Erika Meitner is the author of five poetry collections: Inventory at the All-Night Drugstore, which won the 2002 Anhinga Prize for Poetry and was published in 2003 by Anhinga Press; Ideal Cities (HarperCollins, 2010), selected as a 2009 National Poetry Series winner; Makeshift Instructions for Vigilant Girls (Anhinga Press, 2011); Copia (BOA Editions, 2014); and Holy Moly Carry Me (BOA […]
The primary purpose of this trip is the (check the box) the yes business of this peripatetic pleasure trip is declared is vanished is I almost disappeared once to O-O- Okalahoma with a (check the box) a man I fell in (____) with over the business of close proximity over the roving (yes) phone. Another […]
The day after I had a one night stand and the condom broke, my car tire went flat on West Main. All these men offered a hand, but none of them could loosen the lug nuts— a middle-aged one with a cowboy hat, jeans too tight; a young truck driver on his knees, browned biceps […]
The back seat of his car glows blue in the classroom darkness. The filmstrip is chattering steadily through its loops, teeth holding it to the light. We’re slumped in our seats, legs stretched in the aisles— unwieldy, bursting packages of spandex, watermelon lip gloss, hard-ons, torn jeans, acne scars, unlaced sneakers. The guy with the […]
men to her house she straddles the roof they alternate turns coaxing her down they wait in the street which spins on its axis the wind gets monotonous with purring fumes exhausted trails of hooked alarms bordello rungs extended everything is red red red and waiting take this light (night-swim) take this sound (wing-span) traversing […]
Yesterday in the mail I got a package from the Teachers’ union: a magnet to hang on the fridge with their motto— I Cope—printed in white on a red apple which is what I’ve been doing lately. Sometimes I chant ung namo guru dev namo, feeling stupid, thinking dignity, serenity, integrity the way Ellen taught […]
In bed you grabbed a handful of my hair, said it’s beautiful, reminds me of the black girls I used to date in high school. It was raining that night, 120 percent humidity, and while I answered sarcastically, I’m glad I could provide you with a moment of ethnic nostalgia, who wouldn’t want a little […]
Erika Meitner, the Morgenstern Fellow in Jewish Studies at the University of Virginia, talks about two poets she recommends.