1.4.16

The other day I was on Capital Hill to go to the art store there, and stopped into Elliot Bay Book company. I love that store, and their old location was a pretty magical part of my childhood. I always end up in the poetry section, and it smells so great there, with all the paper, that I just want to take all of the lovely friends-I-haven't-met-yet home. So naturally I have a poet who's chapbook I browsed to share with you. From poetry foundation dot org:

Rebecca Hoogs is the author of a chapbook, Grenade (2005) and her poems have appeared in Poetry, AGNI, Crazyhorse, Zyzzyva, The Journal, Poetry Northwest, The Florida Review, and others. She is the recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Colony (2004) and Artist Trust of Washington State (2005). She is the Director of Education Programs and the curator and host for the Poetry Series for Seattle Arts & Lectures.

So, local, which is great, and approachable, (here is her blog, only one post) and twitter. Tech, man.




Another Plot Cliche

My dear, you are the high-speed car chase, and I,   

I am the sheet of glass being carefully carried   

across the street by two employees of Acme Moving   

who have not parked on the right side   

because the plot demands that they make   

the perilous journey across traffic,   

and so they are cursing as rehearsed   

as they angle me into the street, acting as if   

they intend to get me to the department store, as if   

I will ever take my place as the display window, ever clear   

the way for a special exhibit at Christmas, or be Windexed   

once a day, or even late at night, be pressed against   

by a couple who can’t make it back to his place,   

and so they angle me into the street, a bright lure,   

a provocative claim, their teaser, and indeed   

you can’t resist my arguments, fatally flawed   

though they are, so you come careening to but and butt   

and rebut, you come careening, you being   

both cars, both chaser and chased, both good and bad, both   

done up with bullets that haven’t yet done you in.   

I know I’m done for: there’s only one street   

on this set and you’ve got a stubborn streak a mile long.   

I can smell the smoke already.   

                                                No matter, I’d rather shatter   

than be looked through all day. So come careening; I know   

you’ve other clichés to hammer home: women with groceries   

to send spilling, canals to leap as the bridge is rising.   

And me? I’m so through. I’ve got a thousand places to be.



I so want this last line to be "thousand pieces to be", and I think that's not a coincidence! This is from her chapbook Self-Storage, which is the one I browsed at the book store. There's a lovely review of it here. The reviewer, John Wesley Horton, looks at this following poem specifically, and I really liked his take on it.



Come Here


When, in a sprawling subterranean housewares shop 
of Rome, I asked the price of some wine glasses, 
and the salesman told me and then told me 
to veni qui, to come here, I went. 
He showed me some other glasses. 
Do you like these? he asked. I don't speak 
much Italian so said only, yes, I like, 
crystale, he said, and pinged the glass 
with a fingernail. Yes, I repeated, crystale. 
And then he touched my arm and said veni qui, 
veni qui, and so we went to another part 
of the breakable underworld where real 
about-to-be-married Italians were filling 
their bridal registry and so like me did not yet 
have all their words for negativity 
and he stopped before another set of glasses 
and said, you like? And again, yes, I liked. 
And again he rang the tiny bell of what he was 
trying to sell me. And then, arm touch, come here, 
and then yes, I like. This went on for some time 
until I'd liked it all. I liked and was like every glass 
he held. All I was was touched. All I could say was yes 
to everything but I bought just two small glasses 
from which you and I have yet to drink.



Oof, my heart.