Age 12 1990 golden Chevy 1/2 ton Age 16 1986 grey Saab totaled Age 17 1959 black Chrysler Windsor Golden-Lion 1972 yellow Volkswagen Beetle 1969 tan convertible Volkswagen Beetle busted fuel pump; never ran Age 18 1995 black Ford Mustang Age 19 1995 black Camry Age 20 2002 silver Saturn Age 26 2002 tan Honda…
Author: emily bobo
My first man left me
(a grammar lesson on the relationship between “love-able” and “leave-able”) on a curb, weekend-bag packed asleep, in a car, outside an unemployment office in a ditch, beside the road, dust rising up behind the car like some dirty comment bubble at the graveyard, next to a cold reservoir and an open grave
What it’s like to be parented by a poet
II. The child asks for a toy gun. The poet says, “no.” The white child asks why. The poet answers, “You cannot have a toy gun because a black child cannot play with a toy gun without getting shot at by the police.”
What it’s like to be parented by a poet
I. The child asks, “Is this the end, the end of everything?” The poet answers, “If it is, then I am so grateful to have known you.” And the child, knowing, answers, “You’re not supposed to say that. Don’t say that.”
I will ask you to call me Professor/Dr.–Why?
Because a young girl told me I couldn’t be one–because boys were doctors and girls were nurses. Because students will still call me “Mrs.” Because I still call myself “teacher.” Because I write poems–books of them!–but I am afraid to introduce myself, a poet. Because I am still expecting to be told I am not…
The Land of Cockaigne
Emily Bobo reads “The Tale about the Land of Cockaigne.” The original version of this tale is a brag where each line is a bigger lie about how great the Land of Cockaigne was. Audio.
How Some Children Played at Slaughtering
Audio. Emily Bobo reads her re-telling of a fairytale about how some children watched their father slaughter a pig, then imitated him in play.
20 true words: lesson
the crisp crunch underboot of Kansas-dry Kentucky bluegrass– the earth contracting, cracks– this is how one lets loose her roots
20 true words: MIL
for her, hands are a marker of age and class– calloused bitten bloody worn and capable– she gifts me lotion. Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz …blogs.loc.gov Alfred Stieglitz | Georgia O’Keeffe–Hands | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
20 true words: parenting through loss
Daughter says she can’t relate because she has never lost anyone. Knowing she will, I teach her to love anyway.