Get Lit Minute
A weekly podcast focusing on all things poetic, poetry and poets. Each week we will feature a poet and their poem. We will be highlighting classic poets from our In-School Anthology, sharing brief bios on the poet and a spoken word reading of one of their poems. We will also be introducing contemporary poets from the greater poetry community and our own Get Lit poets into the podcast space.
Get Lit Minute
Shira Erlichman | “Mind Over Matter”
In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, author, visual artist, and musician, Shira Erlichman. Her poems explore recovery – of language, of home, of mind. Her poetry book Odes to Lithium centers around her experiences with mental illness. Her picture book Be/Hold: A Friendship Book uses compound words to illuminate what is possible when we come together. Her work has been featured in Buzzfeed Reader, The Rumpus, PBS NewsHour’s Poetry Series, The Huffington Post, The Seattle Times, and The New York Times, among others. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, "Mind Over Matter", featured in our 2022 and 2023 Get Lit Anthology.
"Mind Over Matter"
I tried. But mind over matter is a joke. The mind
is matter. Someone’s unprofessional opinion
was to “relax” over matter. To sandcastle over
wave. They aimed to clean up a murder scene
from behind a plate of glass. It was my murder.
Mine. As if I could possess the firegrief that
possessed me. Wrestle the wind to the floor for
daring enter my house. But it’s just me down
there, gripping my shoulders, threatening my
own heart. Have you ever seen the dark split
into two peaches? Sickness is a lot like that.
To the uninitiated it looks like fruit. Wise, shiny,
certifiably cherry. Do you mind if I die while I
say it? Rot that my teeth met: my fault. Would it
matter if I tried while I died? Will you relax
the coffin into the soil? If you don’t have blood
on your hands by the end of this you weren’t
listening.