Adrian Blevins: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Quiet Part Out Loud

You are 9/10ths the heresies you cherish /  1/10^th something saintly, beaten & sly.   
                                                                                                ---- Rita Mae Reese

 

Years after it was over and he was gone, I would think of the unfortunate woman
he was living with now and engaged to marry. Poor woman with the face so pale and flat

like a slide down a mountain rock. Poor plus-fifty bride-to-be with the voice too whispery
and the chin too jutty. The hair too thin and white, the thighs too big, the walk so lumbering.

Years after it was over and he was gone, the face of that woman would wake me like I myself
had been recruited to fuck her and I had to get my courage up. Did I suspect that my ex-husband

couldn’t really want to do it? Or was I trying to find a way to finally face his lack of a certain
vital fervor? Was my ex-husband also unlovely? A petty bureaucrat?  Stupidly matter-of-fact?

A tawdry accident? But the teeth too small! The cheeks too wide! And the whole head far too big
like a pond on the end of a stick. And me so superficial with my sick heart in the darkness going

horse, horse, cow, cow. Yes yours truly that hollow like a puddle on a road at midnight in a ghost town
by amine. Honestly I did not care what he did except for what it said about the ugliness in me

that I could not seem to get over the ugliness of her. Unless that’s wrong and I did care that he would
dare taint our lost little family with a woman with a face like that. We had lived on a granite hillside

overlooking an ancient lake in a house of African violets. All around us my father’s paintings
like a cove of orange blossoms. Or a river of luxe bodies oiled to flame on a sunset beach.

And this antique lamp my mother gave us—this knockout of a lamp glowing on the desk
where I shut my eyes now to try to see everything like something died and made it Queen.

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Adrian Blevins is the author of Status Pending, winner of the Maine Literary Prize for Poetry (Four Way Books, 2023); Appalachians Run Amok, Live from the Homesick Jamboree; The Brass Girl Brouhaha; and Walk Till the Dogs Get Mean, a co-edited collection of essays by new and emerging Appalachian writers. She is the recipient of many awards and honors including the Wilder Prize from Two Sylvias Press, a Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and a Rona Jaffe Writer’s Foundation Award, among others. She directs the Creative Writing Program at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________

                                                         Quinten Massys (Flemish, ca. 1465--1530), Ill-Matched Lovers.

 

Comments

[Thomas O'Grady]

Ouch! Someone somewhere is cringing right now . . . and maybe forever. A poem like this has permanence written into its bones.

[Sr. Leslie]

Whoa…yes indeed, a “fierce” poem!…Not sure how I “feel” about it but excellent and powerful poem…and the painting is Perfect!…Adrian, you sure have given me something to think about and ponder as I head out to the Cathedral of St John the Divine…(And the gargoyles there come to mind with this poem also!)…Thanks Adrian and thanks Terence!

[Bill Nevins]

Stunning if a bit confusing imagery--intentionally so?
Fierce indeed. A snarl of a beautiful poem.
Thanks Adrian and Terence!

[Terence Winch]

Good to get your take, Leslie.

[Terence Winch]

Bill---thanks for the comment.

[Denise Duhamel]

Wow! I love this poem and all it "confesses..." about what we find ugly in others and in ourselves. Brava!!

[lally]

double bam!!

[Grace Cavalieri]

She is terrific; and my feelings exactly about that other woman!

[Don Berger]

Terence is right--this poem is fierce, for certain, and every phrase, line has sharpness, freshness, integrity. I keep getting jolted by its high art, and its balance, the speaker intelligent and clear-eyed while at the same time imparting an emotionally intense state of mind. I'm glad you've shown us Adrian's work, Terence, given us this blessed chance to try and figure how she does what she does, while being walloped by her words.

[Richard Giannone]

Yes, erotic yearning keeps on going long after we move beyond being turned on and repulsed by the same features in an ex. The self-scrutiny of the poem begs for more words.

[Clarinda]

I find the poem—and the illustration—very very disturbing. This is high praise!

[David Beaudouin]

Great poem! We never leave those who we have left behind. Thanks, Terence!

[Terence Winch]

Thanks for the comment, Don, wherever you may be.

[Terence Winch]

David: thanks for the comment.

[Eileen Reich]

Great poem and terrific artwork.

[Lisa Siegrist]

This poem captures the writer's pain and indignation at being rejected for someone she sees as unworthy and her attempt to assuage it through massive rationalization. It's potent in its dehumanizing fury.

[ADRIAN BLEVINS]

Thanks for the comments, everybody. I just now realized that I could respond back to comments; I am not sure why it took me so long.

This poem made me so anxious to write and then to publish and then to publish again. But I am glad it's out there, as I agree with Helene Cixous that "the truth is what writing WANTS" (though I know that there's always more than one truth).