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    Ebook99 pages37 minutes

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    By Rachel McKibbens

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    -Ex-punk rock chola and mother of five
    -McKibbens founded The Pink Door Women’s Writing Retreat, an annual writing retreat in the US open exclusively to women of color.
    - She has an dynamic and large social media presence and a killer website: rachelmckibbens.com/
    -McKibbens is a member of Latinas Unidas and co-curates the critically-acclaimed monthly reading series Poetry and Pie Night in upstate New York.
    -According to her website, she is currently working on a memoir about growing up as a child misogynist.
    -For four years, McKibbens taught poetry through the Healing Arts Program at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. She continues to teach poetry and creative writing and give lectures across the country as an advocate for mental health awareness, gender-equality and victims of violence and domestic abuse.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCopper Canyon Press
    Release dateMay 1, 2018
    ISBN9781619321786
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    • 5/5
      This is one of my all time favorite collections. McKibbens writes about anger, grief, fear, abuse, and mental illness in such stunning ways, and this collection has deeply impacted my life as a writer and as a person.

    Book preview

    blud - Rachel McKibbens

    I

    the first time

    I came back to life

    was in 1980.

    I awakened

    head a blue

    labyrinth

    trapped in sound—

    a grotesque clutter:

    the meep-meep of a

    cartoon bird

    sticky flock

    of children

    screeching

    in the courtyard.

    Then a voice

    (voices?)

    I did not

    recognize:

    the ruined gasp

    emerging from

    within

    my cutoff throat.

    I unwrapped

    the telephone cord—

    how long had I been

    down?—skull

    fever-pounding

    from the blackout,

    body feathered in sweat.

    I listened

    to the room,

    felt the rush

    & shuffle

    of my heart—

    a felled finch.

    Lavender shock

    of resurrection.

    Lucky my dad

    was not awake

    to find me there—

    his radiant little

    death inventor

    with X’d-out eyes,

    a halo of birds

    circling my dome.

    Lucky to have

    outlived this

    unripened error.

    Can you imagine it?

    A child standing

    at the mouth

    of the underworld

    pleading

    for a time-out,

    trying to reason

    with whatever’s

    in charge:

    No, no! I never

    meant to stay dead.

    I simply wanted

    a sweeter life.

    a brief biography of the poet’s mother

    There was

    a child

    hemorrhaging

    light,

    the blue song

    of her brain,

    an early maggot

    writhing.

    Her mother,

    a jealous

    newlywed,

    with looking-glass

    hands & a tub

    full of bleach

    thieved & thieved

    until the child

    became

    a quiet room

    a silence born

    of interrogated

    flesh.

    Girl is the worst season.

    Mother no guarantee.

    No clothes or meat,

    no heavy tit wrecked

    with milk.

    So the blue song

    became a dirge,

    then the dirge

    became a girl.

    maybe this will explain my taste in men

    When Dad busted my face open

    I got to stay home from

    school, watched cartoons

    all day like a goddamn king.

    Dad called in sick,

    icing his damaged fist

    with frozen peas & meat.

    Overheard him on

    the phone with his boss:

    Broke my hand yesterday

    playing ball with the kids.

    Can you believe it?

    I caught a fastball, no glove.

    My own damn fault.

    I’ll get those blueprints

    to you tomorrow morning,

    first thing.

    Poor Dad. When he hung up

    he squeezed my shoulder

    & winked. Just after lunch,

    there was a knock on the door.

    I peeped through the blinds

    with my one good eye, saw

    a blonde in a nurse’s uniform.

    Dad opened the door & howled

    as she sang him a high-pitched

    song, bending at the waist

    to show off her tits.

    At the end of it, she handed him

    a catcher’s mitt with a

    get-well card.

    The boys at the office

    sure look after me!

    he roared, shaking his

    head in disbelief

    then handed me

    the remote so I,

    too, could

    know love.

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