friday feast: not exactly amy vanderbilt

September 30, 2011September 30, 2011 ~ jama ~ 17 Comments

“Love me like a wrong turn on a bad road late at night.” ~ Kim Addonizio

Kim playing blues harmonica at last year's LA Times Book Festival.

Sit up straight, fasten your seat belts and brace yourselves.

Today’s poem is some kind of wild ride. It may amuse, even shock you. One thing for certain, you won’t be quite the same after reading it.

Kim Addonizio’s poems have a way of doing that to people. Unflinching, street-smart, and gritty, she addresses the reader directly and tells us just what we need to know. In this case, a lesson in manners. How else to navigate your way through a world gone mad?

MANNERS
by Kim Addonizio

Address older people as Sir or Ma’am

unless they drift slowly into your lane

as you aim for the exit ramp.

Don’t call anyone dickhead, fuckface, or ass-hat;

these terms are reserved for ex-boyfriends

or anyone you once let get past second base

and later wished would be sucked into a sinkhole.

Yelling obscenities at the TV is okay,

as long as sports are clearly visible on the screen,

but it’s rude to mutter at the cleaning products in Safeway.

Also rude: mentioning bodily functions.

Therefore, sentiments such as “I went balls to the walls for her”

or “I have to piss like a chick with a pelvic disorder at a kegger contest”

are best left unexpressed.

(Rest is here)

~ from Vol. 40 No. 5, 2011 September-October Issue of The American Poetry Review

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Love her sardonic wit. It feels good to be roused from a pablum-induced coma once in awhile.

♥ The beets-and-popcorn-loving Sara Lewis Holmes at Read*Write*Believe is this week’s Roundup host. Be on your best behavior when you visit her blog, and remember not to interrupt if she is, by chance, eating roast chicken.

♥ Other Kim Addonizio poems featured on this blog:

“Eating Together”

“What Do Women Want?”

♥ All 2011 Poetry Friday posts on alphabet soup.

You know what to do.

roast chix — photo credit: James D Kirk/flickr

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**photo of Kim by Solnabanya/flickr

friday feast: breaking bread, breaking hearts

November 5, 2010December 22, 2017 ~ jama ~ 2 Comments

“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” ~ Kahlil Gibran

simmer till done/flickr

EATING TOGETHER
by Kim Addonizio

I know my friend is going,
though she still sits there
across from me in the restaurant,
and leans over the table to dip
her bread in the oil on my plate; I know
how thick her hair used to be,
and what it takes for her to discard
her man’s cap partway through our meal,
to look straight at the young waiter
and smile when he asks
how we are liking it. She eats
as though starving — chicken, dolmata,
the buttery flakes of filo —
and what’s killing her
eats, too. I watch her lift
a glistening black olive and peel
the meat from the pit, watch
her fine long fingers, and her face,
puffy from medication. She lowers
her eyes to the food, pretending
not to know what I know. She’s going.
And we go on eating.

~ from What is This Thing Called Love (W.W. Norton & Co., 2005).

Filo Pastry with Goat Cheese and Spinach by Rooey202/flickr.

I came across this poem several years ago, just about the same time Len’s cousin Liz was diagnosed with colon cancer. I thought of this poem every time we met for dinner, unable to believe that the vibrant, adventurous, optimistic person sitting across from me had just survived another surgery, finished yet another course of chemo.

Continue reading →

friday feast: dress to please

March 28, 2008July 2, 2018 ~ jama ~ 46 Comments

“The body is the shell of the soul; and dress the husk of that shell; but the husk often tells what the kernel is.”
~ Anonymous

I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.

So says Kim Addonizio in her poem, “What Do Women Want?”

I also want a dress.

More like, I need a dress.

For a wedding I have to attend in August.

I’ve looked and looked and looked, but can’t find one.

Here are the reasons:

I’m too old.
I’m too young.
I’m too short.
Someone stole my waist.
Too stiff, too flimsy, too clingy.
Itchy, ugly, fluffy, frilly.

No, I’m not picky.

I know exactly what I want — a dress that’s me, really me.

A dress that’s modest and cultured.

That won’t show too much of my foolish pride.

Something comfortable enough to lounge around in.

That will make me feel light and carefree.

A dress like Cinderella wore to the ball.

That’ll allow me to roam at will.

And give me a chance to stop and inhale the poppies.

A dress that won’t make me feel like a house slave.

But a hip, sassy, minx who turns heads.

How I wish for a simple little number for when I receive gentleman callers!

Why, I ask you, should it be so hard?

Friends, this fruitless search has driven me to despair.

Maybe because people see me as Pollyanna.

When deep down, I’m really someone else.

Or wish I could be.

What does your favorite dress say about you?

Clothe yourself in “What Do Women Want?” here, and feel the power!

Today’s Poetry Friday Roundup is at Cuentecitos.

“Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.”
~ Mark Twain

“Women dress alike all over the world: they dress to be annoying to other women.” ~ Elsa Schiaparelli