My First Book Was Actually A Collection of Poetry

I know, I know. You thought my first publication was Pure. It’s understandable, since only 500 copies of the other one were printed, and Pure was definitely my very first novel. In reality though, the first book I ever published was a collection of poetry: “The Table Beneath the Hand.”

The college I went to, you see, had its own famous press. Part of what made it famous was the Bunn-McClelland chapbook award, an award for which students in their junior year were allowed to submit a manuscript, with the winning manuscript being published by the press. (The press, and this award, were part of why I chose this college.) To be a chapbook winner was a really big deal at school, and it was definitely a big deal for me. I worked incredibly hard on my poems (many of which I wrote while studying Ezra Pound during a special program that only St. Andrews students and students from one other school in the country get to participate in), and when I won, I couldn’t quite believe it. (Much the same way I felt when I got the offer from Simon Pulse for Pure.)

That was back in 1995, when I was 21 years old. What surprises me about reading the collection now, is that while yes there are some cringe-worthy embarrassments in there, some of the poems still hold up.

To celebrate National Poetry Month (my favorite month) here’s one of my favorite poems from “The Table Beneath the Hand,” dedicated to a good friend. It has no title.

I trapped a dragonfly today:
put him
in a glass jar,
dropped
in a few blades of grass and lilac buds,
and
slammed
on
the lid.

For awhile he buzzed and bled around in there,
banging on the insides of impatience: lonely.
But every time I finished reading a poem’s line to him,
I could hear him taking in his breath again,
startled but slowly,
a recognition.
And his eyes were silk and sometimes I could hear them blinking,
but they would never fix on me . . .
the blossoms . . . the glass . . .

In the night I awoke and he was at it again:
“Why–”thmp
“are you being”
thmp thmp bng-bump
“so f***ing nice to me?”
he asked.
thmp thmp
And my hair was wet and shining then,
and my God I could hardly breathe;
and his wings were white and silver waxen:
heavy, shimmering . . .
free.

And the only words I could say
were love,
but he could swallow that with time,
so I left him there in the bottom of the jar
–as he asked–
stilled and lovely,
sleepy and
satisfied;

although,
in the morning,
even the lilac buds were gone–
a hole in the glass
chewed through.

(© 1995, St. Andrews Press)