Marilyn Nelson - How I discovered poetry

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DIAL BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) LLC 375 Hudson Street New York, New York 10014 USA/Canada/UK/Ireland/Australia/New Zealand/India/South Africa/China penguin.com A Penguin Random House Company Text copyright 2014 by Marilyn Nelson Illustrations copyright 2014 by Hadley Hooper Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nelson, Marilyn, date, author. [Poems.

Selections] How I discovered poetry / Marilyn Nelson ; illustrations by Hadley Hooper. pages cm ISBN 978-0-8037-3304-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) eBook ISBN 978-1-101-63539-1 (epub) 1. Nelson, Marilyn, datePoetry. 2. AuthorshipPoetry.
3.

PoetryAuthorship. I. Hooper, Hadley, illustrator. II. Title. PS35 2013005289 Designed by Lily Malcom The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Version_1 To my corporeal and soul siblings, Jennifer and Mel, and to my other sisters and brothers M.N.

Blue Footsies

(Cleveland, Ohio, 1950) Once upon a time. Upon a time? Something got on a time? What is a time? When it got on a time, could it get off? Could it get on a time two times? Three times? Three times upon a time... Times on a time... Three times on time... Or three times on three times...

I hear Jennifers breath. Our room is dark. Mamas voice questions and Daddys answers, a sound seesaw through the wall between us. If there was, once upon a time, a fire, and I could only rescue one of them, would I save him, or her? Or Jennifer? Four-year-old saves three people from hot flames! God bless Mama, Daddy, and Jennifer...

Church

(Cleveland, Ohio, 1950) Why did Lot have to take his wife and flea from the bad city, like that angel said? Poor Lot: imagine having a pet flea. Id keep mine on a dog.

But maybe fleas were bigger in the olden Bible days. Maybe a flea was bigger than a dog, more like a sheep or a goat. Maybe they had flea farms back then, with herds of giant fleas. Jennifer squirms beside me on the pew, sucking her thumb, nestled against Mama. Maybe Lot and his wife rode saddled fleas! Or drove a coach pulled by a team of fleas! I giggle soundlessly, but Mama swats my leg, holding a finger to her lips.

Called Up

(Cleveland, Ohio, 1951) Folding the letter and laying it down, Daddy says, Well, Baby, Ive been called back up.

Mama pauses, then puts my bowl of beans in front of me. Jennifer eats and hums across from me on two telephone books. Mama says, Pray God you wont see combat. Jennifer, stop singing at the table, I hiss. Her hummings driving me crazy. She looks up from her bowl with dreaming eyes: Huh? Mama says, My darling, were going, too.

Stop singing! Ill take a leave from law school, he says, and youll take a leave from your job. Weve been called up. Our leaves become feathers. With wings we wave good-bye to our cousins.

Texas Protection

(James Connally AFB, Texas, 1951) America goes on and on and on and on, and on the land are cities, towns, and roads that stream under your wheels like stripy snakes and end up in Texas, with new people. Our dog, Pudgy, found a new family.

Mayflower School feels like something I dreamed before I woke up wanting cowboy boots and craving the cap pistols puff of smoke. Mama says, Were walking on eggshells here. Daddy returns the faceless mens salutes. But I would tiptoe in my cowboy boots, I promise, without breaking any eggs! And if I had a gun and a holster I could protect us from the Communists!

Telling Time

(James Connally AFB, Texas, 1951) Mama reminds me Im a big girl now: Im five years old. I can watch Jennifer for five minutes; theyll just be down the street. They tuck us in.

I hear the door lock click. Five minutes. Just five minutes, Daddy said. My first-grade class is learning to read clocks, so I know minutes are the little lines between numbers. Clocks are how you tell time. Past is before now; future is after.

Now is a five-minute eternity, Jennifer and I howling in pajamas in the front yard of the housing unit, surrounded by concerned faceless strangers who back away, now our parents are here.

Bomb Drill

(Lackland AFB, Texas, 1952) Nothing belongs to us in our new house except Mamas piano and our clothes. Im the new girl in Dick and Jane country, the other children faceless as grown-ups. I read through recess and take some books home. I read to Jennifer while Mama plays. I read while the television talker talks about career and the hide drajen bomb .

Mama says shes going to vote for Ike. Daddy says, Woman, you just think hes cute! We ducked and covered underneath our desks, hiding from drajen bombs in school today. Maybe drajens would turn into butter if they ran really fast around a tree .

Pink Menace

(Lackland AFB, Texas, 1952) The Bomb Drill bell is not the Fire Drill bell or the Tornado bell or the Recess bell or the bell that says Time to Go Home. Everybodys motto is Be Prepared, so we practice Tragic Catastrophes, hoping they wont come. ( Knock on wood .) I never step on cracks in the sidewalk: Americas safe from The Red Menace. ( Knock on wood .) I never step on cracks in the sidewalk: Americas safe from The Red Menace.

I touch a finger to the car window whenever we drive over railroad tracks: the Menace turns pink and fuzzy. At night, Im asleep before the end of my blessing list.

A Snake

(Lowry AFB, Colorado, 1953) As soon as we got here, we turned around and drove back through the no-guardrail mountains, connecting the dots of farm mailboxes to towns and faceless people who dont count. Mama hugged Aunt Carma and Uncle George. Daddy wiped his tears with his handkerchief. Oneida wasnt in her pink bedroom.

She wasnt in the hospital, either. They said she was in that box. She was dead. We drove back through the frightening mountains. Jennifer and I chanted Theres a snake! to keep ourselves from looking at the huge and scaredy-fying emptiness.

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