Blueberries (a poem)

Some recent publications and a poem after Ross Gay

Three Giant Sequoia trees: a lifecycle.

This month I’ve had two poems published, which feels surreal. Less than two years ago, I’d submitted an application for a continuing education writing program and fully expected that if I were accepted, it would be to the non-fiction cohort—but no, it was poetry. A genre I knew very little about aside from personal dabbling here and there. A year ago, I began submitting pieces to magazines, just to see how it felt (...it’s vulnerable). I’ve since had a few poems accepted, but with the nature of publishing, they can take a while to release. Seeing these pieces in context with the other lovely works included in the issues is both humbling and exciting.

“Fist-sized” can be read in volume 3 of RAGE Zine, a Copenhagen-based zine dedicated to “feminist rage as a force for creative change and collective action.” I cannot imagine a more apt home for this narrative poem about my uterus.

“Not Who I Was” is published in this summer’s PHIL LIT Journal, which “engages with philosophical, metaphysical, ethical, & existential themes.” This poem explores identity and becoming, in an issue all about the whole and the fracture.

I also dabbled in Alex Dawson’s poem-a-day prompts for Poetry Month in April. For her prompt to write a poem “after” any poet you love, I chose to write after Ross Gay. I want to say Ross Gay is essential reading, but that phrase is so often associated with things that you “should” read, whether or not it’s enjoyable—and what I mean is that you will be a happier person if you read his work because it is so thoroughly enjoyable. He writes about joy and delight and gardens and friendship and he almost makes you want to visit Indiana (which is a feat) and he is funny and wise and kind all at once. Inspired by Ross Gay, this is a little poem about writing, being human, and making blueberry muffins with my toddler. I’m sharing here in celebration of poetry being something inherently sprung from and fed by abundance and gift.

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Blueberries
After Ross Gay
It’s the way he keeps going, all 
across the page (or several), footnotes 
interrupted by footnotes, story stopped 
by better story, full circle be damned, personality 
flying with the wind, unabashed, and I want 
to write like I sound without worrying 
about how I sound and say what I mean 
in three different ways to make sure everyone 
gets it, and why is that so hard these days 
anyhow, to say anything, to mean something
(like I mean really mean it) and why am I so scared 
of filling the page as though someone who is reading 
my work would want to read less instead of more, 
always condensing everything until it might 
as well be nothing, afraid of the attention span—
or is it my own—afraid of saying too much 
and being held to it, afraid I will learn 
that I don’t actually have any thoughts 
that mean anything at all. And why does 
everything have to mean so much anyway? 
What happened to just saying something 
for the sake of saying it, like my toddler, 
who tells me again and again that the 
clock is counting down, and I tell him 
he really means counting up, but then I think 
he might actually mean counting down, counting down 
the time that we have left, every minute one less than 
we had before, and the clock becomes a countdown 
in our house, and we spend all our time baking muffins, 
dumping flour all over the floor and stirring eggs 
just to see yolks break and pouring in more blueberries 
than the recipe called for because who skimps 
on blueberries for a toddler, or maybe I should say 
who skimps on blueberries for themselves?