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Secretariat book cover Secretariat: The Red Freak, The Miracle

by Lyn Lifshin

$12.95 List
Paperback: 5.5 x 8.5
ISBN: 978-1-937875-61-9

Poetry, Paperback, 160 pages
Published by Texas Review Press
Order from Amazon or any good bookstore.
 Lyn's web:www.lynlifshin.com

 

AS THE DAYS GET LONGER

the horse dreams
of flying in the air
like a gust of wind
on an abandoned
Christmas tree,
red exploding like
a spurt of light,
flaming wildly like
those boughs
out of darkness

 

Author's Bio

Lyn Lifshin has published  over 130 books and chapbooks including 3 from Black Sparrow Press: Cold Comfort, Before It's Light and Another Woman Who Looks Like Me. Before Secretariat: The Red Freak, The Miracle, Lifshin published her prize winning book about the short lived beautiful race horse Ruffian, The Licorice Daughter: My Year With Ruffian and  Barbaro: Beyond Brokenness.  Recent books include Ballroom, All the Poets Who Have Touched Me, Living and Dead. All True, Especially The Lies, Light At the End: The Jesus Poems, Katrina, Mirrors, Persphone, Lost In The Fog,  Knife Edge & Absinthe: The Tango Poems .  NYQ books published A Girl Goes into The Woods. Also  just out: For the Roses poems after Joni Mitchell and Hitchcock Hotel from Danse Macabre. Secretariat: The Red Freak, The Miracle.  And Tangled as the Alphabet— The Istanbul Poems from NightBallet Press Just released as well  Malala,   the dvd of Lyn Lifshin: Not Made of Glass. The Marilyn Poems was just released from Rubber Boots Press. An update to her Gale Research Autobiography is out: Lips, Blues, Blue Lace: On The Outside. Also just out is a dvd of the documentary film about her: Lyn Lifshin: Not Made Of Glass. Forthcoming books include Luminous Women:Eneduanna, Schererzade and Nefertiti: Femina Eterna and Moving Through Stained Glass: the Maple Poems.

Acknowledgement: Not only does Lifshin penetrate the physical genius of this super horse, she feels out Secretariat's noble spirit from birth onward-- -"the foal's foreleg folded like a petal before it opens" -so that we almost sense what it is like to be inside the skin of this blazing colt destined- for greatness---his heightened perfection, his extreme sensitivity, sense pride and authority. "Trying to fault Secretariat's confirmation is like dreaming of dry rain.
In Lifshin's language, spare yet metaphorically profound, we enter into that animal grace that only a true poet can convey, as we race on from poem, joining Secretariat in triumph--not for a win but a coronation"
                               — Laura Chester


Lyn Lifshin's portrait of the great horse Secretariat is tender, powerful, moving and wondrous as she follows his birth, colthood, shining career and forced retirement as gently as a mother singing a lullaby to her child and as proudly as if Secretariat were her own, with an added gifted flair for the mixture of discipline and wild abandon and joy that was his in running. Ensconced in her poetry, this miracle of speed and grace and intelligence will continue to live on in the hearts of every reader, even those who usually don't read poetry, as her writing is both beautiful and accessible. Lifshin's Secretariat: The Red Freak, The Miracle is a book that will be remembered as much as the great Secretariat himself.

                               — Christina Zawadiwsky

Wins by 31 lengths! Championing the life and death of a champion, including the unexpected poetry of laminitis

I admit it. I bought this book because I wanted to read how a wonderful poet like Lyn Lifshin would capture Secretariat's death from laminitis in poetry. I was not disappointed.

I did find a proofreading error in it; someone, somewhere changed the horse's coffin bone in the foot to the cannon bone in the leg, but if you can just make a mental errata slip, Ms Lifshin's vision of laminitis ripping his feet apart is tender and true, and the description of Secretariat's day of death seems accurate with the biographical details in other books.

Much of Secretariat's real story is open to interpretation or may never be known. Poetry is an ideal way to interpret the horse we will never forget, the one we thought we knew, and the one who meant so much--albeit something different--to each of his fans. (And still does.)

Secretariat's life told in poems? A winner by 31 lengths, just like its inspiring subject.

— Fran Jurga

 

Horse Lovers & Poetry Lovers Unite!

Ah joy! Just finished "Secretariat". I couldn't put it down. What a beautifully crafted book, how beautifully these poems are put together into a whole. I loved every part of the book. I didn't know about this remarkable horse's life before reading the book. I felt drawn into the perceptions of his life, from his point of view and the viewpoints of his grooms, trainers, jockeys, fans. So uplifting and yet so sad at the end, but still this remarkable horse lives on in our dreams and hopes. The poems are delicious. I felt Lifshin had written many more on this subject, but cut it down to the bare bones, which is quite effective.

— Alicia Aaronowitz

A Selection of Poems

ON A NIGHT HERONS WERE DIVING THRU THE WAVES OF NIGHT

up in the forties weeks
past heavy February snow.
Geese on the pond. Bleak,
drizzly. Black mist over
Meadow Farm. Grass
flattened, matted as in
hours straw will be in the
foaling shed, a dark rose
spreading under the mare's
heaving sighs


WET GRASS DARKENING

the walk past the barn
as blood would matted
straw before it was
light again. Two figures
cross the lawn, the
wildness of geese in the
distance. The men
get in a car. One bulb
hangs in the foaling shed.
Under the almost
jade slopes roots are
growing. The mare
calms herself with groan
songs as milk begins
to wax, pearls on
her nipples like
 a bud opening


THRU MIST, ONE LIGHT IN THE FOALING BARN

the drizzle, close to freezing.
In barn 17 A, the brood
mare, Somethingroyal,
carries  the last foal of Bold
Ruler, dying in Kentucky.
Milk on her nipples. if
the rafters. If rafters could
talk they would be singing
soon he will be yours and
you must take care of
what you've been given


THRU DAMP FIELDS PERFUMED WITH OAK LEAVES

the men moved thru drizzle
to barn 17 A, moved over
gravel in grey fog, moved
toward the one light. The
mare was breathing fast.
she was warm and sweaty,
edgy. She was circling
as if caged. Then she was
lying on her side. Then it
was just a heart beat before
the tip of a foot burst into
flower, the first petal  of
what would flower       


MARCH 30, JUST PAST MIDNIGHT

She was warm and her
nostrils, wild.  Ready,
nearly ready. Only
the mare's breath like     
a silence you could
understand. The mare
on straw on her side
and just past midnight
the tip of one foot.
Then,  gently as some
one kissing eyes that
are crying, the foaling
man reached in to ease
a folded leg out of the
birth canal


ONCE THE SHOULDER EMERGED

the men moved closer in the
long blue damp wind. Blood
on the warm straw. The mare's
body opening. The men pull
gently. Slosh of water and
then the foal' s slippery body,
iodine and the smell of birth
in the wind the minutes
after midnight. "A wooper,"
some. " "white feet, a lovely
colt," in Secretariat's record
fan book. "Lovely," was
underlined twice.


PAST WILLOWS ON THE MOST WESTERN EDGE OF THE FARM

The mare's udder swells
with milk, something
wax like drying on her
nipples like the just
polished swirls of wood.
After her wild breath,
the heaving, the blood,
three feet and a star,
dark flowers of his hair
against the drained mare
falling back easily as
the wind rising up
from North Anna's
River

RIVETED TO SECRETARIAT'S BURSTING FORTH

 those easing him from
Somethingroyal's body
said he was on his feet
in twenty minutes, in
45 he was nursing. "Big
strong, male foal with
plenty of bone." Warm
breath of horses, Carolina
Riverwind. In her log,
Elizabeth Ham the farm
secretary wrote "well
made colt, good straight
hind legs, good shoulders,
good quarters: you
have to like him."

 

Lyn Lifshin at the Horse Museum


IN PENNY CHENNERY'S NOTEBOOK AFTER THE NIGHT OF DRIZZLE, RAIN

as the river settled
and willow leaves
yellowed: one
word: Wow


WHEN A LEGGY FOAL COMES INTO THE WORLD

and cherry boughs are
swelling, hope flowers
like these buds. When
the foal seems different,
unlike others, who
doesn't dream it can
go the distance, that a
"miracle has arrived"


HE WAS DIFFERENT

someone who was around
Secretariat from the time
of his birth said he was
different. Just walking
the horse in the paddock
it was as if the wind
tongued the cups of his
ears and he a flash, if the
handler lost focus, the
horse knew it
and was gone


JUST WALKING THE HORSE TO THE PADDOCK

 a bruiser some
one said bigger than
the other foals his age.
His legs barely
touched the ground
under the shiny trees.
He could cuff the other
foals, bite and
kick . He was playing.
Licked by his
mare, not only at
birth but long after
with everyone touching
and holding him he
grew bolder,
confident


HE HAD A MIND OF HIS OWN

wild for something
deep in the bodies of
trees. He'd bolt in
a breathbeat. "A very
aggressive type colt."
Jazz in the air. Ghostly,
magical. A loop thru his
halter to keep him in
check


ON THAT FIRST DAY WAS SOMETHING ROYAL

his mare panting?
puzzled? Those huge
shoulders. Something
she couldn't see
quivering thru her.
The mare had foaled
easily before but
this time, even with
her feet on the dirt floor,
easier footing than
cement but this time
with the foal's fore leg
folded like a petal
before it opens,
someone following
the mare's contractions
gently eased him out of
the birth canal. Beautiful
the vet remembered,
his legs were perfect,
he had a beautiful
head and was
red as fire