Poetry Postcard 7

Postcard 7 is one of the original 17 antique postcards I bought in Ellicott City, Maryland. I love the awful pun and the saturated colors.

“Published by Asheville Post Card Co., Asheville, N. C.”

This is what

a sharp woman

looks like.

Those three lines originally concluded the poem for this card.

I had ignored the farmer and the goat, focusing on the jacket, which meant the poem also had lines about pointy lapels and the fabric's pink sheen in the sun. More lines about the herringbone pattern of the jacket's lining. I admit it. There was a lot of descriptive imagery about the jacket.

However, as you can tell from the discarded ending, the poem is not really about the jacket. It turned out to be a femi-I-can-be-nasty statement, along the lines of Annie Lennox's "Would I Lie to You?"

I want her dress. (Annie Lennox also has a beautiful website, including her must-read January 1, 2013 blog post about gender violence.)

You Can’t Get My Goat

If I had

a red jacket

I would not

share it.

I’d yank it

from your

clenched incisors.

If I had a jacket,

buttons round

and gold,

I’d wear it

when I left you,

and never mind

your teeth marks

on my elbow.

So, poets, why cut "This is what/ a sharp woman/ looks like."?

The lines clarified, as I was writing the poem, what the poem wanted to say. (It had come as a complete surprise to me when I arrived at the turn: "I'd wear it/ when I left you.") I needed to hear those lines in order to understand who was speaking, who the voice of the poem was.

Since I'm turning around these poems so quickly (writing just a handful of days ahead of sending them out), the project is teaching me to edit  myself. I put each new poem away for a day or two, give it a brief assessment, polish it up.

I look my problem areas: opening lines, a glut of visual images (weighing the poem down), endings.

Endings. I tend to overwrite them, put an exclamation point at the end of the sentence, oversell the punchline, wrap it all up with a big bright bow.

Which is, I think, what "This is what/ a sharp woman/ looks like" is. A big, bright bow. The lines don't leave the reader with anything to think about. They are a bow that spells out what's inside the box. They're outta here.

And, speaking of gender violence, reading Lennox blog post made me see this poem in a new light. The last lines, as revised, focus on how the speaker has been hurt, rather than the fact that she is a sharp woman.

This card is going to one of my mentors. An excellent poet of feminist brio, gorgeously generous and more than generally gorgeous. I'm going to feature a postcard poem by this person on Friday, but no other hints until then.

Found! Poem on Facebook

Facebook hit up the wrong feminist with this online dating ad: "Guys looking for faithful women to take care of."

I didn't change any words, just moved them around a little.

For Women
Take care
of guys looking.
Faithful?

by Laura Shovan

(BTW -- Celebrated our 20th anniversary last summer. Faithful indeed.)

 

Poetry Friday: Poems of Adolescence

I was surprised to learn this week that a poem of mine, "Adolescence Prepared Me for This," is mentioned in an academic book.

Those of you who teach high school may want to check it out. The book is The Forms of Youth: 20th Century Poetry and Adolescence, by Harvard Professor and literary critic Stephen Burt. It came out in 2007.

The Forms of Youth has sections on modern British, American (one called, "Soldiers, Babysitters, Delinquents, and Mutants"), Irish and Australian poetry on the theme of adolescence.

My poem is mentioned in the notes as a "salient example" of "poems by women about girls and about the fear and risk," of growing up. I'd say, it falls into the "It gets better," category -- letting teens know that they won't always feel ugly, unwanted, marginalized or bullied.

Here is the poem, which first appeared in Paterson Literary Review #29

Adolescence Prepared Me for This

by Laura Shovan

Five months pregnant, I am not shocked
when my father says, "You've got a fat ass,"
having heard these words before.

I was sixteen, my face round and plain.
This bothered him enough to bribe me
one dollar for every pound I lost.
I shopped with my mother for clothes.
Those long, loose dresses, the boots I loved,
looked like they belonged on someone else.
Even my body didn't feel like it was mine.
The man I would marry said, "You will be beautiful
when you're 21." He could see it
in the bones of my face, beneath puberty.
Trusting him, I waited.

This waiting is the same.
My legs swell with the stillness
that I knew in my parents' house.
I busy myself washing tiny clothes
in super-mild detergent.
For you, I have put on a skin
that is uncomfortably familiar.
With you I will be born,
shedding this old self again.

I was super pleased that the poem is noted in the chapter, "Are You One of Those Girls? Feminist Poetics of Adolescence."

I have no problem saying I'm a feminist. Being a female poet is a political act. I'm proud to give voice to that sixteen year old girl, and her sisters -- now sixteen -- who need to hear that it does get better.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, everyone. Diane at Random Noodling is rounding up the poetry posts today. Head over there for the poetry feast.