Lisa Hase-Jackson’s Insomnia in Another Town was published this spring by Clemson University Press as winner of the Converse MFA alumni Prize for Poetry. Claire Bateman, the contest judge, writes in part about Lisa’s “significant courage with grace notes of buoyancy.” Lisa’s poems navigate, among other things, mother and daughter relationships (speakers as mothers and speakers as daughters.) Here a poet-daughter watches her mother with her own dreams of writing…
“MEEP AND MOPE”
Mom wrote a book one time,
titled Meep and Mope,
about two pretend characters
not unlike the two of us.
They lived together alone
far from familiar streets,
walked or took the bus
most everywhere, hitchhiking
when it came to leaving town.
She used her budding drawing skills,
filled their world with watercolors,
finished the story with her own quirk
then sent the book to a publisher
with seldom hope. Like the narcissist
professor who criticized her work
the semester before, the editors
rejected it straight away;
both our feelings were hurt.
I had no chance to reread
or claim it before she threw the book away;
hadn’t known until I asked one day
about the future adventures of Meep and Mope
when they resumed their story in books two, three,
and four. Mom just shrugged and turned back
to her text leaving me to grieve newly lost
found friends, for that is how I saw
those pretend characters
based on her and me.
Congratulations, Lisa! — Denise Duhamel
Note: All posts by Denise Duhamel under the title “Wednesdays with Denise” are copyright (c) 2024 by Denise Duhamel. All rights reserved.
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Author: Denise Duhamel
