Sharon Olds, You Still Have Lots to Teach Me

I'm at the tail end of my manuscript. I'm cutting myself off on edits in one week. I have a whole list of poems in black and red.

Black = Good Enough
Red = Trouble

The red list is getting smaller. But I'm down to a few problem children. Basically, the loud mouthy kid in class who I hate but really sort of love. But I can't present him in front of the school as a model poem. Because he needs some serious one on one. And the work involved is so daunting. How long can I keep this analogy going?

Sooooo sometimes it is just easier to get a new class. (I could extend an analogy all day. Don't try me.) So I started writing new poems.

I don't know how people write anything without reading. Especially poetry. I have to read before I write. I need rhythms. For the last few days, I've been reading Sharon Olds. Sometimes when I'm writing I get scared to just say it. I want to poeticize it. Beautify it. But Sharon just puts it out there. Her narrator says what she's feeling and there are no apologies.

Not to say her poetry isn't beautiful. It's breathtaking. But she tricks you with simple words, things you know. I've always wanted to write like that. I like to take the bag of regular human language, mix those words up, and surprise people. Sharon does that. I sit at her feet and learn yet again.

I had Sharon two semesters as a teacher. And I still go back to her books over and over. Here's something inspired by her. Well, and this thing I remember from high school.

Wrecks

It was our first death the whole high school shared.
He had a fast car. He had scholarships coming.
He derailed a train in a quiet part of town.
And suddenly, we all knew Andy. His sideways smile,
his hiccup laugh, his favorite teams and beers.
Regret is a fever. It burned through the ranks.
We didn’t question his decision, only that he was alone
and we’d left him. Who were we without Andy?
What was an Andy to us? Why us? Why consequences?
Andy became a space for us to ponder. Andy was our own name.
I didn’t know Andy. His death caused no flutter in me.
So many found a well of feeling, enough hands for everyone.
In the halls of clamor, speeches, guidance counselors dealing
guidance, I held a stillness that worried me.
We were told by announcement. A girl broke down, gave up
her whole body to another girl. Homeroom erupted
into sudden mothers and daughters. Windows opened
to expand the world of the room. Two boys who knew him
asked to be excused and they were. This scene over
and over in other classrooms. And I was silence.
A page opened up in us, and I read myself. I title
that chapter What Broken Andy Did For All of Us.
There was a kegger in his honor. Irony wasn’t invited.
The Latin teacher came to show support. He told me
we had to be a collective. To mourn was to do. He said it in Latin.
English was harder. Seemed no one could grapple the tense
shift of Andy. And the language broke down further,
all conversation was an examination of the word okay.
Everyone had a toast about Andy. The dark was aclink
with bottles. I drank nothing in Andy’s honor. I just wandered.
Sometimes people would close up on me, say things like,
“Man. Andy. Right?” And I would say, “Right.”
Like a play rehearsal, I knew the line, I just didn’t know my character.
A girl I’d made out with before, wanted “to feel better”. I tried
to give that to her. I know one guy carpe diemed a girl right
out of her virginity. Everyone knew that later I guess.
I told someone I respected Andy for winning at chicken.
That someone tried to punch me. I took the hit like Andy.
And then two days later was the Big Day. All went.
The superintendent excused the school. A field trip to the museum
of hard lessons. I didn’t attend. I spent the day in study hall.
Our assignment: write how we feel today. The teacher had a tone
like hands holding an egg yolk. I turned in a Venn diagram starring Me
and Andy and the Train. Each circle rushing to meet each other.

Day 5 - The Earth Has a Hole in It

So the genesis for this poem is interesting. I suddenly remembered my 10th grade Chemistry teacher, Mr. Frink, walking into class and announcing that we had on school premises one of the most volatile chemicals in existence. It was so acidic that it must be kept in something special. And I remember that it was something very unassuming. Like wax or colored glass. But he assured us that if he were to bring it in, it would burn through every substance between here and the earth.

For the next two years of high school, I was obsessed with the idea of breaking into the science supply closet and stealing this chemical. It was actually one of my senior prank ideas. But after one senior prank went horribly south, I gave up on it.

It's possible Mr. Frink was lying as well and just wanted to get our attention. It's not a deep or mind blowing poem. Just something fun to write.


Volatile

In our high school science supply closet,
there is a chemical locked in wax
that is so potent, that if released
would burn through all beakers,
through the heavy black wood of science tables,
through all gym bags and all sneakers,
through the rough tile of the school,
through cement, through rebar, through time capsules,
it will carve fire through earthworms, cicadas asleep,
through root systems and under-rivers,
it will drill the bedrock, lance the iron ores,
go through dinosaurs piecemeal,
burn mysteries, melt undiscoveries,
and into the core and out again
with barely a burp
and then up again, out of the world,
to the flats of Australia,
rising up against gravity,
dispersing a cloud,
past therma, tropo, strato, meso spheres
into the forever superhighway of space
where it can be
someplace it is against nothing,
only inert.