SORRY IT’S SO SMALL
by Lauren Ireland
Tag: American Poetry
SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: NORMA LILIANA VALDEZ
YOUR LIFE OR HERS
by Norma Liliana Valdez
(“Your Life Or Hers” was originally published in The Acentos Review and is reprinted here today with permission from the poet.) READ MORE
SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: A.J. HUFFMAN
NO PLACE. LIKE HOME?
by A.J. Huffman
I met her in a bus station.
She was tired.
And hiding.
I tried to make small talk.
And succeeded.
Until I asked where she was going.
“Home,” she whispered. READ MORE
SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: KIM ROBERTS
LONG DIVISION
by Kim Roberts
I was never good at math
but I understood
the heavy burden
when a number was left over:
you had to carry it,
the weight bending your frame
until your whole body formed
a less-than sign.
(“Long Division” was originally published in Prime Number and is reprinted here today with permission from the poet.)
Kim Roberts just published her third book of poems, Animal Magnetism, winner of the Pearl Poetry Prize (Pearl Editions, January 2011). She is editor of the online journal Beltway Poetry Quarterly and the print anthology Full Moon on K Street: Poems About Washington, DC (Plan B Press, 2010).
Editor’s Note: Today’s poem exemplifies the efficient beauty of simplicity. Using few words in four brief stanzas, Ms. Roberts clearly conveys her message as effectively as she might have in a more verbose poem, perhaps more so. Tackling a concept as large as the heavy weight of burden one carries in life, this poem masterfully takes metaphor by the reigns, leaving the reader thinking of much more than math, “the weight bending your frame.”
Want to read more by and about Kim Roberts?
Kim Roberts Official Website
SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: ADAM EAGLIN
HEAT
by Adam Eaglin
It wasn’t a dream, more like a vision,
if vision meant steam rising from
a body, meant heat from the living—
I became the eye of a round-stomached cobbler.
I became a word in a fable. I became
the tongue in the mouth
of a girl. I became limbs like those of trees stripped of bark.
I became a shade of vacant white, like light
lifting from the skin of the sun.
Once I was attractive, once, you could smell it on me
like kerosene, that kind of thing, about to catch fire.
I never used the word beauty except when it was required,
ironically, but then I became the word, a creature transforming
in the moonlight.
Something strange happened then.
A man becomes frightened,
not at what he has done, but what he is about to do;
The wet of grass on skin,
the cold of the night
when you lay your body down.
Once I was attractive, once—
and then I became the night,
and then I became the air.
(“Heat” was originally published in Prick of the Spindle and is reprinted here today with permission from the poet.)
Adam Eaglin was raised in Summerfield, North Carolina, and has degrees from Duke University and Boston University. His poetry and reviews have appeared in Gulf Coast, Publishers Weekly, and the Harvard Review. A recipient of the Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship, he works in publishing in New York City.
Editor’s Note: Adam Eaglin is a master of metaphor. He effortlessly manipulates images to create an Alice in Wonderland-esque world for his readers to slip into as if a rabbit hole. With moments like “if vision meant steam rising from a body, meant heat from the living,” and “The wet of grass on skin, the cold of the night when you lay your body down,” we the readers are taken on a journey into a man’s inner thoughts and experience and into the relationship he inhabits and the transformations that ensue as a result thereof.
Want to read more by and about Adam Eaglin?
The Atlantic
Duke University Libraries
Vanity Fair
Words Without Borders
SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: KEITH WILSON
HOW LIKE A POTATO
by Keith Wilson
How potato of you,
noticing with your many eyes
the hunched and gloveless scraping of frost
from the windshield of my car. Omniscient
of you. Or perceived from your closet
window. Maybe the crack of your door.
And then to bring me a pair
of your own—worn, leather and for the garden.
How warm and hearty,
how rich and filled with starch.
Or Summer in your lawn chair.
My arms filled with groceries
or school books, how you tilt yourself
so your skin appears the most rough and brown,
bruised from the heavy handling
since before you were pulled from the unforgiving earth
by Jesus—who must, from the sounds of it,
live in the apartment
on the other side of you.
How you vegetate so,
arms like vines lifting to light
despite the dark knots
in your stomach, how you manage
to forget the heavy smell
of warm coffee soil,
down here where I live.
Below.
How like a potato,
to sit away from the birds, smiling,
all ready to fry.
(“How Like a Potato” was originally published in Poetry Bay and is reprinted here today with permission from the poet.)
Keith Wilson Keith S. Wilson is an Affrilachian poet and Cave Canem Fellow currently living in Kentucky. A graduate of Northern Kentucky University, Keith’s work has appeared in Appalachian Heritage, Mobius, Evergreen Review, The Driftwood Review, Breadcrumb Scabs, Kudzu, and in the anthology Spaces Between Us. Keith is an editor for the multilingual online journal Public-Republic and co-editor for the culture blog We Who Are About To Die.
Editor’s Note: How clever of Mr. Wilson to compare a person to a potato in such a skillful manner. To create layers of meaning – the potato-like characteristics of a person with their many eyes watching and their tendency to act as if they are “rich and filled with starch” – spread on top of deeper, more meaningful discussions that relate to religion and socioeconomic divides. In addition to his clever wordsmithing and ability to relay deeper meaning, Mr. Wilson’s poetry appealed to me first and foremost for his deft ability to manipulate language and create beautiful verse with moments like “how you tilt yourself / so your skin appears the most rough and brown, / bruised from the heavy handling / since before you were pulled from the unforgiving earth.” Given the layers of this poem, I suggest giving it a second and even a third read in order to fully extrapolate meaning as if pulling roots from the soil.
Want to read more by and about Keith Wilson?
Keith Wilson’s Official Blog
SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: LYN LIFSHIN
WHEN I WAS NO LONGER MY LEATHER JACKET
by Lyn Lifshin
Something he’d picked up
and gently carried to the
closet. When I was no
longer something he half
wanted to wear, held so
delicately, smiled at like
when he came in later to
the reading, said he would
have brought the Margarita
but he didn’t know if I
liked it on the rocks, how I
felt about salt. Before I
was no longer my jacket,
darkly mysterious, soft but
with a musky smell, flexible
enough to do what he
wanted with. Before that I
was all animal, wild. I was prey
he was on a safari for, caught
in his crosshairs. He could
taste my hair thru e mail.
Once he tracked me as far as
San Antonio, couldn’t
find me. This time I was the
lure, the flash of a few verbs and
he canceled classes, took off
work. I was something he
couldn’t stroke like the leather.
He was used to things being
fatal, leaps and cracks. He was
a journalist, wanted no
emotion to get in the way
of the facts.
(“When I Was No Longer My Leather Jacket” was originally published in Poetry Bay and Lyn Lyfshin’s book Persephone printed by Red Hen Press and is reprinted here today with permission from the poet.)
Lyn Lifshin has written more than 125 books and edited 4 anthologies of women writers. Her poems have appeared in most poetry and literary magazines in the U.S.A, and her work has been included in virtually every major anthology of recent writing by women. Lyn Lifshin has also taught poetry and prose writing for many years at universities, colleges and high schools, and has been Poet in Residence at the University of Rochester, Antioch, and Colorado Mountain College. Winner of numerous awards including the Jack Kerouac Award for her book Kiss The Skin Off, Lyn is the subject of the documentary film Lyn Lifshin: Not Made of Glass. For her absolute dedication to the small presses which first published her, and for managing to survive on her own apart from any major publishing house or academic institution, Lifshin has earned the distinction “Queen of the Small Presses.” She has been praised by Robert Frost, Ken Kesey and Richard Eberhart, and Ed Sanders has seen her as “a modern Emily Dickinson.” Her prizewinning book (Paterson Poetry Award) Before It’s Light was published Winter 1999-2000 by Black Sparrow Press.
Editor’s Note: It is an honor to share with you the work of Lyn Lifshin today. A renowned poet, Lifshin has earned her reputation as a true wordsmith. With moments like “how I felt about salt” and “flexible enough to do what he wanted with, ” today’s poem at once delves effortlessly into a vignette of a relationship and simultaneously tells the story behind the scenes.
Want to read more by and about Lyn Lifshin?
Lyn Lifshin’s official website
SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: ANDREA KNEELAND
By Andrea Kneeland:
UNTITLED
When you put your arms around me and I close my eyes, everything except your body disappears. I press my face against your chest, my eyes all wet, and sometimes I pull away and see that I have left satisfying evidence of tears on your shirt. I will admire the evidence covertly. It looks like a Rorschach blot or a foodstain. When I close my eyes, you could be anyone. Sometimes I forget your name. I can even forget who you are while you are speaking to me, if I want to, if I keep my eyes shut, if I try hard enough. It’s not just you who disappears when I shut my eyes. The ones before you disappeared too. All of your arms, your t-shirts, your reluctant acts of comfort, all of you feel exactly the same and it doesn’t matter to me anymore who any of you are.
HOME MOVIES
the way flesh swarms like ants the stuttering thumps embedded
like morse in our bones forever a history of fingers glistening
like butter the way memory is sort of a stain
in the cloth
like grease or like blood forever there you are unbleached
how you let them touch you forever your breasts fleshed guppyfish
eyes straining toward opposite points in the air forever the arch
of your skin
and the slip of a fisted hand tanned like leather forever the wormy
brown nylon of twisted rug the way it holds the imprint
of swarmed bodies forever the muscle of thighs
the baby
soft skin of the wolves forever the circling throb of impatience
the impermanence of movement the impermanence of face
of the bodies of ten white socked men forever the clutch
like a balled baby
fist forever the way you pressed your self down into the love
ly brown floor forever how your face bleeds forever into the white
round white lights
forever how I wondered if anyone would ever love
you how I wondered how
you would make them
(“UNTITLED” was originally published in PANK Magazine, and “Home Movies” originally appeared in Tarpaulin Sky Press. Both poems are reprinted here today with permission from the poet.)
Andrea Kneeland is the author of The Birds & The Beasts (Cow Heavy 2011) and a web editor for Hobart. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in a number of journals and anthologies, including Annalemma, DIAGRAM, Barrelhouse, Caketrain, American Letters & Commentary, Wigleaf, The Collagist, 580 Split and elimae.
Editor’s Note: Don’t let it be said that I don’t know how to ring the new year in with a bang! I must admit today’s poems are some of my favorites that I’ve had the pleasure to publish on this series. If you’re an avid reader it should be clear to you why these poems are right up my alley. Working strongly within the theme of relationships with an overtly sexual drive, these poems are a one-two-punch to the gut of America’s Puritanical backdrop. With moments and killer end lines like “And this will be proof that I know who you are and I mean it when I say that I love you,” “All of your arms, your t-shirts, your reluctant acts of comfort, all of you feel exactly the same and it doesn’t matter to me anymore who any of you are,” and “forever how I wondered if anyone would ever love / you how I wondered how / you would make them,” Andrea Kneeland is a poet after my own heart, and the perfect start to a new year of poetry!
Want to read more by and about Andrea Kneeland?
Hobart Literary Journal
PANK Magazine
Tarpaulin Sky Press
SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: KENDRA GRANT MALONE
A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN BE ALONE
by Kendra Grant Malone
WHEN I GOT OFF THE TRAIN TONIGHT
I WANTED TO BE
BACK IN THE MIDWEST
THERE WAS NO REAL PROMPT
FOR IT
MY BRAIN WAS SUDDENLY
FLOODED WITH IDEAS
OF LAYING IN FIELDS
AT NIGHT ALONE
AND BEING ABLE TO SEE VERY FAR
A PLACE WITH NO HILLS
I WANTED TO BE
IN A PLACE
WHERE YOU COULD BE
ALONE AT NIGHT
AND HEAR THE INSECTS
SWARMING ABOVE YOU
AROUND YOU
A PLACE
WHERE YOU CAN SEE
THE WHOLE MILKY WAY
I DIDN’T WANT TO BE
IN NEW YORK
THE SMELL
IS AWFUL HERE
AND SO IS
THE CROWDING
I WANTED TO BE ALONE
LIKE YOU ONLY KNOW
WHEN YOU ARE FROM THE MIDWEST
WHERE IT IS POSSIBLE
TO DRIVE TWENTY MINUTES AWAY
AND BE THE ONLY HUMAN BEING
FOR MILES AND MILES
I WANT TO SPOON
THE CORN STALKS
TO SLEEP TONIGHT
(“A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN BE ALONE” was originally published in The Offending Adam and is reprinted here today with permission from the poet.)
Kendra Grant Malone lives with her cat Delores Grant Malone. Her first collection of poetry, Everything Is Quiet, is available at scrambler books. You can also visit her website to read more about her work and her cat at kendralovely.blogspot.com.
Editor’s Note: Today’s poem is dedicated to all of my Midwestern friends, particularly those of you who hail from the quiet sparse spaces. While so many of you have been eager to leave the stillness of that life behind for more urban pastures, I think you know what this poem is speaking to. How one might, in a moment overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of city life, long “to drive twety minutes away and be the only human being for miles and miles,” “to spoon the corn stalks to sleep,” “to be alone like you only know when you are from the Midwest.” Perhaps you’re back in your Midwestern home today for the holiday, and perhaps this poem will help you to better appreciate your return.
Want to read more by and about Kendra Grant Malone?
Buy her book!
Kendra’s Blog
The Offending Adam
SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: OKLA ELLIOTT
By Okla Elliott:
THE IDIOT’S FAITH
Three lanterns floated in the dream she told him, but he didn’t want to hear about lanterns. He wanted factories unbuilt, windows smashed open. He wanted libertine wailings. She denied being a builder of factories, but he knew her reputation. A wind blew in from Montreal, or she said it was from Montreal, said she could smell the bars of Rue St Laurent. He was skeptical but didn’t want to argue. What good are arguments on a Saturday night? What good are arguments at all? She told him again about her love of the French language, and he thought maybe they were getting somewhere. The modern sunset outside her window was spilled wine tinged with pollution. They went down the mountain to town, found the trouble she had decided they wanted. She called a homeless man a fallen Chinese god, and they mourned his sad descent, forgetting (almost) their own. That is the power of generosity, one use of our idiot faith in human love.
THE LIGHT HERE
It sets a mood
of clownish tragedy,
of ecstatic failure waiting to happen.
It is not a static blue light
nor the throb of a strobe.
It is not a light to read by
nor to be naked in,
unless you are desperate
or barbarously horny.
I would use it to look for you
in a cave or catacomb
or an ossuary crowded by the famous dead–
that is, if you were in such a place,
I would use this light to find you.
It is a light that yellows the periphery.
It is not a light that brightens the center.
It is mixed from an overcast morning
and the electric urban dusk.
It is a light I could live in
if I came to terms with certain failings
in my character
and the character of others.
I know you have light where you are,
better light even,
but I wanted you to know
about the light here.
Okla Elliott is currently the Illinois Distinguished Fellow at the University of Illinois, where he studies comparative literature and cultural theory. He also holds an MFA from Ohio State University. For the academic year 2008-09, he was a visiting assistant professor at Ohio Wesleyan University. His drama, non-fiction, poetry, short fiction, and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in Another Chicago Magazine, Indiana Review, The Literary Review, Natural Bridge, New Letters, North Dakota Quarterly, A Public Space, and The Southeast Review, among others. He is the author of two poetry chapbooks–The Mutable Wheel and Lucid Bodies and Other Poems–and he co-edited (with Kyle Minor) The Other Chekhov.
Editor’s Note: Today I am honored to present to you the work of As It Ought To Be‘s managing editor. His work speaks for itself, as does the significant body of publications in which his work has appeared. Okla is an impressive scholar, a fearless leader, and a wonderful person to know in the writing world. He believes strongly in the idea of building and sustaining a community of writers, and I am honored to be a member of that community. Regarding today’s pieces I will say that Mr. Elliott effortlessly combines vignettes of straightforward narrative with crisp images and moments of simple yet brilliant language such as “What good are arguments on a Saturday night? What good are arguments at all,” “if you were in such a place, I would use this light to find you,” and this kicker of an ending, “It is a light I could live in / if I came to terms with certain failings / in my character / and the character of others. / I know you have light where you are, / better light even, / but I wanted you to know / about the light here.” Simple. Elegant. Stunning.
As It Ought To Be 