23 Jun Dehiscence all over yourself by Deborah Meadows
A kid’s thing to slam handles from table edge
to winked flight. Remember how weak
in association they are, you might say
our glue is stronger than our tape, spoons.
Subtracted out public square, long strings
of numbers crumble into play, constituent
material, liberty from intrusion, intractable
packets of zeros and ones, so imagining’s interlace
if the spatula, set edge-down, originates scrape here
from coercive force, material recreation of life—
then no one-to-one dust-up, then where is the string
holding all things, no terra cotta to weep more, weep less.
About the Poet
Debora Meadows is an American poet, playwright, and essayist. Born and raised in a working-class family in Buffalo, NY, she graduated from Nardin Academy and the University at Buffalo, where she studied literature with the postmodern critic and novelist Raymond Federman, literature professor Myles Slatin, and Eastern philosophy with scholar Kenneth Inada. She went on to complete an MA in English from California State University, Los Angeles and an MFA from Antioch University, Los Angeles.
Meadows is the author of over a dozen books, including collections of poetry, plays, essays, and lithographs. Among her notable titles are Itinerant Men (Krupskaya Press, 2004); Representing Absence (Green Integer Press, 2004); Goodbye Tissues (Shearsman Books Ltd, 2009); Saccade Patterns (BlazeVOX Books, 2011); The Demotion of Pluto: Poems and Plays (BlazeVOX Books, 2016); and Neo-bedrooms (Shearsman Books, Ltd., 2021).
She has lived with her husband Howard Stover in Southern California since 1986. There she teaches as an emerita faculty member in the Liberal Studies department at California State Polytechnic University, where she curates a poetry and jazz series for her students. Her work there has also included labor organization on education equity issues, organizing on various peace and social justice issues, participation in travel exchanges with writers in the campus’ Cuba program, and contributions to curriculum design in the campus’ interdisciplinary program.
Related Event
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- Debora Meadows will join poets Peter Siedlecki and Geoffrey Gatza in a reading at 2 p.m. on Sunday, June 23rd at Brighton Place Library, 999 Brighton Rd. in Tonawanda.Siedlecki is professor emeritus of English and poet in residence at Daemen College. He will be reading from his latest book, Via Crucis.Gatza is an award-winning editor, publisher, and poet. He is the driving force behind BlazeVOX Books, a small press located in Buffalo, NY. He will be reading from his forthcoming book, Disappointment Apples.
The Poem of the Week feature is curated by literary legacy awardee R.D. Pohl.
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