Dear friend and poet, Sarah Suksiri, dazzles as she reads a few of her poems. Listen here.
Author: Alessandra
Jacarandas and JCL
Before embarking on my journey to midwest and MFAs, I lived with a good friend, JCL. One night she asked me to write a poem about jacarandas (amazing trees that bloom lavish periwinkle sticky) and I did. When I got to MFA school, I was nervously turned it in for my first workshop. Since then it has changed here, there, and back again. The poem, left in a drawer for many months, was rediscovered and reburied. It came out from hiding long enough to find residence in a small Canadian lit journal whose clean layout caught my eye. Poems like people are always on the move. Currently, JCL is living in South Africa, I’m in Chicago and the poem is home in Canada. [Update: the Canadian Magazine is now defunct, and the poem lives here]
Jacarandas Bloom
for Jen Chi Lee
for Jen Chi Lee
On 8th Street,
where the legless & drug-addicted
where the legless & drug-addicted
mumble pleading eyes
for the change in your pocket.
for the change in your pocket.
On Raymond Avenue,
where a teen shotandkilled
where a teen shotandkilled
sparked retaliation gunfire & prayer,
we fast-forward to exhale:
we fast-forward to exhale:
gnarled branches set loose a purple-blue.
The sidewalk luminous with
The sidewalk luminous with
this syrup, this bubble wrap. A water-
fall clipped to the trees,
fall clipped to the trees,
who have not
forgotten it is Spring—
forgotten it is Spring—
wring us out,
old dishrags, cleaned.
old dishrags, cleaned.
Big Hair Poets
I have the potential to be a big hair poet, at least with the hair part. My hair gets big when: I brush it and oddly enough when I do not brush it. On Tuesdays and Thursdays when I teach, I can’t seem to get the rhythm right with the commute, showering, tying it up, letting it dry especially in the winter grey mornings.
So this week I embraced it. Instead of trying to tie it back, I dug my fingers and messed up the hair a little more.
This moment before class when I could not tame the tresses with a hair band, and I was left with a choice to leave it as is or make it a bit bigger made me think about the personas we project around us. There is poet-professor I know who plays the part of tweed-coat-wild-grey-black-hair-unshaven-slightly-angry-poet professor so well. Does he know he is playing it? Does he try to or do his untucked button-ups and elbow patches just come naturally to him.
Prayer Flags
I was fortunate enough to come into contact with talented artist Gatis when I brought in Fine Art students to make broadsides for a poetry reading Indiana Review held last year. He created a broadside for a Curtis Bauer poem. After the event Gatis and I met up for coffee; I shared some of my poems with him and he sketched out ideas.
Later I visited the printing press, where artist and machines were buzzing away. It was fascinating to see the printing press at work. There is something more permanent about a poem when its words have hand set in metal typeface, and thin sheets of rice paper are lined up and ready to be hand-cranked through the press.
Gatis’ other work can be found at his website: http://rawtype.net/17059/rawtype
Rediscovering the Greats
I just taught Auden’s “The More Loving One” in one of my classes. It is great to rediscover great poems with your students. One comment in class: “Well that just about the greatest thing I’ve heard.” I even got a thumbs up from a poetry appreciating non-English major, though he gave William Carlos Williams a thumbs down. At least they have opinions.
Here’s a link to the poem, with Nick Laird reading it. http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15550
Some people write Flannery O’Conner in long hand to internalize her rhythm, with that in mind, I am re-typing his poem here.
The More Loving One Looking up at the the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell, But on earth indifference is the least We have to dread from man and beast. How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us they could not return If equal affection can not be, let the more loving one be me. Admirer as I think I am Of stars that do not give a damn, I can not say, now I seem them, say I’ve missed them terribly all day. Were all starts to disappear or die, I should learn to look at an empty sky And feel its total dark sublime Though this might take me a little time. From Homage to Clio by W. H. Auden, published by Random House. Copyright © 1960 W. H. Auden, renewed by The Estate of W. H. Auden.
alessandra simmons 
