Li-Young Lee Report

Perhaps rather than the cliched Shakespearean question of "what's in a name?", people should be inquiring, "what's in a background?". For poets, the answer most certainly is reflected by their work and a heavy influence of their style, focus and interests. Li-Young Lee is no exception. Born in Indonesia to Chinese parents, Lee spent much of his early life on the run. His parents had formed a doomed union from the start, being that his mother was the daughter of the first president of the Republic of China and his father was the bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks, it seemed, his family being associated with Chinese gangs and shady dealings. Although his father was actually an important doctor, Lee's parents were exiled from China and moved to Indonesia during Lee's infancy. His father, while an esteemed physician as a well of a founder of Gamaliel University in Indonesia, was subject to harsh anti-Chinese beliefs that were beginning to develop in Indonesia, as was the entire Lee family. It wasn't until 1964 that the 7-year-old Lee's family, who had been on the move for five years, finally settled in the United States. All of this proves relevant because Lee, who hadn't started talking till a late age anyway, stopped speaking once his family relocated to the US. Embarrassed by his inability to speak the language, Lee's only friends were other refugee children who also spoke different languages. Their similarities and connections lay in their mutual inabilities to communicate.

And so it was that Lee was no stranger to feelings of exile, isolation and loneliness, themes that make a strong appearance throughout much of his poetry. The theme of family is also a very present one among Lee's collections; his poems often discuss the topic of his father's own tenderness and their relationship, as well as speaking of his mother, their family tradition, and then his own relationship with his wife and feelings of being a father.

Much of the beauty in Lee's poetry exists because of the way he treats his poems- as "descendants of God." He has been revered for his use of "silence" in poetry, as well as for the near-mystical quality many of his poems have. Perhaps the very greatest quality of Lee's poetry is in its rawness and  unequivocal  humanness. He writes about the blasé every-day mundanities of life in such a way that makes them seem fresh and incredible. 

In Lee's poem "Braiding", he manages to not only make an every-day activity seem exotic and beautiful, but also to draw deep connections from his routine with his own love to that of his parents before him. He writes of sitting with his wife, gently combing and braiding her hair in such a potent way that the reader feels that they are there, in the room, intruding on some incredibly intimate moment of Lee's life. The line, "My father did this for my mother,/ just as I do for you," speaks volumes about how much it really means to Lee to be able to do this with his wife, as he remembers it being a tradition his own parents shared when he was growing up. That line alone sums up a lot of what is so incredible about Lee's family: it's deep intimacy, simplicity and focus on family and heritage. 

He also writes very frankly, yet reverently about sex, and manages to weave in much of what is saying with thinly-veiled Biblical references, as exampled in these lines from "The City in Which I Love You": "My tongue remembers your wounded flavor./ The vein in my neck/ adores you. A sword/ stands up between my hips,/ my hidden fleece sends forth its scent of human oil." His gentle pacing and employment of powerful, carefully chosen language, bring to mind the suggestion that his poems are so wonderful because of their use of "silence." To put a finger on Lee's ability to this is difficult, and yet, when one reads his poems, it is very obvious that this assessment is true. His work does have some remarkable, almost unnameable quality that conjures up silence, peace and calm; quiet, and waiting. The reader cannot help but feel at rest while reading his reverent words, even though he speaks of searching for his lover and passionately needing to be with her and to "have" her. Sometimes, when reading, it is possible to slip for a moment and wonder if one is not reading the words of King Solomon himself from the Biblical passages in Song of Songs. 

In poems such as, "I Ask My Mother To Sing" and "For A New Citizen Of These United States", Lee's strong connections to his heritage and his unusual and difficult upbringing as a refugee are evident. In "I Ask My Mother To Sing," he writes of his mother and grandmother, singing together songs the events of which he does not know, but still adores hearing about. "I've never been in Peking, or the Summer Palace,/ nor stood on the great Stone Boat to watch/ the rain begin on Kuen Ming Lake, the picknickers/ running away in the grass. And yet from the way Lee writes, it is hard to believe he hasn't seen all these sights himself; he seems so knowledgable and quietly impassioned about them. The  poem ends with his mother and grandmother coming to tears together, but continuing to sing of their people. In "For A New Citizen Of These United States," Lee speaks, as if to another refugee child like himself, pleading with the other not to be sad if he cannot remember all of the things of his heritage and home. He writes, "But birds, as you say, fly forward./ So I won't show you the letters and the shawl/ I've so meaninglessly preserved./ And I won't hum along, if you don't, when/ our mothers sing Nights in Shanghai./" Lee writes so tenderly and beautifully about moving on from his heritage and letting go of the pieces he has held on to as he becomes a citizen of the US, that one cannot help but feel a clenching of his own heart as he considers the pain and confusion Lee must have endured as a small boy, not really sure what country or home to latch onto as his own.

After even just a mild examination of Lee's poetry, it becomes quite obvious why he is so acclaimed as a writer of faith, home, heritage, family, love and the ever-present silence. It seems that few could measure up to Lee's immeasurable ability to pace his words, though he speaks of history, of sorrow, pain, loss or passion; there is always a certain calmness lying underneath and even in confusion, a simple understanding. For one who has suffered so much pain and uprooting throughout his life, Lee has certainly done something beautiful with all his suffering, and turned it into poetry that sings, that pays homage and devotion, that lifts up souls before placing them gently back down on earth again. 

Ten to Grade

1. Drunk Preacher
2. Image Poem #7
3. Making Faces
4. Easter Photographs
5. Haiku: Seasons
6. Image Poem #1
7. Crushes and Fibromyalgia
8. Miss Havisham, The Smoker
9. Image Poem #2
10. The Words the River-Merchant's Wife Said

Based on Photography

Her body
A tree
Both grown from the earth
Life source
Black and white
A tree trunk strong and sure
She towers up from the ground

Easter Photographs

The mother takes a photograph every single Easter Sunday
And though she never foresaw it then

It makes a rather convenient timeline now
For others to view their falling apart

Jesus is risen and three little girls
Wear white dresses with blue flowers
Standing next to a boy with sharply combed hair
And a dark blue suit
A background of trees and sunflowers so tall
They dwarf every child, save the tallest sister

He lives and the second sister
Has shot up like a root this year, taller than all of them
The little boy is frowning and has chocolate on his face

And the youngest sister isn't wearing shoes

Our King has returned and if possible
The second sister seems even taller
The little boy is sitting on the ground obstinately
The oldest sister staring off at the clouds
And the littlest has a tear in her pink filmy dress

The stone has been rolled away and finally
The boy has grown, so that he now rivals the second sister in height
And both of them glare at the camera
The elder sister smiles broadly but if you look closely
Her cheeks are tear-stained
The little sister's sash is untied

The tomb was found empty and the second sister
Wears a dress cut two low in the front
And has noticeably stuffed her bra
The brother's tie hangs loose around his neck and his hands are jammed in pockets
Big sister is standing behind the youngest
Whose eyes are trained on ants on the ground

Hallelujah they cry and in this picture the scenery has changed

An empty, dry field is the backdrop

The second sister has a heavy cardigan on and watches the camera angrily
Her dress poorly tailored in an attempt to hide that she is five months along now

The brother wears thick eyeliner and a cigarette dangles from the hand

That is not flipping off the camera

The eldest sister's hair is in a thick braid and her eyes look tired
Her smile thin
Little sister's hair has not been washed or combed at all

That is the last year they take photographs.

Crushes and Fibromyalgia

You are- I think- and this is quite a presumption-
The reason for poetry’s invention.
How did the poet wax eloquent
On the matter of kissable smiles
Or dew-swept brows
Or curls to rival those of that very-anatomically-explicit statue of David
Which always finds its way into the textbooks
(Because there’s got to be an educational way to slip a penis in somewhere), 
Or eyes darker than the bitter coffee I drink here in New York
(I drink it black now; have you tasted the brew here? Sugar only makes it worse),
Without having ever looked upon your face?
And never having felt the instantaneous, and quite literal weakness
That settles in my limbs at your very presence
(You ought to know, the weakness comes and goes. The doctor, before just giving up again, as doctors often do, used to speculate that it might be fibromyalgia, or even  multiple sclerosis. I find it darkly funny that you seem to have a way of incurring those very symptoms which signify a major neurological malfunction.)

How, I ask, again, how
Could the poets put pen to paper
Before the muse was even born?
Each lyric, each line, each love-infused sonnet
That drips honey-sweet with adoration and love
Is now faded, pale, and  moth-balled
Archaic, didactic and uninspired
In the shadow of your smile.

This. This is why poetry was created.
So that I might have a medium
For expression and obsession.
God knew that I would need it
When I met you. 

Web MD

I don’t want to write a poem right now
But the vividness with which I can picture your eyes
Tearing into me
The vividness with which I can picture the length of your body
So solid, yet molding, against me
The vividness with which I can see your fingers
Strumming and plucking and playing with…
Your guitar strings, that tea bag, a forkful of spaghetti, my heart
The vividness with which I can see your face, gentle, scratchy, glad
Begging me to trace my fingers over every pore
Is forcing me
To write down how much want I have
And to wonder how much want one is able to have
Before their heart cannot physically bear it anymore?

I wonder if I should look it up on WebMD. 

Miss Havisham, The Smoker

An antique wooden clock
Doubles as a jewelry box
And squats on a desk;
The hands don’t even tick anymore.
Even if the thing still had batteries jammed in it
It is broken.

The little drawer holds a pair of some lady’s gold earrings
I say some lady’s
Because I, certainly, am no lady…

The secret compartment behind the clock face
Conceals a lighter and four stale Camels
Hidden inside an Altoids tin
Bit and pieces of sweet-smelling tobacco
Spilling out the paper ends and
Mingling with the vague scent of peppermint
As time goes on.

Except time never really goes on, does it?
It has stopped.
The intricate hands set very deliberately at eight-forty PM
The same time Miss Havisham stopped her clocks in that Dickens novel
You know the one you never read your freshman year of high school.

All this probably speaks to something
A metaphor about time and decay
But all you can think is,
I want to have a smoke

Failing to see the irony
That your life is time
Your lungs decaying daily
And the saddest part of all
Is the clock isn’t even an antique at all.
It was bought for seven dollars
At the Salvation Army Store. 

A Mother's Jealousy

Life is ushering you in and I feel like a mother,
Proud
Fiercely protective
Worried for you; happy for you.
Jealous.
It’s true when they say mothers are jealous of their children I think.
And I am jealous of you.
You who are leaving me behind.
And this, not being what it is supposed to feel like.

You are not my son:
I am not the tired old mother
Ready to lay down and sleep
Dream of her boy’s success
Close her eyes and sigh because she has lived good,
and long,
and done well,
and has something to show for it.

I have yet to live
And I want to be living this with you.
I want you to take me with you.

Do mothers ever say that
To sons going off to war
Or moving out of state
Or going off to college?
I want you to take me with you. 

Take me with you please.
Take me with you my favorite boy.

Dirty

I bit off all my thumbnails
While talking to you,
And now it stings 
When I try to wash you off of my hands.

We Would've Seen Mountains [Goodbye Pt. II]

I am willing to give him up because
I know now that he is too good for me
And that the day our eyes waltzed together
Across a warm, brightly lit room full of books and of
Scholars
Was merely because
He was shocked to see a girl with purple-pink hair
In this sacred place of academia.

Goddamnit I swore I would not waste any more of these precious words on him
But, sometimes, some people, require more than one goodbye poem
And sometimes, a goodbye poem is not just to a person
But to a dream

You see, I was going to change for him
And for a moment, I could see the mountains of Oregon
Reflected in the brimming love of his eyes
As he watched his hipster-turned-hippie girlfriend
Dance between puddles flowing one into the other
In an intricate small intestine that flows into a brook
I heard his laugh as the toes of his gray converse high tops got splashed
And felt him take my hands and spin with me
And sing. He must have sung. I heard him singing with my lungs.

But even though he looks at me and tells me, at twenty-two,
He still doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up

I saw the whisper, the brushing of whiskers to ear fuzz
In the dimly lit coffee shop
The sexual tension as loud as it could get here in Jesus-land
And I know what it means.
And I have heard the music they make together.
And I know that if we were to become us, we would never
Be together, that way. It will always be just me. And just him.
And sometimes just me and him.
But the togetherness is not there,
Together- we just don’t make music.

And poetry and conversations
And a half-hearted, confused desire to change:
To grow roots and sprout towards the sun
My tree trunk bent in his direction
Is just not enough. 

Afternoon Nap

You strumming your guitar
Gently, persistently
[I can't help but wonder
As I drift toward sleep
If your hands would be as
Gentle, persistent
On me.]

The irreverent sound of flushing toilets
The white noise of the fan
Clock ticking
Water gurgles through ancient pipes
Doors bang- a suspended silence- then do a 16th note, 8th note shut
The heat stirring in the vent behind my bed
Soft scratching of linen on linen, the rustle of bed clothes, of sleep
A microwave timer goes off
Someone beeps their car locked outside
And you, strumming you guitar
Gently, persistently

Lull me to sleep,
If not with your hands,
With the sounds they make
Lull me with the memory of your voice
Reading poetry last night
Strong, and sure, and certain
On this heavy, thick, cold,
White sky Autumn afternoon:
Lull me.

Haiku: Seasons

We swore we'd last, yet
Vibrant trees turn skeletal
Just like you and me

Haiku: My Mother

How could you give life
To a child so destructive?

You; a creator.

Making Faces

A young husband and wife
In a New York apartment
Welcomed me in one October night
Let me sit on their graying blue couch
And swap stories.

I could not help but watch them all evening
Their cat was named Murt
And he was grouchy, but much-loved
His tail swatted the young husband's face
Who in turn scrunched up his nose and eyes and
Smiled and

I heard then the gentle laughter of his pregnant wife
Hands resting sweetly on her swollen belly
The look of love on her face
At his smile, his face;
The same face he makes when
They're playing in bed.

The same face he will make at their daughter someday
To make her laugh, too
As she coos in her crib
At her daddy, her world.

Relationship Series #5

I told him, had begged him, to stay away.

He had given me once a candy cane,
Forced me to take it because I asserted once
That I liked placing peppermint sticks
In my coffee.
The candy cane broke in my purse
And I felt oddly distressed;
Seeing shards of peppermint at the
Bottom of my bag
The sweet cane snapped in halves
And then fourths
And then a million other little pieces
Like so much broken glass.
Nothing it seemed could be preserved under my care.

Medicated

Taking a Klonopin in class
Slipping the small green pill
Stealthily between my lips
Like a mint, a piece of gum
Except-
This mint will bring me to happier places
Don't look too hard
Don't try to analyze me
I may not come home
This summer.

Back When I Liked You

You breathe
Awfully heavy.
Funny how I never noticed that
Back when I was treading water
In your eyes.

The Soft Killer

It has hardened, crystallized after so much time
Just sitting here-
Turned lumpy
And mold-able, shape-able
With my fingers, my boot.
I can make my own hand-print.
The fact that it lays here, decaying somehow
Makes everything seem
Colder, more
Bitter
The wind more
Biting.
It stings to the touch, it crushes into clear crystals
In the spotted pink-white palm of my hand
It is painful after time
Jaded like a person
Not fresh; Old; Dirty.
A place for dogs to pee
And for dead things to poke out
From beneath it and through it.
So ugly.
The sounds of gulls resound overhead
Crying for a new spring
To melt this all alway;
The snow- a killer-
Has stripped all life from this place,
The leaves from the trees,
And left everything it around it hard
And concrete
And made of ice.
Like this book, these buildings, this frozen land...
A boy sits on a bench with frozen eyes.

Tucked In

This sleeping bag- not mine, mind you-
Has a safety pin stuc in it
Which, ironically, seems very unsafe.
I am tucked in, in a lodge
in a bed, under a blanket
that feels like stuffed-animal hydes.
Tucked in, in the woods with a lake
and a book of epic poetry
and a patchwork quilt on the wall.
I love patchwork quilts- I must
ask my mother to teach me to
make one this summer.
I drank black tea from London
So black that it left stains
All up and down the inside of my
Seaside-themed ceramic cup.
That boy is not here.
Tucked in in the woods,
Romance is nowhere to be found.
But He, so long missing,
He, long-haired and sandal-footed,
I think He might be.

The Library

I found two crispy leaves
between the creamy pages
of a library book
of poems by Wendell Berry
[which certainly seemed fitting
if you've read him].
I took them, saved them
To hold onto fall for a spell.
I saw a jolly girl
Squatting cross-legged on the rug
Between the shelves
Entangled in skirts and a novel
And I thought what a picture of peace
Could I have, I would have
Broken off a piece of her
As well.

Note Passing

I don't want to be known for writing
Thick, dusty volumes:
The kind of books that instill
You with an undeserved sense
Of power
Just by laying hands to them.

I would rather be known
By the name of one poem
[My own title- author,
Forgotten and hushed]
Be it that that poem:
Short, simple, raw
Speak truth to a single soul.

Perhaps it will never be published
But simply passed around-
My loopy handwriting on a scrap of
Lined paper
Like a secret note passed in class.

I think I should rather
Like that.

A Sonnet

We trudged through the darkness one late rainy night
Big Ben persisted to toll through the fight
We looked out over the river, the one called La Seine
And took comfort as bells rang out counting to ten
This winter is cold now and the look in your eyes
Has led me to dreaming and sleeping and sighs
These clouds grow more suffocating each day
Desperate I claw for escape, let's away
I need sunlight and starlight and streetlights for that
I need laughter I've known since my youth and to pat
Absentminded, gently, the head of a dog
Whose touch might bring clarity to my brain in this fog
It is dark here now; don't you see, all's gone dark
And the London bells toll 'cross the sea in some park

Nausea

I feel nauseous

This morning my fish died
Or was it last night-
I couldn't tell you his exact time of death
It was sometime while I slept;
I, swathed like a babe in mountains of blankets
He passed away of fish hypothermia;
I had left the window open all night.

I feel nauseous

Hypothermia is supposed to be a peaceful way to go
They say you go into a state
Of euphoric shock
"So really," he said
"Right before he died, you gave him the greatest
Trip of his life."

I feel nauseous

He comes into my room in a panic;
I haven't been responding to his text messages.
The fish tank lies turned over on the floor
The small green pebbles scattered over the rug
Even pieces of his old fish food
Bloated with water, uneaten
Still clinging to an artificial tree.
"Don't worry Baby," he tells me.
"We'll buy another fish. It won't die this time."
He takes my hand.

I feel nauseous

Driving in the car
I turn up the stereo:
He turns it down.
"It seems to me like you've been awful distant lately
Ever since Valentine's day.
Are you doing alright?"
I turn up the stereo. I'm fine.
I let him grab my hand.

I feel nauseous

"What are you thinking about?"
He asks me in the restaurant.
We're eating salads, or at least
He is, and I'm holding a fork.
Nothing, I tell him and smile.
I'm thinking about metaphors
And the strange parallel of events
That occur in life.
The fish, my fish, it died.
I know that's significant somehow.
I'm fine, Babe. I jab my fork distractedly.

I feel nauseous

A Poem About the Day of St. Valentine

Elvis wrote the greatest love songs
Of all time
Or was it Elton John?
There are a million playlists
With a million songs
Because they say if you can't say it with words
Then you can with music
And probably chocolate-
A hand-made card,
Flower bouquet
And an over-sized teddy bear with a leering grin
Will definitely express how you feel.

I am not opposed to Elvis
Or Elton John
And goodness knows I like chocolate-
On any other day of the year
Flowers creep me out
And I'm not five, so no teddy bears please and thanks.

I'd rather you just tell me
Look me straight in the eyes and
Just say it:
You're sexy.

After Amanda's Poem, "Flight"

Flight

By Amanda Irwin

Your heart pumped gently under 

the curvature of my ear;

wings beating low and deep.

Inspired By

I grew up holding babies
During Sunday service
Held darling infant boys in my lap
That peculiar, indescribable scent-

The sweet down of baby hair-
Mingling with my own Sunday perfume
As they rested their delicate skulls, so unknowingly vulnerable
Against my breast
And sighed.

Heartbeats mingled
And I felt a duty I had never known
To protect a child; not my own
I thought of him- of each of them- growing up to be a handsome young man

And all the ladies fawning
And I wondered if I would tell him
That I held him when he was small
And I held him when he cried;
I thought about his future.

Tonight I nestle in the crook of your arm
Carefully place my fingers against
The fighting pulse in your neck

I kiss your earlobe and sigh;
Consider how much older I am now

And no one holds me in their lap
I cannot rest my head against my mother's breast
Instead I have taken on that role

And yet

I still need to be held.

Just as that little baby boy
Will someday turn seventeen
Or twenty-three
Or thirty-two
And he too, will wish he still had a beating heart 

Against which to rest

His head.

Moving to Western New York

When I came here, I kept my head down
When I walked across the streets-
Where I come from
We don't smile at strangers.

When I came here, I bristled
At doors held open for me-
Where I come from
We walk as if we alone exist.

When I came here, I felt wary
At the strange openness in the faces-
Where I come from
We have our blinds pulled
All day long.

I still find it unsettling
But I am learning to smile more
Be suspicious less
Of the metaphorical hand,
Stretched out toward me.

The Words The River-Merchant's Wife Said

We read this poem in class and
One line stood out to me:

I desired my dust to be mingled with yours

Forever and forever and forever.

Would you think me a cynic-
Call me Negative Nancy, the glass-half-empty-girl,
Or some sort of raging feminist-

If I told you that I don't think I could ever
Ever
Ever
Feel that way about another human being?

I promise you it's not nearly as glamorous as all that.

No, all it really boils down to is
Cowardice.

Relationship Series #4

be still my wandering eye
i never felt your guilt settle
in the pit of my stomach like
so many bad burritos
till now.

be still my wandering thoughts
you are tethered now to one
who smells of sweetness and has soft hands

do not you enjoy it?
has this not been your desire
for some five years now?

lay your head down and let it be cradled
in the arm crook of security
you are safe here.

but is safe what you really wanted?
yes
is passion actually what you wanted?
of course
can both be had at once?
i should like to think so
are you simply restless because you have been
tied
down?
probably

probably.
but source discoveries do not always eliminate the problem.

ah- be still, be still
my wandering eyes, my wandering heart.
settle down my searching hands.
lay my head across strong shoulder.

this must be adulthood.

Vinyl [The Essence of Hipsterdom]

In high school I had no interest
in old bands, like Fleetwood Mac.
But-
The big box under the Christmas tree
Was a turn table from my best friend:
Fleetwood Mac sounds so good on vinyl.

Image Poem # 8 [Rib Cage]

This lamp recalls a
Twisted, metallic rib cage.
I entwine my fingers with each bone
As if in this way I
Could keep you anchored to me.

Image Poem # 7 [Bride]

The diamond on her finger
Glints every time it hits the light
And yet she dresses
In the colors of mourning
And walks with her head cast down.

Image Poem # 6 [Dear Detective]

Wine stains
On the carpet
Are the only clue
As to what happened here
Last night

Image Poem #5 [Snow in Lamplight]

When I was young snow
Fell
Illuminated only
By lampost lights
All was dark except for a swirling patch
Revealed in gold

Image Poem # 4 [Coffee]

Coffee black:
A drop of cream hits the center
And swirls, ripples to the edges
The coffee turns to the color of
A springtime fawn

Image Poem # 3 [Tank Cleaning]

The fish swims tiny, angry circles
Bumping against all sides of his temporary prison-

A dusty shot glass-
Before being unceremoniously dumped
Back into his tank 

Image Poem # 2 [Creases]

These fingers have
Smoothed the creases on a page

Massaged the creases from an aching back
Traced the creases of my palm

Image Poem # 1 [Old People on Benches]

A haggard man drinks coffee on a bench
Wearing a Stop & Shop apron,
Smoking.

Across the center
A prim old lady
Positions her body away from him.

Does It Annoy You

Does it annoy you that
I eat apples in church
Crunch, Sermon, Crunch
Pick the fruit flesh from my teeth.

Does it annoy you that
My breath
Always smells either like coffee
Or Listerine
So strong, too strong.

Does it annoy you that
I always steal your fancy phone
So I can play that game where you connect
The colored dots;
I almost always fail at it
You always end up doing it yourself
The same way you connected, one night,
Our hearts.

Does it annoy you that
I can never stop the words from my mouth
That I feel I must fill all our silences
Just as I try to fill all the gaps between
Your brain and mine
And the way that we think

Does it annoy you?

Chapel

And they all laughed at the idea that this could be a sinister establishment:
Because they had no idea how trapped some people felt
In their little greenhouse of safety.

Java in the Afternoon [Poem Form]

Coffee teeters dangerously on the edge of a coffee mug,
The screaming face of the Peanuts cartoon character Lucy on the front. 
The table I sit at is wooden and stained; 
Scratched and covered with coffee ring crossing over coffee ring, 
Like a million penn diagrams spreading across the wood.  
There is a painting on the wall of a lone tree standing in the black of an oncoming storm. 
It is surrounded for miles by the bland, hot pale yellow of wheat. 
In the corner, opposite me, a boy sits alone, wearing plaid, concentrating like his life depends on it 
As he plays chess with no opponent. 

There are couches and tables with a mishmash of chairs; 
The coffee shop is a labyrinth. 
I once commiserated over the difficulty of navigation in here with a blind girl 
And felt like a jerk afterwords for ever complaining about trying to get anywhere. 
She laughed as she talked to me about the maze of furniture she had to wade through 
With only her walking stick as a guide. 
I smiled in response before realizing that she couldn't see me.

On a shelf there is a glass jar; more than a glass jar, it is a glass vase, maybe a sculpture. 
It undulates and curves in and out like a voluptuous woman. 
It is filled nearly to the top with coffee beans. 
This is a place where things brim;
Coffee brims, those beans brim, conversations brim, perhaps love brims.
     
All around, conversations ensue. 
Some people lean very close to the person across the table, 
Their conversations automatically appearing far more intimate and intense than the rest of ours 
Because of their body language. 
Perhaps they are lovers; perhaps they are merely close friends. 
Perhaps they have only recently met and their body language
Is indicative of that moment in a new meeting when you realize 
You have that connection with someone, 
That connection that signifies you are going to be friends 
For a very long time.

Relationship Series #3

So often I have sat

Feeling perfectly fine in body.

Yet my spirits have been low;

It is my heart that has ached

Today my whole body aches

Every movement brings

Internal groaning

Muscles screaming at me for stretching them out

But my heart-

My heart for once is light.

Java in the Afternoon

      Franz Ferdinand is playing on the speakers overhead as I sit at this corner table, as far from the other patrons as one can possibly get. Coffee teeters dangerously on the edge of a coffee mug with the screaming face of the Peanuts cartoon character Lucy on the front. Not exactly soothing, but I'll take it. The table I sit at is wooden and stained; scratched and covered with coffee ring crossing over coffee ring, like a million penn diagrams spreading across the wood. A lamp stands stalwartly, the red shade glowing softly from the bulb it hides, the pattern of moons lit like the nighttime stars. There is a painting on the wall of a lone tree standing in the black of an oncoming storm. It is surrounded for miles by the bland, hot pale yellow of wheat. In the corner, opposite me, a boy sits alone, wearing plaid, concentrating like his life depends on it as he plays chess with no opponent. This place is familiar to me, filled with familiar faces, friendly faces, faces I have spoken with, faces I have embraced, faces I have even come to love. There are couches and tables with a mishmash of chairs; the coffee shop is a labyrinth. I once commiserated over the difficulty of navigation in here with a blind girl and felt like a jerk afterwords for ever complaining about trying to get anywhere. She laughed as she talked to me about the maze of furniture she had to wade through with only her walking stick as a guide. I smiled in response before realizing that she couldn't see me.
      On a shelf there is a glass jar; more than a glass jar, it is a glass vase, maybe a sculpture. It undulates and curves in and out like a voluptuous woman. It is filled nearly to the top with coffee beans. This is a place where things brim. Coffee brims, those beans brim, conversations brim, perhaps love brims.
     An old familiar song comes on and we sing along; me and the girl sitting across from me, both here under the pretense of doing homework but instead we are singing along, because sometimes those songs come on, where you just need to sing too, and you know everyone's staring and judging in their heads, but in that moment it doesn't really matter.
       All around, conversations ensue. Some people lean very close to the person across the table, their conversations automatically appearing far more intimate and intense than the rest of ours because of their body language. Perhaps they are lovers; perhaps they are merely close friends. Perhaps they have only recently met and their body language is indicative of that moment in a new meeting when you realize you have that connection with someone, that connection that signifies you are going to be friends for a very long time.
       The last thing I note are the paper hearts hanging from the ceiling tiles, strategically placed all around the room as a warning, a reminder, the day of St. Valentine is fast approaching. Normally I would feel rather annoyed with this showy decoration that feels pushy and just a little too soon. But the playlist is good and the coffee is flowing and the wood of the table feels smooth yet rugged beneath my palms and today, I look up at the hearts and I find that I don't mind them. I don't mind them at all.

Relationship Series #2

Sometimes the thing that I want most in this whole world
Is to reach across this wooden table
And take your shaking hand in mine-
But then-
I remember-
I can't.

Drunk Preacher

When I was a child

It was a Baptist Church that dictated our lives

A high-ceilinged building that looked modest on the outside

Yet was imposing within

Filled with pews of stained wood, sewed over with cushions:

Stiff, and made up of a fabric that was a nondescript shade of blue

My parents were the Bible 

And thus my head was filled with grotesque scenarios

Of demon possession and Satan rape.

A friend 

Who went to a prestigious university in Boston to study neuroscience

Later explained to me that my childhood fears were a heady combination

Of an overactive imagination

And something called intrusive thoughts.

It was one of those balmy summer nights in the middle of college

I had spent most of the evening wasted out of my mind

Drunk off of summertime freedom, forbidden desires

And 151 rum, a liquor so strong

It was sold in a bottle with a metal grill on the top

To reduce the intense flammability

The golden nectar burning my throat with all the force of fire

As I took swigs, filtered straight through the metallic grill

I stood up shakily on the bed, bottle triumphantly in hand

And preached to the atheists

About my fear, about God

About how much the two were intertwined in my head

My neuroscientist friend looked me straight in the eye

And said I could believe whatever I needed to

And it was okay

I can never not believe in Him

I told her

No matter what the church has done, no matter what my college says

It's been ingrained into my brain in a way 

That I don't even think the neuroscientists could explain

I'm going on a trip someday

I said

Like Jack Kerouac maybe

All the way across America

Or maybe I'll go to London

And live there for a while;

Smoking cigarettes and drinking wine

In a dirty bathtub and writing novels when I've got the time

I don't know what will become of me

But somehow God is there

Maybe someday I will escape the fear
Maybe someday I will preach from a soap box
Or a homemade pulpit or a mountaintop
Maybe all I will tell people is that God is there
Maybe all I will teach them is to stop being afraid
But that my life is worth living because I have something to believe in
Who doesn't exist in the cushions of the pews
In the cranberry juice rings left in plastic communion cups
In the cracker crumbs left on silver engraved communion plates
Or in the preacher who stares down at all of us
Looks me straight in the heart and tells me why I'm going to hell.

No, God exists simply here. And here is anywhere you want it to be
But God, God does not exist in your stiff, your bleeding, your angry, your broken, your church-born

Fear

Relationship Series #1

We are a gulp of hot tea taken fully in the mouth
Before it had a chance to cool down
And swallowed, burning the throat all the way as it went.

Mechanics

There's going to be a lot more of those queerosexual couples
Sprouting up and around now that this support group has started
A woman with windblown hair, desperately in need of some make-up
Neck strangled with a scarf the color of honey mustard
Says in a loud voice

Okay no, she doesn't say queerosexual; to be fair
She's not that far back in the dark ages
But nevertheless he feels the hairs on the back of his
And the neck of every other gay girl and boy
Stand up and prickle

I don't know what they think they're going to accomplish
It's just wrong, doggoneit, wrong is what it is
Not natural, I mean
The parts just don't fit together

This last part spoken in hushed tones
Like the most scandalous of divulgences

But hearts- he wonders-
Do hearts have genders?

If my heart fits with your heart
Shouldn't we consider ourselves lucky that we've found
The puzzle piece

Not wasting our lives throwing out the match because some
Cantankerous old mechanic claims
The parts don't fit together.

Maybe someday she'll know what it's like
To feel a heart beat in synch next to hers
On a boat, in a lake, with the taste of rum on her lips
The sweetness of wine in her head
And she will forget about parts
Altogether 

Analysis of 2nd Task Poems

In my 2nd task of rewriting the paragraphs into poems with a more focused and shaped center, I basically read each paragraph and tried to find the points that stuck out the most to me as the point and the meaning. What I found in the first paragraph was that Peggy "Clevenger" was largely seen as an outsider in a very close-knit community of people, which I believe was why she was regarded as a witch, and, ironically, warded off with "The Pineys'" own superstitious methods. I tried to convey that sense of her being an outsider in the poem with a few different techniques. Mainly I emphasized the fact that she was different- starting off with the claim that she could transform into a rabbit and then talking about how she came from different areas than the rest of The Pineys, that she had a last name which was Hessian, and therefore was not really considered one of them. I also used some repetition in my poem to get this point across, repeatedly using the line "Replaced with the form of Peggy Cleaver." Changing the last name of Peggy was another technique I used. I had originally accidentally written Cleaver rather than Clevenger, but upon further consideration and discussion with the senior poet, decided to switch her last name to Cleaver because it indicated even further a sense of disconnect- "a cleaver" is something that chops things, separates things, cuts them apart, and that was my main goal in the poem, to show that Peggy was apart, that she very much other. In the format of the poem I tried to show this by always making the name "Peggy Cleaver" stand alone, on its own line, just like the character did.

In the second paragraph about the blueberry picking, the thing that struck me most was that Charlie's whole life was entirely consumed by farm labor; his whole family worked on that farm and that to me seemed to be everything they had. I sensed a kind of frustration within Charlie, and a tiredness. As someone who has picked blueberries before, I know the kind of exhausting and thankless labor it can be- and that's doing it for only an hour or so. As for Charlie, I sensed that he felt trapped in this cycle of generational labor, an unfair sort of labor that never gave back all that he gave into it, especially as he talked about the unjust treatment of the laborers by corporate supermarkets. At the same time, it is very hard and honest work; the fact than an elderly man would simply approach Charlie and give him a large sum of money's worth of tickets, rather than keep them for himself, is indicative of a very strong sense of honor among the laborers. Basically in the poem, I tried to depict Charlie's exhaustion, his feeling spent and tired and under-appreciated but then at the end being surprised by the unexpected justice that can come to one in this world. This is where I took some liberalities in the poem- I added extra descriptions of Charlie the way I pictured him in my head- as rather hardened and weathered from years of this thankless labor. In the format I attempted to emphasize the labor aspect of everything, how it was their entire life, how every member of his family had a part in it. How it made people almost inhuman- like cattle they herded around a pump just for some water. I think that the poem was written with longer lines punctuated in between with shorter, brisk sentences to underscore certain themes: such as the labor and the thrown togetherness of all the ages of people, and Charlie's final shock and surprise, the large sum of money.

Farm Labor [Assignment 2.B]

Thousands of blueberry bushes
Grew in the clearing
Marked only by a small, low, packing house
And a school bus, marked-
"Farm Labor Transport."
At the end of the working day pickers swarmed around a pump
Forming a jumbled line:
Old women, middle-aged men, even a young girl.
Charlie's whole family worked
As farm labor:
His sister, packing the boxes, his daughter-in-law
Covering them with cellophane and his son;
The supervisor.
Charlie often got angry
His weathered face worn and red
Worked up as he spoke of the injustice
The supermarket chains that stole from the pickers
Took straight from their  hands
Their hard-earned labor
But at the end of this particular day
As the pickers exchanged all their tickets for cash
Charlie was approached by an elderly man
Given a fistful of tickets
Which the man assumed had fallen from his son's pocket.
Charlie looked at me with shock in his hard brown eyes:
The tickets were worth seventy-five dollars.

The Appearances and Disappearances of Peggy Cleaver [Assignment 2.A]

It was known that Peggy Cleaver could turn herself
Into a rabbit;
Peggy Cleaver, the Witch of the Pines,
The Pine Barrens.
Those who lived there were known as the Pineys,
And put salt over their doors to discourage her visits.
Peggy Cleaver was not from The Pine Barrens
But lived in Pasadena:
A vanished town, an outsider.
An outsider with a Hessian last name.
Peggy Cleaver always appeared
When strange things occurred;
The time that the dog had chased a rabbit
Until it jumped into a house and disappeared
Replaced with the form of
Peggy Cleaver
Or the time that she smacked a man
For throwing a rock at a lizard
The lizard disappeared on the spot
Replaced with the form of
Peggy Cleaver.
Yet the Pineys still spoke of her stocking full of gold
And searched for it the morning they found her remains
In a burned down house,
Yet found,
As always
Nothing, for the gold- and Peggy
once again had
disappeared.

The Blueberry Pickers [Assignment 1.B]

We had come to a clearing
Where thousands of blueberry bushes grew.
In the center was the packing house
Small, low, with open and screenless windows
On all sides.
In front was a school bus
Marked "Farm Labor Transport"
The driver stood beside his bus:
A tall and amiable looking man
With bare feet.
He wore green trousers
And a T-shirt.
The end of the working day had come.
Pickers were swarming around a pump-
Old women, middle-aged men, a young girl.
A line was waiting
To use an outhouse near the pump.
Inside the packing house, berries-
Half an inch thick-
Were rolled up a portable conveyor belt, and,
Eventually,
Into pint boxes.
Charlie's sister was packing the boxes;
Charlie's daughter-in-law was putting cellophane over them
Charlie's son Jim was supervising the operation
Charlie
Picked up a pint box in which berries were mounded high
And told me with disgust
That some supermarket chains
Knock off these mounds
Of extra berries
And put them in new boxes,
Getting three or four extra pints per twelve-box tray.
At one window,
Pickers were turning in tickets of various colors
And were given cash in return.
On picker,
Who appeared to be
At least
In his sixties
Tapped Charlie on the arm and showed him
A thick packet of tickets
Held together with a rubber band.
"I found these,"
The man said.
"They must have fallen out of your son's pocket."
He gave the packet to Charlie,
Who thanked him
And counted the tickets.
Charlie said,
"These tickets are worth
seventy-five dollars."

The Witch of the Pines [Assignment 1.A]

The Pine Barrens-
Had, once, their own particular witch.
Pineys put salt
Over their doors
To discourage visits from the Witch of the Pines,
Peggy Clevenger.
It was known that she
Could turn herself into a rabbit,
For a dog was once sen chasing a rabbit
And the rabbit jumped through the window of a house,
And there
In the same instant
In the window
Stood Peggy Clevenger.
Another occasion
A man saw a lizard and tried
To kill it
By crushing it with a large rock.
When the rock hit the lizard it disappeared
And Peggy Clevenger materialized
On the spot
And smacked the man in the face.
Clevenger is a Hessian name- Peggy
Lived in Pasadena
Another of the now vanished towns, about
Five miles east of Mt. Misery.
It was said that she had a stocking
Full of gold
Her remains were found one morning
In the smoking ruins of her cabin,
But there was no trace of gold.

Haiku About The State That I Love

Oh Massachusetts
Please don’t release me yet: I
Want to stay, always.

From Fingernail Clippings to Funerals

I wish I could write poems about things that didn’t matter

You know how you feel like you can only write
In
These
Staccato
Lines
And everything will be meaningful?

Write a poem about a sunset
About the feeling you get when he touches you
Not just on your hand but inside your soul somehow
He grabs at the bloody flesh of the thing and tears something dark out
That’s what we want to read.
Write about fishing with your father as a little girl
Before distance and politics pushed you too far apart to
Remember what the safety of his hugs felt like anymore.

Write about the first time you heard someone sing live opera
And you realized people really do have voices that heartbreaking
And the beauty of the surprise made you feel funny, like you wanted to cry
Write about a man who preached words of purity to you
When you were fourteen and desperate for your first kiss
And five years later cheated on his wife and babies
Write about the time your grandfather died and
Your sister called you at a friend’s house to let you know
In such a brusque, insensitive, brutal way
And you don’t think you can ever really forgive her for that
Write about these DEEP. AND BIG. AND IMPORTANT. things.

What if I just want to write about how beautiful this song is
How when I pause my iTunes I can hear voices
The sound of two lovers fighting
Which seems like such a silly, contrary thing
But then again, I have never really had a lover
So how would I know?

Write about how
I wouldn’t mind a lover
If I was going to tell you the truth
I would love a lover.
I would be good to a lover.
I can’t help but think I’d like to have that someday. 

Shit.
It got deep
And all I meant to type about was
Awkward skype fights
And fingernail clippings falling on the floor
One
By
One. 

Leukemia

The disease was in your blood

Running through your veins
Mixed in- a part of the very thing that was keeping you alive.
How do you get rid of something like that?
They couldn’t freeze your body momentarily in time and
Drain your veins of the poison-
And along with it, your life
And then
As soon as your body was cold and white, emptied
Pump you back up again
Inflate your capillaries, slowly, like the blowing up of a balloon
Set your heart to work again
Pumping blood that was clean and healthy and good for you.
No, medicine isn’t magic. And cancer doesn’t work that way. 

Even if they did that,
just like even if you went into remission
The cancer was in your bones
Literally; You were full of it. 
You were probably
Going to die. 
You told me the story once
How you did die, actually, just for a few seconds
Once, it was a scare.
Then twice and when it looked too grim for even
The hopefullness of a mother to overlook,
They started to plan:
The graveyard was next to the church
The tombstone was white marble, but small, unassuming
The years would read 1992 to 1998
And your coffin was forty-six inches long.

When I met you, you were nineteen
And it hurt my heart that I couldn’t go back
I would’ve hugged the six-year-old you
And cried a stream of mingled saltwater and snot into your blonde scruffy hair
You would’ve held me, stalwart, braver than me
Even as a little boy

I can see myself now, the rashness of my behavior-
I would’ve cut open my arm with a kitchen knife;
I would have sliced open my veins and pressed them to yours
Futilely, foolishly
Thinking somehow I could save you
In some ill-performed Indian blood-brother ritual
You would’ve pushed me, bloodied and crazed, off of you
And wiped away my tears on the hem of your hospital gown.
I can imagine the six-year-old you
So practical, wise, numb to the silly emotions of the
Adults around you that you couldn’t quite understand.
You just wanted to go to Disney.

We talked about this in a coffee shop
Maybe a year or so ago, now
Because you’re not dead, nor are in you remission.
You’re just done; the cancer is gone.
They put your brother’s bone marrow in you because they know how to do that these days
His blood flows through your veins
And though we laugh about it now, how you could commit a crime and get away with it
Because you share your brother’s exact DNA
The truth is that it’s for that alone you’re still alive
For that alone you could talk to me in a coffee shop at all
Or even grow old enough to learn the taste of coffee.
And so we laugh because it’s wonderful; we laugh because we’re terrified. 

And yes your growth was stunted
And yes your father beat you
And the hospital still holds you hostage sometimes
You can’t breathe so well, or do much physical activity
You know every kind of pain medication
Better then you know the periodic table
Which is so frustrating, so infuriating to this
Nineteen-year-old me
Because you were going to be a doctor
Pediatric oncology
To save the other little boys like you
So capable- you, so smart
Clearly meant to be on this earth and do something the rest of us can’t do
I would carry on for you
But I am sick myself, in a different way
And even if I was strong enough, I’d never be smart enough
I’m the girl that tried to give you my blood, remember?
Probably traumatized you for life as I pressed my
Bleeding arms to your tiny, tube-tied body

Why aren’t you here?
Do you ask yourself that?
Why are you alone, not by choice, but by force?
Why did God save you, again and again
To then lock you in this prison
Of…domesticity
You are a twenty-year-old future pediatric oncologist
Stuck in an eighteen year-old boy’s body
Trapped in the life of a fifties housewife

If I were you, I’d scream.
I’d get drunk off of vodka and throw up in a trash can
I’d chain smoke off the back deck and yell at my mother
I’d listen to trashy music and watch internet porn
I’d cut up my arms, not to save anybody, just to harm myself
And when all of that proved futile
I’d lie in my bed listening to the argument in my head
Between the former me and the current me and God
And all the while contemplate suicide.

But. That’s just me. I am not like you. Clearly.
You are- different. Special.
How many times have they told you that? How many times have you wanted to
Smash dishes, break bones
Because those fucking words are meaningless
When you’re stuck here in this home

And do you ever cry?
Or was I the only one…
To see you break down in tears
On the edge of a winter-thawing swamp
On the seat of a frozen cornfield
You cried
I would’ve saved you, six-year-old you
With my blood and my tears
I would’ve saved you
Eleven-year-old you
By taking you away from you father
I would’ve saved you
Twenty-year-old you
From the fury and despair of your curtain-lined jail
How is it I would not save you
Nineteen-year-old you
When you told me I was breaking your heart?