Poetry Friday — Dotage

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 After last week’s find, I decided to do a bit more digging to see what else I’d stashed away.  

It’s overwhelming to me, almost, how many poems and how much time I apparently used to have. 
Or maybe it’s overwhelming how much less time I seem to have now.

Still, reading old work actually puts me in mind of those days — I recall where I worked and what sort of head space I was in. I remember sitting on the floor — all of my work and stamps and submission envelopes spread out before me in some sort of hopeful order. I remember reading many of them aloud at coffee houses and galleries. I remember being jealous beyond measure of other people’s poems — deeper, more evocative, more surprising than my own.

And really, there are plenty of pieces I might oughta burn — I brought a naivete to the page that wasn’t always charming. Or graceful. Or true. 

But there are few in there that I wouldn’t be horrified to share. In reflection. So on that note, I think last week started an informal series of, well, we’ll call ’em Poems from the ’90s. Old stuff. Dotage.

Here’s one:

March Birthday

 

The house in its dotage crumbles

in on itself

like cake, Friday’s storm

seeping through seams

of tape and sheetrock, the wide window

toward the lake drafty

as a silk blouse – it is winter

cold and stiff and everything

(the kettle, the mother, the boxes

of ill-fitting clothes) everything

wanting

to seem new

doesn’t

 

— Liz Garton Scanlon, 1999

 

24 Responses to “Poetry Friday — Dotage”

  2. Anonymous

    I’m getting brave with the original stuff.

    Maybe I’ll go digging in that “food for thought” folder I found in my file cabinet and see if I have anything from the…uh…70’s and 80’s that’s not too scary to share!

    After all, “Everything/wanting/to seem new/doesn’t”

    Mary Lee

  4. Anonymous

    Dotage

    Elaine M.

    Thanks for posting some of your old poems. I like the “seeping through seams” and the window being “drafty as a silk blouse.”

    Last April when I started my blog Wild Rose Reader, I posted a poem a day during National Poetry Month. I dug into my folders of aging poems–some written more than twenty years ago. Those poems served as seeds for most of the poems I posted.

    I think it is a good idea to go back and revisit our old poems in their dotage. I think many can be rejuvenated with some CPR–Careful Poetic Resuscitation.

  5. Anonymous

    cloudsome says:

    Beautiful images and sharp language! I like that cake line and the silk blouse. I’m looking forward to some more of the ’90s. Great decade.

  6. bernadettenoll

    New mama

    I can’t help but think of you then writing those lines-Farily new mama of one fairly new baby. Or maybe wanting to seem new again?

    I love that we’re getting to read your poetry!

  7. laurasalas

    Liz, this is lovely. The cake–perfect!

    Looking forward to seeing more of your stuff. It makes me wish I had been writing poetry as a teen and 20-something.