poem, and I’m so glad it struck a chord for you, was specifi cally about loss and children. I have found such incredible connection to poems that deal with topics that are diffi cult to discuss but that do so with love and honesty. And there are so many issues that real people end up having to suffer through on their own because we lack the courage to talk to each other about our own experiences. I’ve known so many people who have lost children, who worked at the city pool and had to pull a little one out of too-deep water, who hoped for their bright new baby and went home alone. This poem is important to me also because I want to talk about abortion in a way that is honest to it. That we all face diffi cult choices, we all face loss and pain. But that having the courage to feel those things and move forward is what gives us strength. Here’s the poem again: Again We Rise Sometimes alive is a thing that happens after the blue – the pale face baby light skin, the deep trench of sadness, the drowned boy in public pool dripping cheese fries and slurpee and no swimming lessons. Sometimes alive is what follows abortion, what follows funeral, after loss has lapped at you like a river until you walked out of its pull. A hunger, a compulsion, like the tide, the sun - insistent, incessant. Q: Okay, I am going to ask the question most poet interviews probably include these days. What did you think of Amanda Gorman’s reading during the Biden/Harris inauguration and what effect do you think it will have on young writers/poets today? What an absolutely beautiful thing to come out of such a diffi cult time in America. The normalization of poetry – at the Super Bowl, even! I love it. I love language and how people can make beautiful things of it. And to be so incredibly articulate and poised at such a young age. We fi nd heroes among us in these young women A few poems from “Semidomesticated,” which you can buy at www. redfl agpoetry.com/Semidometicated. The Devil Loves Arithmetic My love, you should know that I have already calculated the life insurance if you died. The partial disability, your school loan dissolved, the extra closet space and shoes near the door, an extra hook for coats. And before you bristle, know this – it has nothing to do with socks perpetually scattered on the fl oor, or the water glass forever dirty and in the sink. It’s just... the math of it all. The ease with which lives translate to numbers and numbers fi t so tidy in boxes and spreadsheets On Driving Heather to Radiation We’re at the clinic just in time to watch Price is Right, to check out contestants with customized t-shirts assaulting Drew Carey, shaking and falling like clowns at his feet. Six weeks of this. There’s free coffee but it’s barely beige. All of the magazines are about cancer except for two. The Woman’s Day from an earlier season has been memorized by the end of week one Page 9 Jonie McIntire Semidomesticated who are rising among us as leaders. Young writers and poets will see her confi dence and poise, read her other poems, some of which are absolutely stunning and complex, and see the potential in themselves. And as they research her work, hopefully they start to stumble upon all of the other incredible poets out there right now who are speaking so honestly about their lives and sharing their words in such incredible and intricate ways. I think she really nailed the moment with “The Hill We Climb,” and particularly because it’s young adults who bear so much burden working to climb that hill. They are caught in a myriad of political and economic traps, and I think this poem really refl ects their desire to mend and rebuild, to reset the tone in America. I cannot wait to read what she writes next and, even more than that, what other young people will write because of her inspiration. What I love most is the number of people who don’t normally read poetry but who have shared her reading. People who think they don’t like poetry who retweeted bits of it, who printed it out and posted it at their desk, or sent it on to their friends who are writers and asked, “Have you heard of her?” They’re actually looking up poets and hopefully reading a bit of what is being currently written. And that is an absolute literary revolution, making poetry popular again. make stacking boxes easy. Watching early morning news, another bombing in a foreign land where bodies that aren’t ours aren’t counted, followed by a school levy translated to costs per child and call in to talk — do you think it’s worth paying more? I can hear you rising from bed to bath and slow down stairs, and I can’t help myself – six, seven, board creak eight. Maybe twenty-three more until you reach me. Easter Sunday for Cynics When churches weren’t open or her legs too brittle to hold, my grandmother would watch on tv, read from pamphlets, reread old passages in a tattered bible. She found God every time, from Jerry Falwell to the cartoons of the Latter day Saints to the sun on her back porch. I wake early, Easter Sunday in a cynic’s house during dark times, and I check on the robin’s nest tucked away in a second-story corner window ledge. Three days ago, just mud and straw. Then one egg within a day, two in another. Now, three perfect eggs more beautiful than sky or sea. and we joke about writing something silly for Field and Stream, a camping trip for women who could not care less about nature. By week three, her hair is falling out but only in the front. Heather’s wearing Steve Tyler scarves and really rocking them. Shaving her head is the next step, but she’s not ready. As I wait for her, I watch Drew Carey call a housewife from Pasadena into play and what looks like her entire neighborhood stands up screaming with joy. And I could swear, if Carey called me up, I would play and scream and cry just like the people on tv. I would fi nd the highest bid and add one, would look to Heather in the crowd reading her face to decide if the coffee-brewing alarm clock is worth more than the Liquid X Ultimate car detailing kit. And the fi nal spin, at the big upright wheel that’s all chance and small fl ags, big numbers you want but little that can add up, I’d pray to the god I long ago gave up on for the gold 85 followed by the magic of green 15. And if, like a miracle, all of that just being there added up to something, I’d fall on my knees like all the winners do, wrap myself around Drew and scream hallelujah. But then, she comes back out, adjusts the scarf on her head, and we go pick up her kids from preschool.
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