In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Marty McConnell. Her second poetry collection, "when they say you can't go home again, what they mean is you were never there," won the 2017 Michael Waters Poetry Prize and is forthcoming in 2018 on Southern Indiana University Press. Her first nonfiction book, “Gathering Voices: Creating a Community-Based Poetry Workshop,” was recently published by YesYes Books. She is the co-creator and co-editor of underbelly, a web site focused on the art and magic of poetry revision. She is also the author of wine for a shotgun, (EM Press). In 2009, she launched Vox Ferus, an organization dedicated to empowering and energizing individuals and communities through the written and spoken word. Source
This episode includes a reading of her poem, “Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell” featured in our Get Lit Anthology.
“Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell”
leaving is not enough; you must
stay gone. train your heart
like a dog. change the locks
even on the house he’s never
visited. you lucky, lucky girl.
you have an apartment
just your size. a bathtub
full of tea. a heart the size
of Arizona, but not nearly
so arid. don’t wish away
your cracked past, your
crooked toes, your problems
are papier mache puppets
you made or bought because the vendor
at the market was so compelling you just
had to have them. you had to have him.
and you did. and now you pull down
the bridge between your houses,
you make him call before
he visits, you take a lover
for granted, you take
a lover who looks at you
like maybe you are magic. make
the first bottle you consume
in this place a relic. place it
on whatever altar you fashion
with a knife and five cranberries.
don’t lose too much weight.
stupid girls are always trying
to disappear as revenge. and you
are not stupid. you loved a man
with more hands than a parade
of beggars, and here you stand. heart
like a four poster bed. heart like a canvas.
heart leaking something so strong
they can smell it in the street.