poetry

a slam on feminism in academia (poetry)

by Shaunga Tagore

why did you let me through the doors in the first place
if you were just gonna turn around and force me out?

why did you let me in this ivory tower
filled with hippie feel-good activist academics
debating about feminist organizing in high theory discourse
while barely-paid migrant workers prepare lunches
for seminars, conferences, forums
and get deported the next day

an award winning tenured professor once told me
the only way i will succeed at graduate school
is if i read 300 pages of theory per week per class
and if i’m not capable
my writing must be of low quality
my intellect must be incredibly juvenile

nothing could be wrong with the way things are
because to change the rules would
undermine what it means to receive a graduate school education
and would leave me unprepared to
compete for future jobs and faculty positions

let me ask you
exactly which graduate student’s education are you concerned about
here?

not single mothers who need extra time to look after their families
not pregnant women who need a little more maternity leave

not low-income folks who need to take 2nd or 3rd jobs
to pay bills their funding doesn’t cover
not racialized international students who don’t have access to most
scholarships

not the people with disabilities
who don’t have access to comply with the way things are
made to feel something is wrong with them
instead of with the rules themselves

not those who survive sexual violence
and need extra time to grieve rage or deal

not anyone with familial, historical ties
to places and races always under siege
living under governments set on killing their people

who must spend free time at sit-ins or rallies
where emotions and exhaustions run too high
drumbeats and chants ring too loud
to read a detached article due for class the next day

not Indigenous students who are expected
to read speak and engage with
languages, theories, and knowledges
that erase appropriate and colonize
their lands, cultures, and selves
with the same ease as the colonizers

not people of colour subjected to
subtle and blatant racism
making it impossible to participate
the same way as their white peers

not anyone who needs to spend every moment of their leisure time
finding other ways of learning
through art, community activism, collective therapy
(or a mashup of all three)

your ideal graduate student is
someone who doesn’t have to experience community organizing
because you’ve already assigned them five chapters to read about it

your ideal graduate student is
someone who can’t talk about positionality or privilege
without referencing some article

your ideal graduate student is
rich enough
white enough
straight enough
able-bodied and -minded enough
to be given luxury of enjoying sitting in a corner reading 900 pages a
week
(with their fair trade starbucks coffee in hand and their lulu lemon track
pants on ass)

your ideal graduate student
IS NOT ME

so WHY did you let me through these doors in the first place
if you were just gonna turn around and shove me out?

to fill some quota for affirmative action?
to appear like a progressive program without putting in the effort
of actually being one?

don’t pretend you’re not secretly wishing you could
impersonate my lawyer to kidnap me
and deport me in a heartbeat
if i did so much as look at you funny
talk back
write an angry poem
and undermine your authority

by rolling my eyes at your hypocrisy

feminism in academia – OWN UP TO YOURSELF
do not pretend to be the godsend intellectually paving the revolution

recognize that the ones let through these doors by some strategic mis-
take
are the ones making you look good
while we burn out and burn up by your hands

what is it about your knowledge and education
that prevents you from imagining
all the different reasons someone may be in graduate school
or feel the need to study gender, race, sexuality, and class?

some of us are not here to one day
soullessly recite the entire cannon of queer theory development
with our hearts and minds closed

some of us do not wish to compete to be the
newest biggest baddest radical faculty-hire

some of us need to engage with feminist theory
so we can ground it in our community activist work
our creative works
our personal relationships
for our families, communities and histories
for our own fucking deserved peace of minds

maybe we need to know how to make sense of oppression
because we’re so heartbroken

we don’t want to end up being locked away in psychiatric institutions
or in a hospital overdosed on pills, getting our stomachs pumped
because we don’t know WHY all this shit is constantly driving us CRAZY

what i want to know is why the fuck YOU were let through these doors
and made to think you could decide all the rules FOR US?

you tell me my intellect is lacking

i’m not worthy of being here
if i’m not capable of doing exactly what you say
exactly your way

but i choose to follow the kind of wisdom your 300 pages per week per
class
could never teach you

it’s gotten me this fucking far

winter sun (poetry)

How valuable it is in these short days,
threading through empty maple branches,
the lacy-needled sugar pines.

Its glint off sheets of ice tells the story
of Death’s brightness, her bitter cold.

We can make do with so little, just the hint
of warmth, the slanted light.

The way we stand there, soaking in it,
mittened fingers reaching.

And how carefully we gather what we can
to offer later, in darkness, one body to another.

by molly fisk

via Mitch on fb

november, late in the day (poetry)

November, Late in The Day

So this is aging: the bare sun, skinned,
palely bucking the dark wind,
slides through the glass, crawls on the carpet,
climbs the footboard, lies crosswise on the blanket,
a spoiled dog waiting to be fed.

Not now, dear warmth. The kindling’s in the shed,
too far to fetch. Those two great logs that close
together to make fire, repose
apart, an old couple reminiscing
on conflagrations they’re now missing:
how every sunny Saturday afternoon,
Hey, diddle-diddle, the dish ran away with the spoon.

Not yet, dear spoon. Some hotter day, dear dish.
No tidbits now. Instead, let’s make a wish,
and boil fresh water for the small teapot
to keep it piping hot.

— John M. Ridland

(via my friend, Jean Albus)

at a certain age


american life in poetry: column 138

by ted kooser, u.s. poet laureate, 2004-2006

You’ve surely heard it said that the old ought to move over to make room for the young. But in the best of all possible worlds, people who love their work should be able to do it as long as they wish. Those forced to retire, well, they’re a sorry lot. Here the Chicago poet, Deborah Cummins, shows a man trying to adjust to life after work.

At a Certain Age

He sits beside his wife who takes the wheel.
Clutching coupons, he wanders the aisles
of Stop & Save. There’s no place he must be,
no clock to punch. Sure,
there are bass in the lake, a balsa model
in the garage, the par-three back nine.
But it’s not the same.
Time the enemy then, the enemy now.

As he points the remote at the screen
or pauses at the window, staring
into the neighbor’s fence but not really seeing it,
he listens to his wife in the kitchen, more amazed
than ever–how women seem to know
what to do. How, with their cycles and timers,
their rolling boils and three-minute eggs,
they wait for something to start. Or stop.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Deborah Cummins, and reprinted by permission of the author. Deborah Cummins’ most recent book of poetry is “Counting the Waves,” WordTech Communications, 2007. Introduction copyright (c) 2007 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

superhero pregnant woman

american life in poetry: column 137by ted kooser, u.s. poet laureate, 2004-2006

Dill pickles with strawberry jam? Pregnant women are known to go for late night meals like that. And the senses can go haywire. Here Jessy Randall, of Colorado Springs, gives us a look at one such woman.

Superhero Pregnant Woman

Her sense of smell is ten times stronger.
And so her husband smells funny;
she rolls away from him in the bed.
She even smells funny to herself,
but cannot roll away from that.

Why couldn’t she get a more useful superpower?
Like the ability to turn invisible, or fly?

The refrigerator laughs at her from its dark corner,
knowing she will have to open it some time
and surrender to its villainous odors.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Jessy Randall. Reprinted from “A Day in Boyland,” by Jessy Randall, published by Ghost Road Press, 2007, by permission of the author. Introduction copyright (c) 2007 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

sleep

american life in poetry: column 136

by ted kooser, u.s. poet laureate, 2004-2006

Here’s a fine seasonal poem by Todd Davis, who lives and teaches in Pennsylvania. It’s about the drowsiness that arrives with the early days of autumn. Can a bear imagine the future? Surely not as a human would, but perhaps it can sense that the world seems to be slowing toward slumber. Who knows?

Sleep

On the ridge above Skelp Road
bears binge on blackberries and apples,
even grapes, knocking down
the Petersens’ arbor to satisfy the sweet
hunger that consumes them. Just like us
they know the day must come when
the heart slows, when to take one
more step would mean the end of things
as they should be. Sleep is a drug;
dreams its succor. How better to drift
toward another world but with leaves
falling, their warmth draping us,
our stomachs full and fat with summer?

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Todd Davis. Reprinted from “Some Heaven,” by Todd Davis, published by Michigan State University Press, 2007, by permission of the author and publisher. Introduction copyright (c) 2007 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

the crossing

american life in poetry: column 135

by ted kooser, u.s. poet laureate, 2004-2006

What motivates us to keep moving forward through our lives, despite all the effort required to do so? Here, North Carolina poet Ruth Moose attributes human characteristics to an animal to speculate upon what that force might be.

The Crossing

The snail at the edge of the road
inches forward, a trim gray finger
of a fellow in pinstripe suit.
He’s burdened by his house
that has to follow
where he goes. Every inch,
he pulls together
all he is,
all he owns,
all he was given.

The road is wide
but he is called
by something
that knows him
on the other side.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2004 by Ruth Moose, whose most recent book of poetry is “The Sleepwalker,” Main Street Rag, 2007. Reprinted from “75 Poems on Retirement,” edited by Robin Chapman and Judith Strasser, published by University of Iowa Press, 2007, by permission of the author and publisher. Introduction copyright (c) 2007 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

old woman with protea flowers, kahalui airport

american life in poetry: column 134by ted kooser, u.s. poet laureate, 2004-2006

When ancient people gathered around the fire at nightfall, I like to think that they told stories, about where each of them had been that day, and what that person had seen in the forest. Those were among our first stories, and we still venture into the world and return to tell others what happened. It’s part of community. Here Kathleen Flenniken of Washington tells us about a woman she saw at an airport.

Old Woman With Protea Flowers, Kahalui Airport

She wears the run-down slippers of a local
and in her arms, five rare protea
wrapped in newsprint, big as digger pine cones.
Our hands can’t help it and she lets us touch.
Her brother grows them for her, upcountry.
She’s spending the day on Oahu
with her flowers and her dogs. Protea
for four dogs’ graves, two for her favorite.
She’ll sit with him into the afternoon
and watch the ocean from Koolau.
An old woman’s paradise, she tells us,
and pets the flowers’ soft, pink ears.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Kathleen Flenniken, whose most recent book of poetry is “Famous,” University of Nebraska Press, 2006. Poem reprinted by permission of the author. Introduction copyright (c) 2007 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

afterwards

american life in poetry: column 133

by ted kooser, u.s. poet laureate, 2004-2006

It may be that we are most alone when attending funerals, at least that’s how it seems to me. By alone I mean that even among throngs of mourners we pull back within ourselves and peer out at life as if through a window. David Baker, an Ohio poet, offers us a picture of a funeral that could be anybody’s.

Afterwards

A short ride in the van, then the eight of us
there in the heat–white shirtsleeves sticking,
the women’s gloves off–fanning our faces.
The workers had set up a big blue tent

to help us at graveside tolerate the sun,
which was brutal all afternoon as if
stationed above us, though it moved limb
to limb through two huge, covering elms.

The long processional of neighbors, friends,
the town’s elderly, her beauty-shop patrons,
her club’s notables. . . The world is full of
prayers arrived at from afterwards, he said.

Look up through the trees–the hands, the leaves
curled as in self-control or quietly hurting,
or now open, flat-palmed, many-fine-veined,
and whether from heat or sadness, waving.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) by David Baker, whose most recent book of poetry is “Midwest Eclogue,” W. W. Norton, 2006. Reprinted from “Virginia Quarterly Review,” Winter, 2004, by permission of David Baker. Introduction copyright (c) 2007 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

the garden buddha

american life in poetry: column 132

by ted kooser, u.s. poet laureate, 2004-2006

Children at play give personalities to lifeless objects, and we don’t need to give up that pleasure as we grow older. Poets are good at discerning life within what otherwise might seem lifeless. Here the poet Peter Pereira, a family physician in the Seattle area, contemplates a smiling statue, and in that moment of contemplation the smile is given by the statue to the man.

The Garden Buddha

Gift of a friend, the stone Buddha sits zazen,
prayer beads clutched in his chubby fingers.
Through snow, icy rain, the riot of spring flowers,
he gazes forward to the city in the distance–always

the same bountiful smile upon his portly face.
Why don’t I share his one-minded happiness?
The pear blossom, the crimson-petaled magnolia,
filling me instead with a mixture of nostalgia

and yearning. He’s laughing at me, isn’t he?
The seasons wheeling despite my photographs
and notes, my desire to make them pause.
Is that the lesson? That stasis, this holding on,

is not life? Now I’m smiling, too–the late cherry,
its soft pink blossoms already beginning to scatter;
the trillium, its three-petaled white flowers
exquisitely tinged with purple as they fall.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) by Peter Pereira. Reprinted from “What’s Written on the Body” by Peter Pereira, Copper Canyon Press, 2007, by permission of the author and publisher. Introduction copyright (c) 2007 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.