Good evening everyone and welcome to the first weekend of March, 2017..
WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH!!!
I assume you know, the poetry corner will be honoring women poets for this month, every Friday. I will present these marvelous poets, and like for Black History Month, they won’t be the usual women poets that you see or hear about.
This week, the feature poet is KIM ADDONIZIO and poem called “The First Line is the Deepest.”
Ready to dive in eh?
The First Line is the Deepest
by Kim Addonizio
I have been one acquainted with the spatula,
the slotted, scuffed, Teflon-coated spatula
that lifts a solitary hamburger from pan to plate,
acquainted with the vibrator known as the Pocket Rocket
and the dildo that goes by Tex,
and I have gone out, a drunken bitch,
in order to ruin
what love I was given,
and also I have measured out
my life in little pills—Zoloft,
Restoril, Celexa,
Xanax.
I have. For I am a poet. And it is my job, my duty
to know wherein lies the beauty
of this degraded body,
or maybe
it’s the degradation in the beautiful body,
the ugly me
groping back to my desk to piss
on perfection, to lay my kiss
of mortal confusion
upon the mouth of infinite wisdom.
My kiss says razors and pain, my kiss says
America is charged with the madness
of God. Sundays, too,
the soldiers get up early, and put on their fatigues in the blue-
black day. Black milk. Black gold. Texas tea.
Into the valley of Halliburton rides the infantry—
Why does one month have to be the cruelest,
can’t they all be equally cruel? I have seen the best
gamers of your generation, joysticking their M1 tanks through
the sewage-filled streets. Whose
world this is I think I know.
Whilst I was gestating I managed to lose my poetry gene; but even I, a poetic heathen, can appreciate that this is powerful stuff.
Right on. Looking at poetry like this is inspiring. She is a fantastic poet.