Poet Amy Nash comments on her definition of poetry. Nash also reads numerous short pieces of her work.

Transcript:

(00:00:00) Why do I write poetry? Well, there's a sign in a window of a cafe. I like to go to occasionally and that sign says please for your safety and the safety of those around, you know poetry big capital letters. I've never been never been very good at following directions and I've never really liked to play it safe and I suppose that's because of my background moving around of being rootless of living only in one place for at most three years of being second generation adopted a child of divorce. The word safe is really not something in my vocabulary. I have told myself no to singing playing a guitar dancing acting you name it but I've never been able to tell myself no to the little notebooks that I keep tucked away in my pocket. Writing is a secret playground where I go to risk the unfamiliar to make it familiar and to move on. It is at best akin to running 10 miles smoking a cigarette taking a bite out of Scotch bonnet pepper All Before Dawn before anybody else is awake. At its worst it's like getting a much-needed good night's sleep. Or giving a sick cat a pill it's frustrating but
(00:01:38) necessary.
(00:01:42) I think the best way for me to attempt to Define what poetry means to me is to read a few of my poems. This first one is a short one called painted mouth. lipstick in hand She Drew her mouth perfectly without looking. Later watching herself be an artist her lips canvas. She drew a rosebud. Not a kiss. This next poem is called imperfect
(00:02:22) Beauty.
(00:02:25) Flawed.
(00:02:26) Yes
(00:02:28) tragically sew a quilt harboring one dropped Stitch a chip embarrassing the Wedgwood. China's finish a cloud tarnishing The Algarve sky in July. So flawed we strive in vain to convince the trees the dune grass and wind working together to whistle away. Our fear of The Bays seduction of the To convince every dastardly piece of dirt crumble. We trod upon that we too are perfect beauty that our skin our bones every dip pucker relief Judd of our faces is designed as such not just so we will collide into and detract from ourselves. But because we fit within it that is pretty for its own sake but we are wrong forever beautifully wrong because we are naked Apes an atrocity to The Birches to the green whips in the sand and aberration the moon responding to the bay on forgives because we hold only the surface beauti required to continue striving procreating and striving again against the tide. This last poem is called Glengarry Road. Her father is getting married tonight in a pea green suit tie wide and matching. Her mother has gone to church for the night to drink sweet red wine with the homilist uncloaked and she is the daughter getting gone with all lights off wearing a hand-me-down gown Dusty Rose threadbare and shear. And trusted the child is free to roam over floorboards of a Cotswold Cottage abandoned on a Suburban street is on curfew Dan left responsible for her Dozen Years or not as she sees fit for the tightening of her faded sash or loosening in a fitting room Family Den size. Your daughter is free to memorize the Apostles Creed without glass shattering in echoed shouts without an intrusive chorus through her prayer across her notebook kelly green and ruled wide. Balls being exchanged goblets studied to Clank. She alone is free to take her notebook to The Green Room to the fireplace to drop it in. The mahogany walls holding still and quiet her responsible tiptoe to the lead glass panes.