Photo by Mick Murray
Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On January 19th, Stone Soup continues its New Year's resolution to feature more new voices by introducing Tara Skurtu.
Tara Skurtu studies creative writing at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Her poem "Visiting Amber at the Lowell Correctional Institution" was awarded runner-up for the 2008 Harold Taylor Poetry Prize sponsored by the Academy of American Poets (judged by Yale professor/poet Elizabeth Alexander). She is currently studying with Lloyd Schwartz. A sample poem follows below.
My Blood: My Blood
Some days it begins like this—
The fear of forgetting I am well
crawls into my mouth like a word
that regrets being spoken;
it presses sour phrases against
my teeth, tongue, and gums.
I want to tell it stop,
that I am well,
that my blood is my blood,
but as I ready to swallow,
it wedges another phrase
onto the back of my tongue—
something about the flawlessness
of the antibody’s memory,
how it never forgets
the image of the mother
that abandoned it here
in this body—
yes, some days begin like this.
--Tara Skurtu
