Lucy Tyrrell, Bayfield Poet Laureate 2020–2021
Bayfield is proud to have Lucy Tyrrell as our 2020–2021 Poet Laureate.
Lucy Tyrrell‘s interests in nature and wild landscapes, outdoor pursuits (mushing, hiking, canoeing), and travel are what inspire her writing and art.
She cherishes the 16 years she spent in Alaska, but she recently moved with her eight huskies back to the Lower 48.
For her new chapter of life near Bayfield, Wisconsin, she traded a big mountain (Denali) for a big lake (Lake Superior).
During her tenure as poet laureate she has organized a number of events including two projects funded by a grant from the Chequamegon Bay Arts Council to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, an area poetry walk, and several in person and virtual poetry readings. Scroll back through our calendar to find these events! Or do a website search on “Lucy” from our website “footer” below.
Here are five poems, one written during each year Lucy Tyrrell has lived in Bayfield — plus the "Votes for Women" poem "commissioned" in 2020.
Lucy Tyrrell
Bayfield—Don’t Stop at Five Words
These Bayfield hills hold precious.
Its landscapes reveal more when.
Gichigami’s red cliffs stand for.
Big Water now waiting to.
Low green islands offshore provide.
Sailboats and kayaks skim quiet.
Lighthouses glimmer when gales torment.
Tankers and ore boats cross.
Sled dogs lope trails, winter.
Summer gardens dapple color despite.
Orchards dangle apples ready for.
Translucent lutefisk tastes better with.
Clapboard houses have withstood even.
Gritty sandstone pillars rise above.
Brownstone Trail meanders, for many.
Big Ravine, Iron Bridge remember.
Down Manypenny and Rittenhouse, going.
Those lumber mill days saw.
Reminisce historic calamities at time.
Names tell stories of living.
Seasons change, but one thing.
I’d trade anything for not.
Bayfield is where I almost.
I live here now because.
Lucy Tyrrell
2017
White on the River
Clouds
drift in
surface-float,
zigzag birch trunk
splays on river flow.
Water lily petals
double in reflection.
Ebony jewel damselflies
alight—white spot on female wings.
Water escapes log tangle, bubbles white.
Even when landscape dissolves shades of green
in mud-green river, white calls our gaze—
tail band of flycatching kingbird,
light belly as red-tail soars,
petals of arrowhead,
glare on our paddles
as we pull red
canoe through
August
heat.
Lucy Tyrrell
2018, published in Bramble
I hit a deer
after dark
even with bright beams
out of nowhere
brown form comes
it happens so quickly
ears, lanky legs, thick body
illumined motion
one last leap
trembling thud—
breaking, shattering
plastic shards
hail on the road
I pull over
flashers on
engine off
inspect the damage
big doe sprawled
reposed on grass
flanks, belly heave
soundless last breaths
beyond repair
round lamps of eyes
extinguished
in the silence
Lucy Tyrrell
2019, published in Alaska Women Speak
gaze out the open window
enter green worlds of early summer—
over the swaying grasses, swallowtail
rises, dances to the scent of lilacs
graceful wings proclaim freedom
embrace each precious cell of life
fireflies at dusk blink soft
light of landscape and place
overwhelm a simple heart
yes—yet, mourn deeply at this window—nature can’t erase
death-press, knee to Black neck, whose voice cries,
“I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. Mama. Mama.”
Lucy Tyrrell
2020, published on Wilda Morris’s Poetry Blogspot
This is an acrostic poem, i.e., the first letter of each line spells out a name
Votes for Women!
For decades fought the petticoats
with speeches brandished from their throats,
petitions, marches, banner quotes
“for women’s votes, for women’s votes!”
In Seneca Falls, the anthem grew
as Declaration words make new
with Sentiments for women too—
old ways undo, old ways undo.
In eighteen sixty-nine (back then!)
Wyoming gals could vote like men.
In time, states number more than ten—
lace votes again, lace votes again.
The skirts begin to agitate.
Amendment draft sparks long debate,
words Susan pens in ’78.
Yet vote must wait, yet vote must wait.
With tactics new comes Alice Paul,
she leads the charge to overhaul
the women’s suffrage scene; her call,
grant rights to all, grant rights to all.
Though struggles long, vict’ry at last,
a milestone reached, when Congress passed
Nineteenth—disenfranchisement dashed!
Vote-hope recast, vote-hope recast.
But states must ratify these words,
required approval by three-fourths.
Though Illinois shows up rehearsed,
Wisconsin’s first, Wisconsin’s first!
In Tennessee, amendment rides
on yellow roses. Starry-eyed,
one red rose “yellows,” turns the tide—
now ratified, now ratified!
In 1920, plays the band—
at polling places, she can stand!
Her ballots count, placed by her hand—
across the land, across the land.
So sweet the millions, votes hard won
for women—yet, the cry begun
sings on so citizens, bar none,
cast votes each one, cast votes each one.
Lucy Tyrrell, Bayfield Poet Laureate
August 26, 2020, published in The Leaguer, League of Women Voters of Ashland and Bayfield Counties