Edit: A friend asked the who/what/why of this poem. I’ll say first, when reading poetry, let yourself have the same experience as when you see a painting or sculpture; what feeling does it give you? What emotions does it bring up? What colors/sensations do you have? Where do you feel it in your body?

For this one, it’s a bit in the spirit of the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets who played and worked with words to break them into sounds and meanings way beyond what’s expected, to see what the sinew and possibility of words, structure, and sound are. Think Ron Siliman, Lyn Hejinian, Susan Howe… a lot of my inspo poets are Language poets. And then, think of Robert Lax and experimentalists and minimalists who want to make you sit with the experience of poetry and diction in a hyper pure and stripped way to see what happens to you (the reader) and the language; you become dependent on the poet to get you through. The poets are at once jazz musicians and conductors.

So, for this, I knew I wanted to break the word to see what would happen. I sincerely thought another poem would come out of this, so I was surprised that every way I broke it created for me an image of a dinner table with lots of uncertainty, defamiliarization, and subtext, and the multi-uses of tables (what happens when you have to eat at a table with emotional predators and you also have to play games with them at those same tables) and the language and emotions of being at a table that is unpredictable. I could have forced it into another shape, but it would have been a poorly-wrought poem.

It also reminded me that outside our kitchen, when I was growing up, lived a male cardinal in a tall maple tree. And later, we had a very soft wood table that was so soft that when my dad wrote anything (he has amazingly gorgeous penmanship), he pressed so hard you could permanently see it in the wood after he was finished. I thought that was incredible and wonderful, but my mom raged and raged. But for this piece, I wanted to focus on the threat, uncertainty, and lack of orientation and a safe anchor.

________

This is another piece that was sitting in drafts forever, but I couldn’t figure out the ending. Three nights ago, I was stewing about it again as I got into bed, and the last three lines finally came to me.

I’m excellent at naming my theoretical books, and then, as I write, I mentally note where each new poem would belong, to which book. I have one conjured with a few poems that would populate it called: State Bird of Illinois, and this would obvs belong there.