Poetry at Bread Loaf

Speaking with poet John Ashbery after his reading

I am back at the Bread Loaf School of English near Middlebury, Vermont for the summer. In anticipation of the journalistic writing I will be doing this fall, I decided to dedicate myself to creative writing endeavors and, therefore, signed up for a poetry workshop. This was a brave decision because I haven't studied poetry since high school and and have no experience trying to pen it. 

Last week, poet John Ashbery came to Bread Loaf to do a reading. I had studied his poem "They Knew What They Wanted" that very day in class. It was a treat to hear him read it a few hours later. Inspired by his reading, I poured myself in the next assignment.

The assignment was to write a poem about something difficult to say. Here is was I said.

Poem About Why I Got Drunk and Ate Too Many Scallops Last Christmas Eve

Each year my family assembles for 

the Feast of the Seven Fishes. All of us,

spend the day chopping garlic and parsley and 

slicing lemons. There’s no fresh fish in Iowa,

so it sits on the counter thawing into a white, wet

heap.

In the early evening, my father throws clams into 

the marinara. The scallops are seared in butter, the shrimp

steamed. We girls go to our rooms and put on satin

vintage dresses bought in Madison, New York, St. Louis, and

Amsterdam, especially for this. We paint our faces like

porcelain dolls and tie our hair back.

Then the candles are lit and we take our seats at the table

my grandfather made. He’s been dead five years. We suck

shrimp from their tails, squeak on calamari salad and 

sop oil with bread. We bury each other’s voices.

We crunch on sardine bones, and 

my head floats on wine.   

My father’s eye sockets go dark and

my mother pushes her mandible back where it belongs.

My baby sister’s alabaster skull is still a lovely 

round shape. Even in bone, she’s

beautiful.  We eat air 

and from time to time a fork slips 

from skinless fingers. 

I can’t see. 

I can’t laugh. 

I rattle.

I paint my joke into a calavera in exchange for

eyes and skin. I know it’s coming but please

not yet.

Who will go first? Perhaps I will. Then again, 

sometimes the sickest have the most preparation for 

living. Better to have dressed up bones than an 

empty seat. I’d even be grateful for a lump of coal.

Better to have another helping 

and too much wine.