ISSUE 1 · FALL 2008
Copyright © 2009 Jane Knechtel | Archival Tacoma, 1980 JANE KNECHTEL
We’re off-campus Standing in a circle In someone’s living room. Me and Dave Lind, These other Phi Delts. We’re drinking Miller out of Olympia cups. They’re talking football— What happened at today’s practice— Upper division accounting problems— About bell curves. There’s one girl: A fact acting on my brain like a strobe light. The ape part— Mother. Impediment and compass. Saying stay calculated risk Slut saying carpe diem The circle signals ritual. Initiation. A locker room. I’m invisible—neon— Her. Impediment and witness. Leaning in.
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Jane Knechtel lives in Portland, Oregon. She is a psychotherapist and mother. She collects the paintings of Oregon women artists, ca. 1887 - 1950. Her work has appeared in various publications, including the Canadian anothology White Ink: Poems on Mothers and Motherhood, The Mom Egg and Harpur Palate. More recently, her poems have appeared in the anthologies Eating Her Wedding Dress: A Collection of Clothing Poems and Not A Muse. In 2006, she won the Parnell Prize in Poetry. She has studied poetry writing with C.K. Williams, Jack Gilbert, Hugh Seidman & Nick Flynn.