Sherman Alexie: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Gentrification

 

Let us remember the wasps

That hibernated in the walls

Of the house next door. Its walls

Bulged with twenty pounds of wasps

 

And nest, twenty pounds of black

Knots and buzzing fists. We slept

Unaware that the wasps slept

So near us. We slept in black

 

Comfort, wrapped in our cocoons,

While death’s familiars swarmed

Unto themselves, but could have swarmed

Unto us. Do not trust cocoons.

 

That’s the lesson of this poem.

Or this: Luck is beautiful.

So let us praise our beautiful

White neighbor. Let us write poems

 

For she who found that wasp nest

While remodeling the wreck.

But let us remember that wreck

Was, for five decades, the nest

 

For a black man and his father.

Both men were sick and neglected,

So they knew how to neglect.

But kind death stopped for the father

 

And cruelly left behind the son,

Whose siblings quickly sold the house

Because it was only a house.

For months, that drunk and displaced son

 

Appeared on our street like a ghost.

Distraught, he sat in his car and wept

Because nobody else had wept

Enough for his father, whose ghost

 

Took the form of ten thousand wasps.

That’s the lesson of this poem:

Grief is as dangerous and unpredictable

As a twenty-pound nest of wasps.

 

Or this: Houses are not haunted

By the dead. So let us pray

For the living. Let us pray

For the wasps and sons who haunt us.

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Sherman Alexie’s most recent book is You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, a memoir. He has published six books of poetry with Hanging Loose, the most recent being What I’ve Stolen, What I’ve Earned. He lives with his wife and sons in Seattle.

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                                                     Mher Chatinyan (Armenian), Wasp, 2021.

 

Comments

[Bill Nevins]

This poem stings, but in a very good way!

"Do not trust cocoons.

That’s the lesson of this poem.

Or this: Luck is beautiful."

[Emily Fragos]

"Both men were sick and neglected." This is the line that stopped me in my tracks. Doesn't it say everything.

[Denise Duhamel]

Wow--what a smart and compassionate and metaphorically apt poem!!

[Jack Skelley]

THis is an excellent poem! It captures a knotty and complicated social issue in symbols that are both deep and literal. Bravo, Sherman Alexi and Terence Winch.

[Jody Payne]

“Black knots and buzzing fists” of neglect. The tension that slowly builds.

[lally]

alexie does it again, puts into words what so many of us feel but didn't know how to express before he showed us how

[Terence Winch]

Jack---thanks for the comment.

[Eileen Reich]

Great poem ❤️

[David Lehman]

Brilliant display of formal mastery from the guest editor of "The Best American Poetry 2015."

[Clarinda]

I’m Stung and stunned.
I can’t unsee this poem or unhear it.

[Susan Campbell]

Love this. Amazing painting!

[Wanda R Phipps]

Love this poem--so many layers to explore!

[Elena]

Congratulations. And it reminded me of your book You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me.e

[Tracie Davis]

"Grief is as dangerous and unpredictable as a twenty-pound nest of wasps."

Isn't it just?

[Peter Kearney]

The father and the son in the house next door are now both living ghosts, haunting those of us who acquiesced in gentrification -- to cite just one lesson to be learned from this marvelous multi-faceted poem.

[Maureen Owen]

Absolutely perfect combo of poem and art! Chills and wisdom haunt their combination.

[JoAnn Anglin]

Damn, he’s good. I’m currently reading his story collection, Ten Little Indians. Every so often have to put the book down to absorb and ponder on some part of it.

[Phyllis Rosenzweig]

Beautiful and moving. I am a great fan of Sherman Alexi's. Thanks.

[Greg Masters]

Wonderful.