A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Department of English

THE STRAW THAT STIRS THE DRINK

______

A Thesis

Presented to

The Faculty of the Department

of English

University of Houston

______

In Partial Fulfillment

Of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Fine Arts

______

Andrea V. Syzdek

May, 2017

Acknowledgements

Earlier versions of some of the poems included in this manuscript originally appeared in the following publications: Concho River Review , d escant , Iron Horse Literary Review , South Carolina Review

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Table of Contents

1 Song

2 Jujubes

3 The Italian Countryside after the War

4 After Thunder, After Silence

5 Buy 3 Areas, Get 3 Areas Free

6 Chicago Food Desert

7 Native Texan

8 After Thunder, After Silence

9 Bad Credit Very Welcome

10 The Straw That Stirs the Drink

11 All Night Every Night

12 After Thunder, After Silence

13 Breakfast House

14 Underdog

15 Contains Water and Wind

16 After Thunder, After Silence

17 War Garden

18 Big Bang Free Fall Holy Data Collection

25 After Thunder, After Silence

26 The Show, 1970

27 Just a Few Stars

28 Last One Out of Lee County Burn It to the Ground

29 After Thunder, After Silence

30 Out of the Way Places

31 Café Poem

32 59 Dollar Limo

33 After Thunder, After Silence

34 Found Poem

35 Two Rooms Sharing a Chimney

36 Scar

37 After Thunder, After Silence

38 Free Coffee with Jesus

39 Smalltalk

40 Satanic Data Collection

41 Iron Will

42 Afterword

59 Notes

Song

This is the song of my perpetual unrest — Growing is easier with a dedicated team, But I’d rather shred denied bond proposals, Take a blowtorch to zoning ordinances, Sabotage tear - downs, terrorize group studies. This is the song of my contradictory self — I want to build dream homes, but refuse Architects, craftsmen, and problem - solvers; My rapid community development suffers. Still, you expand your reach, tweak floor plans At no extra charge. I say, meet or beat The price of my legitimate show rooms . You offer me quality care instead, A cost - effective alternative to the emergency room.

Jujubes

A billboard outside Dallas proclaims: Stop the porn! Be reborn! Across the highway, Wispers Cabaret isn’t quite The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, the strippers aren’t quite Motley Crue’s “Girls, Girls, Girls,” DW’s adult store welcomes all women and couples because God only knows where the cowboys went, God only knows who’s too high to die, God only knows about the nuns dancing in the wilderness moonlight, rosaries bouncing against their hips like spiritual pearls, like ripe jujubes, and how sister Barbara Ann kissed the other sister Barbara Ann and how hell didn’t quite swallow them up just like it didn’t when the Spanish left the natives to run the missions — when the coast was clear, they shu t the Bible and let the altars crumble.

The Italian Countryside after t he War

They threw a parade when we came to town, tossed grapes at us as we rode by in trucks, leaving sticky juice on our uniforms that attracted biting flies. Men kissed us on the cheeks and mouth; women threw flowers, but still, I kept the bulletproof Bible taped to my chest, reminded myself that this is better than sleeping in a cold ditch, better than digging up mass graves, better than fighting in bombed - out ju ngles. I still remember watching the newsreel of Nazis holding bunches of green grapes low to the ground so their dogs could eat them; one of the dogs looked like my collie, Sue.

After Thunder, After Silence

Urgent Language — How does one improve upon anarchy? Where the fuck do all these words go? Rupture is an important word — I was made into a woman, but the deeper I go, the less I’ll be understood, the threads of my body split into the first blood of sunrise. I sit and wait f or my name to be called. Don’t stay away so long.

Buy 3 Areas, Get 3 Areas Free

You’re thinking of the consultation, the plastic surgeon with the black marker and which areas will be free and what constitutes as an area, the face as a whole or just the chin, what can be done about the nose, just the cheeks, just the neck, a breast lift or a tummy tuck — he’ll find places you didn’t think of.

You walk to the taco stand across the street from Family Thrift, the snow cone stand. A guy dances in a dinosaur costume beckoning people to buy bubblegum flavored ice. You go over the possibilities like candy apples lined up inside a glass case, the sugar coating so hard to crack just to get a bite of fruit. A woman walks by selling roses out of a shopping cart. You buy one and smell it. It’s not as fragrant as you hoped.

Chicago Food Desert

On paydays she gets off work early, walks to the food bus. Old people are always first in line, but she waits and when she gets on there are wooden crates instead of seats. She buys lettuce and tomatoes, sweet onions, gold potatoes, lemons and garlic. Last time they had purple carrots; her son was fascinated by those. This time they have yellow squash. On the way home she walks by 4 liquor stores; the one across from her apartment is called Orion Liquor. In the spring, birds build nests in the O’s. Her son noticed this. There’s a Cubs Billboard above the store. They haven’t won a World Series in over 100 years. This doesn’t matter to her; she takes her son to White Sox games. He likes his hot dog with ketchup and chili, hopes for Adam Dunn to hit a homerun. They have a new manager, Robin Ventura. He once picked a fight with Nolan Ryan, charged the mound without a second thou ght only to end up black - eyed and bloodied. The people on the food bus tell her how to prepare the squash. She bakes it so it will get sweet and maybe her son will like it. He comes home from school; he wanted purple carrots again but they eat the baked sq uash together and he decides it’s not so bad. At school the teacher asks the kids: Bananas are what color? They all say brown. He says yellow. The teacher gives him a coupon as a reward: a free hot dog at the ballpark to be redeemed between the 17 th and 20 th of that month. If he wants chili, it’s extra.

Native Texan

Have you found your spirit in the sky, a white - hot light above the bristled pines, your Jesus as Willie Nelson, your Mother Mary as Sissy Spacek? Have you practiced Feng Shui, consulted your compass of Black Tortoise, Vermillion Bird, White Tiger and Azure Dragon, visited graves in Bremond, spent pocket change on a blue plate special in Mexia, endured a pilgrimage to the mecca of glittering orange oil refinery lights? Have you dreamed in prism s of broken bottles, blown - glass and clay? Have you traveled this hot box of humid muck, confessed innumerable sins in this cone of tornado silence, flatland silence? Have you curled back the borders, examined the seams, memorized dried - up rivers, crumblin g missions? Have you seen all the dead men walking the green mile? You say come and take it, but the it never belonged to you in the first place.

After Thunder, After Silence

Hell - Raiser — They named you the Bringer o f Curses, but you came into this world of mountains already circumvented, beasts already tamed. What you wanted you didn’t ask for. What you needed you couldn’t take. Maybe by taking all the survival out of surviving we made something worse, a kind of pain that doesn’t sweat or bleed. Say things. I’ll forget what you say. Dream a big beautiful dream instead.

Bad Credit Very Welcome

Every place is off - limits except cow pastures nestled between dealerships, pawn shops with stacks of used tires out front, dented cars on copper - lit streets. No credit needed here — just the relentless way we move through life, the way we had to be several versions of ourselves to stay ahead, fixing the disposal, oven, and drier with the same cheap par ts that broke in the first place. For once, let’s watch the harvest moon, soft rain spilling over lush treetops. You’re a red - hot desert rose, a strong horse with a chestnut mane. Let’s follow the uneven sidewalks together, keep the whole damn night to ourselves.

The St raw That Stirs t he Drink

Tonight Reggie will drink at the Banana Boat. He’ll order a few glasses of wine, eye Billy Martin, Whitey Ford, and Mickey Mantle, send them a round of drinks, but they’ll refuse. A waiter returns with a note from Whitey that says, All I want is your shirt . It’s hot blue with Superstar! in silver letters across his chest. They’ll laugh at him, but he’ll take off his shirt and send it back to them. Then Whitey sends over his pink v - nec k sweater. This is 1977. When Reggie hits it’s like a hurricane ripping through New York City. Sons of bitches should be buying him drinks. Tonight he’ll walk right into Studio 54 wearing his 7,000 dollar black fur coat. Everyone will stop popping disco biscuits, stop snorting coke; Reggie’s the blackest man they’ve seen. In Baltimore, they pelted him with hot dogs. Now, he’ll walk past all the white assholes kneeling behind the velvet rope.

All Night Every Night

You’re hot rain on a h ot roof fast Aware of my awareness be generous, We could go anywhere belly to belly, The absolute exploration, all night On the road, it took years, evolution Fire flickering off skin going and going, You’re good honey to drizzle slowly, Split us in half don’t destroy myself, Melt sweet butter, deep golden pools Of sublime throbbing holding glowing, Submerge the whole thing at once, Be ripped apart more, feel rolling burst, Measure and pour fucking ancient swarm you, Have me in the strong loneliness of the cliffs.

After Thunder, After Silence

Alpha Wolf — I think the structure’s off. I mean the tea kettle’s steeped in contradiction. The grass was spring green, my face wet with that day’s failure, and my delicate center imprinted like daisy petals pressed in clay. The same fingers that worked the big needle drew fresh dirt over the roots. My true self is under the self I inhabit. Midnight birdsong for no reason.

Breakfast House

Two black women sit on a bench outside, the older one with silver hair, the younger one with braids, her son in her lap holding a toy truck. The smell of bacon and fat biscuits pours out every time the door opens.

An old white woman approaches. The other two half - s mile, straighten up. The old white woman sits down and says to the boy, Aren’t you handsome! Do you have any girlfriends? He shakes his head. Girls are yucky, aren’t they? Do you have any dogs? He nods. How many? He holds up three fingers. Wow! Three dogs! Are they big or little? Little , he says.

The hostess calls for the old white woman. She gets up and says, What a cute little thing he is. If y’all don’t want him I’ll take him. She trips a little on her way inside.

Across the highway, behind the thick m angled brush, the gun range is active.

The younger woman zips up her son’s jacket as the older one reties his shoe.

Underdog

Tell me all the stories, morning glories Real excited - like, real creative - like No crime in reading between the lines Or living all your life after midnight Making requests like Leave me the last hard drink Leave me the last ticket to paradise Big ol’ jet airliner, carry me oh so far away Over grace - land, gang - land, government - land There ain’t no parties in the county jail A in’t no two girls for every boy At this hour or any hour You’re nobody until somebody kills you Or you kill ‘em all first and Grind their bones to make your bread Sing as you roll out the dough Good night moon, goodnight and good luck

Contains Water a nd Wind

Watch me breathe in cold air from the tiny window, hot shower water sliding down my back. Constant motion is completeness, like wind pushing through pine trees. The road’s minutes away — travel the thick darkness with me too early or too late, past never - ending brush, wind filtering through our energies. Inhabit me all those years ago on the seawall at night, absorbing tender waves. Watch with me as a man throws beer bottles onto a pier until he can’t find any more and walks a way.

After Thunder, After Silence

My Fallen a nd Risen Christ — There’ll be days where you’ll see your life in multiplied fragments. My Christ of knocking over money - changers’ tables and telling the Pharisees to go fuck themselves — The night is not toothless. If nobody wants you, I’ll take you with me.

War Garden

Country and city soldiers prepare soil In the backyard of an abandoned English mansion. They want to grow tomatoes and peppers In a climate better suited for peas and potatoes — They crave onions, garlic, woody herbs. Before and after missions, they dig in the dirt, Eat carrots raw, pray for cucumber vines to bloom. When their unit moves on, the new unit Takes up the task. There is always one soldier Who tries to grow something different: Watermelon or sweet corn, but the seeds freeze. This evening, they shred cabbage for a salad. Each soldier is offered a ripe tomato From a miraculously grown plant — They had hoped for fat Beefsteak s But ended up with a smaller, more acidic fruit. Everyone eats them anyway; they save what’s left For the few who will return tomorrow.

Big Bang Free Fall Holy Data Collection

Bring out purple skies, slathered fat sound buzzing from stacked speakers. One good song and skinny trees crack and split, rusted train tracks buckle, thick winds swirl down over deer as they graze in a dark ditch. I’m a velvet mountainscape, sunbeam background, magic flowers pushing the vast whiten ess that sparks against my kitsch - junk brain. I search every great space for the appropriate tools: brushes, pencils, and soft threads. I avoid the pack of silver wolves, but hope they find something worth saving. Their clean paws scratch the foundation. T hey find more space, I find more space, all void of rolling - winding - singing - floral nature. Swear to god, I do the best with what I got.

Swear to go d, I do the best with what I got . Dogs trot through empty parking lots in the cold, pick at loose garbage, nip each other’s jagged ears. Girls clack across the street in party dresses. They laugh and jingle among dazzle - lit trees. Power is the polished black Escalade parked in the street while drug addicts hang out at the corner st ore. Management’s letter reminds us: Be aware. Lock doors. Hide personal items. Two girls shout, we’re princesses! from a horse carriage. A windblown woman sits on a bench. I put her in a swanboat swing with a disheveled man. They kiss high in the cool, painted sky. At home, they warmly stir and feed their honey - oat yeast.

I stir and feed my fragrant stewing thoughts. Sometimes it’s a spotty - static - manic mess. I got hit in the head too many times, cried too many tears in this sulfur fog. When my consciousness was about to collapse, he aimed his biggest gun at the front door. He was beyond anthems and allegiances. Why sneak in through the back door when he can burn the motherfucker down? Would he make me into a sweet piece of machinery, rewrite the dense code of my identity? Why build a regular fence when he can build an electric fence? I punched the off - switch. Am I the one with the complex?

Tell me: A m I the one with the complex? You took me to the bowling alley to help me remember how an 8 pound ball could glide smoothly down the lane, how pins erupt into chaotic musical percussion. You’re an ice hockey rink made smooth by a zamboni. You’re not violent at all. At the diner, we order a thick slice of pie. An old man sits at the corner booth, turns the record over in his mind, says, sorry kid, you got here too damn late . Power is the automatic rifle locked in the safe. One good storm out here and the poorest neighborhoods flood the quicke st.

The poorest neighborhoods fill up the quickest with flying ants and mosquitoes. At night, trucks drive by spewing pesticides. Don’t mind the guy taking a piss on the back fence, don’t mind the hookah in the pool. My dad used to say, if you don’t learn anything else, you’re at least gonna know how to spell, add, and subtract . I can look at stars, I can look at pine trees. I know basic words. I like basic words. It’s not the best language, but it has a history, it’s a lowbrow history, but it’s still a history. Maybe I surround myself with the wrong books. I say I’m a desert, but I’m really an ocean.

I say I’m an ocean , but I’m really a prairie. Black hummingbirds drink from orange flowers, wet meadow grass flattens, sparkles, whispers, two small rabbits eat tender blades by the dirt path, lick their paws, rub their ears, white cows with brown spots rest under every tree, my old dog rolls around in wildflowers, likes dirt and petals and stems in his fur. I got a tall - crunchy - pile - of - leaves part of my brain that’s always on the other side of some thought - river, a fat bluebonnet I can’t pick. I turn compost instead — turn it, turn it — it gets blacker, blacker, smells of rich coffee grounds . Twirling sunflowers shoot up over the fence.

Sunflowers shoot up against my brain - fence that’s also my sturdy, splintered dream - fence that isn’t just mine, or yours. We share it. Highway lights are rhinestones visible from a cracked windshield in the black - gold night sky. Our hearts rise — flaky and full — into split - at - the - seams marbled pastries. We get lost again and find our way back. We trade sweet notes in loose - beat music, don’t chase the ones that float away, that bubble up to the top of the barrel. We trust what’s left — all thick and cultured, cold and smooth and creamy — thinly ribboned with raspberry skies, sonic waves of sound.

After Thunder, After Silence

Neon Dahlia — I can’t shed this skin, this holy rush. There are no clouds, just buildings here, white - gold blinking lights, war drum fountains, resurrected birds everywhere. The human psyche is not a fucking playground. Give me silver sonic warheads, tricky whistles, roaring engines , a taste of heat, rays of light shining through, red, white, and boom outside the giant window. The best things hurt so good.

The Show, 1970

I didn’t have to be in San Diego until Friday so we got fucked - up on screwdrivers, pot, acid. When I woke up the next day, I took another drop before I realized I’d slept a whole day and it was Friday. I barely made it to the game, was dizzy on the mound — the ball felt like a volleyball, Nixon was the ump. I saw a path of c olors leading to the mitt. I don’t know how many batters I walked. An amber fuzz swirled around me. In the dugout I kept my eyes down, picked at the dirt in my cleats. I was still going strong after the 6 th inning. Someone whispered, Hey, Dock, don’t you k now you got a no - no going? That got me fucking excited. I embraced the trip, hurled the ball down that path of fuchsia, magic blue and gold, hit the mitt every time until the catcher jumped up and ran toward me, his body a burst of scarlet flames. I went right to that fire. Later, I found the scorecard taped to my locker, Ellis, D written at the top. Hot yellow sparks flew everywhere. I took the card and kissed it anyway.

Just a Few Stars

A distant spot on the radar,

The dream we thought was dismantled, The biggest dream far away —

To be dirty and free, Running through a field, Sharp - clear peace,

An abandoned barn covered with ivy, A handful of blackberries.

What do we say about the night sky Above the rotting beams?

Dim - rich blue night — To love, roam, lay down,

This only tastes good right off the vine.

Last One Out of Lee County Burn It to t he Ground

No more laughs at the Leesure Lanes No more beers and splits No more shake shake shake senora Crackling from the shitty speakers You make me lose my mind With your brown water navy stories You’re getting fat on scotch and milk And discount weeknight brisket dinners The cakes inside the bakeshop window are white The First National Bank is the only bank Mercy mercy me, I won’t giddyup in your 409 Don’t you see sugar pie honey bunch The bad guys know us They got all the guns And they won’t leave us alone

After Thunder, After Silence

Sunfire Heart — This plot’s a devil’s device. We hear the old ones say, come on now , l et’s get out the chainsaw . R ecite your memories changelings . What beasts they’d draw. We’re more alive than the absence of light, empty retinas encased in constellation. Sparks fly from our lips and vanish — All those words, yours and mine highlighted in red, after all.

Out of t he Way Places

I saw a bird today, brown and cream - speckled waiting on the edge of a giant field. To get back to who I was means tracing myself back through you. Show me your out of the way places, your corners overgrown with tall soft grass. Watching honeybees float from one clover flower to another, throwing a basketball against the backboard, I came close to jumping the fence, navigating my way through the brus h, might as well have been an ocean, me on the cool beach with sand in my hair, you manning a boat without a light. Invisible energy pulled at your core, intricate and absolute, I felt it pulling me too. I can look back on those memories and see you there like you always were, not knowing you were even closer to burning down that overgrown field just to get to me, your voice begging me to stay put. What if I told you I would’ve loved you even back then? A purple flower grows along this chain link fence. H ow the fuck do we get out of here?

Café Poem

The pastry chef is a New Jersey Italian; his display case is filled with cannoli, little cups of tiramisu, Italian cream cake. Four old white women drink cappuccinos at the next table and talk about House of Cards . They are petite, middle - class, and tender - voiced. A cake designing competition is on TV and two groups of female pastry chefs remain. The final challenge is to construct a cake that resembles a sunken ship. The male judge hands the winning team a golden whisk: two black women grip the trophy together.

I look over the butter cookies filled with fig paste, crowned with dollops of chocolate ganache. The apple strudel on the bottom shelf reminds me of lunch with my grandmother. At the mall, we’d sit at the coffee shop in the food court as she stirred her cappuccino. I’d look at her feet in a pair of sandals too small for her and think, you’re not in a war anymore; why don’t you wear the right size? Whenever we w ent to Astroworld she’d sit in the Alpine section of the park where the clock chimed every hour with wooden maidens ringing bells as they passed by on a track, watch the carousel with the golden - saddled horses.

There is no fascist school in this village. The windows aren’t blacked - out; children don’t sneak onto the train platform to feed bread scraps to people in boxcars.

I try a slice of apple pie. It’s not as good as the other sweets: the apples are sour, the crust too salty. The old white women wear open - toed sandals showing off their pink toenails. I love Kevin Spacey , the prettiest one says with a polite giggle. He’s so mean .

59 Dollar Limo

59 bucks gets us a limo for an hour, an hour gets us the city we never get to see: crisp black skyscrapers dotted with lights, the neon blue ferris wheel, wide arching live oak branches. Don’t say a few beers, a few games of pool and late night tacos are all you need to have a good time. I’ve got overtime coming. I want to take you to the fountain w here that man with the old jogging shoes plays the sax. His playing sounds just as good as your dad’s before he died of liver failure. Imagine the open roof, night autumn air blowing through your hair, smoky, fragrant. I want to show you the city he never got to see.

After Thunder, After Silence

Rhythm a nd Blues — I’m staring beer - tired and unwonderfilled, admiring your face on the blue, blue wind. We learned there’ll be days of two kinds and nothing we can do to predict it. We rode around in the same busted trucks, ate the same cheap dinners night after night. I hear your voice break into a new language — How’d we get our flowers to grow so damn big and blinding yellow in such poor soil?

Found Poem

Someone left a shopping cart beneath the stairs of our apartment complex, so we got ahold of management, asked them to move the cart, but no one came to take it away. Late Friday night, we pushed it to the front door of the office, then went up to bed. The next morning, while walking our little brown dog with a bit of silver on the top of her head, we saw the manager push the cart across the parking lot and leave it behind the dumpster. We had to cut our walk short when it started to rain.

Two Rooms Sharing a Chimney

I hope you don’t mind, but I made a list of things I wish we were doing, had done, or will do, like watching the ferris wheel over the water at night, using crayons to color a picture of a winged horse, or having coffee and donuts at a small dining room table. I like to think of us as two rooms sharing a chimney. They’re saying we did all sorts of things, so it’s only fair that I should make my own list. I don’t know what they’r e saying exactly, but we could sleep or not sleep if we want, and if we decide not to sleep, I could tell you about the woman who almost threw out a watercolor of blue and yellow birds in autumn branches until my mother took it home and put it above her sofa so those birds wouldn’t end up at the bottom of a trash heap with no way to fly off the canvas.

Scar

This isn’t Keith Moon driving his limo into a hotel pool. This isn’t Freddie Prinze dead from Russian roulette. This isn’t corpses being exhumed from Detroit cemeteries. This is the grit and elbow - grease of your foremothers. The nights you stayed up listening to Bad Religion. This is Cassius Clay throwing his gold medal in the Ohio River, Walt Whitman finding a pile of h uman limbs under a tree. This is your uncle dying of liver failure. He slowly gets out of his off - white Cadillac, walks over to the passenger door and opens it for his wife just like he’s done for the last 35 years. Listen. Stars are dead by the time we se e them. It doesn’t mean they shine any less bright.

After Thunder, After Silence

Love L anguage — It must be sacrilege to beg like this. Throw away your dead irises; press your ear to the earth. This machine makes bodiless spectators out of us, but we’re still pure and beautiful, eating plums under thick bodies of clouds. I crane my neck to peer at the treetops where birds have been singing, singing for a while — invisible and loud and everywhere.

Free Coffee w ith Jesus

The sign in front of the buffet place says: Free Coffee w ith Jesus, Sundays 11 am, but it’s been boarded - up for a while. I see this sign every day so now I’m convinced I need my free coffee with Jesus. I imagine walking into a place on the edge of the county that serves awesome chicken - fried steaks and Hootie and t he Blowfish is still the most popular band on the jukebox. I’ll walk in and Jesus is at a table alone eating a chicken - fried steak as big as the plate, thanking the wa itress for the extra cream gravy. He looks like one of those guys who never got over the 70s but is completely content with it. He’s got flecks of gray in his beard, wears a silver necklace with a turquoise pendant. He’s the mellow Jesus in a town where men wear special clothes to conceal their guns. When he sees me, he says, pull up a chair . I sit and the waitress brings me my cup. And then “Baker Street” comes on. He puts his fork down and sings, Another year and then you’d be happ y, j ust one more year and then you’d be happy, but you’re crying, you’re crying now. I reach for the sugar, open a pack, pour it into my coffee. I peel the lids off of two little cups of cream, add those; stir it all together ritualistically, take a sip and say, I just need to have my coffee , because that’s all I can say. He smiles and says, Dear, you can have all the coffee you want .

Smalltalk

Teach me how to change the past Explain how any piece of machinery works Explain a memorable football game Explain Romanticism I’ve never seen the ocean My skin needs the saltwater Let’s have a beer Let’s eat a pile of shrimp Explain Vietnam Explain Abstract Expressionism The shore I see is filled with pebbles in earth tones One white crest of a wave after another Smoo thing over ripples of sand Explain how need turns to hardness How hardness turns to pure fire Sit close to me and explain nothing When it’s time to leave I won’t want to go

Satanic Data Collection

Let’s say how this ground got cracked and uneven. We sprouted iron wings. Birdlike, we poked sharp holes in this open space among old cars, dead engines. We circled our superego, our storm’s big eye: s moke stacks vibrated in the pure white - hot sky; high gusts shook rooftops, this dirt lot, these wrecked cars. No one here but us ditch - digging smooth - talkers, one big fat needle making its wavy mark on the endless scroll. Let’s say we didn’t know how our third eye got cancer. In the end, our composed myth is all that matters. Truth be told , it’s so damn smart: godlike, fireproof; it lifts us into its heavy metal thunder cyclone. Let’s say we left these cars scorched chaotic; we left blissful, beneath this, a room on fire.

Iron Will

I’ve got my superconscious, I’ve got my circle of wolves breathing and sniffing and scanning the woods, taking musical steps in full color. I like the idea of a purple glowing door, the privilege of getting to disappear, reappear at will. I sink into the grass under the dome - shaped blue, under the tree — warm, but the air’s cool — flowers hang in thick long strands. A cardinal makes its way up the swinging branch. I’ve got this journal, but you can’t see what I write in it except this one thing about flight: People don’t just leave. They take their dead with them, they take their history with them, but the footprints glow. I leave my dead where they are. You don’t really want to know what happened to them, do you? I’ve got this bonfire with my circle of wolves, this primal electric he at. We curl up for the night. Don’t step on any sticks out there.

Afterword

This poetry collection, The Straw That Stirs t he Drink , represents the strongest of all the work I have done as an MFA student at The University of Houston. These poems are the result of 3 plus years of workshops, literature courses, and thesis hours. In order to best explain how the final result of this collection came about, I will discuss my influences, poetics , and how form plays a role in shaping some of these poems.

1. Influences

Charles Bukowski and Audre Lorde are the poets who have had the biggest influence on my writing. To begin with Bukowski: I discovered his work at a Barnes &

Noble when I was 20 and i nstantly fell in love. I had not read much poetry up until that point, but I had been writing poems since I was 13. The closest thing to poetry I had was music. When I first started college I decided that if I wanted to be a serious poet I would need to st art reading poetry, but I had no idea where to start. I made the decision to visit the bookstore, pick up whatever interested me , and go from there. The first poet that caught my eye was Bukowski. Right off the bat, his books stood out because they looked different from the others: they were bright and cheap, and I was drawn to that aesthetically since some of my favorite bands at the time were punk bands.

What interested me most about Bukowski was his voice. My previous experience

with poetry was limited to Edgar Allan Poe and Sylvia Plath. When I first read

Bukowski, I did not realize poets were allowed to talk the way he spoke in his poems. I

felt like he was talking directly to me in every poem. He also had a very strong rhythmic

style; as an avid music listener I was attracted to that manner of writing. Once I started

reading Bukowski, I did not bother trying to read any other poets for a long time. It was

all Bukowski 100 percent of the time. Discovering Bukowski ruined me for most poets

because of the lack of pretension and the raw energy of his lines. I loved his flaws just as

much as his strengths.

Bukowski became my crutch poet. By this, I mean he became the model I used to

write poems. Early on, I emulated his voice and style in every poem I wrote . The first

time I began to encounter a wide range of other poets was when I started graduate school

at 30. One professor recommended that I read Lunch Poems by Frank O’Hara and The

Branch Will Not Break by James Wright . I preferred Wright over O’Hara, who se work is

more image - based and focuses primarily on nature and the lives of regular people. I admired Wright for his plainspoken meditative style, but I found myself going back to

Bukowski over and over again when I needed a boost or when I simply needed a

comforting read. A poem that represents Bukowski’s aesthetic influence on me is “beans

with garlic” from Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame :

this is important enough: to get your feelings down, it is better than shaving or cooking beans with garlic. it is the little we can do this small bravery of knowledge and there is of course madness and terror too in knowing that some part of you wound up like a clock can never be wound again once it stops. but now there’s a ticking under your shirt and you whirl t he beans with a spoon,

one love dead, one love departed another love… ah! as many loves as beans yes, count them now sad, sad, your feelings boiling over flame, get this down.

I admire the simplicity of composition and tone: the unexpected line breaks and the intimate voice: “but now / there’s a ticking under your shirt / and you whirl the beans with a spoon / one love dead, one love departed.” I especially like the way the poem leads the eye down the page, particularly at the end: “ah! as many loves as be ans / yes, count them now / sad, sad, / your feelings boiling over flame / get this down.” Additionally I admire the assertive last line; I have always felt that one of Bukowski’s strengths was the way he concluded his poems.

I would like to offer my poem , “Bad Credit Very Welcome” as a representation of how Bukowski has influenced my work:

Every place is off - limits except cow pastures nestled between dealerships, pawn shops with used tires stacked out front, dented cars on copper - lit streets. No credit needed here — just the relentless way we move through life, the way we had to be several versions of ourselves to stay ahead, fixing the disposal, oven, and drier with the same cheap parts that broke in the first place. For once, let’s watch the harvest mo on, soft rain spilling over lush treetops. You’re a red - hot desert rose, a strong horse with a chestnut mane. Let’s follow the uneven sidewalks together, keep the whole damn night to ourselves.

I have always tried to match Bukowski’s down - to - earth manner of speaking. I also hope that my lines would succeed in creating a similar kind of raw energy that Bukowski’s work contains.

Another poet I deeply admire is Audre Lorde. I discovered her a few years after

Bukowski when I started taking women’s studies co urses as an undergraduate. As I began to progress as a young poet, I felt like I wanted to say things in my poems that mattered. I focused on subject matter more; I became politically conscious of my role as a poet. I took to Lorde because, for me, her sty le of writing most resembled Bukowski’s regarding voice and rhythm. Also, I did not have many examples of female poets who used the kind of strong, straightforward voice Lorde embodies in her work. An example that best exemplifies Lorde’s voice is her poem “Chorus” from The Black Unicorn :

Sun make me whole again to love the shattered truths of me spilling out like dragon’s teeth through the hot lies of those who say they love me when I am done each shard will spring up complete and armed like a warrior woman hot to be dealt with slipping through alleyways of musical night people humming Mozart was a white dude.

To start, I love the qualities of this poem for the same reasons I love Bukowski’s work:

intimate voice, surprising line breaks (Su n / to love / me / Mozart), her raw energy. My

favorite part of the poem: “when I am done / each shard will spring up / complete and

armed / like a warrior woman / hot to be dealt with.” I admire Lorde’s toughness as a

female poet. I like how she gives the voice in this poem the freedom to identify itself as a

warrior woman. I have always wanted to be warrior - like in my poems and Lorde helped give me the confidence to assert a strong feminine voice into my work.

An example from my own work that uses a stro ng feminine voice is “Jujubes”:

A billboard outside Dallas proclaims: Stop the porn! Be reborn! Across the highway, Wispers Cabaret isn’t quite The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, the strippers aren’t quite Motley Crue’s “Girls, Girls, Girls,” DW’s adult store welcomes all women and couples because God only knows where the cowboys went, God only knows who’s too high to die, God only knows about the nuns dancing in the wilderness moonlight, rosaries bouncing against their hips like spiritual pea rls, like ripe jujubes, and how sister Barbara Ann kissed the other sister Barbara Ann and how hell didn’t quite swallow them up just like it didn’t when the Spanish left the natives to run the missions — when the coast was clear, they shut the Bible and le t the altars crumble.

It took many years of writing bad feminist poetry to get to the sorts of poems that I hope might someday come close to the powerful voice Lorde employs in her work. With

“Jujubes” in particular, I was trying to reach the same kind of compression and balance of subject matter that a politically conscious, feminist poem might contain. Additionally, this poem includes pop culture references which is something Lorde’s poems do not use very often. In general, I try to aim for the kind of p oem that would be a middle ground between Bukowski and Lorde: an equal balance between politics/voice/rhythm/energy.

2. Poetics

Aside from Bukowski’s and Lorde’s influence on me as a poet, I am also interested in content as an important aspect of my poetics. It has always been my goal to communicate something tangible to an audience, to strive for a poetics of aesthetic transcenden ce that is rooted in narrative, landscape, image, and human nature. To quote

Adam Zagajewski in his poem “Opus Posthumous” from Without End : “W hat is poetry if we see so little? ” Since my early twenties, I have thought of myself as a politically conscious feminist poet. For this reason, I looked to Adrienne Rich as a feminist/poet/critic mentor. In her essay, “Taking Women Students Seriously” from On

Lies, Secrets And Silence , sh e talks about what it means to be a female student and what it means to be the teacher of female students. From the perspective of a teacher, Rich asks

“how can we teach women to move beyond the desire for male approval and getting

‘good grades’ and seek a nd write their own truths that culture has distorted or made taboo?” This is a question I have always been concerned with as a student/poet and it is an even more urgent question for me as a graduate student.

Like Rich, I believe in “the value and signif icance of women’s experience, traditions, perceptions. Thinking of ourselves seriously, not as one of the boys, not as neuters, or androgynes, but as women (italics hers).” As a result, a large chunk of my work focuses on issues of gender. The first poem I submitted in a graduate workshop was

“Chicago Food Desert” which received heavy criticism from the group. In the poem, a woman raises a son in an environment where grocery stores are scarce; she has to find other means to nourish her child. It seemed that those who spoke in the workshop missed the issue of poverty and malnourishment; some didn’t seem to understand the relationship between the mother and her son, particularly in the last half of the poem:

The people on the food bus tell her how to prepare the squash. She bakes it so it will get sweet and maybe her son will like it. He comes home from school; he wanted purple carrots again but they eat the baked squash together and he decides it’s not so bad. At school the teacher asks the kids: Bananas are what color? They all say brown. He says yellow. The teacher gives him a coupon as a reward: a free hot dog at the ballpark to be redeemed between the 17 th and 20 th of that month. If he wants chili, it’s extra.

The professor running the workshop failed to understand what was so special about the relationship between the mother and son. Additionally, the students misunderstood the ending as the son having an unfair advantage over his peers because he could state the correct color of a banana, that the teache r rewarded him for being unjustifiable superior

to the other students. I was at a loss to explain the political implications of the poem. I felt like the lines “At school the teacher asks the kids: / Bananas are what color? / They all say brown. He says ye llow” show what is so crucial about the mother/son relationship: the mother provides her son with a fighting chance in this difficult environment because she goes out of her way to make sure he is nourished and that he is educated about nutrition. The gene ral sentiment of the class seemed to say that this was not poetry; this was prosaic. No one in the group understood or sympathized with what it is like to be a single working mother trying to raise her child in a devastated urban environment. I felt discou raged, that there was a serious disconnect between me and everyone else in the group.

I encountered a similar difficulty in the same workshop when I submitted a poem where the last line stated: “She just wants to be heard.” The professor said the line nee ded to be removed because it was “some feminist assertion that doesn’t need to be there.” In that same workshop, a (male) student used the phrase “porch monkeys” in a poem; in another workshop, a (male) student made fun of special needs students in a poem. These incidents reinforced my feelings of isolation as a female poet. Although there were other females in these workshops, they did not openly defend me or my work which made it difficult for me to connect with them as well. As Adrienne Rich states:

If there is any misleading concept, it is that of ‘coeducation’: that because women

and men are sitting in the same classrooms, hearing the same lectures, reading the

same books, performing the same laboratory experiments, they are receiving an

equal educa tion. They are not, first because the content of education itself

validates men even as it invalidates women.

I am troubled to discover that what it meant to be a female student in 1978 is still true in

2017.

I no longer felt comfortable submitting, read ing or talking about my work. “Café

Poem” is another poem that was harshly criticized, in this case by a (male) professor who sat in on the workshop as a visitor. The poem contains feminist implications; it is critical of middle - class ignorance and sympath etic to my grandmother’s experience as a WWII survivor. The visiting male professor was rude in his comments about the poem. He went as far as to call my grandmother a liar: in the draft of the poem he read, he was particularly bothered by the line that sa id: “The windows aren’t covered in tin foil.” He said that there was no way the windows could have been covered in foil because they did not have foil in WWII Europe. He asked me to justify why I would put that in my poem. I explained that I was drawing on my grandmother’s memory for that detail and he responded by saying, “grandma lied to you.” I confess that I cried in my car afterward and then got drunk that night at my apartment. It took months before I was able to read that poem again. In the final dra ft, I changed the line to say: “The windows aren’t blacked - out.”

It is a miracle that “Chicago Food Desert” and “Café Poem” are included in this manuscript. I nearly threw both poems away. Adrienne Rich echoes my sentiment when she says:

Listen to the voi ces of the women and the voices of the men; observe the space

men allow themselves, physically and verbally, the male assumption that people

will listen, even when the majority of the group is female. Look at the faces of the

silent, and of those who speak . Listen to a woman groping for language in which

to express what is on her mind, sensing that the terms of academic discourse are

not her language, trying to cut down her thought to the dimensions of a discourse

not intended for her…reading her paper alou d at breakneck speed, throwing her

words away, depreciating her own work by reflex prejudgment: I do not deserve

to take up time and space (italics hers).

It is important to acknowledge that discomfort in the classroom is not solely based on gender; Rich’ s comment could apply equally to issues of race and class. However, I am empathetic toward the last part of that passage. I was unable to articulate my feelings to anybody about what happened in those workshops. I felt as if I had no right to coexist with students or professors. It was difficult to function in an environment that continually insisted that because my work was less - than, I was less - than, that I was not a real poet in any sense of the word.

My solution was to counterbalance these feelings wi th poetic defiance; content became even more essential. “The Straw That Stirs the Drink” is a poem that resulted from my push - back against the harsh criticism:

Tonight Reggie will drink at the Banana Boat. He’ll order a few glasses of wine, eye Billy Mart in, Whitey Ford, and Mickey Mantle, send them a round of drinks, but

they’ll refuse. A waiter returns with a note from Whitey that says, All I want is your shirt . It’s hot blue with Superstar! in silver letters across his chest. They’ll laugh at him, but he’ll take off his shirt and send it back to them. Then Whitey sends over his pink v - neck sweater. This is 1977. When Reggie hits it’s like a hurricane ripping through New York City. Sons of bitches should be buying him drinks. Tonight he’ll walk right into Studio 54 wearing his 7,000 dollar black fur coat. Everyone will stop popping disco biscuits, stop snorting coke; Reggie’s the blackest man they’ve seen. In Baltimore, they pelted him with hot dogs. Now, he’ll walk past all the white assholes kneeling behind the velvet rope.

This poem received heavy criticism in workshop, especially for the last two lines.

However, this poem felt like a huge victory for me. It is not just about racism in sports in the 1970s, it is about ignorance, bullying , and exclus ion. “The Straw That Stirs the

Drink” feels like my first watershed poem; everything I wrote previously had energetically opened me up to write this poem. When I read it, I find myself identifying with Reggie Jackson. He is defiant, rebellious , and slightl y arrogant in a way that I feel is justified. It is my hope that this poem is important on a metaphorical level.

“Song” is another poem where I pushed my poetics to the limit:

This is the song of my perpetual unrest — Growing is easier with a dedicated tea m, But I’d rather shred denied bond proposals, Take a blowtorch to zoning ordinances,

Sabotage tear - downs, terrorize group studies. This is the song of my contradictory self — I want to build dream homes, but refuse Architects, craftsmen, and problem - solvers; My rapid community development suffers. Still, you expand your reach, tweak floor plans At no extra charge. I say, meet or beat The price of my legitimate show rooms . You offer me quality care instead, A cost - effective alternative to the e mergency room.

I directly identify myself as the speaker in this poem. “Song” is about teetering on the edge of self - destruction. Words like “shred”, “blowtorch”, “sabotage”, and “terrorize” were selected for rhetorical reasons, as in, I felt militant and wanted to expresses that without being straightforward about my frustrations as an alienated graduate student.

However, there is a shift in the second part of the poem where the “you” enters, who I see as a benevolent mentor that takes the speaker in and cares for her without any ulterior motives.

Rich says that “to think like a woman in a man’s world means thinking critically, refusing to accept the givens…It means remembering that every mind resides in a body; remaining accountable to the female bodies in which we live…” and that is how I currently feel about my poetics. I put more pressure on myself to hone content, but now, I have begun to acknowledge form as an additional tool for rhetorical power.

3. Forms

My interest in poetic forms started when I took Forms & Techniques in the second semester of grad uate school. I was intimidated by form because I had previously

only written in free verse. However, during my first semester as a graduate student, I

struggled in the poetry workshop after I received heavy criticism about my work. I was told that my poems were prosaic, too simplistic, all in narrative form; that my poems were written in the style of Ted Kooser which was considered out of style. One student went as far as to describe my work as Wikipedi an , which I took as an insult. I was also

told that my lines were not poetic enough, that I used too many syllables per line; that

when you write a poem and fold the page, there should not be any words on the other side

of the crease. I realized quickly that my free verse style was not going to cut it, so I decided to focus on form. I wanted to prove that I was a competent poet.

In Forms & Techniques we were assigned Poetic Meter & Form by Paul Fussell, but I struggled with this text because it was too a cademic and condescending. I had difficulty learning the rules of meter so I decided to look for an easier way to study form on my own. One of the class requirements was that we had to write at least one sonnet in strict form. Since I had never written a s erious sonnet before and was frustrated by the texts we had been reading in class which did not seem to explain it in terms I could understand at all, I simply googled how to write a sonnet and ended up learning most of

what I know about sonnets from Wikip edia. All of the sonnets in my manuscript are based off of a shadow form of the Petrarchan sonnet, which was the easiest type of sonnet for me to learn. The first sonnet I wrote was Petrarchan, with a rhyme scheme of abbaabba cdecde . I preferred that rhyme scheme because it is less common than the abababab cdecde rhyme scheme and I thought it would help my sonnets stand out more.

I was surprised to discover that I really like writing in form. Learning form improved my free verse because it forced me to be more efficient with my syllables/word

choice while at the same time opening up more possibilities with music and rhythm. I

have always been a rhythmic writer and form gave me a structure to write tighter, more

consistent poems. My manuscript is sonnet hea vy because it is the form I took to the

easiest. The first sonnets I wrote were not strict metrically; I was more interested in

keeping my syllable count low, not more than 10 syllables per line if I could help it. I

held myself to a rhyme scheme at the be ginning because it encouraged me to come up with different rhetorical strategies for conveying ideas; I had to be more creative about image and subject matter. Once I got more comfortable with the act of writing a sonnet, I allowed myself to be freer with the form. I dropped the rhyme scheme, but tried hard to remain true to the use of the volta/turn.

“The Italian Countryside after the War” is one of the more significant sonnets I have written because it is the first sonnet I allowed myself to be freer wit h. Although there is no rhyme scheme in the poem, I want to include it here with the rhyme scheme present to show that when I sit down to write a sonnet now, I still list the scheme and write the lines with them in mind for the purposes of utilizing the vo lta/turn. I try to let the turn (highlighted below) happen near the rhyme scheme change:

A They threw a parade when we came to town, B tossed grapes at us as we rode by in trucks, B leaving sticky juice on our uniforms A that attracted biting flies. Men kissed us A on the cheeks and mouth; women threw flowers, B but still , I kept the bulletproof bible B taped to my chest, reminded myself that A this is better than sleeping in a cold ditch, C better than digging up mass graves, D better than fighting in bo mbed - out jungles. E I still remember watching the newsreel C of Nazis holding bunches of green grapes

D low to the ground so their dogs could eat them; E one of the dogs looked like my collie, Sue.

The volta/turn happens late in this example, but a change in rhythm through the use of repetition occurs where the rhyme scheme should change. I like to incorporate repetition into sonnets as a way to activate the turn because I think it works rhetorically and musically. Additionally, repetition is something I h ave always used in free verse to incorporate rhythm.

It is my hope that my sonnets sound more like controlled free verse poems that focus on compression, rhythm , and efficiency. Conversely, it is my hope that my free verse poems sound more like poems wri tten in form in the sense that the line breaks are more natural (by natural I mean the way the eye moves down the page) and that image and subject matter are more controlled. A poem like “Contains Water and Wind” might be a good example of how form has imp roved my free verse:

Watch me breathe in cold air from the tiny window, hot shower water sliding down my back. Constant motion is completeness, like wind pushing through pine trees. The road’s minutes away — travel the thick darkness with me too early or t oo late, past never - ending brush, wind filtering through our energies. Inhabit me all those years ago on the seawall at night, absorbing tender waves. Watch with me as a man throws beer bottles onto a pier until he can’t find any more and walks away.

The lines in this poem are tighter, more controlled, as are the emotions and images that

are described. I would not have been capable of writing a poem like this before learning

form. In addition to being more lyrical, it is my hope that the poem makes goo d use of the

turn which is highlighted above.

After I learned to write a few sonnets, I began to work with sonnet crowns. The first sonnet crown I wrote was titled “A Texas Crown of Sonnets” and it had the rhyme scheme abbaabba cdecde all the way through . I wasn’t completely satisfied with it, so I rewrote it with tighter lines. Working on that sonnet helped me to write “Big Bang Free

Fall Holy Data Collection” which is composed of lines from older poems as well as new lines. I tried to maintain an even b alance between image and emotion along with a loose narrative thread. The sixth sonnet in the sequence is the best example of all the previous elements described coming together with the volta/turn highlighted where the rhyme scheme would traditionally cha nge:

A I say I’m an ocean but I’m really a prairie. B Black hummingbirds drink from orange flowers, B wet meadow grass flattens, sparkles, whispers, A two small rabbits eat tender blades by the A dirt path, lick their paws, rub their ears, white cows B w ith brown spots rest under every tree, B my old dog rolls around in wildflowers, A likes dirt and petals and stems in his fur. C I got a tall - crunchy - pile - of - leaves part D of my brain that’s always on the other side E of some thought - river, a fat bluebonnet I can’t pick. C I turn compost instead — turn it, turn it — it gets D blacker, blacker, smells of rich coffee grounds. E Twirling sunflowers shoot up over the fence.

In addition to the sonnet, I explored with other forms that did not make it into the manuscript such as the villanelle and the sestina. Learning the sestina was significant for me because it is considered the most difficult form due to the strict end - word scheme; it resulted in free verse poems that were much more conscious of aestheti cs. Poems like

“Buy 3 Areas, Get 3 Areas Free”, “Jujubes” , and “War Garden” were written after I practiced with the sestina form and I feel like those poems are stronger rhythmically, aesthetically, and free verse - wise.

The Straw That Stirs t he Drink is a distillation of what I feel like are my best poems. I want to acknowledge that all the poems I wrote that are not included here contributed to the overall improvement of my poetic skills. The first few poems I wrote as an MFA student were prose - heavy wi th line breaks that did not always make sense. I was most interested in correcting those weaknesses in my work and I hope that can be seen with the poems in this manuscript. Content - wise, I feel that these poems represent the widest range of image and subj ect matter: they deal with class, race, and gender while others are more lyrical and/or explore the interior of a solitary speaker.

Notes

“After Thunder, After Silence” is a cento composed of lines from poems by Rhianna Brandt, Melanie Brkich, Luisa Muradyan - Tannahill, Nathan Stabenfeldt, and Lani Yu .

“All Night Every Night” borrows a line from an Ezra Pound poem .

“Underdog” borrows a line from a Sherman Alexie poem .

“Satanic Data Collection” is a sonnet written with Nick Flynn .