Are the Kids Calling it Doobies These Days?

I need to get this poetry manuscript done because it starts to feel like the culmination of my life. Five years is a lot I suppose.

I mark five years because about five years ago I stopped throwing all my writing away. Or burying it where I wouldn't be embarrassed of it. Of hundreds of undergrad poems written, I have kept: 2. Their names are:

Our First Home Has Forgotten Us

and

Expiration Dates

They are like childhood friends that I haven't yet found enough fault with to let go for my more sophisticated grad school friends.

The number of grad school written poems I'm keeping is negligible. Could be half my manuscript. Maybe a little more. I spend my days editing everything. I have a list of 50-60 poems that I've winnowed down. And I feel only about 20 of them need work still.

Improvement. Here's something new. Sometimes the best way to get into editing is write something new. Will any of these new poems make it into the manuscript? Not sure. They need to simmer.

This is a study on a Gary Jackson poem. A poet I heard at AWP. He just won the Cave Canem poetry prize. Wrote a whole book of poems about superheroes. Awesome. And cool guy too.

I used the name of a kid I knew growing up but it's not really about him.

A Poem for Josh Dixon

-dedicated to Josh Dixon

If Josh Dixon wrote a poem for Josh Dixon, the letters would be brands,
no unnecessary words, and when he was done with a thought,
well…

In Josh Dixon’s poem, there would be a weed cellar,
where he’d feel like a true botanist, between his fingers
he’d roll a seed, and feel the universe contained.
But he wouldn’t say it like that. Not in his poem.
He’d whisper, “Dammmmmnnnnnnnn…”
A word to hold all words.

When Josh Dixon writes this poem, he’s gonna write it on zigzag,
he’s gonna write it in the driveway of his Mom’s house,
which is his house, but not for long, not for long.
He’s got plans, an abandoned field to grow enough herb,
he’s got a mind that people underestimate.
That’s word for word from his poem.

Josh Dixon don’t have time for poems usually, he’s got a baby,
and some of these words he’ll scribe on the outside of diapers.
When he’s doing his duty, so his lady can make cash.
But this poem by Josh Dixon has dreams in it. And he won’t let me
tell you them. Because this is Josh Dixon’s poem.
It will beat you with a pipe if it catches you behind the airport.
Looking for his secret field. Searching out his dreams.

If Josh Dixon wrote this poem, it’d sound like a gun
sliding against denim. He would dedicate it to himself.
Josh Dixon is fine. His future life is growing in the dark
ready to break out. One day, when he’s rolling in it,
he’ll light that field on fire. Get the whole town stoned.
And he’ll be king of something for once.

Dancing and laughing down Main.