William Waltz presents. . .a poem by Terri Ford

At the risk of offending our other issues, I’ll admit that Conduit #6 is one of my favorites. Not only was it our first perfect-bound edition, but “Drunk Genius” featured poems by Russell Edson, an interview with Terence McKenna, and our first and only prize winning poem, “Mister Hymen” by Terri Ford.

It was our first and only because of the generosity and then the untimely death of Saul Astor. As much as we wanted to continue the prize on an annual basis, we couldn’t without his kind help, so Terri Ford stands alone atop our Mount Olympus. “Mister Hymen,” which can be found in Ford’s book Hams beneath the Firmament, charmed and amazed us, and, although the competition was stiff, our choice was easy.

The case of the triumphant Miss Ford illustrates the it’s-a-small-world phenomenon, which is one of the windfalls of being an editor. We’re all familiar with this minor miracle of chance, where one meets another and both know a third and through one another other lovely people are introduced. And so by some strange coincidence Terri Ford knew the nephew of Scott Bruno, our art director at that time.

A year later while visiting Scott in Cincinnati, we arranged to meet Terri, our champion, for dinner. She brought along the nephew and another friend, whose contact information I would later forward to his future publisher. We had a wonderful conversation over mulligatawny and lamb vindaloo and thus began a friendship.

The next day we had the pleasure of seeing Terri read her poems to a high school class. This included the breathtaking image of Miss Ford throwing over-sized granny panties into a crowd of shrieking teenage boys. And so it goes; without Saul Astor and “Mister Hymen” none of this would have come to pass.

-- William Waltz

Mister Hymen

Relent, says he with his cigarillos, his
splintered windshield.  You fain think
he’s neat, is boss, is mustang,

yup.  When he covers your north
with kisses,       oho the hymen
hies, bucolic      inland you’re tossing

edelweiss, unmown and springing.  This thump
and wag hath no repose            & when, how soon, he’s

dying (says)      —So you, as
foreordained, give         in.  What he broke’s
not glass, but a low grief, volcanic
and inactive years.  See him run.  All

of the villagers run
from heat, and you spread,
spread.

-- Terri Ford