Incarnadine (6 page)

“Annunciation in
Nabokov
and
Starr
”: Italicized phrases in this poem are taken from
Lolita
by Vladimir Nabokov and
The Starr Report
by Kenneth Starr.

“Notes on a 39-Year-Old Body”: The language of each section is taken from the combined text of the two epigraphs. Imported language is marked in brackets.

“So-and-So Descending from the Bridge”: A mother threw her two children off the Sellwood Bridge in Portland, Oregon, in the early morning hours of May 23, 2009. One child died; one survived.

“Another True Story”: Thank you to Roger Cohen for sharing the photograph and for relating Bert Cohen’s story so powerfully in the essay “Lake Water Reflections.” The essay, in adapted form, will appear in his forthcoming family memoir,
The Girl from Human Street.

“Annunciation in
Byrd
and
Bush”:
Italicized phrases in this poem, words of Senator Robert Byrd and President George W. Bush, are taken from various sources including:

George W. Bush’s Address to a Joint Session of Congress, September 20, 2001, and “Remarks by the President to Coal Miners and Their Families and Their Community,” Green Tree Fire Department, Green Tree, Pennsylvania, 2002.

Senator Robert Byrd’s remarks to the Senate on February 13, 2003 (Congressional Record 108
^th
Congress).

“To the Dove within the Stone”: This poem appeared as part of the
Manual Labors
exhibit at the Laboratory of Art and Ideas at Belmar in Denver, Colorado.

“How (Not) to Speak of God”: The title is taken from Peter Rollins’s book of the same name.

“Yet Not Consumed”: “And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.” —Exodus 3:2

“On Wanting to Tell [      ] about a Girl Eating Fish Eyes”: “Your Majesty, when we compare the present life of man with that time of which we have no knowledge, it seems to me like the swift flight of a lone sparrow through the banqueting-hall where you sit in the winter months to dine with your thanes and counselors. Inside there is a comforting fire to warm the room; outside, the wintry storms of snow and rain are raging. This sparrow flies swiftly in through one door of the hall, and out through another. While he is inside, he is safe from the wintry storms; but after a few moments of comfort, he vanishes from sight into the darkness whence he came. Similarly, man appears on earth for a little while, but we know nothing of what went before this life, and what follows.” —Bede,
A History of the English Church and People.
This poem is for Donald Justice.

“The Cathars Etc.”: “Here at the isolated Lastours castles, which were built along a defensive cliff spur, the Cathars spent much of 1209 heroically fending off the onslaught. So the crusader leader, the sadistic Simon de Montfort, resorted to primitive psychological warfare. He ordered his troops to gouge out the eyes of 100 luckless prisoners, cut off their noses and lips, then send them back to the towers led by a prisoner with one remaining eye.” — “The Besieged and the Beautiful in Languedoc” by Tony Perrottet,
The New York Times
, May 6, 2010.

“Happy Ideas”: “And why that cerulean color? The blue comes partly from the sea, partly from the sky. While water in a glass is transparent, it absorbs slightly more red light than blue … the red light is absorbed out and what gets reflected back to space is mainly blue.”—Carl Sagan,
Pale Blue Dot

“Here, There Are Blueberries”: The italicized phrases are adapted from Anat Cohen, as quoted by Jeffrey Goldberg in his 2004
New Yorker
article, “Among the Settlers”: “You don’t live just to keep living. That’s not the point of life.” This poem is for my father, Charles A. Szybist.

Sincere thanks to the editors of the following journals in which these poems first appeared, sometimes in different forms:

Agni Online:
“Do Not Desire Me, Imagine Me.”
The Burnside Review:
“The Heroine as She Turns to Face Me.”
The Cincinnati Review:
“Annunciation as Fender’s Blue Butterfly with Kincaid’s Lupine.”
The Chronicle of Higher Education Review:
“Happy Ideas.”
Electronic Poetry Review:
“The Lushness of It” and “Invitation.”
Fifth Wednesday Journal:
“Night Shifts at the Group Home.”
The Iowa Review:
“Annunciation (from the grass beneath them),” “Annunciation under Erasure,” “Annunciation in Play,” and “Annunciation: Eve to Ave.”
The Kenyon Review:
“Yet Not Consumed,” “Girls Overheard While Assembling a Puzzle,” “Annunciation as Right Whale with Kelp Gulls,” and “On a Spring Day in Baltimore, the Art Teacher Asks the Class to Grow Flowers.”
The Laurel Review:
“You Tell Me to Take a—” (now titled “Holy”).
Lo-Ball:
“Annunciation Overheard from the Kitchen.”
Long Journey: Contemporary Northwest Poets Anthology:
“Knocking or Nothing” and
“Touch Gallery:
Joan of Arc.”
Meridian:
“The Troubadours Etc.” and “Close Reading.”
Ploughshares:
“Here, There Are Blueberries” and “So-and-So Descending from the Bridge.”
Plume:
“Notes on a 39-Year-Old Body.”
Poetry:
“On Wanting to Tell [      ] about a Girl Eating Fish Eyes” and “Hail.”
Poets.org, The Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day Series:
“All Times & All Tenses Alive in This Moment” (now titled “How (Not) to Speak of God”).
Sou’wester:
“Entrances and Exits.”
Tin House:
“Annunciation in
Byrd
and
Bush,”
“Annunciation in
Nabokov
and
Starr.” The Virginia Quarterly Review:
“I Send News: She Has Survived the Tumor after All.”
West Branch:
“Insertion of Meadow with Flowers” and “Long after the Desert and Donkey.”
Witness:
“Conversion Figure.”

“How (Not) to Speak of God” (originally titled “All Times & All Tenses Alive in This Moment”) can be viewed on the ceiling of the portico of the Pennsylvania College of Arts & Design, where it was painted as a mural by the artist team Root 222 as part of
Poetry Paths
, a public visual and literary art project in the city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

“The Troubadours Etc.” also appeared in
The Best American Poetry 2008
, edited by Charles Wright and David Lehman.

“The Troubadours Etc.,” “The Lushness of It,” and “Annunciation as Fender’s Blue Butterfly with Kincaid’s Lupine” also appeared in
The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Second Edition.

“On a Spring Day in Baltimore, the Art Teacher Asks the Class to Draw Flowers” also appeared in
Pushcart Prize Anthology XXVII.

“Annunciation: Eve to Ave,” “Annunciation (from the grass beneath them),” and “Girls Overheard While Assembling a Puzzle” also appeared on
Poetry Daily.

Thank you to Willian Olsen for selecting “Night Shifts at the Group Home” as the winner of the
Fifth Wednesday Journal
Editor’s Prize in Poetry for 2012.

I am grateful to Lewis & Clark College, the MacDowell Colony, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Witter Bynner Foundation (and to Kay Ryan for selecting me for a fellowship), and the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center for generous fellowships and support that enabled me to complete this collection.

Thank you Gabriela Rife, archangel and muse to this collection. The heroine of “Entrances and Exits” and “On Wanting to Tell [      ] about a Girl Eating Fish Eyes” is Olivia Glosser Asher. Thank you, Olivia. Thank you, Michele Glazer, for going a long way into these poems with me and helping me through them. I am grateful to many readers for their attention, care, and invaluable help, especially Endi Bogue Hartigan, Molly Lou Freeman, Mark Szybist, D. A. Powell, John Casteen, Joy Katz, Rachel Cole, Katie Ford, Sara Guest, and Jeffrey Shotts. Thank you to my husband, Jerry Harp, for always helping me see the potential in my attempts, and for believing in them. To my colleagues, friends, and family, my deepest gratitude for your generosity, support, and friendship.

MARY SZYBIST is the author of a previous collection of poems,
Granted
, which was named a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. The recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writing Award, and a Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress, she lives in Portland, Oregon, and teaches at Lewis & Clark College and the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers.

The text of
Incarnadine
is set in Minion Pro, an original typeface designed by Robert Slimbach in 1990. Composition by BookMobile Design and Digital Publisher Services, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Printed by BookMobile on acid-free paper.