Wyn Cooper: “I write poetry in part because it makes me find connections I might otherwise not have found, connections that I—and with any luck others—might learn from, whether metaphors or similes or something in between. I’ve never owned a dog.” (web)
Jaime Jacques: “I live in Nova Scotia, a part of Canada where people of color have historically been marginalized and treated poorly. In recent years we have had a massive influx of Indian students, without the infrastructure in place to support them when they arrive. At the same time relations between India and Canada have plummeted in recent weeks as our prime minister has asserted that a Sikh separatist was murdered by the Indian government on Canadian soil. With all this in the news I couldn’t help but start to reflect on my father’s experience living here when he was young. Despite his determination to assimilate, I can see how India imprinted him. It’s critical to have freedom of movement, but immigration also seems to create an internal split that is never reconciled, a lifetime of longing and nostalgia.”
Stephanie Qin: “I like to write poetry as it allows me to express my feelings in a different way rather than simply speaking out. It converts my ideas into a more abstract form but at the same time shows what I’m thinking.”
Alice Capshaw: “Although I have been writing for some time and have my MFA in writing, this was the very first time I was given a prompt and asked to write a poem. I was given the words listed. I was unnerved but writing the poem turned out to be really fun. The poem is from a real experience.”
I said no I just don’t know how this could have happened
any of it
and there was a hush to the room like something deadly
sitting down like an osprey maybe or
father and I got up to leave thinking that the
doorknob couldn’t be dusted by police to find me
I could go
I could do anything
—fromKill the Dogs
2016 Rattle Chapbook Prize Selection
__________
Heather Bell: “Once upon a time there was a six-foot-tall woman with blue hair and a sense of smallness. In her house was a teacup saying ‘girl, you got this!’ and on her wall was a kitten hanging from a clothesline. The kitten’s word balloon said something like, ‘Hang in there!’ or ‘Don’t let go!’ Always something with an exclamation mark. Isn’t that the moral of the story, always? There is always a small woman, hiding her grandness, trying to fill up on uplifting wordplay. But today, this small woman sits down and writes a poem in which she details her smallness and why she came to be that way. Another small woman reads it, and from the tip of her hair a fire starts, but just as quickly dies. Isn’t that why we are here? To write another poem for a small woman to read, and then another. Until the amount of sparks are too much for the quick extinguishing, and she is a woman on fire, exploding into the world.”
John Brehm: “I write poetry for many reasons: to get beyond what I think I know, to pay attention, to experience flow states of consciousness, to delight in the music and texture of language, to connect with something larger and more mysterious than myself, to remember my true nature. But mostly I do it for the money.” (web)
“If the Point Were to Tell it Straight, Not Slant” by Alison DavisPosted by Rattle
Alison Davis
IF THE POINT WERE TO TELL IT STRAIGHT, NOT SLANT
In our first session, I told my tutor how much I used to love to take my siblings to the park when they were little. He said, Oh, so you had to help raise them? No, not really, it was just for fun. Climbing trees and picking apricots and playing fetch with the dalmatians that were always there on Saturday mornings. He said, So you needed to get out of the house to have fun? Tell me more about that. He asked questions that didn’t fit my life so I could write a story that didn’t fit my life but did fit the genre. Everyone embellishes, he said. The struggle is what makes the hero. Then maybe I should write about my parent’s divorce? A frown. Oh, God, no. That’s been done to death.
*
I wasn’t the star of the play, but I was in it. I wasn’t the star of the team, but I was on it. I wasn’t the president of the club, but I went to all the meetings. I didn’t win the competition, but I tried. I’m good at public speaking and applying liquid eyeliner. I rotate my date night underwear, but I’m not sure if I’ve ever been in love. My parents still brag that I potty-trained myself, that I was the first person in my class to learn to read. My favorite thing about school is when it’s over. In the hollow of a tree at the far end of the parking lot, I keep a collection of things that have been lost or left behind: a post-it note with a 209 phone number, a brass key, a conch shell charm, a souvenir penny from Yosemite, a lipstick, the wing of a swallowtail butterfly, the promises of my childhood.
*
Things that are more important right now: planning my spring break trip, sponsoring a voter registration drive, working at In-N-Out, pretending to be vegan to impress a girl, sleeping in, sleeping around, photographing treetops, playing D&D, disappearing, losing twenty pounds, gaining twenty pounds, vaping in the bathroom, hiding my eating disorder, solo kayaking the Green River, memorizing the capitals of every country in the world, learning to surf, sneaking out after curfew, raising money for Syrian refugees, walking the dog, dyeing my sister’s hair blue, breaking the cycle of intergenerational trauma, planting succulents and ponytail palms, writing a screenplay, lying about why this is the best I could do, re-learning how to dream.
*
They keep telling me to find my passion. My voice. My story. But none of the adults in my life have even done that, so how am I, at seventeen, supposed to? I keep having a dream where I’m ice skating on a pond, and a dragon appears, sets a ring of pines ablaze. The flames melt the ice, and I fall in. I flail in the water. The fire closes in on me. Unable to save myself, I let my legs go limp and say goodbye. But my skates bump up against something in the water. I realize I can touch, that I could have been touching the whole time, and walk right out. On the shore, the fire from the dragon keeps me from freezing, and I watch the stars spell out my most intimate questions in the sky. I lay there for a long time, listening—
Alison Davis: “I’m a high school English teacher, and I’ve been helping students with their college essays for many years. I go to great lengths to de-emphasize the commodification of identity, and especially of suffering, and I hope it matters.” (web)
