United States, (b.1954)
A Lesson
- I. Vocabulary
- Soil is for planting in,
- otherwise, dirt.
- The donor is the third person
- in the triangle.
- Sty and style are not related;
- neither are braid and bread
- except in the bakery window
- where they twist into temptation.
- But some words like river and rival
- surprisingly are, and more obviously,
- void and avoid.
- II. Multiple Choice
- The woman on the bus has a ______ around her head.
- a. braid b. style c. void
- The man who sells his sperm to pay for art school is a ______.
- a. river b. donor c. rival
- Their child was taught to ______ the oven.
- a. rival b. soil c. avoid
- She still liked to put her hands in the ______.
- a. bread b. dirt c. river
- The pigs, meanwhile, seem content in their ______.
- a. style b. sty c. void
- III. Conversationally Speaking
- The river enriches the soil for planting.
- The river is the donor of riches. The sty, however,
- is full of dirt (the pigs might see this differently —
- planting their feet, their snouts). The pig
- is the ultimate donor of pork, which is to say
- it has no rival. We avoid thinking of it this way.
- We avoid the (thought of the) sty; hence the separation
- from lunchmeat. We like better the smell
- of bread (daily, given, whole) done up in the style
- of a braid, pure product of the soil.
- It is wise to avoid the void, which is nothing really
- like the river, the sty, or the emptied bakery
- window (its closest rival). Instead
- we could relax by the river, picnic on meat
- and bread, or just bread–pigtails are kin
- to braids–since eating pork’s gone out of style.
RITE (TO COMBAT A BAD MOOD)
- 1. Remove the word rabbit from the word hat.
- 2. Turn the pig back into the porcelain.
- 3. Wake the mother tongue asleep on the roof.
- 4. Tell my ills to go. Madame, tell my ills …
- 5. Fill the vacancy on the swing.
- 6. Be there when the bread comes out of the oven.
- 7. Scraps happen to have their uses.
- 8. The floor is a problem that must be carefully
- solved.
About the Poet:
Jeanne Marie Beaumont, United States, (b.1954), is a poet, educator and playwright. She holds an MFA in Writing from Columbia University and is the author of four books of poetry. Her first, Placebo Effects, was selected by William Matthews as a winner in the National Poetry Series and published by W.W. Norton in 1997.
Her work has appeared in Boston Review, Harvard Review, Harper’s, Manhattan Review, The Nation, Ploughshares, World Literature Today, and many other journals. Beaumont won the 2009 Dana Award for Poetry, and also The Greensboro Review literary award for poetry in 2003. From 1992 to 2000, she was co-editor of the literary magazine American Letters & Commentary.
Beaumont has taught in the Stonecoast MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine, at Rutgers University, and at The Frost Place, where she served as director of the annual Advanced Poetry Seminar (2006-2010). She currently teaches at The Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan. [DES-06/22]
Additional information:
- Beaumont’s website – https://www.jeannemariebeaumont.com/