September, 2015

FEATURED POET: Judith Skillman’s new book is House of Burnt Offerings, available from Pleasure Boat Studio. She is the recipient of The Eric Mathieu King Fund award from the Academy of American Poets for her book Storm (Blue Begonia Press), among other grants. Two of her books were finalists for the Washington State Book Award (Red Town and Prisoner of the Swifts.)

In addition to writing poetry, Judith does oil painting and plays the violin as a rusty amateur. Her poems have appeared in J Journal, Poetry, FIELD, The Southern Review, The Iowa Review, Midwest Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, Seneca Review, and other journals and anthologies. She has been a Writer in Residence at the Centrum Foundation in Port Townsend, Washington, and The Hedgebrook Foundation. At the Center for French Translation in Seneffe, Belgium, she translated Belgian-French poet Anne-Marie Derése.

A Jack Straw Writer in 2008 and 2013, Skillman’s work has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the UK Kit Award, Best of the Web, and is included in Best Indie Verse of New England. For more, visit www.judithskillman.com

Ms. Skillman is available for manuscript consultations through her website.

DESIRE

Long after a woman

accepts the rack of age—

intolerant overseer

with his bloodied instruments—

a vestige of passion clings.

Like the appetite of boiled milk

for its skin, or a winter day

for the sun. Like the single

marigold blooming

on a veranda—

that stubborn, red-headed child.

Long into the lateness of life,

after the shadow puppets

of parents have been pulled

from the theatre,

their heads twisted off—

deep inside the body

an extravagant wish surfaces,

requests to play the part

of descant.

THIS POTASH DAWN

Come, but come early too much, arrive

with your toxins that turn the sky yellow

as our sun rises above the tree

that fell last summer on a windless night

from drought. Come already, I know

your face more than sound—the birds

dying to catch up on news, puffed up,

full of sleep, feathers catching a quick beak.

C’mon into this-–how else to say—

chronic pain, this age, the crown

of grand motherhood tarnished. Lust

synthesized: old lovers, new husband,

new husband, old lovers. Wheeze me

out of the house mid afternoon, blowsy

as laundry strung on a line, for the shower,

the chores, the stretch of muscles tight

with spasms and that curve where discs

non-surgical—bulge against nerve,

bent anew as with the wrench

my father wielded, when he had a door

to fix, and later the vise on his workbench,

teeth clenched, uttering curses for lack

of oil, as I watched my child-self

grow up to the lip of the wood.

WRITE YOUR POEM:

Back to basics.  How to you juxtapose your metaphors to maximize irony?

Poetry distills words like moonshine distills corn mash.  Are you treating the words like kernels of corn to be treated under pressure?

Look at what Judith does:

"after the shadow puppets

of parents have been pulled

from the theatre,"  

Look at the power of shadow puppets juxtaposed against the power of parents.  Just three words carefully chosen.

Another:

"arrive

with your toxins that turn the sky yellow"

Consider the power of toxins and sky set up with the modifier of yellow.  You get the hints of acids and the sunset all wrapped into a couplet.

Distill your words.  Make them punch.  Cut things out until the words hit your core.