Thank you for writing in response to “Never Tell.” After considering what you’ve posted on my blog, I’m intrigued that you did take the time. Since you present as someone who does not know me personally, how did you happen upon this little blog & bother to read it? First, thinking about your note has inspired me to work on a second draft, as there is radical excess so dense I can barely make it through myself. Anyhow, I’m curious & have many questions, if you’re interested in saying a bit more.

When you say “you,” do you mean the narrator? If so, in what ways do you see the speaker placing blame? And where? Since this piece is largely about work, class issues & harsh, sometimes painful realities, perhaps you are responding to its implied politics? What should the speaker accept? Why does the piece strike you as being all about the narrator (or author, as you may be suggesting)? Are you saying the piece is not universal enough for you, as reader, to identify with? This piece is also about several common parenting issues & I’ve been surprised by how many readers who are parents connect with it right away. They tend to read it as a dramatic monologue that is “to” but NOT “for” the narrator’s child. The kind of things you say in your head but never to someone. Like a letter never written. So I wonder if the piece simply fails on paper? If so, not good…. Hmmm… When I’ve read it aloud for an audience, it begins with a rather dry tone & fast pace that becomes even a little frantic. When the lines become short & verse-like, the pace slows & then slows again near the end. I pause here & there. I really feel those lines. They’re almost hard to say. Perhaps I should put a space between each line or something? All I know is that I, the poet reading aloud, feel very vulnerable by the time I get to the narrator’s last lines. Awkward & self-conscious? Perhaps. But I speak them softly. As if they are actually about hope. Or understanding. Remembering what it’s like to want to prove the adults wrong. As the writer & a mother, I hope my kid does prove me wrong. But I also honor the tension between parent & child, that tension that sets the kid in motion on her/his own path. Making our own mistakes may be the thing we need most. Clearly, this draft does not say all this. Perhaps someday it will. And perhaps I should come up with a more original title rather than echoing the Violent Femmes… Thanks for your challenge.

All best,
Chivas

There’s a piece you wrote about concerning family and the heat back in AK. Where might I find a copy? Time and water have worked their wonders on the sheet you passed to me.

All night each reedy whinny
from a bird no bigger than a heart
flies out of a tall black pine
and, in a breath, is taken away
by the stars. Yet, with small hope
from the center of darkness
it calls out again and again.