Kary Wayson: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

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More of the Same

 

Even with my mouth on your thigh

I want my mouth on your thigh.

At the center bite of bread I want the whole loaf,

toasted. An orange. On a sunny day

I want more sun, more skin for the weather.

I'm in Seattle wishing for Seattle,

for this walk along the water, for her hand while I hold it:

I want to tie my wrist to a red balloon.

I'm counting my tips.

I'm counting the tips I could have made.

I want the television on, the television off.

In the ocean, I want to float an inch above it.

And when my father finally held me

like a stripe of seaweed over his wet arm,

I was kicking to get away, wishing he'd hold me

like he held me while I was kicking away. Listen to me.

I want to leave when I'm walking out the door.

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Kary Wayson is the author of The Slip (Burnside Review), winner of the Burnside Review Prize; American Husband (The Ohio State University Press), winner of the Charles B. Wheeler prize; and Dog & Me (LitRag Press), a chapbook. Her poems have appeared in The Nation, Image, The Rumpus, Bennington Review, The Yale Review, and the Best American Poetry and Pushcart Prize anthologies. She lives in Port Orchard, WA, across the water from Seattle, where she's a reviews editor at Poetry Northwest.

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                                                        Peter Paul Rubens, Abundance (Abundantia), ca. 1630, oil on panel

Comments

[Cindy Hochman]

This poem does a great job of exemplifying longing. As a reader, I could really feel the gravitational pull of everything the poet wants and needs and hoped for, and a great sense of what was/is lacking. I love so many lines here, including the short one "Orange," which says it all in one word. I also love "I want to tie my wrist to a red balloon," an image that is both metaphorical and literal. A wonderful poem, Kary, and thank you for posting it, Terence.

[lally]

a total delight, so decisively precise, thank you kary and terence

[Beth Joselow]

This poem affected me in a way that made me want to know more about Kary Wayson's work. I came upon an interview she did with the very good interviewer Mike Sakasegawa on his podcast, Keep The Channel Open, that added much to the great pleasure of encountering the work of a poet I will read more of. Thank you to Kary Wayson and to Terence for another excellent selection.

[Robert McDowell]

Lovely poem and commentary. I also sense that the poem asks us to listen deeply, and well.

[Indran J Amirthanayagam]

I love "the contradictory states" in this poem, and the craft, the line breaks. An orange all by itself, and more of the same, more of Seattle, more of Dad holding on to the speaker as she tries to wriggle away.

Thank you

Indran Amirthanayagam
Publisher at Beltway Editions

[Terence Winch]

Michael:  thanks for the comment, mo chara.

[Sr. Leslie]

I love the rhythm and pace of this poem…the images flying past like on an Express subway train…and the longing more and more, is the Longing of God for us…that Divine spark in each of us, longing to become the person we are called to be…Thank you Karynfor a wonderful poem and thank you Terence for finding it and sharing it with us…

[Terence Winch]

Cindy---Thanks for the comment.

[Terence Winch]

Beth: thanks for the comment.

[Eileen Reich]

This is a lovely poem. The artwork is beautiful.

[Terence Winch]

Leslie: thanks for your take on the poem.

[Clarinda]

A puzzle and a wonderful state of being—simultaneously. Well done!

[Grace Cavalieri]

Oh, sweet poet who shows abundance in her wanting. So clever and true. We live by desire, and by desire have more wanting. Which is abundant.

[susan campbell]

This captures the state of being human so well.

[David Beaudouin]

What a lovely collision of ambiguity and ambivalence that couldn't be more human, while a bit pensive. Thanks for a great poem, Kary and Terence!

[Don Berger]

Wow! I want to read this poem another forty seven, fifty times to try to figure it all out, to find out how the speaker and the poet too have managed to travel in such a fashion from top to bottom. I want to try to figure it out but not. I want to understand how it could have taken so long to find any poems by Kary Wayson. I want to tell everyone above who said stuff about this poem that they are all totally right. I want to learn to travel from line to line in a poem of my own as well as this poet has. I want to tell Terence Winch that he's found something all new here, at least as far I can tell. I want to tell Kary Wayson to keep writing, so I can read as much as possible. I want to buy her books and then look forward to whatever else she might write. I want to tell Susan Campbell that she nailed it when she said "This captures the state of being so well." I want to exist there, in that state of being, or at least think that I'm there. I want to be glad I'm a poet, I mean I'm glad I'm a poet, for having read these words just now.

[Terence Winch]

David: thanks for the comment.

[Terence Winch]

Great comment---thanks, Don.