so big this deep reeling,

Annie Grizzle

 and   no   place   to   put  

it there was a wall I once miss find in difference over

ice and sweet easy

I hope I do I disappoint you

again and again and in seen through the straw

green fix at the site

of my legs in a towel

the gnawing has nowhere to climb anymore please

a million need looks confirm sea in me


Annie Grizzle is a writer studying film at the University of Milwaukee. She was the recipient of the 2013 Contemporary American Poetry Prize through Chicago Poetry Press and has been published in JOMP, Brawler and Dead Flowers amongst others.

Comments

  1. Bonnie Lee Distasio says

    I would like to enter please

  2. Bonnie Lee Distasio says

    I think my poems fit in this category

  3. Fred McIlmoyle says

    I have absolutely no idea what Annie Grizzle is trying to say in this poem – Does anyone else?

    • Meredith Holmes says

      Nope. But I have no idea what many poets are saying, or whether they have succeeded in saying it or are trying to to say something in a way that I wouldn’t and therefore do not understand. Beyond me. So I just go on to the next poem or poet.
      I do like some of the leapfrogging lines and phrases.

    • No. I don’t get this one at all. Not even a glimmer of recognition of anything I could make sense of. I guess the one phrase that I could like is “… looks confirm sea in me.” Still, congratulations to Annie Grizzle for winning; that is a feat in itself. And I really hate sounding cruel. I try to understand. But this is beyond me.

  4. Connor Helms says

    It really captures the feelings of isolation and insecurity. That’s what I got from it anyways. More impressionistic than narrative.

  5. Sarah Hulyk Maxwell says

    Annie, I don’t know if you will see this–but this poem tore my insides. I love it–I deeply reeled from it. I have read it so many times now. The language, the spacing, the disjointed thoughts–it all very much speaks to me. Congratulations but more importantly, thank you for the words.

  6. David Bankson says

    After taking time to closely read this one several times, I definitely feel what you wanted to invoke. Deep and concise is exactly what I hope to see here, and your work shines brightly above most others.

  7. I am in my 80’s now so probably don’t qualify to criticize modern poetry. I agree with the comments above which say that they haven’t the faintest idea what the “poem” is about. I put the word poem in inverted commas for I was brought up at a time when poems were poems. We read and learned the poetry of the greats and can still remember some of them. Almost all of them had a rhythm or metre and a definite meaning. I have written a number of poems myself but very rarely submit them because it seems to me that if a poem rhymes it hasn’t the slightest chance of being selected. How many of these “modern poems” will be remembered in a few days, let alone a few years?

What do you think?

*

css.php