Poetry

This spring I took Poetry Writing with Heather McNaugher. (A warning to fall '09 students--she is a fantastic teacher and generally very informal but prefers to be called Dr. McNaugher. I can't get used to it so I don't talk to her without first making eye contact. Kind of like I did when I was a kid and at a friend's house and wasn't sure how to address my friends' parents...Mr? Mrs? First name?).

Anyhow, it was a wonderful class and I've decided to make poetry writing my main focus, though I still plan to finish my CNF dual focus. I don't know what I'll decide to do for my thesis. Just poetry, a little bit of both. We shall see.

I have always loved the idea of writing poetry, of being a person who writes poetry, but I've never felt confident in my ability to turn out anything coherent or meaningful. But now, all of a sudden, I feel like a natural and am pleased with my own work for the first time in a long time. To focus in on a single event, a single topic, a single thought is so liberating. What I like most about writing is that it often feels like a puzzle--and I must figure out how the pieces fit together, sounding them out again and again until I get a sentence right. In CNF this slows me down, but in poetry this is the whole point. CNF has felt so cumbersome to me lately. Not reading it--I love reading it--but writing it. I hope to join up with you all in the spring of '10. We have such a rapport that I'd rather not lose. But if you want to send me anything, I'd be glad to read and respond. You all have so much say. (And I do too, I just need a break from prose I think...)

Here are two poems I'm proud of from this semester:

Amber Street
Yours is a locked ward
and a guard stands sentry at the gate.
He runs a wand lightly over my arms and legs
in case I've brought something to
spring you out.

I saw you pour the pills
down the drain, watched
them melt into a gluey mess.
And I heard you creep
through our room at night,
snip quietly at my dresses
with red-handled scissors.
You'd fold each dress and
tuck it carefully in my drawer,
cut up like a paper snowflake.

Now you lie in this hospital bed,
curled like a morning glory at night.
I tug the stiff sheet down,
work a knot at the base of your spine,
and think of the night
I passed out on Amber Street.

A late autumn party,
a swarm of kids on the lawn.
You caught me as I stepped off the curb
and crumpled like a shriveled brown leaf.

I smelled of Bud Light and vomit,
but you held me firmly.
You held me as though I might break.


Double Yellow Lines (for Erik)
My blond tangles run wild against your chest
and I finger the dark beard that climbs your face like ivy.
The streetlight casts us in muted yellow
as we lie on blue pillows
in our brand new bed.

I chatter like a friendly child
and you listen like a loving mother as
I chronicle my life in bursts--

When I was young I brought lilacs to my teachers in spring,
stems wrapped in foil, a makeshift vase.

At sixteen I tried hard to swear,
vowed to say "fuck" at least once per day, though I winced every time.

And now I've driven drunk down every street of this town--
over bridges, through tunnels, eyes fixed firmly on the doubling yellow line.