dance,” an “omen”, a “spell.” Despite my chronic aversion to the cold, the imagery in your poem made me want to feel it in my bones, feel the vibrations. I rarely ever feel the desire to experience winter, and yet you did just that.

Though I keep mentioning “winter,” you were able to perfectly describe its arrival without ever using the word. In the first stanza, you write, “we go looking for… first snow… but find mud still warm.” It was at this moment I realized the poem is about the last few moments before winter properly starts, even though I’ve never actually experienced such a winter. And the words you use—“crow feather,” “Frost Moon,” “hunkered Sun,” “cross-quarter nest,” “dim Solstice,” “pirouetting north,” “best wishes, casting spells against the coming darkness”—seem so mystical. I can see it. I can smell it. I could paint it, and I want to.

As much as your poem intrigued me, I became interested in you. When I saw your picture while reading your poem on the poets.org website, I thought to myself, “Wow, he really doesn’t look like a stereotypical poet.” I thought you look more like a Park Ranger than a writer, which seems so cool to me. As I became more interested, I wanted to know why you started writing poetry, so I searched the internet and found an interview with The Lode. When reading your interview, I loved when you explained that you are a “dirty slut of a reader” because I, too, consider myself an avid reader. Honestly, though, I now realize that I should be a more “promiscuous” reader. This made me realize that if I want to be a properly good writer, I ought to digest as much as I can, even if it’s outside my comfort zone.

Thank you so much for your poem and your advice. You made me appreciate winter in a way I haven’t since my 7-year-old self first watched the Disney movie Frozen. I would be forever grateful if you had any more advice you could give to an aspiring writer like myself. I know you don’t need my encouragement, but please, keep writing. I look forward to reading more of your work.

Sincerely,

Sofia

Dear Sofia,

Thank you so much for choosing my poem, “Into the Thicket,” for your Dear Poet project, and for composing such a thoughtful letter. Did you know that US Route 41, which begins in Miami, ends in Copper Harbor, in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula, near to where I live? It’s a little piece of trivia, mostly, but something I immediately thought of when reading your letter. I often think of poetry as a kind of road or bridge connecting different points on the map, some near, some far, or connecting people who would otherwise never meet one another because of time or distance or difference. What magic words can work when we find the right ones.

I’m grateful my words were able to evoke for you the “vibrations” of my corner of the world, the rhythms and cycles that make this place or person simultaneously unique and the same, this one from that. Sometimes I feel like the definition of being a poet (or an artist of any kind, really) is bearing the gift of being a differently tuned antennae. We notice things others might miss—nuances, subtleties, tremors—and our job is to share that with others so they can see and hear and touch and taste the world as we do.

That’s why I read so voraciously, too, because I also want to share in what other storytellers experience that I cannot myself. That reciprocating generosity and curiosity between the storyteller and the listener, reader and writer, is the most human kind of exchange possible, and rather a miracle. Your desire to step into that circle yourself by reading more, and more widely, and by contributing your own words to the exchange—I really want to encourage you in that lifelong pursuit.

I hope your summer is filled with rest and relaxation, and that it isn’t too terribly hot and humid in Miami this season. I feel about your subtropical summers the way you express feeling about Northcountry winters—it’s slightly alien and unfathomable to me. I’ve only ever traveled there in the winter, which still felt quite like summer to a snowbird like me. I would have to imagine June, July, and August are very different from what one experiences in December, January, or February. You’ll have to find the words and write about it someday, so people like me can see it through your eyes.

Sincerely,

M. Bartley Seigel

From Chisom, Grade 10

Dear Mr. Seigel,

Your poem tells of winter, to gather tinder, a cinder, flame.
The beginning embers of November.
To watch as untold cold, bold as ever, apparent in the winter woodland.

Your poem whispers of longing, thickening chill overpowering,
To watch our star fade into night.
Against the dark, sparks from a pyre warms our hearts.

Your poem speaks of myth, to reminisce over folk and fairy,
tall tales told around the fiery fire,
of a woman, eyes emerald, omen of future freeze.

Your poem neglects the family, infallibly with and for each other,
To dance, prance, mingle, to never fear dismissal
for a little bit of dark can never keep us too far apart.

I really enjoyed reading your poem! The style and word choice are truly distinct from much of the poetry I have read. I enjoyed the mystical way your poem reads, the descriptive way you described the change from fall to winter was very interesting to read!

Chisom

Dear Chisom,

Thank you so much for choosing my poem, “Into the Thicket,” for your Dear Poet project, and for composing such a delightful response poem of your own. Call and response poetry, where two or more poets answer each others’ verse with verses of their own, has a long and venerated history. Sometimes it’s an active conversation. Other times, it’s a homage. Perhaps my personal favorite response poem is Erica-Lynn Gambino’s response to William Carlos Williams’ very famous poem, “This Is Just to Say.” Here are the two:

This Is Just to Say
by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

This Is Just to Say
by Erica-Lynn Gambino

I have just
asked you to
get out of my
apartment

even though
you never
thought
I would

Forgive me
you were
driving
me insane.

I just love the way Gambino takes William’s lighthearted take on succumbing to temptation and guilt and turns it onto its head, retaining the same form, tone, and rhythms, but making it instead a poem about defying expectations and setting personal boundaries.

Yours is one of several letters to reference my poem’s mysticism, and that pleases me. As a young reader, I was very moved by elements of romanticism, transcendentalism, and naturalism, and I think pieces of those literary movements are always ghosting my poems. I have definitely retained a love for bringing the mythic, mystic and fantastic into my work, particularly when my poems are about my otherwise day-to-day life—a walk in the woods, for instance.

I’ve always found a kind of magic in the intimate noticing of natural phenomena—small changes in the weather, the oftentimes imperceptible movements of plants and animals, the shifting contours of land and water. Sometimes I feel like the definition of being a poet (or an artist of any kind, really) is bearing the gift of being a differently tuned antennae. We notice things others might miss—nuances, subtleties, tremors—and our job is to share that with others so they can see and hear and touch and taste the world as we do. I’m happy that my poem was able to bring you along with me on my walk.

Sincerely,

M. Bartley Seigel

From Aaliyah, Grade 10

Dear M. Bartley Seigel:

Let me just say—INTO THE THICKET is beautiful. It’s just like…ahhh (!!!) in general. The opening stanza is eye-catching. I immediately want to read more (why tea cedar, crow feather, and first snow?). Then, the contrast of these things with mud and Earth’s moist breath—the juxtaposition! This is wonderfully followed by dancing imagery in the next two stanzas. Pirouettes and waltzing are stunning things, but they really affect each line. The fourth stanza is just the perfect way to end this poem, simple yet beautifully hopeful. I adore the line, “[...] Superior throbbing her meter / deep into the basalt below and beyond simple ken.”

This poem seems like a spell, ritual almost. It’s through the soft and rhythmic sounds of your diction that allows it to be quiet but enthralling. I see this poem in black in white, but I don’t know why. What colors do you see this poem in?

Although there are parts that are very specific (it’s a bit unclear what “The Wind Hag” and “Superior” are) I’m still able to understand and follow along. I also am into how this poem is in tercets. Each stanza feels complete and strong. But, I do have a question—why? Was that planned when you wrote this or did it just happen? This definitely deals with enjambment, so how did you go about figuring out how to break the lines for this poem?

I love to write poems with narratives, and INTO THE THICKET helped me better understand them. They’re really, really hard to write for me. This isn’t a cut and clear story narrative, and I think this is a good example of the variety in this type of poetry. I also thought this was interesting as it is on the shorter side.

You are a wonderful poet, and I look forward to reading more of your poems!

Thank you,
Aaliyah

Dear Aaliyah,

Thank you so much for choosing my poem, “Into the Thicket,” for your Dear Poet project, and for posing so many thoughtful questions about it.

It might help to understand that I am a poet from the upper peninsula of Michigan, that spit of land that extends east from the Wisconsin border, above “the mitten,” comprising the southern shore of Lake Superior, and the northern shores of lakes Michigan and Huron. It’s the ancestral homeland of the Ojibwe people. The “Superior” I reference in the poem is the selfsame lake, a sweetwater sea that dominates the landscape and the weather of the place I call home. The “Wind Hag” is a personification of the gales that blow off the lake in late autumn (have you ever heard the Gordon Lightfoot song, “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald?”), based primarily on the Ojibwe legend about the lake spirit, the Wendigo. “Crow feather,” and “tea cedar” are likewise regionally and culturally specific images, but also literal things I like to go looking foraging for in the woods. Mostly, I’m after mushrooms, but I have a collection of crow feathers on my mantel, and I love a pot of white cedar tea on a cold winter night.

You also asked about form. I like to write in form, sometimes open, sometimes canonical, not because I find some inherent value in the particulars of sonnet or haiku, or tercet or quatrain, etc., but because of the constraint formal structure provides for my language. When I write free verse, I can say whatever I want, however I want to say it (to a point). But when I apply formal constraints, I only have so many syllables, so many lines, and I have to squeeze and contort what I want to say into that box. I have to find different words, different images, I have to say things in different ways, which in turn makes me think about what I want to say differently. Sometimes I retain the form into the finished poem, but oftentimes I drop strict adherence to it at some point in revision. I use constraint to get me someplace new, then revert to more freedom in my verse once I've found myself. All of my poems retain a ghosting of form in one shape or other, even the ones that have gone through dozens of revisions and wandered far afield.

Yours is one of several letters to reference my poem as a spell, and that pleases me. As a young reader, I was very moved by elements of romanticism, transcendentalism, and naturalism, and I think pieces of those literary movements are always shadowing my poetry. I have definitely retained a love for bringing the mythic, mystic, and fantastic into my work, particularly when my poems are about my otherwise day-to-day life—a walk in the woods, for instance. The idea that language is a kind of magic is very dear to me. Poems are very much spells. I’m glad this one worked.

Sincerely,

M. Bartley Seigel

From Izzy, Grade 9

Dear M. Bartley Seigel:

I’m Izzy from Woodstock Union High School, in Vermont. We have started a poetry unit in our English class, and as a part of that we were tasked with choosing a poem we enjoyed or connected with, and writing to the poet. Your poem “Into the Thicket” resonated with me very much; the experiences you’ve had, in the forests you write so beautifully about, made me remember my own experiences in the woods lining my house.

I was very fond of the personification of all of the different elements of nature. It caused me to view the Earth as a being like myself, it’s breath fogging glass just as mine does during late Fall. It made me view the Sun with longing, relishing the days to come when her light shines for longer than just a few hours. It is true, come solstice the Sun hides away and this poem reminded me of how much I wish that weren’t the case. Your depictions of dancing over the Frost Moon put images of elegant dancers gracefully traveling over its luminous surface. It reminded me of late nights looking out windows at the moon, trying to take in its cold, but comforting glow.

I noticed you used a lot of this personification, but that also you used metaphors and a bit of imagery in a way. Your way of describing what it is you look for (the crow feather, tea cedar, and first snow), all put images of these things in my head. Your metaphorical way of describing the way the forest “vibrates in omen” stirs up memories of my own being in forests and feeling a connection to some force that wasn’t there—at least not physically. I noticed and appreciated also the fact that your tone in the poem was, I believe, contented yet expectant. I felt that you were expectant of the winter months to come in this poem. Your line, “We go looking for tea cedar, crow feather, and first snow” is what clued me in on this, and it was the line that made me so interested in this poem. I too go looking for things in forests, however I look for lichen, acorns, and the green grass poking through after a long, hard, winter. While different, I do know we both find the mud you wrote about. This first line was such an excellent draw-in for this poem. It immediately caught my attention and gave me something to relate to.

I wonder how you chose the elements you included in this poem? For example, why did you include Ironwood, the Frost Moon, and tea cedar? I’d never heard of these parts of nature before reading your poem, and I was interested in hearing where you heard them from, and if they had any significance to you. Are they native to the Michigan area? I was also wondering what you meant by “but as we’ve no one near to confide in, we must worry our best wishes.” What does it mean to worry your best wishes? Finally, I was curious about the Wind Hag. She is named a Hag, yet so delicately described in a most graceful way. I’d have never thought about a Hag dancing pirouettes as a ballerina would, and I was wondering what you thought of her. Is she graceful or is she Hag-like; or both perhaps?

Thank you for writing this poem. I loved being able to relate to it so much, yet have things that I wondered about and could ask you. Your poem truly drew my attention immediately and your depictions of nature caused my imagination to soar, imagining dancing over the surface of moons and trudging through forests picking up little pieces of nature that I found.

Sincerely,

Izzy

Dear Izzy,

Thank you so much for choosing my poem, “Into the Thicket,” for your Dear Poet project, and for posing so many thoughtful observations and questions about it. The parts of Michigan and Vermont where we live are very similar in many ways, it’s true. It’s always nice to write to and be read by a kindred spirit, as there’s perhaps less to explain.

You’re right about the personification, and I have to admit to being something of an animist in my beliefs. I think it’s very difficult to spend a lot of intimate time in nature and not come to see everything as being imbued with its own kind of spirit, sometimes inhuman and other, but oftentimes kindred and knowable. We’re all part of the same whole, afterall. So I find myself, more often than not, imbuing the world I inhabit with personhood and agency. Trees, rocks, a swamp, a river, weather, this animal or that, they all have their own being, their own driving force, and I have a lot of respect and awe for that. It definitely runs throughout my writing.

You’re right, too, about my being something of an imagist. In really simplistic terms, I think of each and every poem I write as a little picture postcard, and I’m always trying to convey the image on that postcard to the reader, vividly showing them what I see in the water and in the water's reflection. Underneath the still image is a swift current of mythology, folklore, history, and depth of symbolism and metaphor and meaning we bring with us to each word and phrase. Like going to the forest to find feathers or acorns, we go to poetry to forage, too. The more we read and think about what we’ve read, the more attuned we become to seeing into the shadows.

It might help to understand the particular images I focus on if you also understand that I am a poet specifically from the upper peninsula of Michigan, that spit of land that extends east from the Wisconsin border, above “the mitten,” comprising the southern shore of Lake Superior, and the northern shores of lakes Michigan and Huron. It’s the ancestral homeland of the Ojibwe people. The “Superior” I reference in the poem is the selfsame lake, a sweetwater sea that dominates the landscape and the weather of the place I call home. So when I write about trees, it tends to be trees from my neck of the woods. The “Wind Hag,” specifically, is a personification of the gales that blow off Lake Superior in late autumn (have you ever heard the Gordon Lightfoot song, “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald?”), based primarily on the Ojibwe legend about the lake spirit, the Wendigo. “Crow feather,” and “tea cedar” are likewise regionally and culturally specific images, but also literal things I like to go looking foraging for in the woods. Mostly, I’m after mushrooms, but I have a collection of crow feathers on my mantel, and I love a cup of white cedar tea on a cold night.

Another of my core beliefs is in duality—the good with the bad, the light with the dark, what I think of as the ugly/beautiful. You mention my use of the word “hag,” and how I make her dance beautifully in the poem. It’s been my experience that a person’s very best attributes can be their undoing, or that a person’s scars reveal their lived experience and wisdom. What one person sees as a blemish, another sees as a mark of beauty. Personal growth seldom comes without loss and heartache. Life is beautiful and eternal, but we as individuals are all mortal. To watch a powerful, roiling thunderstorm is to witness an event of supreme beauty, but it is terrible and often causes great destruction. Likewise, the Wind Hag.

I’m happy that my poem was able to bring you along with me on my walk. I hope I was able to answer some of your questions. But mostly, thank you for reading my poem, and for writing to me about it.

Sincerely,

M. Bartley Seigel

From Kevin, Grade 11

Dear Mr. M. Bartley Seigel,

My name is Kevin, and I’m an 11th grader at Edina High School in Minnesota. I’m currently taking AP US Literature and Language and Mrs. Benson is my teacher.

I strongly connected with your poem “Into the Thicket,” which came as a pleasant surprise to me. To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to the Dear Poet assignment. I don’t see myself as a great reader of poetry and I used to generalize the literary art as boring, vague, and even pedantic. “Into the Thicket” and other poems of yours such as “Lake Superior” shattered that perception I had of poetry, showing me that poetry can be something profoundly meaningful and even enjoyable. There were many things I enjoyed about your poems, but the raw intensity of your poems was what I enjoyed most. While reading your poems I was reminded of the beautiful reading of “Do Not Go Gentle into that Goodnight” in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, because the scale of emotional intensity is so similar.

From my perspective, I saw “Into the Thicket” as a call to face discomfort head-on. I interpreted it as a poem about the value of grit and perseverance in a vast world that is filled with hardship. Personally, when I think about standing up to fear there are a few important memories that come to my mind. I’m only seventeen but there have already been several pivotal points in my life where I chose to either face my fears or let them control me. I still live with many consequences of those decisions, for better or worse. I wanted to ask, were there any crucial moments in your life that inspired you to write this poem?

There were three main reasons I interpreted such a powerful message from your poem.

First was your juxtaposition of wants and realities throughout the poem. Pleasantries such as “tea cedar, crow feather” (1) contrast sharply with the rugged connotations of “mud still warm” and “fogging” (2), highlighting how the world around us often fails to live up to what we want from it. As a result, sometimes all we can do in the face of uncertainty is to “worry our best wishes” (11-12) as you said. Worry and wishes are opposites, but we have to reconcile these two emotions if we are to endure the hardships of life, whatever they may be. Doing so demonstrates grit—in the form of accepting things we can’t control.

A second idea that contributed to my interpretation was your consistent personification of nature, which was also heavily present in “Lake Superior” and “In the Bone-Cracking Cold.” I quickly realized that you love nature, and that love shined through each of your poems. In “Into the Thicket” the moon and forests are almost deified as “Frost Moon” (4) and “Ironwood” (5), while “The Wind Hag” is a dancer “pirouetting north” (7-8). Portraying nature in this way—an elegant and almost supernatural force—emphasizes our insignificance in the face of the natural world. It reminds me of standing before majestic mountains in New Mexico and Yellowstone, feeling both awed and utterly tiny. When I view the natural world with this kind of reverence it allows me to understand my true place on this Earth, and also helps me realize the futility of wanting everything in life to be easy, predictable, and comfortable. Approaching your poem from this perspective, I can’t help but think that the landscape of Upper Michigan inspired much of your poetry—why do you think natural beauty is so powerful to people?

Lastly, I interpreted powerful symbolism in the word choice of both the title and closing line. As I scrolled through the list of Dear Poet poems, the title “Into the Thicket” really popped out off the screen. With that word, Thicket, my memory immediately traveled to grueling backpack trips and yard work that gets you up to your knees in weeds. For me, a thicket symbolizes a nasty, unpleasant ordeal, something you can literally and figuratively only get through by cutting straight through it. The closing line of “casting spells against the coming darkness” (12) further elevated this message. I see spells as analogous to the abstract and almost magical nature of the human spirit—we are often able to summon hope from nothing—whilst coming darkness symbolizes unfamiliarity, change, and especially discomfort. This line truly captured the essence of the poem for me, because we can’t avoid hardship that’s as inevitable as coming darkness, but we can still cast spells, spells of hope, and spells of perseverance.

So overall, I viewed “Into the Thicket” as a rallying cry—a call to action with no specific instructions but brimming with hope and defiance. I’m curious whether my interpretation was similar to yours while writing—what message did you hope to send with this poem?

Before I end this letter Mr. Seigel, I wanted to thank you for changing my view of poetry. Prior to reading your work, I would’ve described poetry as overly academic to the point of silliness. I assumed that poetry could never inspire, galvanize, or even just entertain. Now, I view poetry as something that can be inspirational, even badass. That word might not be good for my grade but it’s how I truly feel about your poems—they’ve opened up a world of literary enjoyment and inspiration for me.

Sincerely,

Kevin

Dear Kevin,

Thank you so much for choosing my poem, “Into the Thicket,” for your Dear Poet project, and for posing so many thoughtful observations and questions about it. Certainly, no one has ever called this poem “badass” before, and that alone makes me pretty happy.

You’re right about the personification, and I have to admit to being something of an animist in my beliefs. I think it’s very difficult to spend a lot of intimate time in nature and not come to see everything as being imbued with its own kind of spirit, sometimes inhuman and other, but oftentimes kindred and knowable. We’re all part of the same whole, afterall. So I find myself, more often than not, imbuing the world I inhabit with personhood and agency. Trees, rocks, a swamp, a river, weather, this animal or that, they all have their own being, their own driving force, and I have a lot of respect and awe for that. It definitely runs throughout my writing.

You’re right, too, about my being something of an imagist. In really simplistic terms, I think of each and every poem I write as a little picture postcard, and I’m always trying to convey the image on that postcard to the reader, vividly showing them what I see in the water and in the water's reflection. Underneath the still image is a swift current of mythology, folklore, history, and depth of symbolism and metaphor and meaning we bring with us to each word and phrase. Like going to the forest to find feathers or acorns, we go to poetry to forage, too. The more we read and think about what we’ve read, the more attuned we become to seeing into the shadows.

Being from Minnesota, you understand better than some that I am a poet specifically from the upper peninsula of Michigan, that spit of land that extends east from the Wisconsin border, above “the mitten,” comprising the southern shore of Lake Superior, and the northern shores of lakes Michigan and Huron. Like parts of Minnesota, it’s the ancestral homeland of the Ojibwe people. The “Superior” I reference in the poem is the selfsame lake, a sweetwater sea that dominates the landscape and the weather of the place I call home. So when I write about trees, it tends to be trees from my neck of the woods. The “Wind Hag,” specifically, is a personification of the gales that blow off Lake Superior in late autumn (you have, of course, heard the Gordon Lightfoot song, “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald?”), based primarily on the Ojibwe legend about the lake spirit, the Wendigo. “Crow feather,” and “tea cedar” are likewise regionally and culturally specific images, but also literal things I like to go looking foraging for in the woods. Mostly, I’m after mushrooms, but I have a collection of crow feathers on my mantel, and I love a cup of white cedar tea on a cold night.

What you hone in on in your letter is my use of duality—the good with the bad, the light with the dark, what I think of as the ugly/beautiful. I use the word “hag,” but I make her dance beautifully in the poem. Or I use the word thicket, with all of its complicated symbolism. It’s been my experience that a person’s very best attributes can be their undoing, or that a person’s scars reveal their lived experience and wisdom. What one person sees as a blemish, another sees as a mark of beauty. Personal growth seldom comes without loss and heartache. Life is beautiful and eternal, but we as individuals are all mortal. To watch a powerful, roiling thunderstorm is to witness an event of supreme beauty, but it is terrible and often causes great destruction. Likewise, the Wind Hag or the thicket. Duality.

I’m very gratified you found so much to like in this little poem, and pleased that it opened up the possibilities of poetry for you. I’m happy that my poem was able to bring you along with me on my walk. I hope I was able to answer some of your questions. But mostly, thank you for reading my poem, and for writing to me about it.

Sincerely,

M. Bartley Seigel

From Nick, Grade 11

Dear Mr. Seigel,

My name is Nick, and I am a junior at Edina High School. When I first read your poem, I found an instant connection to your work. Coming from Minnesota, I spend most of my free time outside and enjoying what Minnesota offers. When reading your poem, I quickly recalled experiences similar to those expressed. This understanding I don’t often find in poetry urged me forward to continue reading your poems and to strengthen this connection I felt I had with your style. I read your poems “Wave after Wave” and “In the Bone Cracking Cold” where you explore the beauty of nature and all of its fascinating events. I want to tell you what I thought about your poem “Into the Thicket” and the many questions that came of it.

After reading “Into the Thicket,” I believe you indicate two central arguments. First, I think that you pose that we are destroying the natural tendencies of nature. Using phrases with immersive imagery such as “We go looking for the tea cedar ... but find the mud still warm under our feet” (2), you emphasize that global warming is a shared experience and burdens us all, demonstrated by the use of pronouns such as “we” and “our.”

As I mentioned before, I spend a lot of my time exploring the vast wilderness of Minnesota. One of my favorite places to visit is the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota. Recently, I learned about the fate of this special place to me. Scheduled sulfide-ore copper mining will occur shortly, transforming the once pristine lakes into a sea of toxic runoff. I became deeply involved in the issue and joined many local youth organizations in conservation efforts. While I find it is inspiring to see many people banded together, I often find it hard to comprehend how such dramatic change to millions of years of growth can be destroyed instantly. This feeling I assume you also recognize in your poem.

The poem mentions that we “know we’ll waltz on over the Frost Moon” (4). This affirmative tone references our tendency to overlook such small events and not notice the larger picture. Relatively small events such as the lakes freezing over later than most years is something that I frequently don’t find distressful. I, along with so many others, often believe that it will eventually return to normal and that the early snowmelt is a one-time thing that can be dismissed. This view brought me to many questions regarding this passage. Do you draw inspiration because of a noticeable change during your life, either in the Upper Peninsula or during your many explorations? Knowing you are a professor at Michigan Tech, how do you teach students to use their work for something they are passionate about, something greater than them, as you did with this writing?

The second idea that I believe you infer is that nature and the wilderness are immense beyond the understanding of any human. You use personification in descriptions such as “The Wind Hag... beginning her winter dance” (7) to say that nature is a larger-than-life event controlled by forces outside our grasp. I also find your attachment to lake Superior quite critical, especially the mention of “Superior throbbing her meter into the basalt below and beyond simple ken” (9). This large body of freshwater you mention almost feels unhuman-like, but you make a comprehensible attribute through personification. The chain reaction of the shift in seasons causing the drop in the “meter” is such a simple idea, yet it is challenging to quantify its effect. When looking for ways to quantify events beyond our understanding, I often look to Native American culture.

Growing up in Minnesota, Native American history is essential to all of our history. In many of your works, mainly “Wave after Wave,” you included many words specific to the native Ojibwe language. The connection that the Native American culture has with nature is one I find remarkably fascinating and prevalent in understanding how to apprehend such feats of nature. Has growing up in Michigan and being surrounded by such culture influenced your writing?

When visiting Superior, I often feel humbled. I believe this comes from the inner peace and reflection it allows me to have. My favorite book as a child was “Hatchet” by the late Gary Paulsen. The main character’s outside life is suddenly muffled when he becomes reliant on nature and develops a harmony with the forest. How has living in a place where such natural beauty is abundant allowed you to have a different perspective than someone who lives in the city?

I want to thank you for your insight into such monumental topics and the perspective you have given me about poetry.

Sincerely,

Nick

Dear Nick,

Thank you so much for choosing my poem, “Into the Thicket,” for your Dear Poet project, and for posing so many thoughtful observations and questions about it. The parts of Michigan and Minnesota where we live are very similar in many ways, it’s true. It’s always nice to write to and be read by a kindred spirit, as there’s perhaps less to explain. That said, I’ll try to answer some of your questions as best as I’m able.

You’re right about the importance of immersive imagery in my poems. In really simplistic terms, I think of each and every poem I write as a little picture postcard, and I’m always trying to convey the image on that postcard to the reader, vividly showing them what I see in the water and in the water's reflection. Underneath the still image is a swift current of mythology, folklore, and history, and the depth of symbolism and metaphor and meaning brought along with each word and phrase. Like going to the forest to find feathers or tea cedar, we go to poetry to forage, too. The more we read and think about what we’ve read, the more attuned we become to seeing into the shadows. For me, one thing lurking in the shadows is global climate change, and I was alluding to that at least in part. Another read on the warm mud is simply my experience of the earth being a living breathing thing—as you say, both separate from us and bigger than us, yet at the same time we are part of it. I guess I would call myself something of an animist. I think it’s very difficult to spend a lot of intimate time in nature and not come to see everything as being imbued with its own kind of spirit, sometimes inhuman and other, but oftentimes kindred and knowable. We’re all part of the same whole, afterall. So I find myself, more often than not, imbuing the world I inhabit with personhood and agency. Trees, rocks, a swamp, a river, weather, this animal or that, they all have their own being, their own driving force, and I have a lot of respect and awe for that. It definitely runs throughout my writing.

Being from Minnesota, you understand better than some that I am a poet specifically from the upper peninsula of Michigan, that spit of land that extends east from the Wisconsin border, above “the mitten,” comprising the southern shore of Lake Superior, and the northern shores of lakes Michigan and Huron. Like parts of Minnesota, it’s the ancestral homeland of the Ojibwe. The “Wind Hag,” specifically, is a personification of the gales that blow off Lake Superior in late autumn (of which I’m sure you are familiar), and based primarily on the Ojibwe legend about the lake spirit, Wendigo. “Crow feather,” and “tea cedar” are likewise regionally and culturally specific images, but also literal things I like to go foraging for in the woods. Mostly, I’m after mushrooms, but I have a collection of crow feathers on my mantel, and I love a cup of white cedar tea on a cold night. I am not Ojibwe, myself, but many of my friends and neighbors are, and having lived in such close proximity for as long as I have, I have a great respect and affection for the people. Occasionally, when writing about this place, I’ve used Anishinaabemowin words, as it is the first language of this place, so what better language to use to describe it than the one that evolved for such a purpose. It is an extraordinarily beautiful and insightful language, and I wish I knew more of it. That said, one has to be very careful and respectful with what isn’t one’s own. I’m not certain I’ve always gotten it right, but I’ve good people around me from whom to listen and learn.

I’m very gratified you found so much to like in my little poem, and I’m happy that my poem was able to bring you and I together for a little walk of our own. I hope I was able to answer some of your questions. But mostly, thank you for reading, and thank you for writing.

Sincerely,

M. Bartley Seigel

Dear M. Bartley Seigel 2022

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M. Bartley Seigel reads "Into the Thicket"

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