Exile, A Definition
By Iris Jamahl Dunkle
Riding in the swan boat of my youth, I’m suddenly entering the tunnel of middle age where the billboards—shall we say— targeted marketing—have changed. Every ad is for wrinkle cream and undereye masks. As if somehow the Ad Execs think that is what I don’t want to lose: cat calls, the preying swoop of eyes that wanted to swallow me up. Cut me down into bite- size chunks. No, freaks. These days it's Ovid I can’t stop thinking about. How he was 50— in his prime—when he pissed off some Roman emperor who exiled him to Tomis. He hated it. Kept writing letters home to Rome, begging to be called for, to be folded back in. Stuck on that island in the Black Sea, no one was trying to sell Ovid beauty products. Exile from the Latin exul meaning banish. Oh, how I wish to be banished.
Iris Jamahl Dunkle’s fourth collection of poems, West : Fire : Archive, was published by The Center for Literary Publishing in 2021. Her biographies include Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer (University of Oklahoma Press, 2020) and Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb (University of California Press, 2024). Dunkle teaches at Napa Valley College, UC Davis and Dominican University and is the Poetry and Translation Director of the Napa Valley Writers' Conference.
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Beautiful poem! And so relatable as a 68-year-old woman. Thank you!