Alison McGhee

Poem of the Week, by Julia Hartwig

One night in college I woke up because something kept crashing down the stairwell. I peeked out and saw two giant, drunk, laughing male acquaintances throwing my bike down the stairwell, hauling it up, and throwing it down again.

Did I yell at them to stop? Nope. Did I grab my bike and bring it into my room? Nope. Tell them they owed me a new bike? Nope. What I did was instantly accept that my bike and I had met our fate and there was nothing to do about it. All I was conscious of feeling was a deep, exhausted resignation.

There have been other times in my life, when wronged, that I’ve done the same thing: give up and give in without even the beginnings of resistance. These memories are profoundly disturbing to me and I’ve finally trained myself out of it. So should everyone, especially these days, when what rightfully belongs to all of us is being snatched away by those who have no right to take it.

Demand It Courageously, by Julia Hartwig

Make some room for yourself, human animal.
      Even a dog jostles about on his master’s lap to
improve his position. And when he needs space he
runs forward, without paying attention to commands
or calls.
      If you didn’t manage to receive freedom as a gift,
demand it as courageously as bread and meat.
      Make some room for yourself, human pride and
dignity.
      The Czech writer Hrabal said:
      I have as much freedom as I take.

Click here for more information about Polish poet Julia Hartwig. Today’s poem is from In Praise of the Unfinished, published in 2008 by Knopf.
alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter

Poem of the Week, by David Hernandez

Posted on June 21 by alisonmcghee

Smile and say hi to everyone you pass. Be your kindest self. Focus all your energy on the students in this room. Make life better for everyone you can, every time you can. These are the vows I make and constantly break but keep re-upping nonetheless. My latest scheme: adding “with joy!” or “joyfully!” to my daily to-do lists. Vacuum joyfully! Weed with joy! Joyfully write1000 words! Weirdly, this helps.

Anyone Who Is Still Trying, by David Hernandez

Any person, any human, any someone who breaks
          up the fight, who spackles holes or FedExes
ice shelves to the Arctic to keep the polar bears
          afloat, who talks the wind-rippled woman
down from the bridge. Any individual, any citizen
          who skims muck from the coughing ocean,
who pickets across the street from antigay picketers
          with a sign that reads, GOD HATES MAGGOTS,
or, GOD HATES RESTAURANTS WITH ZAGAT RATINGS
          LESS THAN 27. Any civilian who kisses
a forehead heated by fever or despair, who reads
          the X ray, pins the severed bone. Any biped
who volunteers at soup kitchens, who chokes
          a Washington lobbyist with his own silk necktie—
I take that back, who gives him mouth-to-mouth
          until his startled heart resumes its kabooms.
Sorry, I get cynical sometimes, there is so much
          broken in the system, the districts, the crooked
thinking, I’m working on whittling away at this
          pessimism, harvesting light where I can find it.
Any countryman or countrywoman who is still
          trying, who still pushes against entropy,
who stanches or donates blood, who douses fires
          real or metaphorical, who rakes the earth
where tires once zeroed the ground, plants something
          green, say spinach or kale, say a modest forest
for restless breezes to play with. Any anyone
          from anywhere who considers and repairs,
who builds a prosthetic beak for an eagle—
          I saw the video, the majestic bird disfigured
by a bullet, the visionary with a 3-D printer,
          with polymer and fidelity, with hours
and hours and hours, I keep thinking about it,
          thinking we need more of that commitment,
those thoughtful gestures, the flight afterward.

For more information on David Hernandez, please click here.

Poem of the Week, by Lowell Jaeger

Posted on June 14 by alisonmcghee

I’ve driven the Mexi-Cali border its full length many times, slowed and stopped for border patrol checks many times. I can predict the drivers whose vehicles will be pulled over and inspected. They usually don’t look like me, which is itself a problem.

Then came Kansas, a few months ago. Cops pulled me over for fictitious reasons and asked a series of questions–are you concealing a kidnapped child; are you concealing rocket launchers; are you transporting fentanyl and methamphetamines across state lines–that would have been laughable if the men standing next to my rolled-down window hadn’t been so flat-eyed and humorless. If they hadn’t been carrying guns and badges. If I hadn’t known no one would know if they chose to do something awful to me.

But here’s the thing: we can choose to turn off the lights and sirens. We can choose not to scare each other. We can choose to be the safe harbor, the soft landing, the helping hand. If not now, then when? See you at the protests.

After Second Shift, by Lowell Jaeger

She’s stopped to shop for groceries.
Her snow boots sloshing
up and down the aisles, the store
deserted: couple stock boys
droning through cases of canned goods,
one sleepy checker at the till.

In the parking lot, an elderly man
stands mumbling outside his sedan,
all four doors wide to gusting sleet
and ice. She asks him, Are you okay?
He’s wearing pajama pants, torn slippers,
rumpled sport coat, knit wool hat.

Says he’s waiting for his wife.
I just talked to her on the payphone
over there. He’s pointing at
the Coke machine. What payphone?
she says. That one, he says.
It’s cold, she says, and escorts him inside.

Don’t come with lights
and sirens, she tells the 9-1-1
dispatcher. You’ll scare him.

They stand together. The checker
brings him a cup of coffee.
They talk about the snow.

So much snow.
They watch for the cop.
This night, black as any night,
or a bit less so.

Click here for more information about poet Lowell Jaeger. Today’s poem appeared in Or Maybe I Drift Off Alone, published in 2016 by Shabda Press.

alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter

Poem of the Week, by Nayyirah Waheed

Posted on June 7 by alisonmcghee

On Tuesday this week, more than thirty heavily armed officers wearing FBI, ICE, ATF, and Minneapolis police badges descended on a Mexican restaurant on east Lake Street, supposedly for a “federal law enforcement operation” regarding a “criminal search warrant for drugs and money laundering.” Many of the officers wore masks covering their faces up to their eyes. The more than 100 protesters were dispersed using “chemical irritants.” *

No one was arrested.

Every statement regarding this raid has been vague and confusing. What is not vague or confusing is the fact that across this country, fully masked people carrying massive guns are pulling non-white residents off the streets, arresting them, detaining them, and sending them to prisons in other countries against the direct orders of U.S. courts. That’s how you create a police state.

poem, from Salt
– Nayyirah Waheed

you broke the ocean in
half to be here
only to find nothing that wants you

Click here for more information on Nayyirah Waheed.
alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter

*photo by Nicole Neri, Minnesota Reformer

Poem of the Week, by Tess Gallagher

Posted on May 31 by alisonmcghee

Last fall I thinned and divided some of the daisies and phlox and coneflowers and lilies and peonies in my gigantic flower garden. I tried to do such a careful job, but this spring the daisies and some of the coneflowers didn’t come back, and neither did the lavender, which I left undisturbed. I’ve planted delphiniums and coneflowers in their place, but I’m in mourning, as if by disrupting their natural growth I set something unintended in motion.

Choices, by Tess Gallagher

I go to the mountain side
of the house to cut saplings,
and clear a view to snow
on the mountain. But when I look up,
saw in hand, I see a nest clutched in
the uppermost branches.
I don’t cut that one.
I don’t cut the others either.
Suddenly, in every tree,
an unseen nest
where a mountain
would be.

(for Drago Štambuk)

Click here for more information about poet and short story writer Tess Gallagher. Today’s poem appears in her collection Midnight Lantern: New and Selected Poems, published in 2011 by Graywolf Press.

alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter

Poem of the Week, by Natalie Diaz

Posted on May 24 by alisonmcghee

Book party! I rarely do book events, and I’d love to see you at the book party for my brand-new novel, Weird Sad and Silent, at Next Chapter Booksellers in St. Paul this Tuesday, May 27, at 6 pm. I’ll read a little, tell you some secrets behind the writing of the book, answer questions, and there might even be some tiny gifts for you. It’s a school night so fear not, we’ll get you home nice and early, too. Click here for all the details.

The zinnia seedlings biding their time in the 40-degree drop in temperature from last week. The man and his dog who always stop for a poem from my poetry hut, careful to relatch the door afterwards. The hurt squirrel writhing on the lawn that I called 311 about. The man with the long box braids unloading the giant moving van who stopped to wipe the sweat from his face. So much feels fragile and precious in these days of siege from lies, cruelty, and greed. Don’t we all need refuge?

If I Should Come Upon Your House Lonely in the West Texas Desert, by Natalie Diaz

I will swing my lasso of headlights
across your front porch,

let it drop like a rope of knotted light
at your feet.

While I put the car in park,
you will tie and tighten the loop

of light around your waist —
and I will be there with the other end

wrapped three times
around my hips horned with loneliness.

Reel me in across the glow-throbbing sea
of greenthread, bluestem prickly poppy,

the white inflorescence of yucca bells,
up the dust-lit stairs into your arms.

If you say to me, This is not your new house
but I am your new home,

I will enter the door of your throat,
hang my last lariat in the hallway,

build my altar of best books on your bedside table,
turn the lamp on and off, on and off, on and off.

I will lie down in you.
Eat my meals at the red table of your heart.

Each steaming bowl will be, Just right.
I will eat it all up,

break all your chairs to pieces.
If I try running off into the deep-purpling scrub brush,

you will remind me,
There is nowhere to go if you are already here,

and pat your hand on your lap lighted
by the topazion lux of the moon through the window,

say, Here, Love, sit here — when I do,
I will say, And here I still am.

Until then, Where are you? What is your address?
I am hurting. I am riding the night

on a full tank of gas and my headlights
are reaching out for something.

Click here for more information about Natalie Diaz, and click here to hear Diaz reading today’s poem. If I Should Come Upon Your House Lonely in the West Texas Desert first appeared in Postcolonial Love Poem, published in 2020 by Graywolf Press.

alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter

Poem of the Week, by Jeanne Wagner

Posted on May 17 by alisonmcghee

Book party! I rarely do book events and I would love to see you at the book party for my brand-new novel, Weird Sad and Silent. Please come to the launch party at Next Chapter Booksellers in St. Paul on Tuesday, May 27, at 6 pm. I’ll read a little and tell you some secrets behind the writing of the book. We’ll talk, we’ll celebrate, and there might even be some tiny gifts for you. It’s a school night so we’ll get you home nice and early, too. Click here for all the details.

My dog makes an almost inaudible tiny hoot when he wants me to get up in the morning. A low revving sound when he wants me to bring his food out to where I’m working (he doesn’t believe in eating alone). A short, sharp yip that means he needs to go out. He makes no sound at all when I pack my roller bag for a trip; he just sits in the middle of the rug with his head down.

A few months ago when he was frantically barking at something in the ceiling –a mouse? bugs? bat?–I searched for a Dogs and Wolves playlist. He froze, tilting his head this way and that, silent. When wolves began howling he looked at me, pointed his muzzle to the ceiling and began howling softly, howling and howling. It was one of the most mournful sounds I’ve ever heard. It made me want to howl too. As if on some deep level we know there are wild lives out there, wild lives we want, wild lives that are waiting for us.

Dogs That Look Like Wolves, by Jeanne Wagner

When my dog hears the neighbor’s baby cry, he begins
to howl, his head thrown back. He’s all heartbreak and
hollow throat, tenderness rising in each ululation. He’s
a saxophone of sadness, a shepherd calling for his stray.
I’ve read that baying is both a sign of territory and
a reaching out for whatever lies beyond: home and loss,
how can they be understood without each other?
Once I had an outdoor dog who sang every day at noon
when the Angelus belled from the corner church.
She was a plain dog but I could prove, contrary to all
the theologians, that at least once a day she had a soul.
I’ve always loved dogs that look like wolves, loved
stories of wolves: the alphas, the bullies, the bachelors.
We have to forgive them when they break into our
fenced-off pastures, lured by the lull of a grazing herd,
or a complacent flock, heads bent down. Prey, it’s called.
At night wolves chorus into the trackless air, the range
of their song riding far from their bodies till they think
the stars will hear it and be moved, almost to breaking,
while my poor dog stands alone on the deck, howling
into the canyon’s breadth, as if he’s like me, looking
for a place where his song will carry. Dogs know,
if there is solace to be had, their voice will find it.
This air is made for lamentation.

Click here for more information about Jeanne Wagner. This poem is from Everything Turns Into Something Else, published by Grayson Books in 2021.

alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter

Poem of the Week, by Winter Jones

Posted on May 10 by alisonmcghee

Minnesotans! Book party! I rarely do book events and I would love to see you at the book party for my brand-new novel, Weird Sad and Silent, in the world as of next Tuesday. Please come to the launch party at Next Chapter Booksellers in St. Paul on Tuesday, May 27, at 6 pm. I’ll read a little, we’ll talk, we’ll celebrate, and there might even be some tiny gifts for you. Click here for all the details.

When I read this poem I thought about how bringing a child into the world, knowing everything we know about what life may throw at them, is an act of…what, defiance in the face of it all? Selfishness, because you yourself want to feel that kind of giant love for someone else forever and ever? Hope, that they will love their lives? Faith, that you can make the world better for them and they can make the world better by being in it?

Molecules from everyone who ever lived circulate inside us. Gandhi. Hitler. Your great-great-great-great-great grandmother. That former friend who no longer speaks to you. The beloved dog who died at fifteen. The poets who wrote the poems you memorize and recite to yourself. Everyone you love, and everyone you don’t. The past, the present, the unknown future: breathe in. Breathe out.

Concessions, by Winter Jones
(There is a 98.2% chance that at least one of the molecules in your lungs came from Caesar’s last breath. From Innumeracy, by John Allen Paulos)

If Caesar, then my great-uncle too.
He waited until the farm was sold,
went into the field and shot himself.
Was his last breath soft, a letting-go? Or was it
sorrow? I lie awake imagining his final air,
still alive in my body.

Then my girl lights up my phone. Three time zones
away she tracks me by cell location, senses
I’m awake in the dark: love you mama
This is the child who couldn’t sleep without my touch,
without my own breaths timed to hers.
Back then she once told me she wouldn’t be sad if I died.
You wouldn’t?
Nope. Because I’d be dead too. I couldn’t live without you.

Her air also swirls inside me.
Before she was born I was young.
I didn’t know the weight of this kind of love,
how it would hurt. Would terrify.
Would turn me dangerous, like the time I hurtled between
her and the raving man in the grocery store.

Love you more, I text back.
Every breath’s a bargain struck between fear and trust,
a concession we make to stay in the world.
The truth we carry within: for every
great-uncle who leaves this world
by lonely blast of bullet, a bright flame of child.

Click here for more information about John Allen Paulos.
alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter

Weird Sad and Silent: a novel

Posted on May 6 by alisonmcghee

Welcome to the world, Daisy Jackson! My new novel, Weird Sad and Silent, is available everywhere as of today, May 6. The idea for this novel came to me in a rush one day when a girl appeared in my mind and said, “To begin, my name is Daisy Jackson.” That became the first line of the novel. I sat down and began writing and then just kept on writing until Daisy had told me her whole story.

A couple things about Daisy: when stressed, she counts on her fingertips, under the table or behind her back, up to 111 and back down again, so lightly that no one will see. But one day, when she thinks she’s alone, she starts counting out loud, and the bullies notice and start calling her Weird Sad and Silent. After that awful day, Daisy learns how to invisibilize herself.

She’s seen and loved by a few people, though: her neighbor Lulu, who stays with her while her mama Flora works the overnight shift at Glorious Cleaning. The school librarian Marimba, whose library is always a place of refuge. Captain the custodian, who calls everyone by their first and last names and who’s always there to open the door for Daisy so she can slip into school early. Not to mention Rumble Paws, the feral cat who lurks around her apartment building. He’s scrawny and wary, most of one ear is missing, and he too knows how to invisibilize himself.

But one day a new kid shows up at school, Austin Roseau. He notices Daisy right away, no matter how invisibilized she thinks she is. And everything starts to change. This book is for the weird sad silent kids everywhere who, like Daisy and Austin, are actually funny and lovable and full of curiosity. It’s also for all the other kids and no-longer-kids who grew up like most of us did, witnessing bullying and hating it, and who ever since have sought to make the world a kinder, funnier, loving place.

Starred review from Kirkus: “A beautiful story of unvarnished honesty and tender hope—this courageous protagonist will capture every heart.”

Click here to order your own copy.

Minnesotans! Come to my book party!
I rarely do book events and I would love to see you at the book party for my brand-new novel, Weird Sad and Silent, in the world as of today. Please come to the launch party at Next Chapter Booksellers in St. Paul on Tuesday, May 27, at 6 pm. I’ll read a little, we’ll talk, we’ll celebrate, and there might even be some tiny gifts for you. Click here for all the details.

Poem of the Week, by Gregory Orr

Posted on May 3 by alisonmcghee

Book party! I rarely do book events and I would love to see you at the book party for my brand-new novel, Weird Sad and Silent, in the world as of next Tuesday. Please come to the launch party at Next Chapter Booksellers in St. Paul on Tuesday, May 27, at 6 pm. I’ll read a little, we’ll talk, we’ll celebrate, and there might even be some tiny gifts for you. Click here for all the details.

A few days ago I was driving down Lake Street singing along to Can’t Get Enough by Depeche Mode at high volume. At a long red light I glanced over and saw a woman with earbuds dancing as she waited for the bus. She looked so happy and free. Her moves synced up exactly to the beat of Can’t Get Enough, one of those weird serendipitous things.

The other day a friend told me she felt guilty about feeling any moment of happiness amidst the nonstop horrors of this administration, and I heard myself tell her that if we can’t feel joy then they’ve won. Which is true. So I went straight out and bought myself some disco lights, and now you’re all invited to my house for a dance party.

To Be Alive, by Gregory Orr

To be alive: not just the carcass
but the spark.
That’s crudely put, but. . .

If we’re not supposed to dance,
why all this music?

For more information about Gregory Orr, please check out his website.
alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter