Two Wonderful St. Paul Poets - Kevin Fitzpatrick and Norita Dittberner-Jax

Two Poets in Five Days - Kevin Fitzpatrick and Norita Dittberner-Jax


For those unfamiliar with the Twin Cities poetry scene, it might seem unlikely to find two such fine poets reading almost back to back. There was Kevin Fitzpatrick at the funky Midstream venue, just over the Mississippi from St. Paul on Thursday night, September 14, and Norita Dittberner-Jax at the beautiful St. Paul Swedenborgian church on Sunday afternoon, the 17. Their work, especially about primary love, rings so true that it makes me gasp—in laughter and heart-break.

Their life-experiences have not been doled out evenly. Of Kevin’s lively and touching poems, I found myself gravitating toward those that treat of his love for Tina, and Tina’s choice to leave the city for farming. Years ago when I knew Kevin in the Lake Street Writers Group, he was a completely urban guy. Now I encounter this tall, lanky, urbanite reading poems about lambing and sheep-dipping. Never in my wildest dreams, years ago, did I imagine Kevin on a farm.

Tina has strong opinions about berries. The first poem in Kevin’s collection, Still Living in Town (Midwest Villages and Voices, 2017), begins as Kevin reads a poem by Seamus Heaney to Tina. She interrupts: "I wouldn't wash wild berries....They'll rot..." Kevin's last stanza admits,

     I don't know who to freeze or put up:

     Nobel prize winner Seamus Heaney,

     whose poetry I love and admire,

     or Tina, who I also love and admire

     and who's a three-time Mille Lacs area

     4-H grand canning champion. (p. 11)

The humor is infectious even as it settles the question of exactly who to trust with berries. And no doubt with real life.

Two facing poems in Norita Dittberner-Jax collection Crossing the Waters (Nodin Press, 2017) describe with poignant love the weight of her husband's illness from Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS). In the first (p. 46) "The Window Facing West," she asks,

    How can losing the light be sweet?

    How can the waning days

    of your strength be tender?

In this contemplative pause between light and darkness, she sits alone "as I will be./ You are gone for only an hour." But those quiet words convey the inevitable loss. Then comes a reprieve in the poem's last two lines:

    The bronze of the desk fades. The door

    of your return clicks open.

We sigh with gratitude for them both, beloveds of long standing.

On the right hand side opposite is a long poem with lots of air, titled "The Kiss." Here it is entire:

At the graduation, people ask about you

or don't.

Later, you say when I leave the house I forget

to kiss you.

Are you becoming invisible

to me?

I would rather forget

my name.

After I am sad and pondering the meaning,

I think,

he misses

my kisses.

reminding me of our losing each other

at the Dead Sea resort

you had an announcer summon me;

you were mad

and I was happy, knowing you would never

leave me behind.

***

Brevity and sudden wit in the midst of loss, hope, and undying love. For me, it is one of the lightest and most buoyant poems in this book of sadness and affirmation.

We are so lucky, so wealthy to have both these voices, renewed in handsome volumes. 
     * Kevin Fitzpatrick, Still Living in Town (Midwest Villages and Voices, midwestvillages@yahoo.com)

     * Norita Dittberner-Jax, Crossing the Waters (Nodin Press, 5114 Cedar Lake Road, Minneapolis, 55416)