Daily Archives: Wednesday, October 7, 2009

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Athena’s Epistle to Medusa

I attempted to mash up two of my poems for Read Write Poem Prompt #95: The Poetics of the Mashup…but I didn’t find two poems that I liked well enough to mash up together. So I chose to revise a poem that I was less than happy with.

I wrote a poem, “Athena”, back during National Poetry Month, meaning it to be a response to Patricia Smith’s poem “Medusa”. I ended up with a very vitriolic original draft, giving vent to Athena’s rage and jealousy. But then I came across this write-up about Medusa’s true origins — and it made me think, and inspired me to rewrite the poem, which appears below. Enjoy.

-Nicole
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This is you and me, divided
by a dichotomy. Mortals have tried
to solve our equation for centuries, using us
as the variables – but x never equals anything
that spoke of combining black and white and then
dividing by two. In the end, they forgot
that we were supposed to be added
together.
Continue reading →

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Read Write Body Poem #1: Hands

This poem was written for the latest mini-challenge from Read Write Poem — write seven poems about the body in the context of October. I chose “hands” for the theme of my first poem. Enjoy.

-Nicole

P.S. If you want to read everything else I wrote for the mini-challenge, click here.

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Maybe if I look a little closer at my hands, I will see
the pens and pencils marching
underneath my fingertips. I can faintly hear their stylus feet
if I study the callous resting on the left side
of my right middle finger. It began enveloping itself in skin
when I was seven, folding itself over in whorl and toughness – and it was birthed Continue reading →