Suzanne’s prize-winning poem for English teachers and waitresses/waiters everywhere…
Keep Them All
When you wait tables or teach, you don’t quit
one job for another. You keep them both,
keep them all because you need the money.
You skip a lot of meals because you’re broke
or busy. You eat a lot of fast food and feel guilty
when you wait tables or teach. You don’t quit
believing it will get better. You don’t quit
drinking either. You drink and save up bottles,
keep them all because you need the money.
And you say you do it for the environment—
all that saving, reusing—you do it with people too.
When you wait tables or teach, you don’t quit
stockpiling lovers who ask nothing of you,
lovers you never leave and you never ask to stay.
Keep them all because you need the money.
Let them buy you dinner. Meet them for lunch.
Have sex. Keep living. Keep believing that
when you wait tables or teach, you don’t quit.
Keep them all because you need the money.
This won a prize in California Quarterly’s annual competition. News from her:
“I just got word that I’m gonna be in a women’s poetry anthology with Sharon Olds and Erica Jong! And many others, of course. My name isn’t on the blurb but you can see it on their site… scroll down to “Not a Muse…” not quite half-way down the page… due out in March: http://www.havenbooksonline.com/ The “Dummies for Mummies” book looks intersting too!
They’ve accepted my Ginsberg knock-off, “Wail.” An oldie but a goodie. Funny, I never submitted it anywhere else before this… and I’m not even sure it’s done. But I had a little feeling about this match… just a little one guided by hope and smothered by fear of rejection–but a feeling none the less! More often I’m surprised by the poems editors “like,” always sad for the unloved ones 😉
I’m not familiar with the press, but I love the name–Haven Books. And I don’t know the editors either… better do a little research! Can’t wait to see it!”
Sunday I went to One Taste, a kind of cabaret night. 5 different acts who do 2 short sessions each. Mostly music including the weirdly beautiful songs of The Moulettes. (Little mussels??) who would feel right at home in Paris’ post punk cabaret scene. Or Brighton. 
SpokenWord Paris 