Melissa Studdard on Poets Cafe
The following interview of Melissa Studdard by Lois P. Jones originally aired on KPFK Los Angeles (reproduced with permission).
Biographical Information—Melissa Studdard
Melissa Studdard is the author of My Yehidah, The Tiferet Talk Interviews, and the bestselling novel, Six Weeks to Yehidah (recipient of the Forward National Literature Award, the International Book Award, January Magazine’s best children’s books of the year, and the Pinnacle Book Achievement Award). Her poetry collection, I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast, is forthcoming from Saint Julian Press. Her short writings have appeared in dozens of journals and anthologies, including Boulevard, Connecticut Review, Poets & Writers, and Ishaan Quarterly. She currently serves as a reviewer-at-large for The National Poetry Review, a professor for Lone Star College System, a teaching artist for The Rooster Moans Poetry Cooperative, an editorial adviser for The Criterion, an editor for Tiferet Journal, and host of Tiferet Talk radio. Learn more at www.melissastuddard.com.
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Integrating the Shadow
I was a bird in the hand of God.
I was two in the bush,
the yin to my own yang, yang to yin,
drinking gin on the porch at midnight,
or otherwise drinking tea – you see
how it is – Bach on Tuesdays – Thursdays
acid rock, tie-dyed t-shirts and jeans.
Mornings I fed the needy and blessed
their souls with sticky kisses.
I sang to them and lotioned their feet
with lilac cream and peppermint oil,
humbled by their poverty, inspired
by the way they got out of bed
without cigarettes or coffee.
Afternoons I cursed their lazy
asses and stepped over them
in the streets on my way to the pub
seeking a little warmth or a quiet corner
in which to ponder the implication
of lips on brass, to dance, unmolested,
with my own shadow, which was my worst enemy,
and, conspicuously, my only friend.
I was a bird in the hand of God.
I was two in the bush.
—Published in Redheaded Stepchild and Ishaan Literary Review.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/17/us/women-poetry-photos.html