Mean

62 Pages·2008·0.26 MB·English

by  Colette LaBouff Atkinson

MEAN
(cid:48) (cid:40) (cid:47) (cid:37) (cid:46) (cid:41) (cid:56)
(cid:48) (cid:47) (cid:37) (cid:52) (cid:51)
mean
COLETTE LABOUFF ATKINSON
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS Chicago and London
colette labouff atkinson is associate director of
the International Center for Writing and Translation at the
University of California, Irvine.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2008 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2008
Printed in the United States of America
17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 1 2 3 4 5
isbn-13: 978-0-226-03057-9 (cloth)
isbn-13: 978-0-226-03059-3 (paper)
isbn-10: 0-226-03057-1 (cloth)
isbn-10: 0-226-03059-8 (paper)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Atkinson, Colette LaBouff.
Mean / Colette LaBouff Atkinson.
p. cm. — (Phoenix poets series.)
isbn-13: 978-0-226-03057-9 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn-13: 978-0-226-03059-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-226-03057-1 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-226-03059-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
I. Title.
ps3601.t4895m43 2008
811’.6—dc22 2007051716
∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of the American National Standard for
Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1992.
The happiness of being with people.
—franz kafka
I am not I.
—sir philip sidney

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
•
Space Race 3
•
Mean 4
•
Mean, Part Two 6
•
Medium Intense Red Copper 8
•
Rocket 9
•
Loose 10
•
Heat Wave 11
•
Hart Crane Slept Here 12
•
Four 13
•
London (1987) 14
•
Wrecking 15
•
Three Days of the Condor 16
•
The Glass Show Lounge 17
•
Bakasana 18
•
Deal 19
•
“I’m sorry I was blind” 20
•
Hover 21
•
Intention (The Dead Leaves) 22
•
Gain 23
•
Spring Fling 24
•
New World 25
•
Laurel 26
•
Replacement Monkey 27
•
Spirit 28
•
vii
• •
Proximity 29
•
Juju’s Sister 30
•
Gun Dog 31
•
Flower Girl 32
•
Park Bench 33
•
“Perhaps this verse would please you better—Sue—(2)” 34
•
Prosthetic 35
•
Garden Variety 36
•
“For God’s sake, get out” 37
•
Route 38
•
1652 39
•
Graphic Novel Romance (V for Vendetta) 40
•
Ghost Squad 41
•
Hips 42
•
1971 43
•
Port of Los Angeles 44
•
“Taking it like a little soldier, aren’t you?” 45
•
Fortune-Telling 46
•
Gardena Freeway, California 47
•
Notes 49
•
viii
• •
Acknowledgments
Thanks and acknowledgments are made here to the editors and publications in which
these prose poems first appeared in other versions:
Exquisite Corpse: “1971”
Identity Theory: “Mean” and “Mean, Part Two”
My gratefulness goes first to Killarney Clary, James McMichael, and Peter Lippincott
Atkinson for their support, which offered me the ease and discomfort to make these
~ ~
poems possible. I’d also like to acknowledge Ngugı wa Thiong’o, who reminded me
that the work week would not make sense without this. Thanks to the good readers:
Lorene Delany-Ullman, Patty Seyburn, and Kenneth Young. To my family and also
those who go before me, more thanks.
ix
• •