| Kelli Russell Agodon USA
agodon@prodigy.net
Kelli Russell Agodon was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. After
completing her degree in creative writing at the University of Washington
she began work at a publishing company. Within four years, she knew that
corporate life was not for her. Kelli and her husband moved to a small
seaside community a ferry ride away from Seattle and began a new life.
Kelli now works part-time at a software company and leads writing workshops.
This year, Kelli was chosen as a Washington State Artist's Trust GAP Grant
recipient for her collection of poems entitled
"Geography," which relates to a woman's struggle with breast cancer by exploring ideas about the geography
of the world and the geography of the self. The collection begins with
detection of the lump and goes through various experiences with the disease.
Her poems have appeared in Switched-on Gutenberg, CALYX, Crab Creek Review,
Pontoon #3, Arnazella and many other publications. She has been a featured
poet on the ABC News website and a participant in the Seattle Poetry
Festivals. In 1999, she was chosen as one of fourteen writers to be part
of the Jack Straw Writers Program in Washington State. Currently, she is
the Poetry Editor for Margin: Stories of Magical Realism.
When Kelli is not writing poetry she is gardening, kayaking or just enjoying the blue herons and bald eagles that fly by her home. Kelli and her
husband had a beautiful baby girl on August 16th, 2000. Her name is Delaney Kai. She weighed 8 lbs. 6 oz. & was
21" long. |
VENICE
Rusty church bells don't
sound,
instead we listen to the cathedral
eroding, remains from ailing statues
dropping in the canals
pouring over—
the place where we live is
unwell.
As we cross the flooded
piazza,
balancing on raised boards, we remember
how we captured the city on paper,
held church between our fingertips,
lit a candle at the at the end of a line—
pray as the waves wash in.
Paper boats drift under these
planks,
words fade in puddles,
and poems once written, return
to their original thought, a spark
of the match,
the flame forgetful of why it was
lit.
Now, it seems
we all scramble through
these streets, a thousand women vanishing
into the architecture, a million more
holding us up between alleyways.
Venice is dying,
the painter said to the
sky.
Set the gondolas adrift and float
between our church's doors.
Ask the gods—
how long must candles burn for dying?
(Previously published in Pontoon
#3, 1999)
ROUTINE CHECK-UP
Driving home,
I turn the radio off
and hear heartbeats in the wipers.
Has this always been here?
The weather has turned to
showers
and I imagine cancer as a cloud—
reaching down, trying to blend
with earth,
its threadlike veins growing.
You're so young. I'm sure
it's nothing.
At certain places
I lose track of sky and hill,
notice the fog between the conifers,
feel its long thin fingers
slipping through window cracks.
Let's just run a few tests.
There are prayers in each
raindrop,
glass beads blessing the countryside.
Instead, I think of winter
and its snowstorms, how ice
can snap power lines,
bring a city into darkness.
You do have a family history of
it.
Maybe if it wasn't October,
the mail wouldn't arrive
with a line-drawn woman in the right corner
dressed in bright colors, arm above her head
whispering, it might be you.
SELF EXAM
I have driven this road
a thousand times—felt the slight turn
of the hill, watched evergreens sway
over silent tides and beaches,
but I have never noticed
how the landscape
follows the curve of my body,
hips, waist, breasts—and keeps going.
As the sky fills the horizon
with ribbons of pink, I notice
each cloud becoming a woman
swimming between nightfall and morning.
One raises her arm and
reaches
to the moon coming up over the mountains.
Her hand draws circles against the universe,
over ridges of stars and unfound planets.
I had driven this road
a thousand times—yet today, I fall
into the sunset like a diver
enters the sea from a cliff,
noticing how rocks
lie
beneath the sand, how bubbles
rise to the surface,
breasts, waist, hips—and keep going.
THREE GRACES
for diana & julia
When we are young we learn that
white petals reaching out in a thunderstorm
will only be crushed by heavy
rain, but
tonight, while moon reflects off the pond
we wade into, we wrap
ourselves
in garlands, dress in wild iris, let indigo drape down
the nape of our neck and feel the
rain
drip between our shoulder blades.
In this small space between us,
we sense
that we are all wildflowers taken by wind,
seeds whispered across
fields,
landing among the lupines and forget-me-nots.
Lilies are bathing
in some forgotten meadow—
the dew slides between their
petals,
in the darkness, only night air will divide them.
RETREATS
Frogs are the monks in the pasture that rolls from my bedroom
window. So
be it.
-Ann Batchelor Hursey, Mt. Angel Abbey
There will be no vespers, yet.
You are somewhere in a
meadow,
or walking down a dirt road
choosing smooth stones—
future words of poems unwritten.
Right now, there are only
postcards,
hints of your retreat—
monks and libraries,
the beginning of Lent,
bewildered by a Macintosh
in the middle of this sacred world.
Like St. Francis, you find comfort in paper and pen.
I stop three times a day
to count the clovers in my garden,
sift through old magazines,
walk the dog, then re-walk the dog—
these are my rituals.
I have slid your postcard
in the family bible, between memorial cards
and locks of hair, a flat wedding corsage,
between a black and white photo
of uncles and aunts I've never met—
two priests and three nuns photographed
like single words of prayers.
© All Copyright, 2000,
Kelli Russell Agodon.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.
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