Mary Biddinger
Below, a pair of gems from Mary Biddinger. Let the record show that The Nepotist might be a little bit in love with her. (In truth, The Nepotist is in love with all of his poets.) Maybe you are too. It doesn't matter. These poems-- nay, these two seductions-- justify beyond any fickle hiccups of the heart the bright and blazing torch I carry for this poet. And while I'm on the subject of heart, I think it's Mary Biddinger's own that make these poems beat: that muscle of coyly meted-out craft, the lub-dub of details divulged at the precise instant they will do either the most good or the most damage, her gorgeous organ of tremor and pulse.
Over the few weeks that The Nepotist has been publishing his friends, he has made much of poems that express themselves sincerely and with honest admonitions. I do not deny this. What, then, should be made of the guise of coyness these Biddinger poems employ? Make everything of it. It's genius. "Of course they found me," she writes. And, of course, they would. For this is a poet who wants to be found-- found out, even-- but on her own terms, with the help of her own clues, and by the heat-seeking surge of her own beautifully throbbing aforementioned heart.
Thanks, Mary.
***
Birth of a Vessel
It took three tries, and even that
was not enough. Inventors
of the triplicate form
in their most lurid fantasies,
every layer a pastel slip
peeled from the homecoming
queen hours after the last
carnation. The brick wall not
the only one laughing.
It wasn’t even real champagne.
The wordless trill
of a mimeograph machine
longing to be manhandled
like years ago. They
put the bottle in my hand.
It shook like a quail.
I wanted to build you the wolf
you never had as a boy.
But they wanted statistics.
Reams of paper
fell from their secret moorings
in the drop ceiling.
What else was a mouth for?
Certainly not licensed
to operate in this state.
I once believed hiding out
was to be expected,
and so I walked spare drywall
sheets up a hill, casual,
the death of all known mystery.
Of course they found me.
A switchboard vomited instead
of retaining its possessions.
I pretended the wall
was a boat. Nobody dared to
avoid the calamity.
Inside, the lobby quaked
with ecstasy. I was thankful all
of the dogs on the lawn
had been forced into slippers.
Squeezed into jerseys
with the eponymous logo.
I named the boat subterfuge
and I blessed it.
***
A Calamity
There was a bell without any other bells
in sight. It wasn’t saying anything
worth remembering. Someone stripping
off pants in a vestibule, the slow lurch
toward mailboxes lined up like art.
All of the nests left in the branches fell.
The slow bob of electrical wires too hot
to make their way to the sidewalk.
I tried to wear a nest as a hat, unsuccessful.
There was an interior and exterior, even if
they contained the same filaments,
fibers from a derailed clothes line. Now
even the sky is pink. We once shut our room
off from the light. It was too much for
recollection, when the mantle bowed down
and winds rearranged what we had placed
in piles weeks before. The first night
somebody had painted all the snow banks
with food coloring. The neon escaped its
prison, and rode with us over hills
situated only minutes before. An explosion
of the most tender variety. The very moment
when a crack began its journey down
a major city artery. We were not available
for commentary. Let official records reflect
the following. Enough wool to cover
only the extremities. Enough wool to drop
onto linoleum without sound. A tree leaning
in a way that suggested a revelation.
A single rustle from the most anxious sky.
***
About the Poet:
Mary Biddinger lives in Akron, Ohio, where she teaches, edits, and writes poems about epic love.
On the identity of The Nepotist:
I beat The Nepotist in a double-dutch competition on the south side of Chicago in late July of 1983. Afterwards we shared an orange Popsicle on the zebra-print couch in my parents’ basement. Because of this intense connection, society forbade us from publishing each other’s work, until now.
Comments
Posted by: CJ | June 24, 2010 11:51 PM