Tupelo 6/30: Mudflap Girl Speaks

Dear Reader,

In my forthcoming book The Things a Body Might Become, I have a poem titled "Calvin Pees on Iraq," and it references the character from the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip peeing on the country of Iraq. The poem appears early in the collection, and it imagines the literal act: pissing on 29 million people. It's one of many poems that explores how global events impact domestic events (and vice versa), but it is unique in its pop culture/bumper sticker reference. 

When I was brainstorming other poem topics/ideas for this collection, I decided that the book could potentially use another bumper sticker reference, and since I actually reference the "spread-legged stripper sticker," in the Calvin poem, I thought I might write one to/for her. 

But as I trawled Google image, I discovered I really wanted to write about "Mudflap Girl," the most iconic naked lady image appearing on mud flaps, car decals, and even hood ornaments. 

Her story is a type of urban legend, so I decided to become the woman she was supposed to be modeled after and explore the complexity of being/not being this muse. 

Here is an excerpt from "Mudflap Girl Speaks" (read the full poem on Tupelo's blog here):

"...Or a wisp of the she before me,

untethered Amazon freewheeling the countryside.

Her body’s open road, long haul, radio static,

bellowing semi horn her call. Maybe she was

a goddess of his dreams: the slope of spine

a dangerous curve at night, dark crease along hip,

one-way bridge, flashing lights."

Thank you to everyone who is reading these posts and these poems, and thank you to those of you who are donating and requesting poetry incentives! Four more requests came in today, but I still have plenty of days/poems to fulfill your order. 

Yours in poetry,

Emari

Tupelo 5/30: What Lies Beyond Rescue

Dear Reader, 

Today's poem is written in response to a title by my dear friend, the poet Cindy Arrieu-King, offered after donating to Tupelo Press. 

It prompted me to explore/define "wreckage," and though my audio draft led me to some tricky cultural/political material, in the end I decided to stick with what felt closest to the bone. 

In the transcription of my audio draft, I wrote "I want to believe there is nothing that lies beyond rescue. That we might troll the river and find a family of beavers nursing the young boy who’d gone missing. Though I too understand lost causes, or maybe I don’t." Ultimately, these lines didn't find their way in the poem, but I think this is what the poem is about: wanting to be rational, but unable to shake a deep-rooted hope. 

I'm traveling today, returning from two weeks as a resident at Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA) at the quiet and grounding Firefly Farms. 

Here's an excerpt from "What Lies Beyond Rescue" (read the full poem here):


"Spent rocket stages, paint flakes

and frozen coolant in Earth’s low orbit.

Ed White’s lost glove gathering speed.

An eye that’s scratched beyond repair.
The thing that’s gone too far past
a sink’s drain hatch, though a friend

retrieved his son’s stuffed humpback
who’d fallen in the open sewer cap."

If you would like to title one of my poems, select five words for a poem, give me a potential theme/topic, offer a formal challenge, or receive a chapbook at the end of this project, please see my first posting for incentive amounts and make your way to the Tupelo Press donation page. Be sure to select my name from the scroll down tab titled "Is this donation in honor of a 30/30 poet?" 
For those of you who have already selected your incentives, I will be delivering those poems shortly.

Yours in poetry,

Emari

Tupelo 4/30: Taylor Swift and Her Win-a-Bagel Winnebago

Dear Reader,

Today's poem is made possible by Joe Costal, who chose to give me this amazing title when he donated to Tupelo Press.

At first, I was like good grief, how the hell am I going to write a poem that is remotely connected to that insane title?! Actually, my internal monologue usually includes more expletives. 

A quick Google searched revealed the "Win A Bagel/Winnebago" blonde joke with which I was unfamiliar, and I also found a very creepy Buzzfeed quiz titled "Can You Guess The Celebrity Faces Hiding in These Breads." Yes, the bagel is Taylor Swift. 

Thanks, Joe Costal, thanks. 

If Taylor Swift is a bagel, what kind of bread would I be? Could I be a rigatoni instead? Or just a good hard roll? Suddenly, I was thinking about the Rutgers' grease trucks,

and then I could trace a clear line from the girl I was to the woman I've become. Isn't that what Taylor is trying to do and asking of her fans? I'll let you decide, dear reader.

Thanks, Joe Costal. 

Here's an excerpt from "Taylor Swift and Her Win-a-Bagel Winnebago" (read the full poem here).

"...Oh Taylor,

swift us to paradise where a girl can eat her carb’s

content. Like once in that Rutgers campus parking lot,

Erykah Badu’s “Bag Lady” blaring from the small

horn mounted atop the red and gold diner car, as if

it was Girl’s Day Out at the grease truck compound."

If you would like to title one of my poems, select five words for a poem, give me a potential theme/topic, offer a formal challenge, or receive a chapbook at the end of this project, please see my first posting for incentive amounts and make your way to the Tupelo Press donation page. Be sure to select my name from the scroll down tab titled "Is this donation in honor of a 30/30 poet?" 

For those of you who have already selected your incentives, I will be delivering those poems shortly.

Yours in poetry,

Emari

Tupelo 3/30: The Tongues of My Fingers Ask

Dear Readers,

Day three: Today's poem

was inspired by a line in Bob Hicok's gorgeous poem "My Most Recent Position Paper," which appeared on the Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day on April 28, 2016. I remember texting my friend the line "the tongues/of my fingers ask to be words/against your skin" and then carrying it in my head for the next few days. 

To be honest, I had trouble starting today's poem-a-day endeavor. I always want to write, but sometimes I really don't know what I'm writing toward. 

These days, I'm writing new poems for my second manuscript-in-progress and I'm also trying to write a few poems for my forthcoming book to fill some gaps/flesh out themes. I have a stack of index cards on my desk with topics and notes on them. Sometimes I can conjure a poem from these cards, and sometimes, I draw a blank. This was one of the latter.

If I was not doing Tupelo's 30/30, I disclose, I would have mined the crappy drafts I'd started and deposited the best language in my "Scrap Notes," where I will draw from in the future, and I would NOT have written a poem. 

But, dear readers, I could not let you, the whole Internet (who I know is reading these poems!), and myself down. Being part of this project demands that I come through.

So I thought about what language has arrested me in the recent past and I couldn't shake that Hicok line. So I had a title and the beginning of line. 

Here's an excerpt from "The Tongues of My Fingers Ask" (whole poem here): 

"...To slick 

the pelt of pelvic bowl, to tie the limbic's

cherry stem, knot to suck the sweet.

To mete out praise in measured taps–
ka ka ka­–a tabla’s rhythm snaps." 

Ideally, I think I want to spend more time with this draft. I think I could imagine more things that the fingers as tongue might do (in the most precise language as possible). I want this poem to sound as erotic as the type of touch I'm describing. 

Because of this project, I have a draft. Well, I really have three drafts because it's day three, but today was the first day I may have not written. 

Thank you for reading and for following the whole project and for donating!

Yours in poetry,

Emari

Ps. Tomorrow I will be debuting the first of the poetry incentive poems!!

Tupelo 2/30: The Shield of Harambe

Dear Readers, 

Today, before I could write you this post, I texted my mother. I wanted to explain the end of my poem, how when I mentioned being the child of a mother who failed, it was not to shame her, but to talk about how dispel the myth of the perfect mother, how to unite and undo the individual and collective shame over not being the mothers/parents we, or someone else, expect us to be. 

After the death of the gorilla Harambe (notice how I have not given you a hyperlink for this), there was such an immediate and virulent spew of judgment and accusation cast at the three-year-old boy's mother that I recoiled, refused to watch the videos, refused to read any more of the hate speech than what appeared on my Facebook wall. And I encouraged a few mothers in a private Facebook group to write their own prose responses because yes, no one was talking about how we have all sneezed and discovered our small ones missing or in immediate (small/large) danger. How did you bite off that doll's head? 

And slowly, these other voices emerged, the ones sharing their own stories, when good god, they were human. But the comment threads (I know, don't read the comment sections!) revealed a hateful, often racist, self-righteous Internet mob assembled and offering much advice on parenting and/or not having children. Ack! 

So I started reading the most painful of the articles and the change.org petitions asking for social services to inspect the family of this boy. And I looked at photos of the mother and her family and I thought of all the times I have failed as a mother. (Sidenote: Tonight I am missing my three-year-old daughter's first-ever end-of-year show because I am at a writing residency until Sunday.) 

I am also reading Ross Gay's gorgeous and lush and painful catalog of unabashed gratitude, and I was struck by these incredibly long sentences tugged and stretched over multiple pages and how he could braid so much celebration into these poems of loss and sorrow. 

So here is an excerpt from today's poem-a-day "The Shield of Harambe" (read the whole thing here):

"All of our mothers have failed.

Sometimes it’s a bit of fiberglass

installation spun like carnival

cotton candy. Five fingers caught

in a car door. My own child bit

by a beach restaurant’s pet parrot.

It happened so fast–what they all say.

I watched it. She was pretending,

as children do, that she was cooking,

and when she offered the parrot,

high in the rafters, a small plate

of crushed shells and sticks,

he swooped down and chawed

her meaty shin breaking into blood

bright as the bird’s back."

I want to thank everyone who has already donated in support of my cause. The response has been so positive. As of this post, I own friends, family, and followers all of this:

• 4 poems written to/for a specific title
• 4 poems with a specific set of five words
• 2 poems written about a specific theme/topic
• 2 She-Rex Sampler chapbooks (signed, of course)

And I know that a few others have donated and have not sent me their incentive requests yet! Wow, friends, you really are the best. 

Yours in poetry,

Emari

Tupelo 1/30: Angel of Assassination

Dear reader,

A few weeks ago, I spent the morning at Ventnor Coffee and reread my recently accepted manuscript The Things a Body Might Become (forthcoming 2017, ELJ Editions).

Working on a second manuscript has helped me think more critically about how the first one works, and though I still believe that the first book is about how women, in particular, negotiate a dangerous world, I discovered that the collection was also exploring the nature of belief–religious/spiritual, political, personal.

Like I have outlined for my current manuscript-in-progress, I decided to list other poem themes that might be good additions to this first book. Some of the themes are in conversation with pre-existing poems, some are new angles.

Fast forward to this past week, where I've been a resident at the Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA) at Firefly Farms. Here, I've had time to research many of these topics, including historical/political female assassins.

Though I've found myself interested in several of their lives, I was particularly drawn to Charlotte Corday. She was well read/educated and believed that Marat was responsible for the most violent threads of the Reign of Terror. I was also interested in the story that a man on the guillotine platform, possibly a carpenter, slapped her freshly decapitated face. That was the seed of the poem.

After writing some notes on an index card, I slept on it, and in the morning I recorded an audio draft on my iPhone during a walk. The notes from the audio draft led to "Angel of Assassination," excerpted here:

"...Hands bound, detached

below; if her tongue still flapped, she’d

spit Plutarch’s credo. The six-inch blade

of a woman's spite." 

This is the first day. And I will disclose that I'm nervous about putting something just-formed into the world. Already, as I sit down to work on my next draft-in-progress, the old ghosts of insecurity are rattling my cage. Shush, I say, shush. 

Cheer me on, friends. I know I can do it, but it helps to hear someone else's voice too. And consider any of the poem perks in the last post to help shape the course of my work this month. 

Love to you all.

Yours in poetry,

Emari