Tara Betts is the author of Break the Habit (Trio House Press, 2016) and Arc & Hue (Willow Books, 2009). Her work has appeared in POETRY, American Poetry Review, Essence, NYLON, and numerous anthologies. Tara is also one of the co-editors of The Beiging of America: Personal Narratives About Being Mixed Race in the 21st Century (2Leaf Press, 2017). Tara holds a Ph.D. in English from Binghamton University and a MFA in Creative Writing from New England College. She teaches at University of Illinois-Chicago.




Tara Betts

High Fidelity

Cusack declares what you missed about Chicago, how the places with the best music and art tucked themselves in dingy, cramped places. That’s not romantic, it’s what it was, and you ate food built to insulate you from the hawk, air talons that cut your face, how the el over Damen makes cameos in the background, how this scene is about love or at least amicably sharing a bed, then having a beer because it gets cold. Why not talk when your love moves out as you debate the top five loves of your life, as if a person could ever be the stew of the best five albums you could hold in one hand or the ten best R&B songs ever recorded. People play themselves like a tape, over and over, yet there is always one that throws in that one single we forgot we knew, or never expected. We wait to put the needle to their etched curves, to rewind in a deck or twist with a pencil so that song plays, maybe go back and find more.


Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
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