by Rob Carney | Contributing Writer

Dear Z: The Zygote Epistles
Diane Raptosh
Etruscan Press, 2020
In Dear Z: The Zygote Epistles, the third book of a poetic trilogy, Diane Raptosh gives us cultural X-rays and diagnoses along with visions of a better way. Raptosh started this project with American Amnesiac (Etruscan Press, 2013). In that collection, her speaker canât make sense of who he used to be now that heâs become a tabula rasa. Apparently he used to work for Goldman Sachs, which, with his new eyes, he sees as a human tar pit. In the middle book, Human Directional (Etruscan Press, 2016), the speaker is likewise perplexed, and that awful jobâholding and spinning an advert sign to point passing cars toward one business or another, being whatâs called a âhuman directionalââis a loaded metaphor. Itâs a way to show us where we are, where weâre going, why itâs not good, and why we need to change. Now, in the trilogyâs finale, the speaker is a soon-to-be great aunt, and sheâs speaking to the future. Luckily, readers get to hear her too.
Hear what? First of all, voice. Raptoshâs voice is full of sonic mojo. And it kaleidoscopes. Itâs as if Luckyâs âThink Speechâ in Waiting for Godot went dancing with Janis Joplin, and they collided with a manic Jack Kerouac and the owl from that 70s Tootsie Pop commercial, after which they all sit at the bar and make remarks about everyone texting. âZygote,â the speaker says to her future grandniece,
in our age thinking is seen
as a lump of cold lotion, mostly a thingtoo mutant-dreamy to do. Do you bereave me? Would you
agree to the use of cookies? Donât you just hate
when the no-good knuckles over the truth? Give me
your nevermore hand: Let us become oblong
sans-nation transitionals.
Itâs a good critique and a better wish, and she follows it up soon after with this:
Dear Z,
The collective brainâs
migrated
to the spectacle pit,
the world in its
permanent warfare suits, its plague of blue angers,
realityâs X-outs [. . .]
Would you rather real-life swim
or live-stream?
That last bit is all about natureâabout whatâs natural versus notâand itâs key to the bookâs whole project. Here the speaker asks the essential question in the form of clever oppositional wordplay, and then hopes the answerâfrom her future grandniece, and from the present-day readerâis yes to real life.
In the bookâs shortest letterâjust a single line longâshe puts it this way: âDear Zygote, // What we call the world is alsoâperhaps more accuratelyâcalled the without.â For the speaker, this world-as-without formulation means that life is too full of denial and absence and lack of. Itâs strong and succinct writing, like a rock chucked in a pond, after which the ripples keep meaning and meaning: If the world is âthe without,â then the world is separate from our inner selves, from our thoughts, souls, and interior monologues. In fact, itâs whatâs getting in the way of our inner selves.
And Raptosh knows this. Itâs what sheâs been telling us across her last three books.
This hard truth from her speaker is just the beginning, though. The book moves from there to concern. After a lifetime of brains and experience, the speaker has sussed things out, and she doesnât want our current lack of (lack of ethics, lack of justice, lack of environmental stewardship) to be how things remain in her grandnieceâs future. She sees it all clearly, and says:
Dear Z,
youâre just an old flit
off the infinite-quickie.
Youâre this ageâs latest, for realzâ
where latest means newnessâs
baby. [. . .]
Pretend that
you know the drill
of the shell corporations,
those not-anywheres, those surpluser nationsâ
distant money troves. Ho! The shit things
we think to twiddle
our thumb-quicknesses on:
Reality jousts its own touchscreen.
She sees it and says even more matter-of-factly:
Warming polar zones means
good news for a fleck
of red alga, but thatâs about it.
And she brings these concerns together with othersâfor instance, Americaâs epidemic of mass-shootingsâbut also tells her future grandniece why she wonât give up:
Dear Z,
[. . .]
I can hardly write when I think
of what happened in June
in Orlandoâs Pulse Nightclub,
but itâs worse to refuse to.
Does she mean itâs worse psychologically; as in, not writing would deepen the despair? Or does she mean itâs worse sociologically; as in, not writing back against everything thatâs wrong is a sin of omission? Probably both, and then she continues on from there.
In section âIII: Dear Zeitgeist,â we get lessons in hope to counterbalance the worldâs stupidities and injustices. For instance, she writes, âDear Rich Jam, // [. . . ] Iâve come to feel // vaguely parental. Itâs pre-natalâs anagram. / As verse is serveâs.â For instance, she writes, âDear Z, // New Zealand views animals by law / not as objects but sentient beings.â And in section âIV: The X Y and Zâs,â we get music history, logic lessons, a whole gumbo of pop culture, and a wild language parade from start to finish, but we also get this calm and well-placed island to rest on: âDear Z, / Your Georgia aunt could not pronounce idea / in such a way it did not end in ear.â Of course, ideas begin with the ear tooâthe Alpha and Omegaâand Raptoshâs speaker is making it clear that thinking is inseparable from listening. We need to listen to the lessons of history (X), and listen better in our own present time (Y), and listen to whatâs waiting in the future (Z) because the future is asking us to please stop ruining it all in advance.
âSection V: Forgive, Relieveâ presents us with how to avoid that. Turns out, it isnât that difficult. âTo counter this,â the speaker says, âeveryone must come to see // all residents as members of my group.â Why that still needs saying in 2020, and why it takes Dear Z: The Zygote Epistles to paint it like a sign and nail it to the wall, is hard to fathom. Raptosh fathoms it plenty, though, and has her speaker repeat it once more in another way, saying that we must come to see that âthe pain of othersâ is âour severest strand of anguish.â Then the rest of section V goes zooming, accelerating, and that pace helps to set up the bookâs closing contrast where, as if weâre finally coasting downhill, the speaker gives us this:
Dear Listen,
Iâll give you how some scenes in life
might still fall in lineâ
but at the brink level
of emblem or myth.
And how even an unpeopled Idaho
may end up this wow-state to live
if youâre big into seas of dry land
and open-vowel euphony policies,
where the poet is known to be
cowboy of wild rye and the open page,
riding out trails on a word called horse,
raveling its earths in some human disguise.
Now thatâs a vision to pass on to a grandniece: the belief that the next generations might still know how to be open, natural, and wild. And it also rounds full circle to the bookâs beginning. There, in the opening letter, the speaker began by saying, âYou cannot undo // the done-unto-you, / but you can forgive it.â And here, in the final letter, we see that forgiveness being demonstrated. The real is not the ideal. Not yet and maybe not ever.
But it can try.
—
Diane Raptoshâs fourth book of poetry, American Amnesiac (Etruscan Press) was longlisted for the 2013 National Book Award as well as a finalist for the Housatonic Book Award in poetry. The recipient of the Idaho Governorâs Arts Award in Excellence (2018), she is a three-time State of Idaho Literature Fellow. She has also served as Boise Poet Laureate (2013) as well as the Idaho Writer-in-Residence (2013-2016), the highest literary honor in the state. An active poetry ambassador, she has given poetry workshops everywhere from riverbanks to maximum-security prisons. She teaches creative writing and directs the program in Criminal Justice/Prison Studies at The College of Idaho.
Rob Carney is the author of seven books of poems, most recently The Last Tiger Is Somewhere, co-written with Scott Poole (Unsolicited Press, 2020), Facts and Figures (Hoot ânâ Waddle, 2020), and The Book of Sharks (Black Lawrence Press, 2018), which was named a finalist for the 2019 Washington State Book Award for Poetry. His first book of creative nonfiction, titled Accidental Gardens (Parndana, South Australia: Stormbird Press) is forthcoming later this year. Carney writes a featured series for Terrain.org called âOld Roads, New Stories.â He is Professor of English and Literature at Utah Valley University and lives in Salt Lake City.