Lawrence.com

Four Lawrence women-a practicing witch, a daughter of illiterate Tennessee sharecroppers, a bisexual anarchist and a poetry professor-are reading poetry in the same room on Saturday, and they're afraid that if you attend, you might explode.

"Part of what drew me to this reading, and to do something that's a little more outrageous compared to mainstream literature, was to pull together people who had been putting things out there that are just wildly and unabashedly alive," says the professor, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg. "Poems that really have some resonance, and vibration, and pizzazz and surprise to them."

One could go on, but four short poems are worth four thousand long paragraphs.»

Self-Portrait Before Birth

The roundness of this pond carrying its own landscape

of sound: mountains in wind, old vacant lots,

roads under construction, roots banging against each other.

All the trees shedding cells to cling to the new one

until they aren't themselves anymore. Toes tumble overhead.

A resting place, hot and round; a small, spun forest

into what will be a girl, the spiderweave of the brain

so fresh nothing has gotten caught to death there yet.

Turn over, aim hand to mouth, miss again. Roll over.

Dead leaves under which so much grows, not yet fruited

out on the vine. Everything seed and dirt in the constant rain:

brush of dead starlight on surface of old ocean.

-Caryn Mirriam Goldberg

Sweetie Pants

I send you

dine and dash

love note kisses

and tangerine hugs

from lightening bugs

and problem-solving butterflies.

I wish you

moon cookies

and butter sleep

created by

transformation biking

near the dishwasher,

sweat heart yogurt,

and other festive gifts

in psychedelic flight

through the heavens of dreams

of squealing life.

-Chantel Guidry

Seed Koan

Before blossom,

Bud.

Before bud,

Stick.

Before stick,

Root.

Before Root,

Seed.

Before seed,

:::

AH!

-Nancy Hubble

In Spite of Everything

In spite of everything that's been spoiled in my life,

The losses piling up like ancient compost in the backyard

Of my psyche, the rotted dreams and midnight screams,

Spilled ice cream and bitch ice queens, in spite of bitter

Oranges and the persistence of garbage

Lost teeth, and opportunities

Waving goodbye and disappearing forever

In spite of relationships

Turning out the way they do

Having to give up the cherished notion

That another person can save you

In spite of aging, and the ultimate humiliation

Of the body, the grinning, squirming nightmares

That wake me in cold sweat at three a.m.

I find my life grows precious beyond any good sense

The mornings fill with gratitude and birdsong

And I find that nothing matters at all-

Nothing except love.

-Dixie Lubin