The Artist at the Colony Asks Me If I’m Famous
By Marjorie Maddox
It's #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day's archives!
if I’m someone she should know, pay attention to, bother having coffee with, talk with about the father who raped her at twelve, about my father, about the slant of rainy light after you’re weeping for half a life and then some and when/if you leave the toilet paper unwinding from the top or bottom, and what our papas said the two days after, and avocados and kumquats, and the strange geometric shapes that cascade into our dreams five days each year before the equinox, and if I’m well known enough for her to pry open my palm and slice my lifelines with an X-Acto knife—would I do that for her?—and have I won a Pulitzer yet, and what color were the eyes of God when I looked straight at Him for three minutes without blinking once, Ok maybe once, and may she have that last bottle of wine, could she borrow a glass, and how much does The New Yorker pay, do I think they would consider her work, she’s started writing, too, have I slept with anyone there, and does the mold in my studio make my eyes itch in the morning—or evening, she’s heard both—because she really wants to know about the time the London editor who knew the New York editor who knew me from someone at the colony or raved about my work on Eskimos or transplants or something like that and later sat on a committee that judged that really important prize—she can’t remember which one right now because, thanks again, she had a bit too much of my Merlot, but am I that writer, the one she’s heard something about, the one she should know? No, I say, no, though I am someone writing, trying to write, someone.
Poetry Moment host for WPSU-FM, Presence assistant editor, and Professor Emerita of English at Commonwealth University, Marjorie Maddox has published 17 collections of poetry—most recently How Can I Look It Up When I Don’t Know How It’s Spelled?, In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind, Small Earthly Space, and Seeing Things—plus a story collection, four children’s books, and the anthologies Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania and the forthcoming Keystone Poetry (co-editor). See marjoriemaddox.com.
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God yes
yes, feel like I've met this artist at an art colony, too...