Spotlight on Brenda Shaughnessy

Two words: Brenda Shaughnessy. Another related two words, in case you’re unfamiliar with the former: Great poetry. 

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I bought myself Shaughnessy’s Human Dark with Sugar and Our Andromeda for Christmas, and there was something different about these collections than most other poetry collections I’ve read. I don’t know about you, but typically, I don’t read poetry collections cover to cover like I would read a novel. I jump around, skimming for lines that jump out at me, like looking for night glimmers among light pollution. But Shaughnessy’s poetry collections were like water in direct light: pure, clever shine.  

“August Moon” by artist Stewart Edmondson(source) 

I’m Over the Moon 

I don’t like what the moon is supposed to do.

Confuse me, ovulate me,

spoon-feed me longing. A kind of ancient

date-rape drug. So I’ll howl at you, moon,

I’m angry. I’ll take back the night. Using me to

swoon at your questionable light,

you had me chasing you,

the world’s worst lover, over and over

hoping for a mirror, a whisper, insight.

But you disappear for nights on end

with all my erotic mysteries

and my entire unconscious mind.

How long do I try to get water from a stone?

It’s like having a bad boyfriend in a good band.

Better off alone. I’m going to write hard

and fast into you, moon, face-fucking.

Something you wouldn’t understand.

You with no swampy sexual

promise but what we glue onto you.

That’s not real. You have no begging

cunt. No panties ripped off and the crotch

sucked. No lacerating spasms

sending electrical sparks through the toes.

Stars have those.

What do you have? You’re a tool, moon.

Now, noon. There’s a hero.

The obvious sun, no bullshit, the enemy

of poets and lovers, sleepers and creatures.

But my lovers have never been able to read

my mind. I’ve had to learn to be direct.

It’s hard to learn that, hard to do.

The sun is worth ten of you.

You don’t hold a candle

to that complexity, that solid craze.

Like an animal carcass on the road at night,

picked at by crows,

taunting walkers and drivers. Your face

regularly sliced up by the moving

frames of car windows. Your light is drawn,

quartered, your dreams are stolen.

You change shape and turn away,

letting night solve all night’s problems alone.

(Poem Source: Poetry Foundation)

Born in Japan and growing up in California, Shaughnessy now lives in New Jersey, teaching English at Rutgers University-Newark. She is also editor of Tin House Magazine.

Artist: Kim Gordon(source) 

This Person-sized Sky with Bruise, 

simultaneously orange and violet,

(though my eyes are closed) is

either my inner color (that covered mirror)

or simply dusk.

An opaline sheet

pulled because the night is ashamed

to come in front of everyone,

blacking out in joy.

Too shy to spill its milk on the stained

tablecloth of strangers

like I have. When it’s finally dark

outside, it’s finally

loose inside and the doubleness

of things seems too true to be good:

my way and the highway.

Night. It has two hands

I can use. Its fingers in a plum

too ripe not to split.

I had to split it. It was so much

itself—bloody flesh,

wild purple skin. A fistful

so lush it was almost imaginary,

smelling of love, it didn’t matter whose.

(Poem Source: The Awl)

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What impresses me most about Shaughnessy’s work is that each individual poem cannot be contained in one emotion, one sentiment, one settled color or image or gut feeling. She emulates life with her work—one minute you’re laughing, head thrown back in blissful disregard, and the next, everyone’s laughter fades in and out, the world turns around you as you succumb to sleepiness, sadness, numbness, curiousness, or quietness. Such is the motion of Shaughnessy’s poems. A quick wit and a knack for word and sound and music to make you laugh—and next the switch is flipped and you’re not necessarily solemn, but you’re certainly not laughing anymore. 

“hunters” by artist Nokkasili

(source)

Drift 

I’ll go anywhere to leave you but come with me.

All the cities are like you anyway. Windows

darken when I get close enough to see.

Any place we want to stay’s polluted,

the good spots taken already by those

who ruin them. And restaurants we’d never find.

We’d rut a ditch by a river in nights

so long they must be cut by the many pairs

of wrong-handled scissors maybe god owns

and doesn’t share. I water god.

I make a haunted lake and rinse and rinse.

I take what I want, and have ever since what

I want disappeared, like anything hunted.

That’s what you said. Disappointment

isn’t tender, dried and wide instead.

The tourists snapped you crying,

and the blanket I brought was so dirty

it must have been lying around

in lice and blood that whole year we fought.

It wasn’t clear, so I forgot.

I haven’t been sleeping, next to you

twitching to bury my boring eyes.

The ship made you sad, and the ferry, and canoe.

All boats do.

(Poem Source: Poetry Foundation)

“Andromeda Galaxy” by artist Mike Stewart(source) 

Read more of Alyssa's work on Floodmark here.