I have long loved and admired 32 Poems—inevitably an excellent, surprising, and (dare I say it?) manageably slim journal. These qualities make it the perfect text to supplement a poetry course. I’m grateful to the editors for making the 32 Classrooms initiative available for us, and to David Clark for visiting our class and talking to my students.

For almost all of my students, 32 Poems #40 was the first poetry journal they had encountered. In our reflection on the journal, many remarked on the way it made, thrillingly, the range of possibilities a poem has evident to them: how surprising it was to turn the page and find a totally new feel in the next poem. After our discussions, I gave my students a broad prompt: write a poem that interacted with one they particularly responded to. They got to choose what interact meant—some discovered springboards in the thematic heart, the form, the tone, or even the kinds of moves the original text made. I was delighted to see my students writing poems they wouldn’t have otherwise, poems that they found exciting and challenging, but which they arrived at with the inspiration, insight and (perhaps most importantly) permission they discovered in 32 Poems. Of my 11 students, 7 wrote poems they were comfortable sharing.

—Rosalie Moffett, Assistant Professor of Creative Writing
University of Southern Indiana

 

To Listen
Alexa Haines

“I talk more to trees and mice than I let on. Flies too.
And cars. Actually, I’m a regular chatterbox
to what doesn’t respond. So I understand prayer.”
-John Gallaher, “The Difficult Countryside”

It’s not just that I like to hear myself talk;
I want to inherit the power of silence,
to absorb knowledge through each of my senses
and reach my destination without having to follow
the complicated detour of human speech.
What do the things that don’t speak have to teach us?
The turtle demonstrates the power of patience and slow-going.
The forests give us a display of how to be in community with one another,
water teaches us to flow, move, adapt.
I want to learn my strength from the wind, beauty
and dance from the rustling of foliage.
The most powerful and ancient lessons are taught without
the use of words.
Teach me how to listen with my being.

I Am The Surgeon
Bostyn Parkhurst

After “I Am Neither Surgical” by Hadara Bar-Nadav

performing in my white coat. Yes,
          there is blood on my hands,

but neither from the boy or the pig–
          but from a life that has been created of the two.

With this scalpel I transfer the energy of the pig
          into the human, as they both become an idea of reincarnation

and can be stitched up, united,
          under the stitches of a wooden fence that held one hostage

but will now free the two. The impossible becomes possible;
          becoming a mind of one, as the boys eyes open,

the pig’s heart beats, they will both live on
          because of the magic of something so heavenly.

Prayer
Denise McKenzie

After “For a Stray Dog near the Paper Mill in Tyrone, Pennsylvania” by Todd Davis

Among the ditch weeds the cat bends her body low. Lunar eyes swell as they focus on a crow tittering on the asphalt. Her ears swivel around her head, synchronized radio dishes, seeking sonar. The murky and mucked water ripples underneath the road from wind carrying thunder on its coattails. Each gong-strike of the church bells she moves by pad-strike. A straggling congregation, a hum on the wind pitch. Other crows acrobat the powerlines, faithfully watching the road bend from within the forest. Car and crow screeches, the cat bounds for its prize, and the pastor calls out to an animal with no name.

generic dreams
Hannah Payne

“…we just want a glimpse of the promised land
before we take off our jogging shoes and lie down for good….”
—Craig van Rooyen, “Tenderness in Men”

Two sandwiches appear as I asked Sarah what she wants out of life for herself.
Immediately after, I inquire if it’s normal to confine potential to degrees that may lead to some job one
hates? Which was stupid
because my friend is not in college.

She replied, oh yeah,
that’s normal
and sipped on a pint.

We scarcely know
what we want
or where to belong.
I spoke of a handsome husband,
a comfortable life.
I want mountain views
with no unexpected critters
to pop out at the worst time to scare me.
I love bears but only from that safe distance.

Do you think we’ll find
long-term lovers or professions
or houses or anything permanent?
Or does permanence even matter?

She said, I scarcely know.
But this bar is not remarkable
and neither are we.
And, friend, that
is normal.

She scarcely knows what to want.
Or where to belong.
     And for the first time tonight,
     I notice the tremor in her hands
     and sunken lilacs under her eyes.
     She spent more time distressed
     than resting last night.
     I feel selfish for failing to
     see disenchantment in her eyes
     before unloading my own existentialism on her.

Christian Virgin Sex Poem #2
Jennah Hottel

After “Love Poem for Brood X” by Diana Cao

Fireflies looking for a mate
flick a light-switch on and off, but the light-switch is their bodies,
the light-switch is an SOS flare
right there below the waist
          right where our bodies are sounding a siren the same.

Cicadas scream their loneliness into a song that shreds
the summer evening humidity
into a music festival for the unhinged in-love,
their chords in the key of hunger.

The praying mantis
is so ready to give himself
that he cares not for the risk, is willing to be
beheaded; to be eaten alive.

and this is natural.
maybe it’s integral. maybe I’m tying fairy lights around my legs
and I hear you singing Queen
praying for relief
out loud in the parking lot.
what if we all pass each other in the dark, blinking
our lights, ready to die?
we can run around, say
we’re in a good place

on our own, secure searching
for purpose in gym attendance and a card deck of degrees
but at the end of it,

     drooping in the last of summer,
croaking your last song,
you came to love and be loved, and you
never learned how to peel and eat that fruit.
you were busy eating
from the tree of self-creation.
Have you created
yourself safe in the dark? have you created your body silent
yet?

Qualities
Kaitlynn Walls

After “Idealism” by Allan Peterson

It’s not what we can make to protect our bodies

that is beautiful or heroic. It’s the skin-

deep glory of incandescent waves that spill from our pores.

We were not meant to be covered with steel or iron parts,

but we are vulnerable and helpless to the elements

we are forged from, so we cover the delicate qualities

our Creator intended to be seen with grotesque armor.

Pistanthrophobia
Clem Blair

“We were, once again, Orpheus’s incompetence…
This much I loved, like the tenderness of asking
for a favor without saying what it is first.”
—Robert Wood Lynn, “From the List of My Fears”

Some will say I follow
blindly behind you, trusting you
always. having faith in your judgment,
trusting you to not look
back, except I wasn’t
the one who was trusting.
It was you
relying on me
believing I would
never fall
behind, trusting that I would
heed
your
guide.
Trusting that I wanted to
follow after you
even as you blocked
the light
up the ladder
and there was no guarantee
you’d even come
for me in the first place.

Why is it a surprise
that when you inevitably
turned back
I was not there?