shift seven // @awoo_

“The Secret Garden,” Rita Dove, from THE YELLOW HOUSE ON THE CORNER (1980). Rita’s work is often historical, sociological, musical, & political. So much so that we might forget that she also writes a damn good & weird love poem. (If you can’t get good & weird in a poem, chances are you might not be my thing...) Rita was one of my first workshop teachers, during my undergraduate years at UVA. It is remarkable to me now, the way that UVA essentially offered me the equivalent of an MFA while I was just a teenager there; as an undergrad, I was able to take workshops each semester with a dynamite set of teachers: Rita, Charles Wright, & Greg Orr (plus Larry Levis, who taught at VCU at the time. Charles Wright introduced us--he thought we’d hit if off--& I spent a good part of one semester driving down to RVA to hang out with Larry). I took multiple workshops with each, & each of them spent significant time outside of class with a core group of us who moved from workshop to workshop together, several of whom went on to an MFA at Iowa. My UVA classmates who went on to become my Iowa classmates included Mary Szybist, Sam Witt, Heather Derr-Smith, John Casteen, among several others (& many since). Also in there with us, poets who now have beautiful collections, like Rebecca Dunham, Vandana Khanna, Jen Scappettone, & Charlotte Matthews. And poets whose books I would buy the minute they were put on the shelves, like Todd Smith & Tyler Magill. Rita is a skilled teacher, of course. The well she built for us to which I return most often is “How to take Draft One to Draft Two.” She would bring us drafts of her own recent poems, marked up with her notes, & share them with us, & thoughtfully mark up each of our own poems. It gave me a real feel for becoming the kind of merciless devotee to the final draft of a poem that I needed to be.  I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention the way that Rita continues to give back to her students and community. She is famous. Not just poetry-famous, but famous-famous, & has been for some time. Yet, when I asked her if she would be a reader at a charity event a friend & I were holding here in Charlottesville--a bourbon tasting/poetry reading to benefit a local schoolyard garden program--she enthusiastically & immediately agreed to headline. It was one of the most amazing nights of my life. Rita read from nearly all her books, curating her reading list to themes of food & drink. We ate delicious food, sipped bourbon--a crowd of around 80 people listening to poetry & raising nearly $5k for the garden.

“I Have Got To Stop Loving You,” Ai, from CRUELTY (1973). Ai was one of the first poets to show me how to be fearless inside of a poem. Poetry, in the farm-burbs where I grew up in Virginia, was always & only the white male canon (with a handful of Dickinson & Marianne Moore thrown in--no one even dared teach Plath). When I went to college & signed up for a poetry workshop, there was no textbook, so I went to the university bookstore & bought a handful of collections off the shelf by names I’d never heard of, starting at the beginning of the alphabet, where I met Ai. In the forest of words & works my brain has since become, these last two lines are still sharply carved into one of the strongest trees.

“The Slow Sounding and Eventual Reemergence Of,” Jorie Graham, from HYBRIDS OF PLANTS AND OF GHOSTS (1980). The cover of Jorie’s first collection (now out of print, I believe) is a painting of Mark Rothko’s, one of his famous colorfields, titled “Violet, Black, Orange, Yellow on Red and White.” The cover itself, however, is rendered in black & white. Somehow, this--to me--is an extra poem in the collection.  Of my Iowa classmates, & those from other years I somehow know, I believe few would say their student-teacher relationship with Jorie was uncomplicated. I will say that I am a better writer for having studied with her, which is exactly what Charles Wright promised me when he told me I had to go to Iowa. She is the one, of anyone, who made a fortress of me. This, as a first book, is like discovering old yearbook photos of a Greek myth’s protagonist. I also always look to see which journals published which poems in a collection--in many (as here) I find myself drawn to the poems that never appeared in journals, or in the smaller ones, at least. This one--especially its opening lines--is so weirdly delicious.

The photos show a little of how my copy of this book is warped & carries a slight mold spot; in my 20s, I used to carry it around in a bag, even in the rain, & at some point it got soaked. LB2 is/was a transformational poet for me--the way she is able to wield craft & write about the personal without becoming too precious, too self-aggrandizing, or too casual. There is intention, which I admire. Thanks goes to Jane Yeh, who first introduced me to these poems.

Welcome to shift seven, the Tumblr sibling of www.shift7.me. This is simply an anthology of poems I love out of poets’ first books, via photos I take from my own copies. I love first books. Simple as that.