In case you haven’t heard, tomorrow is the last day to enter The 2009 International Reginald Shepherd Memorial Poetry Prize, judged by Carl Phillips. There’s still time to enter! Learn more at www.knockoutlit.org/rsprize.htm

:: Read Write Poem screenshot

Many, many, many, many many thanks to Andre Tan, Nathan Moore, Dave Jarecki and Deb Scott for all their work on the launch — and to the Read Write Poem contributors, writers and community. See you all there!

(Andre, it’s live! That means you can start sleeping again!)

I only had 5 minutes to write this piece because I’ve been crazy busy getting everything ready for Friday’s launch of the new Read Write Poem site. It’s huge! It’s awesome! It’s SO MUCH WORK!

Also, to complicate my writing, it’s more than 100 degrees here today and I don’t have central air conditioning and my one-room air conditioner (which was in the spare room keeping the hamster cool*) blew a fuse and left me without any working lights in the study where I write. So I was literally writing this piece in a dead heat and in the dark.

(If you see any typos, the whole typing-in-the-dark-thing explains why.)

*Yes, that’s right. I stayed in my study in the blistering heat working on Read Write Poem all day, and I let the hamster have the cool room. That’s how I roll. That’s how poetry and I roll. We’re bad-asses. We don’t stop at nothin’.

:: Cemetery in Malvern, by Doug Shaver

Cemetery in Malvern

It wasn’t the first time I’d been had.
He leaned against his father’s tombstone,
ordered me to lean with him.
The day’s last light fell
through the pines, blurring the details
of his face until he looked like
the papier-mâché heads I used to make
in art school. He watched me
the way he might an animal,
a stray he teased with promises
of domesticity. Inside his grief
was more grief. That grief found
expression in his hands digging
into the small of my back.
This is the first time I’ve been here,
he said. It means so much
to have you with me.
His fingers moved up the seams
of my jacket like worms
rising in search of rain.

* * *
Process Notes

I wrote this piece in response to Read Write Poem’s prompt this week, in which I shared a photo belonging to my friend Doug Shaver. I ended up writing as if there was only one person in the image, whom the narrator was addressing. I was going to introduce the other person in the photo later on, but the poem wanted to end before that. I always do what the poems want me to do. This is about them, after all — not me.

Also, sweat was streaming off my ankles, so I had to go get some water and rehydrate myself.

:: Read Write Poem invitation

The new Read Write Poem is coming this Friday. Click on the image for details. Base artwork by Charlotte Peys.

This is exciting! We’ve just announced the new editorial lineup that we will be rolling out at the end of the month over at Read Write Poem. Check it out. It’s good squishy.