ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Amanda Hope is a poet and librarian from Massachusetts. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in publications including Barrow Street, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Construction, and Compose, where it was nominated for Best of the Net. She enjoys riding the subway, scratching various animals behind the ears, and wearing magnificent boots.
Also by Amanda Hope:
A One-Minute History of Letting Go
At the End of the Age of Mammals
Song of the Reed Warbler
Manual on Building the Cathedral of the Solitary
If there were a creature more enormous than a whale,
frame the roof with the bones it leaves behind.
The stained-glass windows will depict the longing gazes
of animals raised by people and returned to their own kind.
The construction is best accomplished by the inept hammering
of each tiny ballerina who, at her first recital, lost time
with the music, and learned from the tender laughter of adults
that she’s most charming when she fails. Make candles
from the wax found in a queenless hive. See by their light
the eyes of the animals, how they crave the touch of hands.
The girls will invent a hymn in no known key. The chamber
is bounded only by their sound. No keystone. No corbel. No beam.
This poem arose from two images that stuck in my mind, which felt very related. One was the way the audience affectionately laughed as a group of very small girls fumbled their way through the ballet routine at their first recital. The other was a hand-raised kangaroo at the zoo which had been returned to live with the other kangaroos, but spent its time by the fence staring out at the people. The cathedral is the poem I built as a home for those images.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
