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"Poem for My Daughter Disparaging the Gossamer Depictions of the Women of Certain Southern Texts"

By Adrian Blevins
Posted Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2007, at 7:35 AM ET

Click here to listen to Adrian Blevins read this poem.


Since it's true the women not only of the South but probably all over
******dole out iced tea in books while they slowly thrust off their blue panties
************and do things in the kitchen with pasta and herbs and nuts and oils
******************while removing their hair from nets
************************likened to those in the boats of fishermen

and are thus the hot blue yonder in a tribute to the mothers
******these men of the South and elsewhere wanted and probably didn't get
************but were hysterical for and so evoked as girlfriends and wives
******************in aprons near the clothesline
************************and in gardens with their hair all up

but coming down while humming low-slung tunes
******while cleaning out the sullied barrels within which they keep
************clothespins maybe and white washing rags,
******************I feel I ought to walk around the neighborhood
************************spying on the women here

to summon them in groups at the river with their washing boards and at quilting bees
*******with babies in slings talking home remedies. Oh August and Everyone:
************since the girls are always in some mode of surrender:
******************since they're always being overcome
************************by the warring sounds in words like truck and ax

as well as the truck itself and the ax itself while somehow meanwhile sparkling,
******maybe I should just go on and devote myself to the rivers
************and to all the bodies of water the women are said to be like
******************such as the ocean on my left and the ocean on my right
************************and the creeks back home

in the blue series of hills I-swear-to-God called Arcadia
******where we used to camp sometimes and where I threw up
************my first Southern Comfort while a series of boys
******************tried to get me to live with them
************************in cabins they wanted to build themselves

out of the stones of the creek beds because despite being illiterate
******they wanted the combination of Ruby and Ada in Cold Mountain
***********because in addition to the glistening they wanted the ginseng
******************and the pigs because they wanted a girl
************************who could tame and slaughter

and salt and store and trade the products of the barns and the fields
******with their hair all up but coming down against dresses also nimbly-rainy
************and blue panties that exist in order to be eliminated
******************in that period of time when twilight bounds
*************************softly forth on the grass two or three poems

over in the anthology from that other suddenly I realized moment about how
******in comparison to the droppings of last year's horses we are ever so much
************cower and shrivel and grovel and weep and squander and fritter
******************and waste. And since look I guess I've done it
************************since look I guess there's a lot of water here

and women everywhere stripped while plodding, I guess I should be content.
******But since you must never in your farmhouse my darling
************weep into your pillow upstairs and because you must
******************never my darling celebrate the bees making honey
************************without knowing too how they whither off

to the side of the hive, I am for the sake of the truth and for the sake of your future self
******and for your brothers too turning now to a depiction of women
************as arid and heady and defiant and uncouth
******************so you might remember me as forthright and honest
************************and turning and turning now

to a depiction of the seeing eye unwrapped and the unbeautiful mouth
******spectacularly unbolted for I am talking witchcraft here
************because I am versus the folklore though I know it's tender
******************and therefore versus the fathers
************************who never once laid themselves down

in what they'd call the tall reed grasses to conjure you up
******out of a yawning lode of shadow and plasma to carry for you
************and for your brothers and for all I know for the Lord
******************the old burden although it is a splendor
************************and the hindrance and the weight.

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Adrian Blevins' book of poems, The Brass Girl Brouhaha, won the 2004 Kate Tufts Discovery Award. She teaches at Colby College.
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