When I applied to be a Tupelo Press 30/30 Poet for February and was accepted (for the second year, hurray!), I had no idea that my client and work schedule would be exploding—in a good way—making it rough to write a poem every day. I’d made a commitment. I had to be okay with rough.
The writing process was distilled down to capturing impressions. It became a matter of: “just feel and go.”
It’s exciting to discover that no matter how blank my mental slate is, something will always arise. No matter how spent I feel, I can find one more drop of energy and reach for the pen once more.
Yesterday’s poem was born out of words within thirteen inches of where I was sitting. (I was too tired to go digging around any further.) I got curious, snapped photos of things – the label of my slippers, the tag on the heater, my mug, my lipstick. I created a poem from these random words, thirteen in all.
In the home stretch, I’m 88 percent to my fundraising goal for Tupelo Press. Will you consider supporting me? Three days to go, and I’ve burned so much mental and creative energy, and I feel joy of knowing I’m bringing good things into the world through the amalgamation of a literary nonprofit and the work of my heart.
Having formatting issues, so this is just a piece of today’s poem.
Being Thirteen
Thirteen Words to Hand Within a Thirteen-Inch Radius
Withdrawn
How the camp
counselor de-
scribed
me in her letter.
Granna chewed
on the word.
“Why weren’t you
friendly?” Granna
wore reading
glasses steeped in
White Shoulders perfume.
Peered at me as if
the letter were a
report card, which
it wasn’t,
merely a concerned adult
noting a child
who was quiet—
too quiet.
Please pay attention.
Dear
How Mother began
every letter from the
hospital. Also a term
of endear-
ment I never heard from
anyone real but her.
June and Ward
Cleaver used
it for each other.
Foams
at the mouth. How you
know to stay
away from the bloodhound
loping behind
the chain link fence.
Transmission
went out of my ‘69
Corona six years
later, but my friend
the mechanic poured
jug after jug of
fluid under the hood,
into a tinny, airy engine
so light you could see
the street underneath.
