Elizabeth Bradfield: Writer & Naturalist

Elizabeth Bradfield: Writer & Naturalist Elizabeth Bradfield: Writer & Naturalist Elizabeth Bradfield: Writer & Naturalist
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Elizabeth Bradfield: Writer & Naturalist

Elizabeth Bradfield: Writer & Naturalist Elizabeth Bradfield: Writer & Naturalist Elizabeth Bradfield: Writer & Naturalist
  • Home
  • Bio
  • Books
    • Books
    • SOFAR
    • Cascadia Field Guide
    • Broadsided Anthology
    • Theorem
    • Toward Antarctica
    • Once Removed
    • Approaching Ice
    • Interpretive Work
    • Anthology Publications
  • Exhibits
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Poems from "Interpretive Work"

Cul-de-sac Linguistics

Today, the boys call each other penis.

Hey penis, commere, penis, pass me the ball, 

penis.  Last week it was whore, discovered 


halfway through a game of h o r s e

on the mini-hoop that backs my fence.  

And earlier this afternoon, the teenage girls 


whose bedroom window stares 

above my thumbnail yard improvised 

outgoing messages in theatrical rapture: 


first the easy scatological, then 

a nursery rhyme that morphs

into an anti-homo riff so suddenly


I actually look up 


to see if they’re directing this at me 

(they must be), down in the yard, reading poetry 

as my girlfriend weeds the flower bed.  


O, the high profanity of kickball games,

the rough posturing demanded

by even this tame street.  Listen, they’re learning 


how well bastard fits with fucking, how ass

can’t be mis-used.  No one could hope to ease

their jagged entries into this profane world 


which is fucking beautiful, ass-bastard gorgeous,

the evening light wild and soaring 

like kickballs on a true arc into flowerbeds


of penis tulips and pussy daffodils

that nod their heads in wild agreement

with the whorish, shit-loving lot of it.

Back to "Interpretive Work" (Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press, 2008)

Most of the poems in Interpretive Work were published before content was widely available online.  

I wanted to make some of them more accessible here.

Interpretive Work

www.ebradfield.com

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