blud
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About this ebook
-McKibbens founded The Pink Door Women’s Writing Retreat, an annual writing retreat in the US open exclusively to women of color.
- She has an dynamic and large social media presence and a killer website: rachelmckibbens.com/
-McKibbens is a member of Latinas Unidas and co-curates the critically-acclaimed monthly reading series Poetry and Pie Night in upstate New York.
-According to her website, she is currently working on a memoir about growing up as a child misogynist.
-For four years, McKibbens taught poetry through the Healing Arts Program at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. She continues to teach poetry and creative writing and give lectures across the country as an advocate for mental health awareness, gender-equality and victims of violence and domestic abuse.
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Reviews for blud
9 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is one of my all time favorite collections. McKibbens writes about anger, grief, fear, abuse, and mental illness in such stunning ways, and this collection has deeply impacted my life as a writer and as a person.
Book preview
blud - Rachel McKibbens
I
the first time
I came back to life
was in 1980.
I awakened
head a blue
labyrinth
trapped in sound—
a grotesque clutter:
the meep-meep of a
cartoon bird
sticky flock
of children
screeching
in the courtyard.
Then a voice
(voices?)
I did not
recognize:
the ruined gasp
emerging from
within
my cutoff throat.
I unwrapped
the telephone cord—
how long had I been
down?—skull
fever-pounding
from the blackout,
body feathered in sweat.
I listened
to the room,
felt the rush
& shuffle
of my heart—
a felled finch.
Lavender shock
of resurrection.
Lucky my dad
was not awake
to find me there—
his radiant little
death inventor
with X’d-out eyes,
a halo of birds
circling my dome.
Lucky to have
outlived this
unripened error.
Can you imagine it?
A child standing
at the mouth
of the underworld
pleading
for a time-out,
trying to reason
with whatever’s
in charge:
No, no! I never
meant to stay dead.
I simply wanted
a sweeter life.
a brief biography of the poet’s mother
There was
a child
hemorrhaging
light,
the blue song
of her brain,
an early maggot
writhing.
Her mother,
a jealous
newlywed,
with looking-glass
hands & a tub
full of bleach
thieved & thieved
until the child
became
a quiet room
a silence born
of interrogated
flesh.
Girl is the worst season.
Mother no guarantee.
No clothes or meat,
no heavy tit wrecked
with milk.
So the blue song
became a dirge,
then the dirge
became a girl.
maybe this will explain my taste in men
When Dad busted my face open
I got to stay home from
school, watched cartoons
all day like a goddamn king.
Dad called in sick,
icing his damaged fist
with frozen peas & meat.
Overheard him on
the phone with his boss:
Broke my hand yesterday
playing ball with the kids.
Can you believe it?
I caught a fastball, no glove.
My own damn fault.
I’ll get those blueprints
to you tomorrow morning,
first thing.
Poor Dad. When he hung up
he squeezed my shoulder
& winked. Just after lunch,
there was a knock on the door.
I peeped through the blinds
with my one good eye, saw
a blonde in a nurse’s uniform.
Dad opened the door & howled
as she sang him a high-pitched
song, bending at the waist
to show off her tits.
At the end of it, she handed him
a catcher’s mitt with a
get-well card.
The boys at the office
sure look after me!
he roared, shaking his
head in disbelief
then handed me
the remote so I,
too, could
know love.