NOW PLAYING: The Christmas Song. Nat “King” Cole forever, duckies!

Word Raccoon is pleased to announce that the issue of Suspended Magazine, Volume 3, that she has wriggled into is out today.

My poem, “What Does a Poem Do When No One’s Watching?” is in it.

WR says that technically, she’s the one doing things when no one’s watching (I just bet she is), ergo, it’s her poem. 

WR, I will call it my poem, you naughty raccoon, incapable of subtlety. There’s no way you, with your pom-pom earrings and total lack of impulse control, wrote it.

And why are you so damn comma happy?

Also, it’s early. No one needs an ergo on a Saturday morning. Or, maybe ever? 

My contributor copy is in the mail, currently caught somewhere between a post office bin and my porch. Suspended, if you will, between worlds. (Yes, I see what I did there.) 

I’ve been zooming in on the digital cover like I might spot the poem’s little limbs kicking inside. (That’s an inside joke. Cough, cough. Read the poem.)

This piece grew out of a question I can’t stop asking:
What happens to the words after we stop looking?
Do they keep growing, transforming?
Are they in conversation with the rest of the journal? With their sister poems on my laptop?

(WR: I’ve caught a few napping under the porch. They snore in stanzas.)

But truly, I barely had time to ask the poem’s titular question when I wrote it. This poem came roaring out during my spring poetry fever, where I wrote for hours without lifting my head or hand. Everything I hadn’t said for years leaked out in dozens of ways for weeks. (Months…a half year…shouldn’t there be a special word for half a year? Is there?) 

This poem haunted me, felt alive, stitched together from nerve and memory. Very Mary Shelleyan.

NOT Percy Shelley, but Mary, thank you.
And yes, I’m irritated that I still have to say “Mary” first, as if we’re expected to assume Percy unless told otherwise. Her ghost deserves better. She’s the one who built a mythic monster with words and kissed it alive. 

I’m just trying to do the same with a porch and a side of Midwestern potatoes sans parsley, thank you very much. (That will make more sense when you read to the end. WR is writing backwards today.)

Anyway, thank you to the editors at Suspended Magazine for letting this strange little poem-creature out into the world. I’ll share photos once my contributor copy lands.

Until then, may your poems behave while unsupervised.

No, I hope they don’t.

Because well-behaved art is just parsley on potatoes: unwanted, unneeded, and utterly bland. The untouched filler dish on a buffet.

You won’t often hear me say “keep it in your pen,” but this morning, as I await caffeine (mere feet away, so no crisis looming), I say exactly that.

Word Raccoon says we do not need more Lawrence-Welk-level art in the world.

(WR says she said what she said. Even if we did grow up watching his show.)

🎄 In the meantime, I HAVE CHRISTMAS MUSIC TO LISTEN TO!!!!! 🎄