Field Music

Poems

Alexandria Hall

• Publisher: Ecco
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780063008380
• eBook ISBN: 9780063008397
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

A collection of poetry from the 2019 winner of the National Poetry Series, selected by Rosanna Warren

In her remarkable and assured debut, Alexandria Hall explores the boundaries and limits of language, place, and the self, as well as the complicated space between safety and danger, intimacy and isolation, playfulness and seriousness, home and away. With a keen eye for the importance of place, Hall shows us daily life in rural Vermont, illuminating the beauty and difficulty inherent in the dichotomies of human language and experience.

Incisive and tender, Field Music is a thoughtful and alert collection from a major emerging voice.

II

Having Been

Pile of stones in the dawn mist of Biduedo.

Orange rind thrown from the back of a pickup.

Papa’s hand over his lost sternum. The potted ivy.

Name of the stillborn son. Scarce glimpse

of wild turkeys before the line of trees. Bird’s nest

in the chimney. Wasps in the attic. Chipped blue

paint on the fishing boat in Portree. A couple

of empties wedged into the sand at Revere

Beach. Stray dogs dodging cars at the Oxxo.

Water level marked on the bluffs. The peonies

glutted and collapsed on the driveway in June.

I am undone, not by grief, but abundance.

On Art

Art is nice. It is very, very nice. In her lifetime, my grandmother painted dozens of pictures—copies of scenic postcards or images of yawning puppies in boots. These boots are made for walking. These shit-kickers. Oh, these? Just a little old something I had lying around.

My grandmother was a little old something, too. She had a scary scarcely. Lips opened like a chicken with a broken beak when she sold her pictures to the folks at the Country Kitchen diner. Why oh why. Was it art for Pete’s sake?

Art is pretty. It is only just or it is almost not. Because it is old like my grandmother and valiant like these boots it has a must. I mean it is an odor and an ought. It has a little pink tongue.

What’s the difference between a big blunder and a little diddle? I did a very bad thing. Verily I say underwear.

Poetry is unsafe. I commit this violence to shape it with words. If I say it wrong, it might be better. I apologize for all my gross ejaculations. Shame. Shame, shame.

Rilke says to a young poet that things aren’t so sayable. happens where words haven’t. It is very virginal. Betreten meaning to enter. Betreten meaning embarrassed. Abashedly I push these words into. Words like marshmallows, words like clogged pores. O my mom, I am heartily sorry for having this tendency.

I would like to show you something other than this sick deformity. Unfortunately you’ll have to look under this cover, here. Stick your head in the casket. Fine, just put your hand out. It was a terrible thing to do. O, my head, I am heartily sorry. O, my heart, my achy, breaky heart.

Art is beautiful. What is beautiful is true. When the imagination seizes it, you should never put a spoon in its mouth. It is nice to be stirred, but alarming to be shaken. You shook me all night long. I said shake, rattle, and roll. This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. This is a false alarm. This is a downright lie.

Home

Why a man’s sink always has a smell.

Why you told her her cheeks jiggle

when she walks. Why not to touch a baby

bird. How the plow drags the snow.

Who answers the door. If the window’s painted

shut. When you’re being ugly. Where to meet

if separated. If your feet are wet. Why the stain

won’t come out. What it looks like

in the bathroom mirror. When the smoke

filled the dining room. Where it hurts.

If you did your best but. How it sounds

when it’s touched. When they burned the nest.

A Series of Losses

We rented the trailer on the goat farm. Dad worked there

under the table. I didn’t know what that meant, but he said,

if Mom starts to pry just say I’m helping out. The farmer

was an older lady and Dad said she wasn’t well.

I used to hear it as, making ends meat, and I’d see a roast

at the edge of everything. I love someone and I visit him

in Baltimore. His apartment is as cold as the farm

was, once it all started dying and being left around.

Your accent comes out when y...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Publisher’s Note
• Dedication
• Contents
• Cowbird
• I
• II
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• National Poetry Series Winners
• About the Author
• Copyright
• About the Publisher