by Julia Scott
—S.A.
To the Men at Work Outside My Window
See here, fellows: It is me, your skinny-stemmed little daisy faggot boy
Yoo-hoo! Yes, me—the fellow you keep glaring at.
I have a few things to say, if I might.
Might I? Right, then: first off, let me accede to the discrepancies
between us. I did not just recently fall from the turnip truck,
or what have you. I can see, from the cut of the collective jib
out your way, the paintsplat and jeanrip, those ungodly scabs,
that we are not destined for tea,
okay? Understood. Capiched. Comprendo’ed.
There are divisions here deeper than language, or drill bits
Yes yes. We would tire of one another in a matter of minutes
You would bang and I would frill
bang bang
frill frill
And never the twain shall meet
But say: since you have knocked me awake and into this dew-clingy day
I find myself gilding a few questions
As in: all that banging and haranguing
is it all entirely necessary to the repairs you have been summoned here
to enact
And: why are you all named Richie?
Is there some sort of law—the law of Richies?
And: why all the niggers and spics and chinks and so forth
Some of my best friends, you understand,
they are niggers and spics and chinks
and they know how to use sanders, some of them
And the cadences of your speech (which are rhythm type things)
How do you do that, each and every day,
murdering all those syllables?
Are you aware that the letter “r” is still in wide use?
And classic rock?
How many times the rising sun and the hotel in California and who,
precisely, is wrapped up in that goddamned douche?
Don’t you ever feel just a bit numb?
Don’t you ever get tired of your tools?
Don’t you ever, in some secret sun, sit in wonder of the leaves?
or the women you undress around your offbrand cigarettes
Is it all just sawdust and Sheetrock?
Is there nothing between us besides cocks?
And what lies beneath all that sun-puckered skin?
Can your blood, ever, be had by something less than knuckles?
JOSHUA MOHR
COLD SHOWERS AND IMAGINARY FRIENDS
JOSHUA MOHR is the author of four novels, including Damascus, which the New York Times called “Beat-poet cool.” He’s also written Some Things That Meant the World to Me, one of O, The Oprah Magazine’s Top 10 reads of 2009 and a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, as well as Termite Parade, an Editors’ Choice on the New York Times bestseller list. He lives in San Francisco and teaches in the MFA program at University of San Francisco. His latest novel is Fight Song.
Here’s the thing: I want to lie to you. I want so badly to tell you I wrote this when I was in junior high. That way, you’d nod and smirk and shake your head at the bad prose we construct in adolescence. You’d give me the benefit of the doubt, knowing we’ve all scribbled a few embarrassing lines way back when we wore braces.
Problem is that I wrote this when I was twenty. Twenty! Living in the Lower Haight. Dreadlocked. Drinking forty ouncers and reading the Beats and writing the worst poetry ever. I can’t tell you any more details from that era because I don’t remember. If pushed on it, I could say this—be careful who you idolize, or maybe you’ll end up living in some Bukowski-inspired squalor, only to find out it’s not charming or hilarious to be a broke alcoholic. That’s a hole it takes years to dig yourself out of, and maybe I’m still digging.
Anyway, I soon realized that my gifts on the page were best served in the novel form and I retired my “poetry pen.” But for all of you who’ve never met a car crash you won’t gawk at, please meet my wreck.
—J.M.
Cold Showers & Imaginary Friends
In the shower, behind a yellow curtain that smells like a cave,
white body facing cold pelts,
head bent & too early & the sun still entertaining a distant hemisphere.
The shampoo bottles on the window sill look like a caravan,
of empty handed men,
walking slowly back to a disappointed village.
At least they have a village. At least they have a home. At least they’re not poisoning themselves day after meager day, waiting to feel some kind of scrawny catharsis,
settling for cold showers & imaginary friends.
MATTHEW ZAPRUDER
TISSUES
MATTHEW ZAPRUDER is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Come On All You Ghosts (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year) and Sun Bear. A professor in the St. Mary’s College of California MFA program and English department, he is also an editor at Wave Books. He lives in Oakland, California.
I wrote this poem in the spring of 1989, when I was a senior at Amherst College. I was in the first poetry writing class I had ever taken, a workshop with the Polish poet Piotr Sommer, whose reasonable reaction to our privileged and uninformed versification could be described as mildly despairing ennui.
The accompanying photo is my senior picture. It seems I am inexplicably wearing a kind of motley collision of various late-’80s collegiate uniforms: rolled-up and pegged army pants, cheap Chinese slippers I bought on Canal Street in Manhattan, a ratty cardigan, and unfortunately, a blue bandanna, Axl Rose–style. I loved (and still love) Guns N’ Roses. At the time I did not realize how ill-advised it was to translate this musical admiration into a sartorial choice. I also didn’t realize that the most famous writer alum of Amherst, David Foster Wallace, had also worn a similar do-rag.
The first thing to notice is that “tissues” liberates itself immediately and pointlessly from the prison of capitalization. The poem begins by addressing an unspecified “you.” It’s pretty clear that the “speaker” in the poem (me) is displeased with the behavior of this presumably female person.
After extensive forensic research, I have determined that in the fifth stanza I crossed out the word “nose” and changed it to the far more powerful “snot.” The emotional state of the speaker—attractive woundedness? repressed rage?—is glaringly enacted by the dramatic repetition of “over / and over / and over / again.”
The poem concludes with a line break that seems (like most of the other breaks in the poem) to portend some sort of leap into the unknown, or at least something surprising, when actually the next word is exactly the one that you would most expect. This seems to be the formal enactment of the emotional position of the poem: the speaker thinks he is being dramatically hurt and attractive, when actually he is just being silly and obvious, even unintentionally funny.
It’s kind of upsetting for me to read this poem and realize that on the other end of it there was an actual young woman, with feelings and insecurities, something I am quite sure never occurred to me. I don’t know if I ever actually gave this to anyone, and I can’t remember who the lucky lady was to whom this was addressed. Whoever she was, I’d just like to apologize to her for treating her like an object in my private drama. I was just trying to work something out.
—M.Z.
ANITA AMIRREZVANI
FUGITIVE FANCY
ANITA AMIRREZVANI was born in Tehran, Iran, and raised in San Francisco. Her first novel, The Blood of Flowers, has appeared in twenty-five languages and was long-listed for the 2008 Orange Prize for Fiction. Her second novel, Equal of the Sun, was published in 2012. Tremors: New Fiction by Iranian American Writers, an anthology she coedited with Persis Karim, was released
in 2013 by the University of Arkansas Press. Amirrezvani teaches at the California College of the Arts.
No matter what you do, don’t try to resuscitate your nineteen-year-old self. Never dig into that box of college papers that you’ve kept for more than thirty years, only to be reminded that not only did you write a piece of fiction with the dreadful title of “Fugitive Fancy,” but that it’s a rewrite of a draft that was even worse. Don’t keep digging, because you might discover that your Vassar College fiction-writing professor, whose name you will have forgotten, has written two pages of wise advice about your first draft, which you were far too inexperienced to understand; that he has made a list of eighteen “vague” adjectives in your work to demonstrate to you what good writing is; that his comments are encouraging, demanding, and precise, as if you were a real writer; that he is big-hearted enough to praise your second draft for being “rich in suggestiveness” but begs you to “shorten this, and get it all direct, credible, consistent in diction and tone”; that he longs for you to “show it, don’t tell it”; and finally, that he has spent far more time on your work than your fledgling effort deserves. Never go on to become a professor yourself—of writing no less—and try to match his generosity, humanity, and tough love in your comments to your own students, because you’ll be doomed to fail.
Thank you, Professor X. You don’t know me (and I hope you don’t remember me), but I love you.
—A.A.
Fugitive Fancy
Andrei sat sipping his coffee in an outdoor café in the Latin Quarter. The sputtering sound of the expresso machine reached him through the din of conversation and the rich aroma of coffee filled his nostrils. Waves of light brown hair softened the sharp angles of his face and his full, blood-red lips stood out like a wound in skin ivory white and translucent. His square chin and gaunt cheeks made him ressemble a bust of Roman antiquity. A silk scarf was knotted loosely about his neck and fluttered gently as he breathed. His eyes were drawn by the play of passersby who paraded up and down the narrow street, by the flicker of light and shadow in the folds of garments and in the creases of expression.
All heads in the café were angled to observe the stream of color and variety that passed before them. Rue de la Huchette was well known for its lighted taverns and lively restaurants, but its main attraction was the people who came to see each other and to be part of the scene and the gaiety.
A woman walked through the crowd’s gaze, her heels tapping and echoing on the cobblestones, her hair tossing and swaying in rhythm with her skirt. Andrei, staring into his coffee, saw in its light cream the image of the woman, her gestures, her lightness, and all that could have been and would never be. Gone! Forever lost to him! “I could have loved her,” thought Andrei, his eyes shining bright and clear with sudden sorrow. He saw himself leap from his seat, rush out of the café and push past the swollen crowds. In the corner of his eye he perceived the swaying motion of her skirt as she turned a corner. He slowed his stride until he came abreast of the woman and breathless, looked her full in the face. When she felt his presence she stared back into his eyes. They were dark and soulful, slightly rounded and set deeply into his face, so dark that the pupil and the iris seemed one. Her reflection was mirrored there, clear and bright as on the surface of shiny marble. And so she sunk into their depths, enthralled by the smooth and unwavering image of herself.
The sharp notes of a pinball machine stirred him from his revery. His legs were tense and trembling, and unfulfilled desire settled in him like dark heavy clouds. He felt it thick and bitter in his throat and chest. In his hand a pack of cigarettes was crushed and mutilated, and his palm was dark with the crescent-shaped imprint of his nails. Slowly he released it and let it drop from his limp hand. He picked up his spoon and stirred his coffee until the cream became white swirls in the dark liquid, and the image of the woman faded and flew from his fancy.
Andrei paid his bill and took leave of the café. Tree-lined boulevards stretched before him, their lighted taverns an invitation to folly. He turned his back on the city and started up the winding street, the presence of the church of St. Severin closing around him amid the gaiety and laughter that emanated from the jazz clubs and the milling crowds. Turning away from the street that led to the church’s door, he passed brightly-lit Greek taverns displaying red raw meat on skewers and whole pigs lying agape, their mouths stuffed with apples.
Andrei pushed himself into the niche of a building and ran his fingers over the cold stone. Its alternating surfaces of smooth and rough recalled the bittersweet memories of youth. When he was a child, his grandmother had taken him to market every Sunday morning. He remembered carrying her wicker basket with pride while she chose the best fruits and vegetables. But sometimes he felt small and weak in the bustling crowds and he would cry and hide his face in her skirt, full of a fear he could not understand.
Andrei remained huddled in the coolness of the old stone, revering its firmness behind his back; then thrust himself into the street that led to his room. All that was life, all that was dear to him, Andrei wanted to gather now, to ascend and fly over rocky shores, the salt spray on his lips, over peaks, the snow on his lids, through forests, the smell of pine like a vacuum around him. In the darkness he perceived the figure of a young woman seated on the steps of a theatre. He slid onto the step below hers, looked up and opened his mouth to speak. The moon beamed on his face and flooded his eyes with light.
“Hello,” he said. “Can I speak to you freely as one person to another?”
The girl shuddered and jerked herself to her feet, tripping over the uneven steps in an effort to get away.
“I don’t want to bother you,” he said softly to the fading figure. “There was something in your face that could have been dear to me. I only wanted to talk to you without any pretence or false promises.”
Dark spots formed a curious pattern of circles near Andrei’s worn boots. The tears hung on his lashes, waiting to be released, then washed over the lines near the corners of his mouth. He had laughed often to himself, until his sensitivity had become a hollow pit inside of him. Images of the past and future converged in a dream-life more pleasant than that elicited by human contact. No more moment’s fancy would again make him vulnerable nor lead him away from his memories and dreams. He picked himself up and trudged away.
DAVID EWING DUNCAN
MY THESIS AND ME
DAVID EWING DUNCAN is an award-winning, bestselling author of eight books published in twenty-one languages. He is a correspondent for the Atlantic and chief correspondent for NPR’s “BioTech Nation.” Duncan writes for the New York Times, Fortune, Wired, National Geographic, Discover, and many other publications. He is a former commentator for NPR and a special correspondent and producer for ABC’s Nightline. His latest book is When I’m 164: The New Science of Radical Life Extension, and What Happens If It Succeeds. He is the founding director of the Center of Life Science Policy at UC Berkeley. Duncan lives in San Francisco. His website is DavidEwingDuncan.com.
I’m not a procrastinator by nature, but I avoided writing my senior thesis on Ernest Hemingway until eight days before it was due. In the middle of winter break, I came back to Vassar College, looking for some peace and quiet: just me and my Olivetti typewriter, flanked by three fresh jars of Wite-Out and a stack of blank paper. It was December 31, 1979.
I had barely typed in my title before someone knocked on my door. Two neighbors and fellow thesis miscreants were headed outside in a gathering snowstorm, holding bottles of champagne and insisting that we celebrate the arrival of the 1980s.
“But . . . ,” I said, eying my Olivetti.
“No buts,” they said.
I’m not sure what happened next—something about mixing tequila and champagne and streaking naked in the snow. The bash drew thirty people, and eventually the Poughkeepsie police—apparently our music was so loud they could hear us more than a mile away.
&
nbsp; What I do remember is that the next day, after the pain of a Godzilla-sized headache subsided, I wrote the epic poem “My Thesis and Me,” which regrettably has survived.
—D.E.D.
MAC MCCLELLAND
EVERYTHING
MAC MCCLELLAND has written no poems as an adult, but as a magazine writer has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Hillman Foundation, the Online News Association, and the Society of Environmental Journalists, plus she’s been nominated for two National Magazine Awards and her work has been collected in The Best American Magazine Writing, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, and The Best Business Writing anthologies. Her first book was a finalist for the 2011 Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Her next book is about love and post-traumatic stress disorder. Her website is Mac-McClelland.com.
As my memories of how painfully shitty my high school poetry was are pretty intact, I actually refused to look at the journals I handed over to Julia Scott for Drivel; I only skimmed this entry, with my hands covering my groaning face, because she forced me to, and only enough to see that in it I projected all the insecurities that television had projected onto me, directly onto my then boyfriend. I wish the brilliantly titled “Everything,” written when I was fifteen, could have been, as it first appears to be, a screed against Chad (who in fact, if you called him even now would tell you, thought I was the very picture of teenage perfection) for not being able to handle me and/or accept me in all my rough, natural awesomeness. Alas, ew, it’s a thank-you note for his deigning to date me. As a lot of people never outgrow that mind-set, I guess this “poem” could make me grateful that I got over that, but mostly, it makes me want to die, and never think or talk about it again, so if we ever meet on the street, please do not bring it up.