A poet: Juliana Spahr

"poem written after September 11, 2001": Two tricks: the old scale 'em up, scale 'em down, and the old length-of-line is length-of-breath. And you know what, she combines them into something absolutely 21st century, about collectivity and how it relates to geography, at a specific historical moment and always.

As everyone with lungs breathes the space between the hands and the space around the hands and the space of the room and the space of the building that surrounds the room and the space of the neighborhoods nearby and the space of the cities and the space of the regions and the space of the cities and the space of the regions and the space of the nations and the space of the continents and islands and the space of the oceans and the space of the troposphere and the space of the stratosphere and the space of the mesosphere in and out. [mp3]

"Gentle Now, Don't Add to Heartache": This one shows us how much language contributes to our shared experience. And how language isn't enough if we destroy the things the words describe.

I replaced what I knew of the stream with Lifestream Total Cholesterol Test Packets, with Snuggle Emerald Stream Fabric Softener Dryer Sheets, with Tisserand Aromatherapy Aroma-Stream Cartridges, with Filter Stream Dust Tamer, and Streamzap PC Remote Control, Acid Stream Launcher, and Viral Data Stream.
I didn't even say goodbye elephant ear, mountain madtorn, butterfly, harelip sucker, white catspaw, rabbitsfoot, monkeyface, speckled chub, wartyback, ebonyshell, pirate perch, ohio pigtoe, clubshell.

"The Incinerator": Illustrates that poetry is a way of thinking, but you knew that. It's what she thinks that matters, and you'd better believe she has thoughts worth hearing about class and race and gender and herself.

As I write this other stories keep popping up and I keep abandoning them: wanting to talk about class, I kept talking only about gender.
As I write this other stories keep popping up and I keep abandoning them: when I sat down to write this piece I began by writing about myself using a series of statements that I stole from working class memoirs by US women and then memoirs by women from the global south.
As I write this other stories keep popping up and I keep abandoning them: the categories were not equal: working class US women and then just any woman from the global south, as if these categories had any relationship between them.