 Poetry
Dionne Irving
I.
In high school get pissed off at everyone and everything.
Stay pissed off. This is what makes you a poet. Know that
good poetry, the best poetry, comes from being angry. Write
poems about violence, sex and death. Read lots of
Nietzsche. God is dead. Cut your hair short
and spiky in the front, keep it long in the back, and keep
it stiff with a combination of Dippity-do and toothpaste.
Ignore your parents when they ask you what you’re trying to
prove.
One weekend take the train into the city and go slam dancing
in a room painted black. Chug Jack Daniels out of a bottle
behind the club with your best friend. Minor Threat plays on
the main stage. Pump your fist in the air, and enjoy the
way your head swims. Someone slams into you hard and your
teeth rattle. Take a few steps backward. Hear your friend
yell, “Are you okay?” Say you’re fine.
The guy who hits you is apologetic. He pantomimes smoking a
cigarette. Nod and let him take your hand and lead you
toward the back of the room. Notice the tattoo on his wrist.
Love it.
He’ll take you into the alley where he’ll light a cigarette
and then pass it, bending his head forward to protect the
ember from the rain. Make small talk about the bands, the
music. Think about how he’ll make good poetry.
Take a second to enjoy the feeling of the brick wall against
your back, his hands around your waist and the heat of his
breath on your neck. Kiss him with the same intensity he
kisses you. Take his number, don’t give him yours.
At closing time run through the empty city streets, ears
ringing, bass reverberating all the way into the back of
your throat, eyes stinging as carefully crafted hair sags
and drips down your face.
Jump over puddles, and clatter down the stairs of the train
station where you jam money into the turnstile. Before the
train comes throw up on the subway platform feeling the
sting of whiskey and cigarette smoke burn your throat.
Become obsessed with the city. Go there every chance you
get. Write poems about yourself and the backdrop of men.
Write poems about what and who you find in the gutters,
begging for change in front of the Port Authority. Make
believe that everyone in the city is intricately connected
to you and your life. Write about that, too.
Pick a college near your house. Major in English. Do
enough to get by. Mostly just write poems.
Spend all your extra money on train fare to and from the
city. Go to poetry readings and read confessional poetry in
a voice that is singsong-y. Make sure all your poems have
the word fuck in them. Wear combat boots, smoke
clove cigarettes, and become militantly sexual. Attend
pieces of performance art where people douse themselves in
tomato sauce or set family portraits aflame. Listen to
people wax philosophical about poems on capitalism and
marvel at sculptures salvaged from trash on the East Side.
Every piece is about man’s inhumanity against man. You don’t
really care that much about man’s inhumanity. Instead write
poems that one of your college professors will call “navel
gazing to the point of tedium.”
Start growing out your hair. Transfer to a school in the
city. Find a professor who appreciates navel gazing; write
poems about him, too.
II.
In your 20s find inspiration in poverty. Feel that
inspiration drain from you when you have to start soaking
your feet.
Wait tables for extra money and by the time you’re 25,
you’ll be exhausted. But all your poet friends will tell you
how amazing the poetry is. “You are so raw,” they’ll say.
“So honest.”
Go to work, to school and back to work. Do this for years.
At a poetry reading one night, look into the eyes of the
most beautiful man you’ve seen in your life. An actor, of
course, but a fan of poetry. A bigger fan of sleeping with
poets. He’ll obsess over you in a way that makes for good
poetry. He’ll make the coffee each morning, pay your bills,
get you to finish school and tolerate everything about you,
even the toenail clippings on the bathroom floor.
He’ll find some success; shoot a pilot that goes nowhere.
Then he will be in L.A. and then on the road. Let this go on
for years. Write poems while you wait. Try and have them
published. Fail miserably.
Know he is sleeping with other women. His agent, his best
friend and your boss have all warned you about this. But
love him anyway. Start writing trite poetry about missing
him and mail it to him each week. He’ll call daily to check
in, to say “I love you,” … but he won’t ever say anything
about the poems. Realize everyone is right about him. Sleep
with other men. Then other women. Do it guiltily at first
and then brazenly.
When he finally comes back, he’ll ask you to move in with
him. Do it. Because even though you don’t love him anymore,
his apartment on Avenue A doesn’t have mousetraps or a
junkie next door like at your place. You won’t be sure how
to leave him anyway. Especially after he puts a ring on your
finger.
Finally, he’ll be the one who leaves you, for another woman,
a succession of other women. Stop writing “real” poetry for
a while. Take a corporate job, write poems in greeting
cards. Copy verses from the poems you wrote in high school.
Your boss will call your cards inspired. When she does smile
winningly and spend the rest of the day buying things you
don’t need from catalogues: a step stool, a towel warmer, a
wall sized map.
Meet another poet at the greeting card company. Show him
some of your poems.
“Are all these about sex?” he will ask.
“Yes.”
Sleep with him until he starts thinking you’re a fantastic
poet. Meet his writer friends. Then meet his famous writer
friends. Like the famous ones better. Try to start sleeping
with one of them. Go to grad school. Start doing readings
again and sending poems out. Publish one book and then a
second one. End up in debt.
Have too many drunken nights and too much casual sex. Feel
sad when lovers only want you as a poet. They will all
assure you that you are going to be very famous, very
successful, make lots of money. Take this as fact. Forget
the fact that there aren’t many famous poets. Forget the
fact that poets never make any money. Forget the fact that
poets rarely wind up happy.
III.
In your 30s become practical. Practical in a way that makes
you realize that you can make poetry a career. Start
teaching composition at a community college. Don’t sleep
with your students. Even 24 year old Haleuk from Turkey. Try
to have relationships instead of sex. Find this doesn’t seem
to work out that well for you. Choose celibacy. Buy
sensible shoes. Don’t wear shirts that show your cleavage.
Cut your hair very short.
Write poetry that editors call quixotic, safe and self
aware. In other words, self indulgent, narcissistic and
boring. Plan to write an epic poem, one with sex, death and
remorse. One that will move people to tears. Write one
verse. Save it as epic.doc on your computer. Don’t open that
file again anytime soon.
One afternoon take a stack of papers to a bar on the West
Side. Order a glass of wine and then another. When you start
to feel like you’re floating, turn to the stack of student
papers you have to grade. Grade compositions about teenage
pregnancies, grandparents with terminal illnesses, fathers
who have abandoned their children, the day of the big game.
They are the same semester after semester.
Finish grading the essays, when your knees get wobbly.
It will take you a while to hail a cab in the rain. When you
do ask the cab driver to take you to a bookstore on the
Upper West Side. Put the papers on the floor of the cab.
Feel like you can’t warm up, like you will never warm up.
Lie across the back seat.
“No sleeping, okay?” the cab driver will say worriedly. He
will laugh in a nervous way you will find charming.
Feel the cab inching through traffic. Close your eyes, try
to guess what landmarks you are passing, and then give up.
This is what it will come to: celibacy, drinking in the
afternoon, community college students. The shock of your
failures will frighten you. They will startle you enough to
open your eyes. When you sit up you will realize how drunk
you are. The blood will rush to your head; your eyes will
feel dry and distended.
The bookstore will be closer than you think and cab driver
will reach it in only a few minutes. Give him a big tip and
get out quickly. The bell over the door will jingle when
you go in, your feet will be wet. Smile apologetically at
the proprietress.
You will have done a reading here. The man you were seeing
then would have sat in the back of the room and listened as
you read the poems that he would have thought were inspired
by him, but were really mostly about yourself. There would
have only been 10 people there and when you got to the last
poem they would have clapped politely, but not for a long
time.
In the poetry section find your book. The slim volume will
be tucked between two larger books, nearly invisible. Open
it. Skip the dedication on the first page. You will try hard
to remember how it was that you wrote these poems. You will
try to remember where you were and how you did it. You will
realize the passion in the poetry seems pretentious to you
now. You will realize you’ve left your students papers in
the taxi.
Spend an hour or so wandering up and down the street trying
to figure out what to do about the papers. Decide to grade
them based on how much you like certain students and tell
them the papers were lost in an act of God. Start to feel
like you will be lost the same way.
IV.
In your 40s get frustrated. Stay perpetually frustrated.
Wake up early, stretch, open your book, use the same pen.
Try. To. Write. Spend too much money on makeup. Buy a
strapless dress and let it hang your closet. Sleep around to
try and recapture the creativity. Sleep with mostly
inappropriate men.
Meet one who is both inappropriate and off limits. The
second thing he will tell you is that he loves his wife. The
first thing he will tell you is how incredibly beautiful you
are. Like his smile.
He will be artless. You will notice that in the way he
laughs out loud at television shows, and repeats the punch
line of certain jokes. He won’t be the first married man.
But it will surprise you that there is no poetry in this
adultery. But let it continue, because you won’t be sure
there is much poetry left in you, either.
Let him take you to Washington, D.C. Don’t ask a lot of
questions, just go.
When you check into the room, he will look at the beds
almost apologetically and be secretly glad that there is one
for each of you. Know that there is nothing torrid about two
double beds in a mid-sized chain hotel.
“I’m sorry,” he will say, looking flustered. He will put
down his bag first on one bed and then on the other. “I
asked for a king sized bed.”
Set your bag down purposefully on the bed on the right.
Say: “Its fine, I’ve stayed in worse.”
Which will be true. You will have stayed in places where the
sheets are balled up at the base of the bed when you check
in, where the soap in the bathroom is a minefield of
assorted pubic hair, places where you imagine strippers go
to die. Remember these places fondly. You’ve written some
great poetry there.
Sit on the bed, cross your legs and lean back on your hands.
Say: “This’ll be fine. Better than fine, even.”
He will smile. He will like that you are the kind of woman
who won’t complain, who won’t make him take all the bags
downstairs, go to the front desk with his tail between his
legs and ask for a different room. Understand that his wife
is this kind of woman.
Spend days cloistered inside tiny spaces, eating together,
sightseeing, like an eighth-grade field trip to D.C. You
will sense him wanting to pretend it feels romantic. Realize
there is no romance in D.C. There isn’t any poetry to be
found in the city. Everything about its dark oaken
restaurants, and its loud and crowded museums, speak to a
kind of death and deception that confuses you, even at 45.
On the morning of the third day his wife will call. Go out
on the shitty little balcony wearing a jacket, smoke a
cigarette and pretend to write a poem. He will put his
fingers to his lips; even though you are outside, behind
inches of thick glass.
Wait.
Believe in inspiration, because hard work rarely seems to
produce results lately. Watch him in the room through the
sliding glass doors. Watch him pace back and forth from the
double beds, to the mini bar, to the bathroom, never coming
near the balcony.
Tap on the glass lightly with a finger nail. He will
turn suddenly as though you’ve grabbed him by the shoulder.
He’ll hold up his finger and indicate it will be another
minute. Shiver in the coat that isn’t nearly warm enough,
but fashionable in a way that you are probably too old for.
He’ll start moving toward the door; roll his eyes, give you
a half smile and hang up the phone.
Shiver. Marvel at the fact that he’s left you out here this
long. Swallow your anger. Don’t start a fight.
“I’m sorry,” he will say, pulling open the door. “I just
didn’t want her to hear anything suspicious.”
Smile like you’re sorry. Remember how you used to get mad,
used to be the kind of woman who called and hung up, used to
say things like: “Well, let her hear. I’m not ashamed of
anything and you shouldn’t be, either.”
“It’s okay,” you will say.
Don’t talk about it, because at this point, you would both
have to admit why this is wrong, and stop pretending that
it’s about anything other than fucking. It isn’t, and
awkward conversation won’t change that.
He will ask what you were writing.
“A poem.” You will say with a touch of haughtiness. Act
surprised when he doesn’t know that you are a poet, and then
feel stupid for being surprised.
“I never liked poetry much, or reading, for that matter,” he
will say drying his wet hair, avoiding the area toward the
front where he is balding.
Say: “People who say that usually just haven’t read anything
good.”
Substitute ‘good’ for ‘intelligent’ in your head.
He will come up behind you, wrap his arms around your waist
and put his nose in your hair. “Show me some of your
poetry,” he’ll say. “Maybe I’ll like it.”
Feel tired, like you’ve been here a million times. Some man
asking to see your poetry, the disappointment that comes
when the poetry isn’t about them.
“Maybe another time.”
He will kiss the back of your neck, your face. Keep telling
yourself that you wanted to come here, or at least you will
think you wanted to come here.
At breakfast in a diner near your hotel watch the way his
eyes shift toward the waitress as she approaches. Watch him
smile beneficently. She’ll be young, pretty and slim. She
isn’t that special, but understand that this is the kind of
woman he’d want to be with if he could. Understand that you
are the best he can hope for in an extramarital affair.
Watch her stiffen when he stares at her chest. She will look
in your direction; give you a look that wants to offer her
solidarity. You’ll offer her a sorry smile, because what
else can you do? You aren’t his wife.
Once you’ve ordered he will open a magazine and ignore you.
Don’t stand for that. Ask him about plans for the day.
He will have a meeting. You’ll be on your own. He’ll go back
to reading his magazine. Ask about dinner plans. Start to
feel pathetic.
“You choose,” he will say. “I’m not sure how hungry I’ll be.
If I’m not back by six just go ahead and eat without me.”
Don’t give up quite so easily.
“That’s my ex-husband,” you’ll say, pointing to a picture in
the magazine. When he looks at you, his face will be a
mixture of something like shock and something like disgust.
“Him?” he’ll say, pointing at the slick page, your ex’s
crotch vivisected with a staple. “You were married to him?”
Nod. Feel smug in the way you’ve captured his attention.
Unfold your napkin in your lap.
“Wow,” he will say.
“Yeah. Wow.”
“And where did you meet him?”
Pause a moment before answering. “Reading poetry in the
village. He wasn’t famous yet.”
“Poetry?”
Feel irritated by his tone. “Yes, I used to do poetry
readings.”
“Oh,” he’ll say. “I thought that was more of a hobby.”
“No,” you’ll say, “It’s not.”
Go your separate ways once you’ve finished breakfast with a
cursory goodbye. Spend your day in the hotel bar grading
student papers but don’t drink. In the margins of narrative
essays write “What greater truth does this reveal?” and “How
does this support your thesis?” questions that will make it
seem like you’ve read the essays much closer than you
actually have.
When you’re done try to write a poem. Try to write a
narrative essay. Try to write anything. Give up. Cry a
little. Order a drink. Cry a little harder. When people
start to stare go back to the room and run a bath.
You will still be in the bath wearing your glasses, smoking
a cigarette when he comes back.
“You know this is a non-smoking room right?” He’ll say
standing at the door of the bathroom.
Answer petulantly.
He will look like he wants to say something more. He will
stand dumbly in the doorway. You’ll notice the way his gut
hangs over his belt, the way his pants are wet around the
cuffs, the way he looks out of place in the bathroom: wet
towels piled on the floor, a trashcan overflowing with the
tissues you will have used to take off your makeup.
He’ll nod gravely and go into the bedroom. You’ll hear the
television flicker on. Light another cigarette, run some
more hot water in the tub to warm up the water. Think about
what you want to do next. Think about why you write; think
about what you want to say about sex, about sadness, about
life.
He will come back into the bathroom suddenly.
“Fuck it,” he will say. “We’re going to the Washington
Monument.”
Maybe it’s because he never swears or maybe it’s just
because the monument looks like a giant phallus, but it will
sound like a good idea.
It will be misty at the base of the monument and you realize
that it’s the kind of thing that only takes a minute or two
to appreciate before it’s time to move on. Together you’ll
walk up to the reflecting pool, the Lincoln Memorial and at
the very end the Vietnam Memorial on the right, looking
small and waterlogged.
He’ll suddenly become authoritative, explaining facts about
the pool and the memorials and he’ll look at you in a way
that is so clearly platonic. Realize that you look at him
the same way. Understand that his attraction is to the
guilt. Get a little sad. Feel sad for him and for you.
Understand that you’re both lonely.
“I think we shouldn’t see each other anymore,” you’ll say.
He will stop his narrative.
“What?”
“It’s isn’t you,” you’ll say. “It’s the poetry.”
“What?”
You’ll take his hand, meaty and red, in your own.
“I think you were right about your wife, I think you do love
her.”
You want to tell him that in the narrative composition of
his life that you won’t be his lesson learned even though
he’ll be yours. The memorable fourth stanza in your poem,
the one that makes you forget the sex and the idealism, the
one that makes it all about the art. Really this time.
Instead just say “I’m sorry. You’re a good guy.”
Even if this isn’t true, say it anyway.
He’ll sleep in one double bed that night and you’ll sleep in
the other. In the morning you will take the hottest shower
you can stand. The water will feel like it bubbles and
sizzles the second it hits your skin, and you’ll compose
your poem right there, about your burning skin, about the
hearts you’ve broken.
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