rollinggreen grassy field, zephyrs concourse
saltcresting gulfstreamwaves, miles from land
hayloft of a barn, Tennessee horse farm
mossyaired spaces in between forest trees
nestlecurled beside a hollow rotting log.
Mexican rooftop, anotherplease tequila
sunrise filtering through empty playground
swings, floatspinning down a lazy river
in a warm rainstorm, poundingpavement
in the everincreasing heat of daytime.
an airplane holding pattern slowwaltz,
banking over the Panama Canal,
hilltopview of Manhattan, twin lights, painted desert
highwaygunning towards Pacifica, that
bar in Copenhagen, wintermidnights
on west 57th. the Jewish weddingdance
in Buenos Aires, au pied de cochon
Amsterdam, Aachen. Gare de Lyon.
who do I kid not? you were there, are
there, always will be and anywhere
elseplace I go you ceasenot
to leave your footprints for
even the windleaves they carry
your indelible invisiblemark
even in watersounds i hear your
wonderous laughter
Places. Kennings. An experiment and some truth. Can you guess the influences?
Take a listen:
Lupita Eyde-Tucker is a bilingual poet and translator raised in New Jersey and Guayaquil, Ecuador. She is the winner of the 2021 Unbound Book Festival Emerging Poet Award, the 2019 Betty Gabehart Prize, and in 2018 was selected as an AWP Writer to Writer Mentee by poet Maggie Smith. In 2022 her poetry manuscript, "Eucalyptus," was a finalist for the Andrés Montoya Prize from Letras Latinas. The manuscript explores her Sephardic Jewish ancestry and bi-cultural heritage.
Not Enough Poetry 
Hi everyone, thanks for stopping by. I would really like to know what works & what doesn’t work in this poem. It was a bit of an experiment.
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First time I read it I missed the title..so then I only caught all those places that was a like pinpoints on a map… but I really liked how you concluded it.. but I could not gather who it was (though maybe that’s not the essence).. Love the experiment.
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This gives the wonderful feel that when you’re in love .. you feel the presence of that person even though they aren’t there with you. Such a beautiful thought!! 😀
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The list part of this poem is nice as it alludes to other stories. I feel like the language in the last stanza is a bit stilted, partly because of the “nots” in ceasenot and kid not. I think you could simplify it a bit to something like —
Who am I kidding, you are everywhere I go, everywhere I have been.
I do like the mash up words though in the last stanza.
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thank you X, I was a little uncertain about those lines you mentioned in the last stanza, so I am glad to hear what you have to say about them. Excellent feedback, highly appreciated!
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I have a feeling there is a lot behind this poem and that you spent a lot of time with the one you wrote about. I have a feeling you miss this person (who left or died or…), but that this person is with you wherever you go now.
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I felt like I was travelling with you, meandering, from fields to canals to cities~ The word pairing too is good like: mossyaired, nestlecurled & windleaves ~ I got the clue in the title and wondered where it will fit and become relevant as I was reading the list words ~ Enjoyed your reading experiment anyway ~
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AWESOME title! I absolutely adore the way you roll up your own creative compound words by smashing other words together. Excellent effect.
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I love the freedom of poetspeak, the personal touch with compound words. I tend to do it in my own work. At first my take was that the person in question was someone you were hiding from, or had died; because there is a definite feel that he/she has at one time been with you at each of the diverse places & events mentioned. /anywhere elseplace I go/ is awkward, but poetically acceptable. I was fine with all of the poem.
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thank you Glenn! anywhere elseplace is a little redundant, you are right and also right that it can pass, poetically. I like the elseplace so I will work on it 🙂
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I was fine with the poem too, with the experiment. I like the compound words. Maybe, since the tone is casual with the listings, the Who do I kid not….rings strangely. maybe, Am I fooling myself? Who am I kidding? some reworking of that would round out the ending nicely. good for you for your experiment.
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I too enjoyed your compound words and how they make the meter whoosh forward in each instance.
It feels like a lost love, though I couldn’t sense if the loss was through death or for some other reason.
I did find that this phrase stopped and confused me a bit though:
“who do I kid not?”
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Oh.. each human relationship becomes a living entity unto itself
where each human has another relationship.. among the
two.. unto each self separate as well..
so while what we carry with us
of that relationship
may not be same
but what remains
even after
death
is
a new
relationship..
still living as
vital pArt eYes
of
US..:)
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you have a wonderful reading voice, first. the mash up words threw me at first, then I rolled with them, and upon 2nd reading, and hearing your voice, they took on new meaning. I like the last verse especially ~
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