Political Punch is officially over! Or, at least, this first installment of it is. It was both surprising and gratifying that people responded to it as they did — it went on three times longer than I had intended it to, and it generated enough interest that I could probably have kept it going for at least another three weeks, were I not beginning to feel hopelessly overextended.
Though it’s definitely time for me to step away from this project, and focus my time & energy on other responsibilities for a while, I wanted to take a minute to offer my deep and happy thanks to everyone who participated in this series — by contributing work to it, reading it, talking about it, helping promote it on the internets, or quietly enjoying it through individual visits to the Infoxicated Corner over the past three weeks. It was a very fulfilling experience, on my end, to publish so many poems that represent different political viewpoints and varied life experiences. I look forward to returning to this series again, likely in September of 2015. I also look forward to the book that will be growing out of Political Punch: an anthology of political poetry, co-edited by Erin Elizabeth Smith and myself, due out from Sundress Publications in 2016. More information will be forthcoming later this autumn, so I encourage all y’all to please stay tuned.
I’ve decided, in closing, to share a own political poem of my own here. I know there’s a stigma around self-publishing, but this isn’t giving myself a CV publication bullet point (the poem appeared in Western Humanities Review five years ago); I really just wanted to share it with y’all. It’s a meditation on America’s complicated relationship to guns, and my own.
Thanks again, so much, for reading and enjoying this series.
For Maddy Lerner, Age 6, Accidentally Killed At An Outdoor Firing Range In Upstate New York
Dear Madison, I was told of your death
over dinner. You were, they said, struck
by hot brass from your mother’s new
AR-15 with custom scope. A tiny girl
at the table behind ours hit
the lights and the television
glowed in the dim like
when Miss Grassi turned
off the movie of Medea, and there
was a wispy, blue-lidded anchor
saying Columbine, school pictures
across the screen. Bryan Andrews
was handing me a piece
of gum. He paused, snorted,
said, They look like dorks.
Maddy, when I was your age,
Andy Boyle brought bullets
to show & tell. He got detention
and a beating. The waitress brought
our bangers & mash. My first
trip to London, Clive told us that four
weeks after the preschool episode
in Scotland, all of the handheld kind
were banned. One woman
from New Jersey volunteered, That would
never work where I’m from,
and Clive said, Of course not,
you all think you’re cowboys.
That fall, my friends and I left
daisy wreaths on the armory steps.
When he heard, my ROTC
boyfriend said, It’s the year 2000
and there won’t be
any more wars. If this
is what you think of me,
forget it. Gas is expensive,
and left me in the rainy lot.
The next morning he filled
my locker with flowers.
Maddy, I’m scared
to ask how they feel
in the meat of you: the shells
fell warm against
my hand & I saved
the target to hang in my fire
escape window that won’t lock.
When they asked over dessert
how the first shot felt, I thought
of you & said, I’d never held
a gun before today. The souvenir
shell in my purse, I said,
It was great, which felt like
saying, I’m brave. Like saying, I have
nothing to do with this.
