Hola, it’s 3:05 PM! Time to take a cafecito break!
Welcome to Poem in the Afternoon, read by a woman-identifying writer who is attending Miami Book Fair 2023. Enjoy this taste of poetry, sponsored by Miami Book Fair, 305 Cafecito (Miami’s Official Cafecito Break), and SWWIM, with Miami's favorite beverage—a cafecito, of course! We look forward to seeing you at the Fair.
Appearance at Miami Book Fair 2023: Bethany Breitland: Saturday 11/18, 12:30 pm, Room 8303
Glossary of Terms
Fable, n. < French fable < Latin fābula discourse, narrative, story, dramatic composition, the plot of a play, a fable, < fārīto speak: see fate n. FATE: The primary sense of the Latin word is a sentence or doom. A fiction invented to deceive; a fabrication, falsehood, secret truth.
2020 When the revolution finally arrived, windows busted through, the
lawns gashed with fire – inherited memory, ancestral lies, the folktales we told
ourselves of innocence and godliness, all fell like ash and laced the abandoned
bones, the bleached seeds found inside the belly of that earth. A scrap of fur
nailed up on the pine – broken glass scattered on the ground – strips of linen tied
to laundry lines. The leaders who survived, they handed their signet rings to the
gardeners.
Men began to bare babies like the seahorse. Women grew tails like wolves. When
a true memory now comes to visit a village, it comes as the old infirm. It is nursed
and cared for in a hammock made from the villagers’ hair. Everyone bows to the
loom where the body is held. It is in this cradle where the body of memory sounds
out a song. This way no one forgets. Then the body is burned, our own heads
blister.
Bethany Breitland was born in northern Indiana. Her people are cult members, truckers, doctors, child-mothers, and business tycoons. She has lived, studied, and taught on the West Coast, the South, and New England. Breitland earned her undergrad degree from Pepperdine University, and her MFA from Vermont College. As an educator and activist, she has worked for over 20 years concerning women’s rights and the LGBTQ community. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize, recipient of various poetry prizes, this is her first full length book of poems. She lives with her children and her partner in Vermont.
From the book, Fire Index: Poems (Green Writers Press, April 4, 2023). Permission granted by the author.
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