Sarah Maclay
These excerpts from The HD Sequence—A Concordance—they're more like glimpses, fragments, bouncing off of phrases in the center of her Trilogy. Originally these came as quick bursts, urgent for survival but still very fragmented. And out of such a hot original impulse, such immediate need . . . I'm not sure if what remains is disobedient or simply unruly, half-formed, unwilling, apparently, to form itself differently.
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Excerpts from The HD Sequence–A Concordance
her snood / drawn over her hair
or the furry North Dakota hat with forehead flaps and ears—
the right thing, in this moment, to wear to a party—
and not remove. The need to be anti-fetching.
The need to shake the Crystal
Geyser water and spray
like a dog, jumping into a hydrant,
summer all over her clothing, the plates, her hands,
until someone could help her remove the cap
or the pressure stopped, the pressure
stopped.
head bowed / with the weight of a domed crown
How she wept into the pillow cushions of the couch,
apologizing, post-thanksgiving, helpless with merlot
and her head sank further into the cushions.
The next day, she’d dump the rest of the turkey,
in its silver sack.
trapped in a golden halo
It was simply too snug.
Plus it had always looked as though it were made of actual gold,
like a platter,
so it must be heavy
though she carried herself with grace,
erect, as if from practicing, as a child,
walking across the living room with a book on her head.
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Sarah Maclay’s latest release is Music for the Black Room (U of Tampa Press). Her poems and criticism have been published widely, in spots such as APR, Ploughshares, FIELD, The Writer’s Chronicle, Poetry Daily, The Best American Erotic Poems: From 1800 to the Present, and Poetry International, where she has long served as book review editor. The recipient of a Pushcart Special Mention, she earned a BA in English at Oberlin College, and an MFA in Creative Writing at Vermont College. She chairs the Creative Writing Committee at LMU, where she has taught creative writing and literature since 2005. She’s also taught at USC and FIDM, and conducted workshops and classes at the Ruskin Art Club, privately, and at Beyond Baroque, where she has been a Poet in Residence and teaches in the Mini-Masters Class series. In 2015, she was awarded a residency at Yaddo. The “She” Series: A Venice Correspondence, her braided collaboration with Holaday Mason, will be out in fall 2016 from What Books Press.